Story of our Lives, vol. 0.5, part the first

After reviving the old 'Story' series and trying to reconstruct it in mp3-cd format, I decided to search my memory (and some of my old tapes from junior high school) and recreate what I had recorded off of Q104, 92J, and I-95 (local radio stations) back in the day. Most were the usual hits: Prince, Culture Club, Simple Minds, Cyndi Lauper, etc. However, there were a few gems that might have been more familiar to someone living in a more "hip" town, but in backwoods Alabama, they might have been considered 'punk' (according to the conservative tastes of my peers) or 'strange': Baltimora's 'Tarzan Boy', Bronski Beat's 'Smalltown Boy', Adam Ant. Hell, even Prince was considered a freak at my high school, which had the highest levels of homophobia (which I was half-way part of, since I didn't know any better, and if anyone was gay at our school, they sure didn't tell anyone there) and teen auto fatalities.

Anyway, here's a few files for those who might want to hear what I was playing on my Sears boombox back in '84 and '85.

Night Tracks (late '83-'84; named after the TBS knockoff of MTV; I grew up in the only part of Calhoun County that didn't have cable, so I could watch this via a TV antenna booster on channel 17)

Avanti-Omni (1984; named after the cheap 3 for $1 tapes that I used to buy at Big B drugs before I learned about sound fidelity. At the time, all I cared about was getting the song on tape for my boombox and/or Walkman)

Sony-Nitetime (1984-85; moved up to Sony tapes in '85. Nitetime is named for certain songs that I remember being played on Q104 right before I went to sleep at night. With the lights out, the only illumination was the red led meter.)

Band Bus (these are much larger):
Frosh (1985-86; my freshman year and first year in the marching band. We played music when we went to away games and competitions and my boombox was the loudest we had, so I played DJ even when I was 14)

Soph (1986-1987; sophomore (and last) year in the band.

(track listings in comment section)

Enjoy! If any questions, just shoot a comment.

(I know the Frosh file is big - 226 megs - but if you download anything, grab that one first; the sheer breadth of pop music from '85 to '86 is worth it)

"Fifteen birds, in five fir trees/Oh, what shall we do with the funny little things?"

Here's where I left off on the unabridged Hobbit, from the escape from the Goblins until Laketown.


Enjoy!

Out of the Frying Pan

Queer Lodgings

Flies and Spiders

Barrels out of Bond

A Warm Welcome/On the Doorstep

"Confusticate and bebother victory! My only hope is to be taken prisoner as quickly as possible..."

Since I got a very good response to LotR, here's the unabridged "Hobbit", read by the same man, Rob Inglis, and procured from Utorrent.

I'm posting three zips at a time. The files are much larger than LotR (LotR was only 64 kbps; Hobbit is 192k's) and I'm also throwing the compleat "Hobbit" OST from the Rankin-Bass version; after going through some of my data-cds (my computer is dead and I refuse to buy an Ipod; I play all my stuff on a Sony mp3-cd player (have to retain SOME old-school habits), I found it buried behind a Willie Nelson concert from 1978 and Gordon Lightfoot's greatest hits.

Enjoy!

An Unexpected Party

Roast Mutton/A Short Rest

Over Hill and Under Hill/Riddles in the Dark

"...the Dwarves of Yore/Made Mighty Spells/
While Hammers fell like Ringing Bells..."

"Automatic for th' people"

Don't know if any of you have caught the '87 documentary about the Athens scene around the time of R.E.M. and the B-52's (titled "Athen, GA inside/out") or not, but here's the soundtrack, which features the bands that didn't crack the indie scene but might be familiar with those who lived in record stores in the mid-to-late '80's or had a cool cousin from Atlanta. If you have Dish Network and have the Documentary Channel, it might come on again one day; I was smart and recorded it on videotape, although Pink still has the tape and I can't think to get it back.

Athens, GA Inside/Out

"Do you remember the first time..."

In response to a request for a Pulp concert I had, here it is, Pulp at Glastonbury in June of '95.

Enjoy!

"Pretend you never went to school..."

"When the sun came up this morning..."

Almost anyone who grew up in the South during the '70's (or probably older) should remember "The Bill Dance Show". One of the better fishing shows syndicated (on channel 6, when I was a kid), Bill wasn't blustery like Roland Marlin or some of the others who migrated (Bill along with them in the '90's) over to cable TV. With his Vols cap and wry smile, watching Bill was like sitting in a boat with another fisherman. The few times I went out on a boat, my uncle didn't say more than two words the entire time; he was serious about the rules of silence when bass were concerned. Bill didn't talk too much either, but when he did, it was worth listening to, not just "I think you got you a big 'un, Earl."

The highlight, of course, was the first two minutes of the show, and, after I got older and cared more about music and girls, soon turned out to be the only part of the show that I watched. Those two minutes was the theme song, which, after I discovered filesend, megashare, limewire, and Utorrent, I hunted down like a mad beast, along with Loretta Lynn's "Red, White, and Blue", Rod McKeon's "A Boy named Charlie Brown" and "Piss-bottle Man" by Mike Watt. About three months ago, on a mega-torrent containing about 20 Jerry Reed albums, I finally found it.

If you remember Bill Dance, you'll remember this song...


"Today is Mine..."

"Poor ol' Bill...Poor ol' Bill."

Here's the final installment on the unabridged Lord of the Rings, 'Return of the King'. Book VI also has what appendices they decided to include with the set. "..Whip" is for all of ya'll who remember the Rankin-Bass version of 'RotK". Sorta sounds today like a song most of the troops whose tours of duty keeps being extended by Shrub and Cheney would most likely sing.

Book V

Book VI (plus appendices)

"When there's a whip..."

"Not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good..."

This is a collection of, probably, my favorite "bad" songs, or as Run-DMC stated in 'Peter Piper': "Not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good". Some of the songs are not bad per se, such as the two blues songs nor the heart-breaking rendition of "Desperado", but they are all cult classics, either in the past or (in my book) in the future.

Enjoy!

"Heerrree, Fluffy..."

(track listing in comments)

"Me, Sir? Me and go see Elves n' all? Oh, My!! Oh, HOOOORAAAYYYY!!!"

Here's the unabridged 'Two Towers', if you like. For Jordan (and whoever else wants it), is the soundtrack to Bakshi's 1978 animated production of LotR, plus a few songs from the Rankin-Bass production of 'The Hobbit'.

Enjoy!

Book III

Book IV

Lord of the Rings (Bakshi)

Goin' to the Smokes...

Around the end of May or the first of June, each year from the time I was 6 or 7 until I was 18, my family (that is, my mother and grandmother (and sometimes my annoying grand-aunt)) would go to the Smoky Mountains, about 350 miles from my house. I haven't been since 1998, the year my ex-wife bought a convertible Toyota and we stupidly went without any motel reservations on a week that a converted-truck convention was in town (the ugly pieces of crap like this):



I came across a website a few weeks ago whilst trying to find out if most of the things I remembered about the Smokies were still there or if they'd all been torn down like Panama City Beach's old stuff, in the name of "gentrification". God, I hoped not. Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge were the last true relics of over-the-top tackiness left in the tourist world.

Thank God that it was all still there, at least according to http://thegreatsmokeymountainsparkway.com .

here's a look:


For all you familiar with Pigeon Forge, this is the famous sign you see on the way in to the Tennessee Miracle Mile.



This is the first restaurant that I usually saw coming into PF. That sign (if it's still there) hasn't changed in 30 years.



It's STILL THERE!!! Probably the greatest record store known to Mankind. Best selection of t-shirts, cds, and paraphernalia (music, not weed)in the world! A look inside...



Remember this?


I was too chicken-shit to go in this until I was 13 because I believed in all those ghost stories I heard as a kid (still do).




Did anyone eat here? All I can remember is that it had the godawfulest smell on the planet (then again, I abhor the smell of boiled peanuts and turnip greens cooking as well).

Finally, for now...





The very same boxes they used in 1978! How great is that? You can get these in Cracker Barrels across the US, in case you can't get to Gatlinburg.



I have plenty more photos of the Smokies if anyone's interested.

"Gandalf, oh, Gandalf, it's REALLY you!!!! Oh, after it's been so long..."

This one's definitely for the Tolkien fans in the house. Since I bought the tapes for about $50 around 6 years ago, I had no reservations about downloading and sharing this with you: the unabridged Lord of the Rings, with a wonderful reader, Rob Inglis, who does a tremendous job with all the voices and narration.

The first post will be 'Fellowship'. Each load is a complete "Book" (Book One is the prologue and Frodo's journey to Rivendell; Book Two is the journey through Moria, Lothlorien and the Breaking of the Fellowship). I'll get Two Towers and Return later on, if there's interest in Fellowship.

I'm also including the Atlas, for hardcore fans.

enjoy!

Book One (plus prologue)

Book Two

Atlas (especially for Jordan)

Wanna take a ride?

I didn't get around to listening to Coast to Coast AM and Art Bell until I started driving to work in B'ham around 1998. Although I had been fascinated about UFOs, Bigfoot, and (especially) ghost stories since I was a kid, I had no idea that there was a 4-hour long show that talked about this stuff every night. Tim Lockette told me about it in 1994, but the cavaet was that it came on at 12 in the morning, something I couldn't handle since I had to sleep. But, after '98, and getting up for work at 4 am, I began to catch the replay of the show on the way to work, along with Dave Nemo's trucking show.

Art Bell (and later, George Noory, who replaced Bell after several retirements) also talked about vast conspiracies, which I had a hankerin' for at the time (and still do, although I'm not as gullible as I was in my early 20's). What I loved most of all, however, was the bumper music, or the songs that introduce and exit each segment before and after commercial breaks. Some I knew, like "Wicked Game" and "The Mummer's Dance". Most were new to me: "Ride my See-Saw" by the Moody Blues and "Some Velvet Morning" with Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood.

George's selection is more varied, but when Art came back for weekends (and I was able to record some of his shows thanx to a minidisc player and/or a wire linked to my soundcard), his playlist was exact each time. After discovering Limewire, I was able to compile the Definitive Art Bell Original Soundtrack. Hope you all enjoy...

Art Bell OST

(track listing in comments)

"This is fer th' Birds in the audience..."

I said earlier that I wouldn't place whole albums on here; only in rare cases will I do that. Also I have to careful about putting up stuff by my favourite artist, Prince. His lawyers scan the Universe for boots online, so I'll have to be circumspect about him.

For starters (after SooL 1), I'm putting up an historic concert from Oasis. It took me a couple of years to find this, so here it is for all you Oasis fans - the glorious Knebworth concert from August of 1996, which was witnessed by over 250,000 fans.

I have many other concert by them plus Pulp, if anyone's interested.

(just click on the words below to access the loading site; also the files say O.GLAST.; it's NOT glastonbury; sorry, a brain fart while zipping the files)

Oasis kneb part 1


Oasis kneb part 2

enjoy!