Noj

The Mickey & The Soul Generation is sooo funking good.

Lakers had a bad shooting game. Not much to take from it other than that. Artest has actually fit in perfectly, but I'd also rather have Ariza since his game is so much more exciting. The absence of Artest the last few games (double OT win, blowout loss, barely winning last night) has shown how valuable Ron Ron is to the Lakers. Kobe and Fish have taken to chippy play for years, it's nothing new. Maybe it isn't classy. It resulted in a championship last season, so obviously they consider it the way they need to play. As a Laker fan, I don't fear the Cavs in a seven game series. I don't see the Cavs getting through Boston or Orlando, and if they do the Lakers will take them down in five or six games.

Coincidentally, Walter Wanderley "Summer Samba" was sampled to create the De La Soul song "Super MC's," the opening track to their Stakes Is High album.

A friend had that one on vinyl so when I saw the CD I snatched it up. It's a good 'un.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Friday game this week, don't forget to get your picks in everybody!

Here you go, jazzbo. Michelle Rodriguez, she was "Ana Lucia" on Lost.

The Raidazzz have been miserable for quite a bit, so I can somewhat relate to the misery of the Lions. But really OAK and WASH have had far more moments in the sun than DET, and more recently. As far as your Pistons go, BruceW--you've got 3/5 starters hurt in Gordon/Prince/Hamilton. That's the heart and soul of the team!

In Memorandom is a fine balance of ambient sounds, keyboard textures, and percussive elements. Thoroughly enjoyable start to finish. "Khimbala" reminds me of Tempo '70 "El Galleton" which is on the Ubiquity compilation called Bag Of Goodies. Unfortunately I couldn't find a proper audio file on line for reference, but it's a jazz funk song with a similar electric keyboard refrain. What's weird is there is a salsa song by the same group, same title which makes me wonder if Ubiquity didn't title something wrong on emusic...

It ought to be changed to "Tiger Woods, Train Wreck"

I'd heard the name but not seen her movies, and I recognized Brittany in the pictures on the web. My Mom was saddened by the loss, she liked a number of the movies Murphy appeared in. I saw my 12-year-old niece find out, and she had a look of shock, disbelief, and finally grief come across her face I'd never seen from her. My niece didn't cry, but she really couldn't believe it for a second and then I saw the realization hit her. I hated to see that. It's a shame, Brittany Murphy was a pretty girl with so much going for her. RIP

Host it on a free site like Flickr or Imageshack and link to it instead of uploading it.

My copy arrived in today's mail. Listening now.

I'm looking forward to the arrival of my copy, even moreso after reading CJ's review!

Mellow out the holiday beef with some humor.

I'm always partial to an avacado bacon swiss burger with lettuce, tomato, mayo, and mustard. If I roll to In-N-Out Burger I go with the Double Double "animal style," with pickles, grilled onions, regular onions, and extra spread. Another great burger joint is Tommy's, where I get the double chili cheeseburger with the works. Fuddrucker's is a fine burger, Free. I go there every once in a blue moon. Islands makes a huge burger with a lot of different styles that are all good. I recommend the Volcano burger, it's got jalepenos cooked right into the burger with pepper jack and these deep fried red onions. They've got this other chicken sammich called the California Flyer that I've been getting because it's ridiculously good.

BFT#70 1. Big thumbs up on this track from me, I enjoy everything about it. Reminds me of the compositions on Coltrane’s Giant Steps album, which was one of my first loves in jazz. 2. More beautiful piano. I don’t own any piano/trumpet duos, so I really dig this. 3. I’ll guess Django Reinhardt and Stepphane Grappelli. Great stuff, I have only recently been exploring such music. 4. Really dig this one. Can’t ID the comp, but I feel like I know the song. All the players really hitting on all cylinders here. 5. Nice bass to open this one, I’m intrigued from the jump. Two basses? Really cool. No clue. 6. Feels ornery somehow, I like that. Isn’t it Slam Stewart who does that bass/humming thing? 7. Kenny Burrell? “Love For Sale?” 8. Meet The Flintstones, lol! Johnny Lytle? 9. Bowed bass intro is edgy, I’m enjoying that. Wondering if the whole track will progress this way, and it appears to be. This is beautifully different from anything else I own. Oh wait, a piano out of nowhere. Good stuff. 10. Some punchy drum machine-type percussion, that’s different. I’m under the impression there’s someone on electric bass and then someone on a piccolo bass over the top. I like it, it’s fun. No guess. 11. Sweet, almost too sweet. Violin and clarinet (I think), definitely not something I have a lot of. It’s dreamy, not really my bag, but very deftly played. A huge contrast from the previous track in some respects, perhaps reflecting overproduction in others… 12. I have no hope of identifying this one. Dazzling playing. The style would have me guess it’s very old, but the recording is very clean so it can’t be. 13. No duos of this sort in my collection either. The whole jam has a playful bounce that doesn’t let up. A great little conversation. 14. You’ve definitely got a taste for the cats who tickle keys, Durium. Remarkable pair of hands here. No guess. 15. Another duo! I’m not going to try. A fun listen overall, thank you very much for taking the time to put this together, Durium. I’m always more amazed just to read the more-informed listeners make their guesses on these BFTs, since they always notice stuff I don’t/can't/won't.

Thanks Agg! I never went to my own profile all that much...

Another Thursday game this week. Don't forget to get your picks in everybody!

While we're making suggestions... Another forum I frequent features a couple really handy search buttons, one for "View Your Posts" (every thread the viewer has posted in) and another for "View Your Topics" (every thread the viewer started).

I would have dragged my files directly from the external into iTunes and allowed iTunes to create the files on my hard drive, if I were going to have all the music on my machine. Or link it through iTunes to the external and let iTunes pull up everything. I have never experienced this grayed-out problem, but I imagine for some reason iTunes thinks you're trying to copy a library which belongs to someone else.

I draw the line between that which has musical integrity and that which is merely mean-spirited mocking. I also think a certain bit of what is considered "black (American)" is actually just "Southern." There's a long history of performers both black and white who are "soulful," and the difference between the sounds they express is all individual/neighborhood/regional/cultural influences and physical prowess. I don't consider particularly soulful white people to be faking it, and the music has been integrated for long enough that there isn't such hard line between black and white. It's easy to see the entire genre of white blues rock from the Animals to the Stones to Zeppelin as poseurs, because they've ripped off blues musicians in a lot of ways, but I think they made great music which is entirely different from the blues. I don't keep them in the same playlist as Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, Hambone Willie Newbern, or Willie Dixon or Albert King or John Lee Hooker. They don't go together.

I intermittently get an error with the Today's Active Topics button and sometimes with the First Unread Post button for threads in which it will give me a pop-up window asking if I want to download the index. If I click on OK, it will actually download the web design file for the page I'm trying to view onto my desktop, default program Dreamweaver.