One of my Xmas gifts was a book by some cute lit chick called "Verbatim."

Is your modifier dangling or are you just happy to see us, Corwood? Or is it a book by another cute lit chick who goes by Verbatim? In which case there may be a cute lit chick throwdown because I bet Our Very Own Cute Lit Chick feels somewhat proprietary toward the word.

Starring Fred Astaire: a double-album I owned on LP.

Are these the original soundtrack recordings? Rhino released compilations of his RKO recordings with Ginger Rogers and his non-Ginger (pre- and post-, 1933-1957) recordings. There's also The Astaire Story, which he recorded in 1952 with Verve's Jazz at the Philharmonic lineup (Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Flip Phillips, Barney Kessel, and Charlie Shavers.) Stellar work all around, especially Shavers and Kessel. It's amazing how many standards were written for him. Mel Tormé sings a beautiful Astaire medley on this album. It doesn't seem to be on itunes or emusic, and the file is too big (about 10MB) for me to email to buffistarawk (is it working again?), but if anyone wants it I could try yousendit. Great tribute from one master to another.

And: is it wrong that I now have, like, eight different cover versions of "Last Christmas", but not the Wham! one? I kinda need the Wham! one.

Can't help you there, but if you need more cover versions? -- [link]

It's not the original soundtrack recordings, but singles that Fred released of those songs. A 1989 Columbia compilation. It's got loads of great stuff on it but I think my favorite was hearing Fred teach Ray Noble "The Yam".

The Astaire Story is next on my list. I recorded a library copy of the Verve LP onto cassette many years ago. It's great stuff.

Thanks for hipping me to the Rhino comps, though. More stuff to put on the list.

Is there a banjo on your knee?

When is there not?

Is your modifier dangling or are you just happy to see us, Corwood? Or is it a book by another cute lit chick who goes by Verbatim? In which case there may be a cute lit chick throwdown because I bet Our Very Own Cute Lit Chick feels somewhat proprietary toward the word.

Just a bit hungover from the two-day trip. It's the book by Our Very Own Cute Lit Chick.

So far I'm enjoying the Sam Cooke bio. Jeez, random much, but it's true. And also, in a completely unrelated note, "Deadwood"(I'm surprised a little. But it's not my father's Western, is it? Although the God's honest truth is, that my dad's favorite movie is "Planet of The Apes"...I swear I'm adopted.)

Best Mashups of 2005 (BoingBoing link) The actual link (with downloadable stuff) is [link] but that page doesn't seem to like Firefox.

I am only half-way through, but so far my faves are:

4. DJ Riko "Stand Up and Ring My Doorbell"
Ludacris "Stand Up" vs. The White Stripes "My Doorbell"

5. CCC "One of These Heatwaves"
Pink Floyd "One of These Days" vs. Wings "Rockestra" vs. Martha Reeves & The Vandellas "Heatwave"

One of my latest eMusic album downloads - Low Kick and Hard Bop by Solex.

I'm totally falling in love at first listen, which doesn't happen to me that much these days....

Erika--I'm so glad you're enjoying it! It has a profoundly modern sensibilty, which is why peeps who don't like traditional Westerns might dig it. It only gets better as it goes along--the second half of thr season is INCREDIBLE.

Yeah, it holds my attention and, yes, feels like a modern show, but I can believe that the people are also acting 1870s too. The language has been...an education, too, but after watching all those "Wires" I'd feel like some hypocrite claiming to be scandalized, although I really do feel shocked sometimes.

Looking for kinda cheap things to add to my Amazon order, I think I'm finally going to pick up a Will Bradley/Ray McKinley disc. [link]

The difficulty with this that they're one of those groups that people release highly-overlapping CDs of. So you end up buying the same tunes over and over again just to get a couple new ones you didn't already own. But I *adore* orchestral boogie woogie and they were the best band for it, with the possible exception of Freddie Slack's band. I love the compositions of Raye/DePaul. I wish someone would put out a songbook entirely of their stuff. They're unjustly forgotten.