The stopped clock is right again: the Sun Records catalog is now available from emusic. No Elvis, of course, and I'm sad to say it looks like it's missing some of Sam Phillips' landmark recordings that were issued by other labels (notably, Howlin' Wolf's "How Many More Years" and Jackie Brenston's "Rocket 88," often called the first rock and roll record, each featuring Ike Turner; he played piano for the Wolf, and "Rocket 88" was his tune by his band, put out under Brenston's name to avoid contractual problems, IIRC.) The other biggies are here: Lewis, Cash, Perkins, Orbison, Rich, the Wolf. Two pick hits from the lesser-knowns: The Prisonaires' "Just Walkin’ in the Rain" and Billy Lee Riley's "Flying Saucer Rock & Roll".

I don't have any Blythe

I love Focus and 1979's Lenox Avenue Breakdown, both in print, and 1978's In the Tradition (featuring the great Fred Hopkins on bass), which is OOP as far as I can tell. The last is the only one with standard instrumentation. The other two have Bob Stewart on tuba, the first has a concert grand marimba, the '79 set has Blood Ulmer on guitar and James Newton on flute. Good stuff.

(Isn't that one attributed to the Thelonious Monk Trio instead of ol' TSM himself?)

The downside to emusic: I'd say let me check the cover, but... It doesn't say trio on the front, and my copy is in storage (having been ripped to my hard drive long ago.) Maybe the spine or the back says it, but I think it's just a convention that was adopted to make it easier to distinguish between it and the similarly-titled Prestige release Monk. The latter is a great quintet recording from 1953. Once again I find the AMG review questionable. The originals are terrific, and his arrangement of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is indispensable. Not to harp on the lack of a physical object when downloading music, but Martin Williams' liner notes are fabulous (esp. his dissection of the Kern tune) and not having them is a real loss.

The stopped clock is right again

That's not going to stop me from kickin' his butt should we happen to meet in a deathmatch cage.

The Blythe sounds pretty phenomenal. I will have to check it out.

If Joe's not taking it, I'm taking the Ozzy quote.

Joe? I think it's still your turn . . . .

My turn? I thought I was at or near the end of the list. I only see Hec's and DX's contributions.

I won't have access to my real contribution until tomorrow, but in the meantime I sent Sinatra's "I Wish I Were In Love Again" (courtesy of Lorenz Hart's twisted little mind). Was tempted to send "Lola" in honor of a guy I went to college with whom I just found out is now a woman with two kids. (Not sure if they're her husband's, or adopted, or -- and I really hope this is the case -- he fathered them and is now their mother.) He could have just stuck with Chris, but she goes by Christy.

Sorry, Joe, I mistyped. I meant Jon B's turn.

Jon's in NOLA at the F2F ...

Oh. Well, then, that explains it.

Corwood's next, want to take it?

Sure. I'll get on it when I get home this evening.

Corwood, here's the part of the interview with Craig Thompson (author of Blankets -- click the Pacman second from the left -- the graphic novel with its own soundtrack) I was telling you about:

[Growing up] I was always taught that feelings were bad. And the brain! Just recently, when "Blankets" was first printed up, they told me that one of the things they felt had "tempted me away from Christianity" was my brain. Well... of course! They said "The brain is the devil's tool, Craig!" I had laid out all these reasons why I was leaving Christianity and they just didn't get any of them. And they thought the worst part was that I was rationalizing things. My parents find both emotion and the brain to be negative, to be the devil's tools.

I still find Heather Havrilesky's writing irritating more often than not, but she has once again come up with a line I'm tempted to tag: "OK, I'm really preoccupied by sluts this week -- I apologize." Except the "this week" qualifier isn't really accurate, and I'm not likely to apologize for it. Well, maybe to my fiancée, but not to you good folks.