insent, Kate.

Tom Waits' 20 most cherished albums (with commentary)

Awww, fuck yeah. Tom is on my very very short list of living heroes.

2 Solo Monk by Thelonious Monk (Columbia) 1964

Monk said 'There is no wrong note, it has to do with how you resolve it'. He almost sounded like a kid taking piano lessons. I could relate to that when I first started playing the piano, because he was decomposing the music while he was playing it. It was like demystifying the sound, because there is a certain veneer to jazz and to any music, after a while it gets traffic rules, and the music takes a backseat to the rules. It's like aerial photography, telling you that this is how we do it. That happens in folk music too. Try playing with a bluegrass group and introducing new ideas. Forget about it. They look at you like you're a communist. On Solo Monk, he appears to be composing as he plays, extending intervals, voicing chords with impossible clusters of notes. 'I Should Care' kills me, a communion wine with a twist. Stride, church, jump rope, Bartok, melodies scratched into the plaster with a knife. A bold iconoclast. Solo Monk lets you not only see these melodies without clothes, but without skin. This is astronaut music from Bedlam.

Any opinions on The Bravery? I'm thinking I need to get the CD. I read about them in the latest "Blender," downloaded a few songs last night, heard a song on the radio this morning, and decided I dig it.

I'm not feeling The Bloc Party, however. Based on what I'd heard, it sounded like it would be right up my alley, but what I've listened to makes me just shrug.

Am picking up the M.I.A. CD tonight. Yay!

I have the new Decemberists CD !!!!!!1!!!!

It is shiny, and made a craptacular day less craptacular.

I have the new Vic Chesnutt CD, on which appear VanDyke Parks and Bill Frisell. I have to listen to it somewhere else besides on my computer, where everything sounds like ass. But what I can hear over the hiss sounds good.

xposty from Natter...

An account of the LA reading at Vroman's

There are cool pictures of the record/diorama David Cotner brought.

eta: if you follow the "Yummy Love" link you can heaar actual Lancelot Link.

I have the new Decemberists CD !!!!!!1!!!!

I love the photos in the booklet. The band act out the songs with cheesy community theater-esque sets and costumes.

Hmmm, must buy Decembrists even though I've already downloaded the songs.

Can't find the records in Lost in The Grooves? Here they are.

Ooo! Ooo! Why didn't I think of asking here before?

smacks self

Anyway: must reprise history of request.

Wayback machine to Thomas Dolby's score for "Gothic". He did a remix of one of the songs under the fake bandname "Screamin' Lord Byron", with Timothy Spall doing the voice-overs. "The Devil is an Englishman". I have the vinyl 45 (on a 33rpm-sized disc), but it was left by an abominable ex (very cute, very educational for Wee Young Lad Alex, but very, very stupid) near a baseboard heater.

You guessed it.

However: I cannot for the life of me find a replacement - I would rather own the vinyl again, nostaglist that I am, but would settle for any format that has that extended remix.

Any ideas? I've tried the label, and they did the Big Corporate version of "huh?" at me years ago. I've tried Google and Ebay, but I'm not good at Ebay (the format hurts my formalist brain).