"Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?"

Pink Floyd The Wall meant a lot more to me when I was younger and more angst-ridden (rather than just plain ol' depressed). The album was better than the movie, although I've never seen the movie high like so many people have advised me to (I did listen to the album on a walkman whilst stoned to the gills on good weed in '92. Once was fucking enough. Trauma such as that only needs to happen once in a lifetime. I won't even listen to The Wall whilst drinking, much less under the influence of anything stronger).

This is the Official Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Ultradisc™ 24 KT Gold version. Although it claims to have superior sound, I guess I would have to have bought one of those $10,000 Technics or Harmon Kardon to really appreciate it, not a $90 Sony boombox from Wal-mart. But, hey, I could get what I could afford. At the time, this set cost about $40 at Slip Disc (our local independant record store at the time); now it runs up to $87 on Ebay. I got it for 4 bucks in 1991 from a friend who obviousily valued cigarettes more than music. Lucky me. Lucky you if this might be what you're looking for.

ripped at 320 kbps. If I knew how to rip in FLAC, I would, since this would probably sound better in lossless...





Disc 1





Disc 2

Enjoy!

The second best album of 1987...

I was aware of U2 before this album came out, or, specifically, before "With or Without You" first played on the radio; some friends of mine in marching band told me about them, around the time The Unforgettable Fire was out, but I didn't invest my lunch money into that record, then (that's how I bought much of my music from 10th grade until 12th; I saved up 7 days of lunch money and had enough to grab the tape on sale at Camelot. When the newest releases were on sale in 1987, they were usually $6.99-7.99).

It was the haunting "With..." that drew me in, plus "I Still haven't Found What I'm Looking For", which fit me to a T, with all the crushes I had going at the time. I got the tape on the Fourth of July, 1987, the same day my mother bought me a Corona electronic typewriter (the equivalent of a word processer in 1992 and Word for Windows nowadays) so I didn't have to write longhand all the time.

This remains my favorite U2 album, with Achtung Baby a fair-to-middlin' second. This is the expanded version that was released a year ago, with b-sides and other misc.





Disc 1





Disc 2

Enjoy!

"Number nine...number nine...number nine..."

It's hard to pinpoint just one Beatles album to call their greatest. Most magazines state that Sgt. Pepper is their best, while others name Revolver or Rubber Soul. To me, it's always been the White Album, their least cohesive of all, at least when it came to true collaboration (Paul even overdubbed Ringo's drums with his own playing on "Back in the USSR" because he was pissed about the initial take). Even with everyone basically using each other as a glorified studio band on their personal songs, the sheer scale of the work is monumental. I must just have a thing for the audacity of double-albums (See Sign O the Times, Kid A/Amnesiac, 1999, Mellon Collie, The Wall, etc., etc.)




LP 1

LP 2

Enjoy!

"Disarm you with a smile..."

Despite all the grunge hoopla in '92 and '93 (and I bought into it, just a bit; I never did the flannel shirt or unwashed hair thing and although I enjoyed the movie Singles, I appreciate it more as an artifact of the early '90's than any kind of Graduate or Breakfast Club generational statement), the band that came out of that time period that meant the most to me was the Smashing Pumpkins. Nirvana was great and Nine Inch Nails articulated a good bit of my angst (although, like the previous post, Rumours, I didn't truly appreciate Trent Reznor's lyrics until I was around 30, not 23), but the Pumpkins, at least with Dream and Mellon Collie, made me feel that this was the band that I would have founded, if I had learned how to play guitar or drums, write music, and convinced others to play in a band.

It was, in a nutshell, how someone felt when, after 4 or 5 years after escaping high school, they still haven't quite gotten over the trauma. I wasn't really picked on (I was 6'3" and about 220 in 11th grade; the principal was more mad about the fact that I wouldn't play football or basketball than he was about my long hair and suspect friends), nor did I not have any friends. I guess that I engaged in a internalized Theater of Class Warfare from seventh grade until I graduated from college. Whatever the ruling class was (Preppies, Jocks, Frat Boys, Bowheads (what My Crowd called sorority chicks in the early '90's, because they all wore color-coordinated ribbons tied in a bow in their hair), I hated it and refused to play the game. Not that they seemed to miss my company, anyway. I most certainily was not Klebold and Harris (although I did wear a black trenchcoat 10 years before they made it verboten to wear to school; however, my inspiration was Ralph Macchio from Teachers and Bender from The Breakfast Club, not mass murder or Sting from WCW), but I made sure that everyone knew that I hated the caste system in school.

Anyway, nevermind my hang-ups, here's the Pumpkins...






"Who wants that honey?"

"Thunder only happens when its raining..."

There are several albums that you can't really appreciate or even fully understand until you reach a certain age, or, at least, a certain level of maturity. Fleetwood Mac's Rumours is definitely such an album for me. Like Beck's Sea Change, John Mellencamp's The Lonesome Jubilee, and several of Prince's songs, such as "If I was your Girlfriend", "Forever in My Life", and "Adore", certain music requires experience in living. Sure, I remember listening to "Dreams" or "Go Your Own Way" on the radio, both as a kid on 92J and as a teenager on Rock 99 (the 1st 'classic rock' station to come to central Alabama), but they were just great tunes, then. Sign O the Times has been my favorite album since it was released in 1987, but it took growing up and finding out what the Hell Prince meant in some of those songs to understand the music.

Now, after marriage and divorce, cancer and recovery, Rumours means more to me than it ever did when I first bought the album (for a whole dollar at a flea market, on vinyl). "Go Your Own Way"? That's exactly how I felt in 2001. "...When the rain washes you clean... you'll know." Boy, do I ever.





"...Players only love you when you're playing."

Enjoy!

Magic on the Sax

There's not much that I can say that someone hasn't already said about Coltrane, so here's all I'm gonna say. Although I had heard his name being dropped by Bono two or three times on Rattle and Hum, and a buddy who dallied in jazz had mentioned him, It wasn't until Spike Lee properly introduced me to Coltrane in Mo' Better Blues that True Love hit. Upon finding it at the Laser's Edge in Homewood, life has been a little bit better.

Also included, below the 1st link, is Coltrane's next best work, "Alabama", an abbreviated version from the Malcolm X soundtrack.









A Love Supreme

"Alabama"

Enjoy!

"I've got a tape I want to play."

Until about a year ago, I thought that Prince's 1987 concert film for his Sign O the Times tour was the best concert film ever made, although many critics at the time felt that either "The Last Waltz" or the Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense" was much better. I saw "Last Waltz" at a rather young age (14; before I could really develop a true taste for good music), so I wasn't as impressed (at the time) compared to the baby boomers who rave(d) over it.

"Stop Making Sense", however, was out of my grasp for a long time. As most people in Alabama, I was introduced to the Heads via "Burning Down the House". I then picked up True Stories, after reading about them in Rolling Stone (Don't laugh; in Northeast Alabama, Rolling Stone was more hip than reading Village Voice or NME in bigger cities; I was the only one at my high school who even read rock criticism. Everyone else read the metal mags). After buying Naked in 1989, I didn't think much about them until college when they released Sand in the Vaseline. Finally listening to their entire breadth of work (Little Creatures was even hard to find at Camelot, the best record store in the 5-county area; remember, this is 1991 in Alabama), I was floored.

Although I like R.E.M. and U2 better, as groups go, Talking Heads was beyond anything I had heard before, especially the early stuff. I read more about them, seeing that they came from the NY/CBGB scene, but, to me, as much as I like them as well, the Ramones and Television didn't have anything on them. Perhaps my love for Prince's music, and his dense sound, made the Heads more palpable to my ears.

I decided to give what I feel is the best of all possible worlds, the soundtrack to Stop Making Sense. In a town where the idea of a concert film on DVD or tape in a rental shop is Miley Cyrus or Toby Keith, I had to go the route of Utorrent for this one; Netflix is not in the cards since I've avoided credit cards like the plague ever since one of my closest friends got royally screwed up in college by overspending, so that leaves Netflix and even Amazon out of the question, unless they take money orders. If you haven't seen it yet, see it. Until then, enjoy the magic of the Heads.




"...Home is where i want to be, but i guess i'm already there..."

Enjoy!