A Shared Album

I always thought it would be one of Lileks’ posts about the bottom records of a distant era or thrift store vinyl where I would find one of the Nogglestead record library. But, no, it’s Jack Baruth who posted an image of Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson’s 1980 in a post from the beginning of September. I’m catching up on my Avoidable Contact Forever reading even now as I don’t delete them like I do other Substack emails when they pile up (and it’s the only one for which I have a paid subscription).

I bought the record in 2019. And have probably only listened to it once or twice since. Once, certainly, when I first bought it, as is my wont–listening to it before putting the plastic sleeve on it and putting it on the record shelf. Which explains the stack of records on the parlor desk: I still haven’t listened to all the records I bought last month. In my defense, I spend more time in my office these days than I used to.

At any rate, Baruth says:

Some of you know that I consider the earlier Scott-Heron and Jackson effort “Winter In America” to be one of the finest albums ever made. (Not to be confused with the individual track called “Winter In America”, which appeared elsewhere in the Scott-Heron catalog.) “1980” isn’t quite as focused and powerful, but it’s loaded front to back with brilliant soul music made by two of the best to ever do it. You can’t hear it on Spotify or on most streaming services. TheYouTube video at the head of this section will take you to all the tracks. I recommend them without hesitation…

…but I wanted a physical copy of the album. Which is also hard to find in decent shape. It had a short print run and never got reissued. After a few false starts I just paid what it took to get an early demo copy, as seen above. When it arrived I tossed it on the turntable and treated myself to twenty minutes with the sublime first side.

I’ll have to give it another listen upon his recommendation.

Also, I need to remember Baruth is a Pat Matheny fan and not a Pat Travers fan so I don’t keep picking up the wrong Pat.

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Good Album Hunting, Saturday, September 14, 2024: Friends of the Springfield-Greene Library Book Sale

As I mentioned, we went to the book sale over the weekend, and they had a larger-than-normal selection of LPs even though it was Saturday and half price day, which meant that most were fifty cents each. As I completed some record shelving Labor Day weekend, I felt comfortable… gorging.

I got:

  • This Is The Way I Feel by Marie Osmond. Because I got a couple of Osmond records in May, I guess, and because PWoC. 1977. Discogs value: $1
  • The Fabulous Billy Daniels. Discogs: $1
  • A Blossom Fell by Nat King Cole. A compilation record from 1973. Discogs: $1
  • Frenesi: Artie Shaw’s Greatest Hits. 1974. Discogs: $1.75
  • Black Magic by Artie Shaw. 1973. Discogs: $1
  • I Know That I Know by Stephanie Boosahda. 1981. Discogs: $2.99
  • Pure Music by Chase. Guy on the cover is blowing a trumpet–no way I could ever get in trouble buying this record. 1974. Discogs: $1.79
  • Love, Life, and Feelings by Shirley Bassey. 1976. Discogs: $1
  • What Now My Love by the Living Brass. 1966. Discogs: $.64
  • Pete Fountain. 1966. $.73
  • Duo-Glide by Sanford & Townsend. I think someone was just talking/blogging about them. 1974. $.74
  • Hometown, My Town by Tony Bennett. For some reason, I’ve been on a Tony Bennett kick (which means I’ve listened to an LP and a couple of CDs over the last year). 1959. $1
  • You’ll Never Walk Alone by Roy Hamilton. 1955. $.55
  • From Sergio with Love by Sergio Franchi. The sale was lousy with Mario Lanza, but this is the only Sergio Franchi record in evidence. I might already own it though. 1966. $.50
  • Symphony for Tony by the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Apparently, playing hits of Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller. Not on Discogs, no date I could find.
  • Everybody Knows by Steve Lawrence. Just because he was Mr. Eydie. $.26
  • …Porque Te Quiero by Carlos Mata. 1985. $3.33
  • Search by Mission. 1987. $1
  • Earl Grant (self-titled). 1970. $1
  • Hell of an Act to Follow by Willie Bobo. 1978. $2.75
  • You Go To My Head by Billy Daniels. 1957. $5.99
  • Spanish Eyes by Earl Grant. 1969. $1.33
  • State of the Heart by Philip Bailey. A dance single, and guaranteed to be better than Zimmerman, Bailey. 1986. $.33
  • Be My Lover by O’Bryan. 1984. $1
  • Paradise by Leroy Hilton. Not listed on Discogs.
  • Roy Hamilton’s Greatest Hits. 1962. $1.
  • Emotional by Jeffrey Osborne. 1986. $.37
  • The Fred Wacker Band Swings Cool. PWoC. 1980? $4
  • The Harp Key / Crann Nan Teud Alison Kinnaird plays the Scottish Harp. 1978. $2
  • A Woman Needs Love by Ray Parker, Jr., and Raydio. I already own it, but I don’t know which cover is better. 1981. $.50
  • Romeo and Juliet: A Theme for Lovers by Jackie Gleason. 1969. $1
  • Report from Hoople: PDQ Bach on the Air. A comedy album, apparently, and not Bach at all. 1974. $.66
  • Spirituals by Tennessee Ernie Ford. As the Swedish Gospel Singers and even the Teen Tones have been lost in the stacks, we’ve been listening to a lot of Tennessee Ernie Ford on Sunday mornings at Nogglestead. But I’m not sure if I have this one. 1957. $.01
  • Stand By Me by Earl Grant. 1966. $1.89
  • Mancini ’67 by Henry Mancini. 1967. $1.29
  • One Enchanted Evening by the Three Suns. Not sure if I have this one already; I have a lot of the Three Suns. 1964. $1.67
  • Julie Is Her Name by Julie London. PWoC, of course, but I have a number of Julie London records. They’re all PWoC, of course, but not bad. 1955. $2
  • 30 Hits of the Thundering ’30s by Frankie Carle. Pretty sure I already have it. 1963. $1
  • The Uncollected Carmen Cavallaro and His Orchestra. 1946. $.88
  • Mambo Happy! by Perez Prado. 1957. $2
  • For the First Time Brenda and Pete. Brenda Lee and Pete Fountain. 1957. $1.25
  • Greatest Hits by Ray Parker, Jr. Strangely enough, I might also have this one, but this cover is very nice. 1982. $1.10
  • All Star Jazz Concert. 1956. $5.95
  • Sax-Sational Boots Randolph. 1967. .89
  • Jackie Gleason Plays for the Pretty People. 1967. .99
  • Steve Lawrence Sings…. Some album with Steve Lawrence on side one and Charlie Francis on side two. Apparently, this Spinorama disc is worth more than other versions at $5.
  • Keepin’ Love New Howard Johnson. 1982. 7.99
  • Hugo Winterhalter Goes South of the Border. Man, I am a sucker for the 1960s Mexican brass sound popularized by Herb Alpert. 1961. 1.25
  • This Is Henry Mancini. I probably already have this one, but, you know, fifty cents to make sure. 1970 .50
  • Jackie Gleason Plays The Most Beautiful Girl in the World. 1967. .50
  • A Que Florezca Mi Pueblo Mercedes Sosa. 1975. 2.20
  • Sound Spectacular Ray Anthony. 1959. 1.65
  • Shearing Today! George Shearing. 1968. 1.96
  • The Fabulous Arrangements of Tommy Dorsey in Hi-Fi. 1958. 1.00
  • Songs of Wonderful Girls Richard Hayman. PWoC. 1962. 1.00
  • Pete Fountain’s Jazz Reunion. I sure buy a lot of Pete Fountain for the amount of Pete Fountain I actually listen to. 1981. 1.38
  • Today’s Romantic Hits for Lovers Only Jackie Gleason. I listen to a lot of Jackie Gleason, though. 1963. $1
  • Music Until Midnight Percy Faith and Mitch Miller. 1954. 3.25
  • A Salute to the Great Singing Groups: The Clark Sisters. 1961. .53
  • Dream Along with Me Perry Como. I might have this already, but, c’mon, Perry Como. Can you ever have enough? 1957, but this is a later reissue. .23
  • Themes in Brass The Brass Hat. 1969. 14.99
  • The Simon Sisters Sing For Children Lucy and Carly Simon. 1973. 1.31
  • Don’t Mess with Tess Teresa Brewer. 1962. 2.91
  • Nana Mouskouri Sings Over & Over. 1969. 2.99
  • Song for Liberty Nana Mouskouri. 1982. .73
  • Roses & Sunshine Nana Mouskouri. 1979. .10

Ah, gentle reader, that is 66 new titles–67 records total as one is a two-record set. I spent less than $40 for the lot. I’ve checked the price listings on Discog to see if I made out with any real scores, but probably not. But I have a couple of Jackie Gleason records I didn’t already have, and a new George Shearing, and I’m most excited about them. I’m looking forward to some of the soul/R&B/pop records I picked up as well.

Hopefully, this trip will not completely overload the new shelving. We still have two boxes of records to unpack from when my mother-in-law downsized, and having a little space on the shelves would make it to organize the music library. Someday. Probably not soon. Or ever.

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In 1979, We All Wanted To Be Bowzer

So the other evening as I was making my toilet before bed, I sang to myself, “Doh doh it doh doh. Good night, sweetheart, well, it’s time to go….” And I will leave it to you to wonder if I flexed my bicep as I did so.

Because that’s the closing number from the television program Sha Na Na:

I saw that a time or two on a Saturday afternoon back in the day. I was not the target audience–it was probably geared towards my grandparents’ generation or maybe the early boomers who remembered doo-wop from their younger years–but as a kid, I am sure I watched anything.

So I went looking on YouTube for a complete episode, and I watched it.

The first one I found had the added benefit of having Barbi Benton as the guest star:

She was a Playboy model who also released some records, and so she did a number on the show. She had the country rock sound so common of the era (says the man who also owns Lynda Carter records).

Additionally, someone probably used a new VCR to tape this off of television, so you get all the period commercials as well. Man, I was young once, but that was long ago.

It looks like YouTube has other episodes, but I don’t know that I’ll watch many of them, and I’m certainly not going to seek out a box set (which does not seem to be available, although they have a bunch of records out). Because one or two episodes would be a nostalgia trip, and more than that might indicate a problem (says a guy who watched a bunch of The Best of the Dean Martin Variety Show on videocassette).

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How Does Discogs Know So Much About Me Now?

When I went to Discogs recently, its front page thought I might want to learn more about Brazilian Death Metal.

Which is odd; most of the things I search for on Discogs are records I’ve bought which tend to be easy listening and jazz, not the kinds of CDs I buy new.

Like Brazilian death metal.

It’s been a while since I bought a Semblant CD (2022); it looks like they might be on hold/hiatus/broken up. But Mizuho Lin is recording with Confessori now, so I guess I’ll have to check that out.

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It Makes Me Long For Bro Country

The new hotness in country music? Simp Country.

I first heard this song when I was driving further into the country for my brother’s wedding. It annoyed me then, and it annoys me now.

The last couple of Sunday afternoons when I mowed the lawn, the classic country station played St. Louis Cardinals play-by-play, so I looked for another station that came in clearly on the stubby antenna of my WorkTunes headphones and discovered a contemporary station. Which sounded an awful lot like the station we listened to on the drive, with the same songs in about the same order.

You know what else they played in addition to the song above? Two songs about a farmer not selling his land to subdivision developers who refer to the land as “dirt.”

Justin Moore’s “This Is My Dirt”:

Cody Johnson’s “Dirt Cheap”:

Seems awfully redundant to have two songs with basically the same narrative structure, theme, and phraseology on the radio in heavy rotation at the same time.

And as to the last, it actually sounds like it was written by a city boy imagining life in the country. The man has been on the farm for forty years, and he has one daughter (lives in the city, and it sounds as though she’s single and/or has no kids as the song does not mention grandchildren) and he talks about his best friend, a single dog with whom he hunted (ducks, presumably, as it mentions a shotgun and a jon boat) for 13 years of the 40. Country families tend to have more than one child, and in forty years, he would have had several generations of “best friend.” Heck’s pecs, I have only been at Nogglestead for almost 15 years now, and we’re on our third generation of cats (no dogs (yet)).

Not only did the local station play the same songs in almost the same order as back east, but the local station played the same songs in almost the same order at about the same time on consecutive Sundays. Which meant I heard all three of these songs again. And: Apparently, the local station’s rotation begins to repeat itself after about three hours. With some variety, but as mowing Nogglestead takes a little over three and a half hours, I heard these three songs twice each Sunday.

I guess I should just be thankful that the rotation of the current hit of the moment does not match the pop station in Milwaukee in the early 1990s playing “I Wanna Be Rich” every hour on the hour.

Still: I am working on my semi-regularly scheduled rant on the current state of radio today, but given how nobody is clamoring to read it, I’ll continue procrastinating it. At least until a couple of semi-regularly scheduled rants separate that post from this one.

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The Kids Today Are Wrong, As Usual

Gentle reader, it is time to talk about the best Toto song. I mean, the time had to come around once after 1985, right? You live in the quantum universe where that time has come.

Now, you might think I favor “Rosanna” because it came on a cassette I got out of a box of Chex cereal in the days where prizes came in the box or you might already be a winner when you unscrewed a cap on a soda bottle or opened a pack of gum. Now, of course, you get a code where, after you sign up on the Internet and give the consumer package goods conglomorate all of your personal information or, heaven forbid, download the app and give the conglomorate and its “partners” the right to track your every move before discovering, nah, bro, you didn’t win. But in the 1980s, cereal boxes gave you compilation cassettes of “old” songs which were in fact only a couple of years old, but they came out when you were in elementary school and not after you grew up and went to middle school, so they were uncool.

Anyway, Toto’s best song is not “Roseanna”:

Strangely enough, I went looking for that cassette in the bins under the bed where we store out old cassettes, and I did not find the un-cased tape in a quick search. Given how I don’t tend to get rid of anything, I presume it’s there or misplaced, but I don’t doubt I still have it. I found cassette singles from the era, though. You know, every couple of years, I get out the 45 records and listen to them. But one never pulls out cassette singles and listens to them. Whether it’s because the tactile experience is different, because records are hip (or hep) now, or because you either have to pause the listening to rewind or have to listen to all B-sides, I am not sure, although it might be the last.

Of course, Toto is most known for “Africa” because Weezer covered it with “Weird Al” a couple of years ago. But, to be honest, that is five or six years ago, so the Weezer has slipped out of the zeitgeist and off of the radio’s abbreviated playlists. Toto’s version appears from time to time between the Aerosmith, Tom Petty, and Journey.

I will listen to arguments that Leo Marachiolli’s heavy metal cover is Frog Leap Studios’ best song. In between sentences here, I’m going to see what Leo’s been doing lately. He’s still doing metal covers, but it looks like his output has declined a bit. But he’s in a different place in his life than he was six or seven years ago. Aren’t we all.

But back to Toto. The best Toto song, at least among their radio hits, is definitely “Hold the Line”:

Although the song comes from their debut album in 1978, it got a lot of radio play on the classic rock stations in the middle 1990s, so I heard it a bunch, and it was in my dating years, and I’d just started seeing this really hot chick who, I’m not joking, was either the #2 or #3 hit on the Google Image search for “legs.” So it hit me in a spot back in the day when the radio stations were probably playing old songs over and over again but probably with larger playlists and when the songs were still new enough to me that I was not tired of them. I heard it on the newest preset in my car, a radio station with no DJs and few commercials whose mix of 80s, 90s, and whatever is slightly different from the other similar stations in Springfield, for a little while, anyway. Over time, I will discover it overlaps with the other stations more than I prefer (and probably a convergence is forthcoming) and that its library is not that big, either. I am this far away from another curmudgeonly radio post.

Last night, I spun Foreigner’s Records, their greatest hits collection that I inherited last weekend. I had actually bought this album on cassette in college, so I was familiar with the songs already. You’ll hear the occasional Foreigner song on the radio today, but not my favorites, “Dirty White Boy” and “Long, Long Way From Home”.

Both Toto and Foreigner were old bands when I came to listen to pop radio in the late 1980s, so they were kind of background noise at the time. But, you know what? They’re all right. I’m not likely to rush to order their music on Amazon–they’re not metal or jazz songbirds, after all–but I’ll watch for their records. Although, to be honest, they’re in that peak of priciness–pop bands from the 1970s and 1980s–so I’ll not likely find any inexpensively.

But they’re interesting to reminisce to and about.

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Recommended For Me

When doing my Discogs research for my Good Book Hunting post this weekend, when I lit upon the entry for Stereo and All That Jazz, it presented me with a carousel at the bottom with recommendations:


Pretty good recommendations. Of them, I already have:

  • Fun and Games by Chuck Mangione
  • Breezin’ by George Benson
  • What’s New by Linda Ronstadt
  • What Now My Love by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass
  • John Denver’s Greatest Hits (to be clear: My wife and her mother both liked 60s/70s folk. This was not MY doing).
  • Chicago IX

Six of ten easily.

Given the musical tastes in the family and the fact that we inherited a couple of boxes not in our regular library yet, it’s entirely possible we own a couple more of the Chicago albums listed and maybe the Paul Simon.

So Discogs has me pegged indeed based on this random jazz album pickup.

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The Guy Who Played Guitar in Those Video Games

You know, I was looking at upcoming events at the Gillioz Theatre in downtown Springfield a while back, and I spotted tonight’s Joe Satriani/Steve Vai concert, and I thought about it. Mostly because Glenn was a fan of electric guitar virtuosos. I’m not a big enough fan to pony up $65 minimum for my beautiful wife and me or for the whole family. So I won’t be going.

But here is how a local news station categorized the players:

Clearly going for a younger audience. Although by now, fans of Halo are no longer young.

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Brian J.’s Favorite Soundtracks

So last week, Severian posted a Nerd Fight post about the best soundtrack and invited his commenters to hash out the best soundtrack albums for movies.

Well, we here at MfBJN have owned a soundtrack album or two, and although I did not contribute at his blog, I thought I would steal the theme.

Now, he talks a bit about the history of a soundtrack, but in my post here, I’m going to specify that a soundtrack for my consideration:

  • The songs must have been relatively new for the soundtrack. I mean, you could look at the discs released for Forrest Gump and Sleepless in Seattle. They’re full of good songs, but they were earlier hits collected for the film. Not going to count those.
  • Film scores do not count either. And that’s not just Last of the Mohicans or Lord of the Rings or even Star Trek: The Motion Picture or Star Wars with their soaring classical themes and whatnot but also the works of Henry Mancini (yes, I have both of the Peter Gunn soundtrack albums, and I listened to his work for Charade within the last week. But when I think of soundtracks, I think of collections of vocal music.

Also, this is not a “best” collection, but rather the ones I like best over time.

So here they are, not ranked:

  • Pump Up The Volume
    I have mentioned before that I have this soundtrack which does not have Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” on it). But I have not mentioned that I might have worn out a cassette copy of this soundtrack and bought another before buying a CD of the soundtrack in the 21st century. I have mentioned over and over about the main period when I watched films over and over in my youth (living in a trailer in rural Missouri with nothing but Showtime to keep me company, which oversimplifies it). But when I was in college and had a paycheck, I’d sometimes hit the mall on Friday nights and visit Suncoast and buy videocassettes. Which I would then watch over and over. I watched this movie over and over in those college years when I only had a VCR to keep me company (which oversimplifies it, but my video library was much smaller then). This cassette was one of the ones in heavy rotation in my cheap (but unreliable!) Nissan sports car in 1994-1995, so I heard the soundtrack a bunch, too.
  • Shaft
    I mentioned just recently that I bought numerous blaxploitation films’ soundtracks a decade or so ago. I am not sure whether I saw Shaft and then got the soundtrack or vice versa (I’ve seen all four Shaft movies). I was pleased when I picked up this album on vinyl, too, which I have listened to within the last month. Based on the strength of this album, I’ve bought other Isaac Hayes albums on CD and vinyl.
  • Across 110th Street
    The title song by Bobby Womack plays over the titles of Jackie Brown, so it’s probably on that soundtrack as well. But after watching Jackie Brown, I looked up the song and then bought the soundtrack to the original film (which I have not seen). The title song is on my gym playlist, and I have bought several other Bobby Womack CDs and then records based on his work on this soundtrack.
  • Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
    It’s a bit thin on the content; a lot of the songs are silly and light (and like a minute long). But it’s one of the more recent soundtracks I’ve bought on CD.
  • Fletch
    C’mon, man, I’ve already talked about this album at length. I will still throw it on when I find it in the disorganized Nogglestead record library. I’ve not bought it on CD, though, as part of the joy of it is in playing the record and remembering what would happen when I did. Maybe if I see it for a buck at a sale I’ll pick it up on CD.

So that’s the top five soundtracks for me, not based on quality, but based on the films and/or where I was when I listened to them a lot.

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Good Album Hunting, March 2, 2023: Stick It In Your Ear Records

Yesterday, my beautiful wife and I went to a record shop in downtown Springfield where I had permission to buy up to $100 of highly priced records.

You see, gentle reader, I suffered a birthday last month, and my wife often gets me a gift certificate or something for the event. But when she got to Relics the day before my birthday, she found a line winding up the aisle to check out, meaning it would have taken her an inordinate amount of time to purchase the gift certificates. And, as you might have read here, the Relics gift certificate is not the best gift, as it has a six month life span, and it is a gift certificate where you must spend all of the value of it, as no change is given. Instead, she allocated $100 for me to spend on fun stuff, which is kind of funny as I tend to buy what I want anyway.

So I decided to make an excursion of it: She and I, together, would go to the record store, and I could spend $100, and I would pick out a record for her, and she would pick out a record for me.

To be honest, I hoped to fill out my Billy Joel collection. When I was visiting Recordhead over on Hampton in Milwaukee in 1990, Billy Joel records were easy to come by as people were replacing their vinyl collections with cassettes or CDs, so I bought a bunch of them. But, oh, gentle reader, what a fool I was a couple of years later when I sold those very records at garage sales for a couple of needed dollars. I recounted all this when I bought (another copy of) 52nd Street last November. But I thought this would be a good opportunity and excuse to splurge on other Billy Joel records.

Oh, but, gentle reader!

The Billy Joel section was but a couple of copies of 52nd Street and a copy of The Bridge. No Piano Man. No The Stranger. No Glass Houses. No Greatest Hits Volume 1 and 2. Oh, the empires I have lost!

I did get The Bridge, though, which I had not owned previously.

I went through the jazz section, looking for Hiroshima, or Keiko Matsui, or Najee, but nothing. I flipped through the Herbie Mann section, and I said Not today. Well, it was more like let’s see what else I can find, but it turned into not today.

My wife pointed out they had $.99 records in boxes along the wall, so I started pawing through them, but the deleterious effects of a martial arts class arose: I could not crouch at the boxes long, and I really had to pee. So I called a lid on it so we could find a restaurant that offered a restroom after our purchases.

We got:

  • The Bridge by Billy Joel.
  • Send It by Ashford and Simpson. I have their earlier album Is It Still Good To Ya? (purchased May 2021). Like previously mentioned artists, Ashford and Simpson had a career spanning 40 years, and I only learned about them by buying their albums and then, today, reading Wikipedia.
  • Fever! by Doc Severinsen. Maybe this can count as the record I picked out for my wife. It was in the dollar section, and although we have numerous Doc Severinsen albums, I was not certain we had this one. And as I grew uncomfortable, I threw the original terms of the trip out the window. Perhaps this should count as the one I picked out for my wife, as I had expected I would pick out a trumpet album for her.
  • Alternating Currents by Spyro Gyra. Since learning that they are not, in fact, zydeco, I have been picking up this fusion jazz band when I can.
  • M.F. Horn 3 by Maynard Gerguson. My wife found this record. I know we have MF Horn 2, and I am pretty sure we did not have this one. We do now.
  • Walk On by Karen Brooks. A Pretty Woman On Cover (PWoC) record. Going by the titles, I’m not sure if it’s pop, 70s folk, country, gospel, or what. The first song is “Country Girl”, but who can tell? (Research indicates: country.
  • Lets’ Dance with the Three Suns by, well, The Three Suns.
  • Super Girls. I didn’t actually buy this one; they have a couple of boxes of “Free with Purchase” up front, and I found the fortitude to paw through them, grabbing this sleeve containing three records. I figured this would be some trashy exploitation band with a couple of extra platters thrown in, but it turns out this is a compilation of girl band hits. With a trashy exploitation cover.

So we didn’t end up spending $100. The records I bought were priced kind of like what you see in antique malls–between $.99 and $10, but the platters themselves were in very good shape, whereas at the antique malls and book sales, they tend to be a little marred.

I did shy away from records close to $20, which means, of course, known and popular acts. Earlier in the week, I rediscovered The Shaft soundtrack in our music library, and I recounted to my beautiful wife how I bought a number of blaxploitation soundtracks about ten years ago and the R&B stars’ other records, such as Isaac Hayes and Bobby Womack, and how I picked them up on vinyl sometimes later. And although I saw Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly soundtrack. For $50. I passed.

Still, I am thinking about going back and checking out the rest of the dollar records later. Well, when I get downtown again, which is fairly rare.

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Potentially Creepy, But Likely Random

Facebook hit me with this suggested post the other day:

I recognized the album, as I bought it in 2021, and since it’s on the Internet, I assume the AIlgorithms know it.

But Facebook feeds me a diet of hockey players, 80s and 90s nostalgia, and jazz musicians, the last probably because I follow KCSM and WSIE and Herb Alpert on the radio. So it was inevitable that I’d get a record that I own sometime. I’m a little surprised that I haven’t gotten more given how I acquire randomish easy listening and smooth jazz on vinyl.

Speaking of that trip to the library book sale in 2021, I also picked up Najee’s Najee’s Theme, his debut album, that trip, and I just spun that record earlier in the week, mentioning that I liked it an he might be a one-hit wonder.

He is not, and neither is Al di Meola. They’ve both been active for decades, but I guess I’m not that aware of them because the jazz radio stations I listen to do not play a lot of their work. So I keep thinking I’ve discovered something obscure, but it’s really just that I’ve found something new to me.

Perhaps I should watch out for more records by these artists and research them a little deeper when I buy their records. But given that I buy those dollar (or fifty cent) records sometimes sixty at a time, I don’t get to look that closely at each one when I make the Good Album Hunting posts. And when I am listening to records, I am not at the computer.

But what I should really do is use the warming weather to build some new record shelves.

P.S. That’s not a typo beneath the photo. I thought I might portmanteau AI and algorithm in a feat of cleverness, but it looks like a typo. Also I see that it’s already been coined and claimed for a tech company. So let us never speak of it again.

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Ackshually, Steve

At PJMedia, Stephen Green asserts:

This one might only be underappreciated by PJ Media/Townhall readers because while it sold well and earned a Grammy, I’m guessing we don’t have a whole lot of Queen Latifah fans around here. If we do, please speak up now.

[crickets]

I’m here to fix that.

Ya know, I bought both The Dana Owens Album and Queen Latifah’s other jazzy album relatively recently (in 2021) which means I can correct VodkaPundit when he says:

Latifah recorded a follow-up album three years later, “Travelin’ Light.” The second album maybe isn’t as consistent as “The Dana Owens Album.” But its high points — including Phoebe Snow’s “Poetry Man” and Bessie Smith’s “Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl” — reach every bit as high. You could play the two albums back-to-back and think she’d recorded a double CD.

Ackshually, it’s Trav’lin’ Light.

And, as you might remember, gentle reader, I actually have more than one copy of Phoebe Snow’s record with “Poetry Man” on it. But only one of each of Queen Latifah’s jazz CDs.

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Sometimes, The Music Just Reappears

I have mentioned before, gentle reader, that sometimes a song pops into my head and stays there for a while for some undiscernable reason decades after I heard the song (such as “Hearts” by Marty Balin).

So, yesterday, I found myself doo-da-doo-dooing the theme from the Spiderman and His Amazing Friends cartoon while handling the laundry (most of my musical interludes of this nature involve the laundry. This I have heard within the decade: I used to show the intro to my boys on YouTube when they were young, and I recorded episodes of it for them to watch, what, twelve years ago? Not that recently.

This morning, when transferring the laundry, I started singing, “I wish I had a girl who walked like that….” Which was a song by Henry Lee Summers that came out when I was in high school, and I probably have not heard it but once or twice since then:

Being a young man, I understood the longing for someone, although I did not generally approach strangers on the street. Watching that video now kind of makes one cringe, although Western civilization has sort of bred out that sort of behaviour and has taken to importing men with worse predilections.

I guess I just have a slow-motion random playlist in my head for folding laundry or something, and it’s a broader variety than the variety radio stations have these days–I heard two Michael Jackson songs from Bad on two different radio stations whilst running an errand this morning, for cryin’ out loud.

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Subtext: Sissy?

I am not sure what to make of this summary:

The singer crafted an identity around his macho, pro-American swagger and wrote songs that fans loved to hear in his three decades in country music.

So…. he was not authentically macho? Not authentically pro-American? A sissy because a real man doesn’t die of cancer at 62?

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but probably not. This clever wordsmith (or AI trained by clever wordsmiths) is making a point.

But never mind. Onto the real news.

Probably the best advice I’ve gotten in a while.

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Jack Baruth Discovers Symphonic Metal

Atop Jack Baruth’s Avoidable Contact Forever yesterday, I saw a familiar face:

It’s Giada “Jade” Etro of the symphonic metal band Frozen Crown, of whom Baruth says:

As most of you know, music isn’t a full-time job for most people nowadays, so you’ll be pleased to know that Miss Etro has twelve years of experience as a dentist and orthodontist. How in God’s name have I had one implant, four veneers, and a dozen crowns… none from her. I don’t care if I die during the procedure like Ye’s mom did during her discount Mexican plastic surgery.

As I did with Kim du Toit, I welcome Baruth’s discovery of the genre, where all the bands have attractive women with pipes on the lead vocals.

And, then as now, I offer some further selections.

Vocalist:
Melissa Bonny
Mizuho Lin
Nicoletta Rossellini
Nationality:
Swiss
Brazilian
Italian
Bands:
Evenmore
Rage of Light
Ad Infinitum
The Dark Side of the Moon
Semblant
Kalidia
Walk in Darkness

Although I don’t put a lot of symphonic metal on my gym playlist (“What Lies Ahead” and “Mere Shadow” by Semblant, “Stay Black” by Battle Beast, “82nd All the Way” by Amaranthe), it’s what YouTube insists on feeding me on those occasions where I type in a song from a metal band (any metal band) and let it run. Which is not a good way to find more songs for my gym playlist, but it does introduce me to new symphonic metal bands. And the infrequent Spanish metal band thanks to Xeria.

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It Never Fails

I go to YouTube looking for a good tutorial on SwiftUI, and YouTube says, “Hey, how about an all Japanese woman steampunk metal band instead?”

So I guess I will, in turn, introduce you to Fate Gear.

You’re welcome.

Looks like CDs go for $27-45 on Amazon, but MP3 albums are under $10.

We’ll see if I remember them when I accrue digital credits.

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Number of Days Since We Referred To That Song At Nogglestead: 3

Borepatch has an interesting trivium about the “Sisters” number with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye in White Christmas:

This scene was ad lib, with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye reprising the song from Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen. It started as Bing goofing around and everyone thought it was funny so they filmed it. They filmed it several times because people were laughing so much that it was hard to get a clean take. The laughter you see here is genuine.

When we were watching the football game on Sunday night, an ad used that song as the background music for…. Well, I don’t remember what the ad was for. But I asked my youngest what film it was from as (I think) we watched it together a couple of years ago. But he could not recall.

I’m working through some Christmas/holiday films to start the month, but I haven’t yet put the true holiday movies (Holiday Inn, White Christmas, The Bishop’s Wife, Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Lethal Weapon, Invasion USA, etc.) into the queue yet as I have so, so many movies to watch that I have not seen before and/or which are not hidden somewhere amongst our media library.

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We Wish You A Xeria Christmas

So the company for which I work has been naming sprints after bands starting with the letter A at the beginning of the year and then progressing every two weeks. When they asked for an A band, I said Amaranthe, of course, and the product manager running the video meeting played “82nd All The Way” up until the unclean vocals.

Which means my coworkers rock less than I do, but to be honest, they’re mostly not in QA.

I’ve suggested proper bands for every sprint since then, but have only had a few suggestions elected via poll to the sprint name.

When we came to the X sprint, I was at a bit of a loss. I didn’t have any bands in my library that start with X. So I did some research (visited the Encyclopaedia Metallum) and started working through some bands.

I found one, Xeria, from Spain, who sings metal in Spanish. Which is unlike many European metal bands who sing in English.

So I went to their Web site, in Spanish, and ordered their CD Tierra, paying the Value-Added Tax and everything.

It arrived today, cell-wrapped and unsigned, but it did include a couple of postcards. Which maybe are a thing still in Europe. Also unsigned.

Well. Also on my desk were a couple of Christmas cards. We have traditionally hung Christmas cards on our living room walls during Christmas, and I’ve made room and have put up the Christmas cards from the overachievers who mailed their cards in November, and, well….

We will see if anyone notices.

Just to update you on the Santa Claus I put on the mantel the first weekend of November to see how long it would take anyone to notice: Nobody did. No one really spends much time in the living room except me, and I did the Christmas decorating this year as it was limited to unbreakable things since the Three Negritos would look upon all Christmas lights and decorations as cat toys.

We’re not even putting lights on the trees this year. Probably just wrapping them a bit with garland. And planning to spend December cleaning up shiny hairballs from the rug.

And now if anyone sees the Santa Claus, they might think we’ve had him all along.

The Xeria post card, though–that will likely be noticed. Maybe.

UPDATE: Actually, my beautiful wife noticed it almost immediately. Perhaps because the Christmas cards are hung basically at the top of the steps from the lower level.

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Proper Music For The Reading

Yesterday, Severian started a post by talking about Michael McDonald (What a Fool Believes).

WSIE provided the proper music for the occasion.

Although, to be honest, WSIE plays a hella lot of McDonald, whether with the Doobie Brothers, with a single other Doobie Brother (depicted), solo, or with James Ingram. WSIE has a pretty small playlist, and no matter how often I send a message on the request line to play the Pitch Pockets, no, here’s Steely Dan with “Aja” again.

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Comedy Report: Ron White: A Little Unprofessional (2013)

Book coverThis is a comedy special by Ron White. You know, that other guy from the Blue Collar Comedy Tours from the turn of the century. No, the “Here’s your sign” guy is Bill Engvall (whose book Just a Guy: Notes from a Blue Collar Life I listened to in 2019). Of course, the big two are Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy. I get the sense Ron White is really the forgotten man in the bunch.

And, to be honest, that rating probably matches the reality. I have enjoyed Jeff Foxworthy for decades; I’ve seen a Larry the Cable Guy comedy special or two; and I enjoyed the couple of Blue Collar Comedy tour specials I’ve seen. But that’s probably despite White, not because of him.

You know, I get it: Comedy shows are going to have their off-color moments. Gallagher had a couple moments. Charlie Berens, the Manitowoc Minute guy, whom I saw earlier this month, even Charlie Berens had a moment or two that made my poor wife cringe because she was at a comedy show with her children, and she was afraid she would have to explain a joke or maybe she was afraid she would not now that her boys go to public school.

But Ron White’s show, or this one perhaps, did not offer many topical insights into the foibles of human nature that did not involve being drunk, having sex (especially receiving oral sex), or drugs. One party situation or sexual situation after another, and finis!

Not my bag, baby.

I do have to wonder if comedy has followed a similar arc to pop music: that it increasingly has to cater to an audience who comes out to the clubs, and those are the party people and not the, you know, adults. Or maybe there are diminishing adults in the world to entertain.

One good thing came from watching this: I discovered a new jazz artist, Margo Rey.
Continue reading “Comedy Report: Ron White: A Little Unprofessional (2013)”

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