OK, I've figured out my BMG plan of attack (items that have already been ordered are in italics).

Account #1:
First 7 free:

John Coltrane - The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings (4 CD)

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue

Miles Davis - In A Silent Way

Eric Dolphy - Out To Lunch

Pay for one:

Cream - Those Were The Days (4 CD)

Last 4 free:

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin Remasters (4 CD)


Account #2:
First 7 free:

Miles Davis - The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions (4 CD)

Chick Corea - Light as a Feather

Charles Mingus - Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come

Pay for one:

Deep Purple - Made in Japan (2 CD deluxe edition)

Last 4 free:

Led Zeppelin - Boxed Set II (2 CD)

Deep Purple - Machine Head (2 CD deluxe edition)


Account #3:
First one free:

Miles Davis - The Complete Birth Of The Cool

Pay for one:

The Who - Who's Next

Last 9 free:

John Coltrane - The Classic Quartet: Complete Impulse! Studio Recordings (8 CD)

The Who - The Who Sell Out


Account #4:
First 7 free:

Alice Cooper - The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper (4 CD)

Jeff Beck - Beckology (3 CD)

Pay for one:

The Who - The Who By Numbers

Last 4 free:

Eric Clapton - Crossroads (4 CD)


Account #5:
First 7 free:

Miles Davis Quintet - The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (6 CD)

The Who - Live at Leeds

Pay for one:

Jethro Tull - A Passion Play

Final 4 free:

The Police - Message in a Box (4 CD)


You'll note that in one of my purchases, I'm actually buying the Cream box set instead of a single CD. Why? Well, the set is only $22.49 - a few bucks more than a $16.98 single CD selection. Rather than have the Cream set take up four "free" selections, why not pay $5 more and retain those free selections for something else? Likewise, I saved an additional "free" selection by making one of the Deep Purple 2CDs a "purchase". I could save an additional selection by making the other DP 2CD a "buy", but I'm very much stretching my budget as it is. But the end result will be a music collection that's 63 CDs larger. Hopefully, no unexpected price changes or changes in availability occur over the course of this. I'm going to swiftly order everything, make those purchase selections, and order the final freebies, in hopes that I can pull it off as outlined here.

Upon further research, it turns out that the 4 CD Led Zeppelin Remasters set and the 2 CD Boxed Set II include all of the studio material that appeared on Zeppelin's albums. This would provide a wonderful alternative to getting each album individually and in less-than-excellent remastered forms. Sadly, these do not have the songs in the original albums' track orders. However, Jimmy Page claims that he put a lot of thought into the track orders and made the songs flow smoothly like an album. It turns out that BMG carries the Boxed Set II as well as the 4 CD Remasters set. Sooooooo.... I think I'll get these.

Ooh, BMG also has the Cream Those Were The Days 4CD box set! That set is like the ideal box set. It features each of the albums in their original order, with non-album singles ("Wrapping Paper") and some alternate and unreleased tracks splitting the albums up. This strikes me as an interesting way of doing a box set. I'm not sure if it's preferable to just putting all the bonus material at the end, but as long as the original albums are presented in their original (complete) form, I don't have a problem with it.
The first two CDs present all the studio material from the band's albums (and also the bonus material). The second two CDs are live tracks segued together to, as AllMusic put it, "attempt to recreate the "ideal" Cream concert". Sounds interesting to me! I almost picked up this box set from Wal-Mart once, but lacked the cash. I'd say this is now one of my top BMG box set priorities.

Hmm... what else might BMG have to offer? They have the Santana 3CD box set, but I already have that baby. BMG has the 2CD deluxe editions of Deep Purple's Made In Japan and Machine Head..... hmmmmmm..... those would be cool. Oh, and they also have the excellent Jeff Beck Beckology 3CD box set. There are a couple of Doors box sets, but The Complete Studio Recordings is 7 CDs (too much - I won't dedicate that much of my BMG resources to the Doors) and Box Set is 4 CDs but mostly made up of "rarities" and live tracks - in other words, for completists only. The Grateful Dead What a Long Strange Trip It's Been 2 CD set looks cool, as does Europe '72. No Beatles or Hendrix sets, which is a total bummer. I thought for sure that The Jimi Hendrix Experience or The Experience Collection 4 CD sets would be available, but noooooo. The Moody Blues Time Traveller 5CD set is available, but not good enough for devoting 5 freebie selections to. I would like a good Moodies 3 CD set but there does not appear to be one.

Hmm... do I really want the Journey Time 3 3 CD set? Hmmmmm.... maybe, despite the fact that the 3 CDs are not in fact 180 minutes of alternate takes of "Open Arms".

I think I want the Cream, Beck, and two Deep Purple sets (and maybe one of the Dead), in addition to the ones I listed in my other entries for today. I'll get them all between the rest of my BMG memberships at this address, and the ones I'll get when I move. These box sets - not to mention the LPs I'm buying - will give my classic rock collection a much-needed shot in the arm.

Hmm... looking more closely at the Who box, I think I might do better getting other Who items instead. Who's Next, The Who Sell Out, The Who By Numbers, A Quick One, Live at Leeds, Live at the Isle of Wight, and even the BBC Sessions, among ones I already have (Tommy, Quadrophenia, and a compilation) and ones I am not super interested in (Who Are You, etc).

Getting The Who Sell Out, Live at Leeds, Who's Next, and The Who By Numbers would probably be a better 4 CD snag than the box set. Maybe A Quick One (Happy Jack) instead of Numbers, or perhaps in addition to. I could do a lot worse than filling out any extra single-CD needs with Who material.

Led Zeppelin is a different story. As it turns out, there have not been Zeppelin albums that have been given the quality of remastering that the "Remaster" 2 CD and 4 CD box sets have. I quote someone from r.m.p.:

"There's another advantage to the two boxed sets (4 and 2 CDs
resepectively): they have the best sound of any of the Zeppelin CDs.
The subsequent 10-CD "complete studio recordings" box have been
further compressed and dicked about with, and have a ragged edge to
them. I've not heard the individual remastered CDs, but my
understanding is that they are the same as the 10-CD set. The problem
this leaves is that the 4 and 2 CD sets don't have the correct running
order, and there are very subtle cross-fades between some of the
tracks that make it impossible to properly reconstruct the original
albums onto CDR. In other words, you can't get the original album
layouts in the best available sound. Scandalous."

Getting the 10 CD box set is out of the question - I can't get that by using free CD selections from BMG (you have to have enough free CDs to get the whole item, and the BMG deals never give you 10 free CDs at one time). I could get some of the individual albums... but the sound quality issue concerns me. I pulled out my copy of IV, and "Black Dog" most certainly sounded muddier than it does on my friend's 2 CD Remasters set. It doesn't sound terrible, but I have to wonder: will the entire Zeppelin catalog end up getting the top-notch remaster treatment that the 2 CD and 4 CD box sets got? If so, getting all of these (comparatively) inferior remastered albums would not be a prudent move. I'm thinking perhaps the 4 CD remasters set would be a nice "for now" alternative until the entire album catalogue gets a serious remaster job. I'm listening to IV right now, and it's definitely not as clear as it ought to be. I have some small-label foreign 1971 releases that are clearer than this. Some company is doing new remasters in LP format, and charging a boatload for them. No thanks. I just want a quality CD remaster.

I started thinking about what else BMG music club might have to offer me. After all, I have three accounts open right now. I'll need to choose 5 more CDs for each of the first two, and 2 more CDs for the last one (actually 10 more CDs, but I've decided on 8 of them in the form of Coltrane's Classic Quartet - Complete Impulse! set). Plus I could open up two more accounts from this address. So, I figured I should check out what box sets BMG has. I was pleasantly surprised to find a bunch of ones that I would want. Check these out:

Rock:
The Police - Message in a Box (4 CDs)
Eric Clapton - Crossroads (4 CDs)
Alice Cooper - Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper (4 CDs)
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin remastered (4 CDs)
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Lynyrd Skynyrd (3 CDs)
The Who - 30 Years of Maximum R&B (4 CDs)

Jazz:
Miles Davis Quintet - Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (6 CDs)

Classical:
Complete Works of Bach Vol. 1 (5 CDs)
Beethoven, The Five Piano Concertos (3 CDs)
The Complete Chamber Music Of Claude Debussy (3 CDs)
Brahms, Piano Trios Nos. 1-3; Piano Quartets Nos. 1-3 (3 CD)
Dvorák, Stabat Mater (2 CDs)
Godowsky, The Complete Studies On Chopin's Études (2 CDs)

I need to check on the quality of the performances of the classical sets, but the rock ones and the Miles Davis one are definite "wants". For my first two accounts, I now need to buy one CD and then take four more free. So I'll find a couple of single CDs to get, and then pick two of the 4 CD sets (I'll probably start with the Alice Cooper and The Who sets). Then, I could start a 4th account with the Skynyrd and Police sets as my first 7 free, then buy one CD, and then get either the Clapton or Zeppelin box sets as the final 4 freebies.

The classical sets are interesting. Some of them actually sell for less than $20. So, instead of buying a single CD to meet the requirements for my other accounts, I could buy one of these sets instead for only a few dollars more. Why take up 3 freebies for the Debussey set when it only costs $16.99 (the same amount of money I would spend for a single CD to meet my membership requirements)?

BMG kicks ass.

While they have a 5 membership per household per address limitation, I could soon do 5 more accounts. Why? Well, I will be moving during the summer as I transfer to a university. New address = new memberships. Woohoo!

Yeah, they scalp on shipping. But look at it this way. Each CD costs about $2.50 to ship. Plus you have to pay full price for one CD (which ranges from $13-17, let's just say $17 for a conservative estimate). So:

$2.50 x 12 CDs = $30
$17 x 1 = $17
$30 + $17 = $47 approximate grand total for 12 CD shipped and the one required non-freebie paid for.

If I could walk into a store and pay $47 and walk out with the Who, Cooper, Skynyrd, and Debussey box sets, would I? You bet your arse! This is exactly the same thing, except that you have to wait a week or three (or five) to get them. So what? I'm not impatient (of course, I'm constantly getting new music, as you can see here in my near-daily entries). What a deal. Most of these box sets eclipse $30 each.

Well, the ProgAndOther soap opera kinda fizzled out... I've been placed on the moderated list (meaning, all my posts go through an approval process before showing up). I'm fairly disappointed... I thought I might earn a full ban. Alas, Bice had some pretty weak arguments that he sent via email, and he simply quit replying to me after I continued to shoot down his ever-changing logic. It's sad, too, as I was having fun.

I headed to the old vinyl store near me. Here's what I snagged:

Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die (CD)
Alice Cooper - School's Out
Foreigner - Agent Provocateur
Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac
Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive!
Jethro Tull - A Passion Play

The Alice Cooper and Jethro Tull need no explanation. I was going to get Foreigner's 4, but it was $3 and Agent Provocateur was just $1. Maybe if I dig it, I'll get 4 next time. My mother owns the Frampton album, but she really likes it (and so there's no way I'll be able to keep it). And finally, the Fleetwood Mac got a 5 star rating from (the ever wise, all-knowing) AllMusic, and since Rumours was nowhere to be found, it seemed like an interesting thing to check out for a buck. The fact that it's fairly lacking in hit singles but still highly regarded is interesting.

Djangos is having a sale - 25% off all new CDs - so I ordered some of the stuff I was going to order from Wayside and a few more.

My Djangos order:
Birdsongs of the Mesozoic - Petrophonics
Present - Triskaidekaphobie / La Poison Qui Rend Fou (2-on-1 CD)
Faust - Faust / So Far (2-on-1 CD)
Faust - IV
Volapük - Polyglöt
Thinking Plague - In This Life

I was looking for the Faust Wumme Years box set, hoping to find it less than $60. But alas, Djangos didn't have it. So I decided to just get the Faust/So Far 2-on-1, and perhaps get the box set at a later date.

I'm involved in a little spat on the ProgAndOther mailing list. Here's the idea behind the argument: NEARFest (a progrock festival) instituted a "Patron" program in which the best seating at the venue was reserved for a higher price. Bob Eichler ("Bice") has taken issue with this. He would rather see all ticket prices increased instead of this Patron program (which exists because NEARFest needs the extra money afforded by it). I have taken issue with Bice's idea, as it seems like sour grapes - he won't get a front-row seat because he wasn't willing to pay for them, so now he seems to be scorning those that could.

But don't take this little description's word for it. Read it yourself!

Post #1: Bice replying to Jerry Keller, stating his unhappiness with the Patron program and it's "golden circle" seating.
Post #2: Noah Lesgold replying to Bice, making some very keen statements about the Patron program and the ridiculous nature of Bice's complaints
Post #3: Jim B. replying to Noah Lesgold, somewhat echoing Bice
Post #4: Noah replying to Jim B., still shooting down complaints
Post #5: *Legion* in reply to Noah, agreeing about the silliness of complaining about the patron program
Post #6: Bice replying to *Legion*, portraying his concern as being for everyone, the "general principle"
Post #7: *Legion* replying to Bice, stating how Bice's idea seems to ignore those on the low end of the money scale, thus contradicting the "spreading the wealth" stance that he has spoken of in previous messages
Post #8: Bice back to *Legion*, rationalizing his idea and giving a thinly veiled "I'll ban you" threat
Post #9: *Legion* back to Bice, obviously unimpressed with the "threat" and takes further issue with Bice's "no tiered seating at all costs" stance.

Side-posts of interest:
Side Post #1: Brandon Wu replying to Post #8
Side Post #2: Jerry Keller replying to Post #9

Tune in tomorrow! More to come!

I spent this weekend in Pismo Beach, which is located in California's beautiful (well, nice) central coast.

I was feeling pretty crappy Friday morning, so I skipped my first class, and only went to my second. Later that afternoon, I helped my folks load up their car, and we departed. While we have made use of on-the-beach hotels in previous Pismo trips, we stayed at a family friend's condo in Grover Beach this time. The nightly rate for the condo was less than half that of Pismo's beachside hotels. I expected the place to be fairly small, but it turned out to be a two story, 3 bedroom condo. I was thoroughly impressed.

This trip is probably the last one I'll take with my parents. Though in reality, I spent most of this trip on my own anyway. I didn't take my own car (a 2001 Hyundai Elantra), but that was only because my parents took their two cars (a 1996 Nissan pickup and a 2001 Hyundai Santa Fe) and gave me the keys to the Santa Fe for use while at Pismo. So there was no need to take a third car.

We arrived Friday night, unpacked, and went to the beach. They went and walked on the beach and the pier, while I walked around downtown (which is just off the beach). The only places that were still open were the bars and the arcade. I spent a few bucks in the arcade, and then headed for the beach myself. After a couple of hours of beach and arcade time, it was getting late, and I joined my parents and brother in returning back to the condo.

The bedrooms were great in this place. The one I stayed in was about the same size as my bedroom at home. The full-size bed was also nice. I don't have a full-size bed. Rather, I have a twin-sized bed with a water mattress. My parents have offered me a full-size bed, but I won't give up my mini-waterbed for anything except a proper waterbed. But anyway, when I do have to sleep abroad, I enjoy having a bed in which my feet actually have mattress underneath them. Anyway, I got in bed, threw Low's Songs for a Dead Pilot EP into my Discman, tossed on my headphones, and relaxed to the wonderful sounds of this Minnesota softcore band.

The next morning (well, closer to noon), I drove back out to the beach. I took my Discman with me, as well as a few CDs. I don't often listen to my Discman when walking around in public, but doing so this weekend has made me re-evaluate my lack of Discman usage. It was quite interesting to walk in a crowd of people listening to various different musics. Initially, I was listening to Labradford's Mi Media Naranja, which was nice and serene. After Labradford was over, I switched to Eskaton's 4 Visions. Now that offered a very different experience. I don't quite know how to describe it, but walking down the sidewalk while listening to this French zeuhl band was a unique experience. Walking on the pier with 4 Visions playing was even more of a trip. I think I'm going to start carrying my Discman around more often.

I've decided that there are a couple of things mobile Discman users need:

1. A Discman waist pack - While you want to avoid the "fanny pack" look at all costs, you can still get one of these that doesn't look quite so lame. A simple, slim, black waist pack is ideal.

2. A pair of headphones with volume slider - These things are divine. The ones I use not only have a single cable wire coming from the left earpiece (as opposed to one coming from each, forming an annoying little "V" around your neck), but it also has a volume slider further down on the cable. This way, when I want to adjust the volume of my music, I can just use this slider rather than fumble around with my waist pack. Hey, if you have to have a damn cable dangling in front of your chest, you might as well attach a practical use to it, right?

So anyway, later Saturday night, I returned to town. I spent a little more time in the arcade. I have gotten better at Ms. Pac Man than I ever expected I would. I just threw one quarter into the machine and played, and I got relatively close to the high score (of the day, at least). So I tossed another quarter in, and played some more. I beat that high score in the last second of Ms. Pac Man's life (I gobbled a 5000 point piece of fruit approximately 0.8 seconds before a ghost robbed Ms. Pac Man of the last of her already-too-brief lives). Still, victory! I raised the bar! After that, I headed down to the beach, with Ozric Tentacles's Erpland in the Discman.

Sunday was Zeuhl day. I listened to Xaal's On The Way (En Chemin) in the car on the way to the beach. This CD only cost me $6 from Wayside's limited stock and has proven to be easily worth it. It's not the most well-mixed CD (the volume level seems to be universally too low, which did pose a problem when listening to it on my Discman - I had the volume maxed and it was still a bit too quiet), but it's a great album. I fully intend to get more Xaal, as this album has simply impressed the pants off of me. It's like the more jazz/fusiony moments of Magma, except less repetitive (note: Magma's use of repetition is for great dramatic effect, but it is nice that Xaal goes in a different direction rather than imitate Magma).

After lunch, I headed toward the pier. I yanked Xaal out of my Discman and threw in Koenjihyakkei's Hundred Sights of Koenji. Wow! The driving bass and powerful vocals made me want to kick somebody's ass. If I had sung the vocals out loud as I walked, I would have scared the shit out of everyone on that damn pier. Just imagine this 6'1", 230 lb white boy, with the sides of his head shaved down fairly close to the skin, spikey hair on top (which is not altogether unintentional, but is actually just how my hair naturally acts when it's freshly cut short), chanting and shouting these deep unrecognizable vocals with an almost Nazi-esque fervor. They would think I'm speaking in tongues (which, well, would be correct, as Koenjihyakkei's vocals appear to be in Kobaian, like Magma's). To fully understand what I'm talking about, click this link to download Koenjihyakkei - Ioss.mp3 (3:58, 3.82MB). You simply *have* to hear the pounding chorus of "Ioss! Ioss! Ioss! Ioss!".

As I started to leave the pier, who should appear but my best friend. Turns out he was staying in the area with some of our other friends. He was most likely checking out UC Santa Barbara, which I suspect he'll choose as his school. I talked with them for a little while, and then went to the arcade for some more Ms. Pac Man action (as well as some dual-gun, two-fisted-fury House of the Dead blasting). After that, I went to a thrift shop, looking for some used vinyls. There were some, but they were all crap (both in terms of the condition of the records, and the music stored on them). Ah well, it was time to head back home.

During the car ride home, I put Tortoise's TNT into the CD player. Ooh, it was wonderful. Especially the twangy "I Set My Face To The Hillside", which came on as we past the Corcoran prison and drove through what amounted to little more than desert, a canal, and a single row of power lines.

When I got home, my copy of Mogwai's Ten Rapid was waiting in the mailbox. Outstanding. I threw all my gear into my room and plopped down in bed, as I was dead tired. I missed my first class this morning because I was unable to get myself up and around early enough.

On a different note, I have started thinking about a female friend of mine in something of a different light than before. While this friend has always been just a "good ol'" friend in the past, the idea of pursuing a closer relationship has been bouncing around in my head. It's strange... I've never quite thought about her "like that" before. However, I have had a gut feeling that she wouldn't be totally repulsed by the idea of dating - I even have felt at times that she'd say "yes" if I just asked her (whether this is enlightened intuition or a happy self-delusion is anyone's guess). Anyway, I'm not completely sure about how I feel about the idea of dating her. I don't know if I could just walk up to her and ask her to dinner with these confused feelings. I do know that I need to talk to her and re-acquaint myself with her a bit (we don't have any classes together, so I only see her in passing). Perhaps talking to her will help clear up some of my confusion...

Back to music. Here's a list of the things I listened to this weekend:
Bozzio Levin Stevens - Black Light Syndrome
Supersister - Present From Nancy
After Crying - Megalázottak és Megszomorítottak
Labradford - Mi Media Naranja
Eskaton - 4 Visions
Low - Songs for a Dead Pilot EP
Isotope 217° - The Unstable Molecule
Xaal - On The Way (En Chemin)
Koenjihyakkei - Hundred Sights of Koenji
Magma - Mekanik Destructiw Kommandah
Ozric Tentacles - Erpland
Mogwai - EP+2
DFA - Duty Free Area
Happy The Man - Happy The Man
Tortoise - TNT

Well, I haven't proof-read this big post, and since it was written in sections rather than straight through from beginning to end, it's possible that something might not make sense. If that turns out to be the case, click the "E-mail *Legion*" link in the left menu and berate me for my errors.

Salon.com did a 3 page write-up of Kate Bush a couple of days ago. Sadly (though not surprisingly), The Dreaming isn't even mentioned. Interesting that they highlight her as a cutting-edge songwriter and yet fail to feature the album that is supposedly her at her most experimental. The article does give me a decent idea of which of Kate's albums to investigate next, pretty much corroborating GEPR's entry for Kate Bush that Never For Ever and Hounds of Love (the two albums that immediately preceded and followed The Dreaming, respectively).

"With my silver Buddha,
and my silver bullet"
-- "Pull Out The Pin"

Ordered a couple of CDs today:
Species Being - Orgone Therapy
Soft Machine - Volume 2

Species Being is a new improvisational avant-rock band from San Francisco. Orgone Therapy is apparently entirely improvised, with no studio overdubs or anything of the sort. Yet, what I've heard (a track I downloaded from the band's homepage at Chaosophy Records and one I heard on Jason Ellerbee's Dreams Wide Awake radio show) has been excellent, and many that have the album rave about it (including Mr. Ellerbee).

Soft Machine was "... the springboard for the Canterbury sound" (according to Jerry Lucky's flawed-but-occasionally-useful book "20th Century Rock and Roll: Progressive Rock"). I don't own any Soft Machine CDs yet, and have only heard one MP3 of them. Some consider them extremely great, so I decided to buy Volume 2 when I saw it being sold used.

I just realized that Kate Bush's The Dreaming could not possibly exist under a different name and still be "right". Listening to this album at 11:00pm, it struck me how all of the songs fit together in an jumbled dream-like manner, where one thought/event/emotion somehow leads to something else that is totally irrelevant, yet in a trance-like dream state, it seems logical to you...

Some lad with lots of time on his hands has written a fairly detailed analysis of The Dreaming, with data on lyric meanings, time signiatures, instruments used, etc. Despite the writer's somewhat fanboy approach to the album, the writing is quite good.

Grabbed a couple of CDs today:
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Stereolab - Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements
Uz Jsme Doma - Ears

Kate Bush is... interesting. Take a female singer-songwriter that's well-known but not tainted by immense popularity. Hmm, let's say someone like Lisa Loeb. Now, make her British. Done? OK. Now fuck her up. Real bad. Give her a twisted dysfunctional childhood, maybe a temporary drug habit or two... just twist her around real good. Now you've got Kate Bush, at least on this album. This is pop music gone terribly wrong. She twists the standard pop song format around, introduces textures and weird sounds, odd percussions, and unconventional vocals aplenty (in addition to her own vocal gymnastics, she adds distorted vocals and other processed vocal effects). Her distorted scream of "I love life!" in "Pull Out The Pin" is chilling.

The album cover seems normal enough - Bush in an passionate embrace with a man. But a closer look reveals the lock and chain, the ring on Kate's tongue... but I can imagine fans of her earlier (less experimental) work picking it up and expecting a nice, beautiful album. Then, when they get home....

"Aah! What is that?!?!?"
"Mommy, Kate Bush is scaring me!"
"Turn it off!"
"I CAN'T!"

OK, while this album is miles away from being the most "out there" thing in my collection, what makes it so striking is that it disguises itself as a normal pop album. Naturally, this album was a "commercial failure". Heh heh.

My first BMG order has been confirmed and sent out for processing, so I made my second one today. Sadly, the McCoy Tyner album I listed as intending for my second order appears to have disappeared from BMG's stock. So I replaced it. Here's the list now:

Miles Davis - The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions (4 CDs)
Chick Corea - Light as a Feather
Ornette Coleman - The Shape Of Jazz To Come
Charles Mingus - Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

Hopefully BMG will confirm this order too. I'm pretty sure multiple memberships are allowed in one household, but just not by one person. Mmmmm.... soooo.... these CDs are indeed my mother's, but she will dislike them before opening them and will give them to me.

[UPDATE: From the CD Clubs FAQ: "BMG allows up to five memberships under different names per address." Woohoo!]

I've been listening to Rush's Grace Under Pressure and Signals quite a bit lately. Grace Under Pressure in particular kicks ass. Listening to (good) Rush is like re-discovering an old friend. Granted, it's only been a couple of years since I first got "into" Rush. But considering the amount of music I have acquired and listened to since then, it seems like ages. Grace is definitely re-positioning itself as one of my favorite Rush albums.

The longest currently-running thread at rec.music.progressive is regarding Led Zeppelin. It's not an argument about whether Zep is prog or not (that discussion tends to end in "not really, but occasionally"), but simply a discussion about Zeppelin's best work - though the discussion has gone off on a few tangents. Anyway, I dug through the thread and made a running tally of what everyone seemed to indicate was their choice for Zep's best album (not every "vote" was clearly expressed, so I had to take some reading-between-the-lines liberties here).

Anyway, here's the tally:
Physical Graffiti: 3 votes
Houses of the Holy: 3 votes
Untitled ("IV"): 2 votes
Led Zeppelin ("I"): 2 votes
Led Zeppelin III: 2 votes
Led Zeppelin II: 1 vote
Presence: 1 vote

Some of the people that "voted" for Physical Graffiti or Houses of the Holy expressed their displeasure with IV's overexposure on FM radio over the years. This is no doubt a valid complaint, as "Stairway to Heaven", among others, have been played to death. Most of the people that felt this way were older gentlemen (i.e. they were around in 1971). Having not been born until 1981, I have avoided much of that overexposure. Sure, I've heard "Stairway to Heaven", "Black Dog", and "Rock and Roll" a lot of FM classic rock stations, but not disproportionately more than your typical Bad Company hit song.

The piano and violin melodies from the song "V" on Labradford's Mi Media Naranja are echoing through my room. Sweet mournful melancholy bliss.

"The world weighs on my shoulders, but what am I to do?" -- "Distant Early Warning" by Rush

That little quote pretty much sums up my thoughts right about now. I'll feel a lot better if I get accepted by CalPoly Pomona. I should be hearing from them shortly. I will most likely get accepted by Fresno State, but since plans to share an apartment with my best friend have all but fallen through, I really don't plan on going there. San Jose State is my final possibility, but I'd probably choose Fresno over San Jose just because it would be impossible to get an apartment in San Jose.

I'm going to go nuts buying music this week. I have a Kranky order planned, a Constellation order planned, a Cuneiform order planned, one more BMG club order planned, and I'm going to hit the used vinyl store for another stack of black frisbees. I'm also upgrading my computer (video card, silent power supply). I need to entertain myself for the remainder of my stay in this sorry town.

Heheh, here's a quote from a CD retailer, Eventyr Records, in reply to my email asking if they had Kultivator in stock (an inquiry that I sent before Wayside revealed their incoming stash):

"No, it's sold out at the moment."

Here's what Steve from Cuneiform/Wayside posted at rec.music.progressive about Kultivator (cutely referring to himself in the 3rd person):

"Steve is getting what would seem to be the last 12 copies in existence in stock in about 2 weeks.

Steve isn't blowing smoke when he says "seem to be the last 12 copies in existence". I wonder if I should email Eventyr in a few weeks and ask if they ever got copies in. The "...at the moment" phrase implies that they will be getting copies, but I think it's just a ruse to get me to sign up for their mailing list (a proposition that immediately followed the "sold out" line in the email I received).

Not that it really matters. I've already reserved my copy with Steve. $20 + shipping isn't steep when considering the rarity of the CD. Hell, I spent $25 to get a copy of Kenso's Ken-Son-Gu-Su, and that's proven to be less elusive than Kultivator (in fact, Steve has managed to get some copies of Ken-Son-Gu-Su in stock and is selling them for $21).

Now if someone could just dig up a stash of copies of Area's Crac!...

Apparently being a little depressed over a girl wasn't enough. Deciding that I needed to be kicked while already down, CalPoly San Luis Obispo just sent me a wonderful little rejection letter. *sigh*... as I said to someone today, "what's it like for someone to say 'yes' to you? I've forgotten."

On a better note, Steve from Wayside posted a message at rec.music.progressive stating that he would be receiving 12 copies of Kultivator's Barndomens Stigar soon. I quickly emailed him and reserved a copy. The CD that I thought might take forever to get (see Tuesday, March 8th's log entry) has now fallen into my lap.

A small victory, though. This week could have gone a lot better.

I am still bummed out of my mind over yesterday. *sigh*

I no longer feel an overpowering urge to attack her boyfriend, whomever he is, but I sure as hell hope he realizes (and deserves) what he has.

As far as "depression" music goes, I cannot conceive anything better than Godspeed You Black Emperor!. With a name fit for the blackest of death metal bands, GYBE! is actually a moody chamber-rock ensemble from Montreal. Their Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada EP is fascinating. The opening track "Moya" is 10 minutes and 51 seconds of absolutely perfect music to sulk to.

A few CDs arrived in the mail today:
Cul de Sac - Ecim
Xaal - On The Way
Ange - Au-Dela Du Delire

Can someone explain to me what exactly the super high appeal of Squarepusher is? I mean, I recognize that Squarepusher is electronica with a jazz influence, but at the same time, Hard Normal Daddy still seems to sink into boring "techno" realms too often. Maybe some more listening time is in order, but so far my experience has been only fleeting moments of enjoyment.

A cute girl broke this poor ol' heart today by already having a boyfriend.

Thus, in order to remove my mind from it's current funk (i.e. wanting to slay her boyfriend), I decided to finally make my BMG jazz order.

Soon* on it's way from BMG:
John Coltrane - The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings (4 CDs)
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Miles Davis - In a Silent Way
Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch

I'm also preparing another BMG account, under a family member's name. As soon as the first account gets "activated", I'll submit for the second. Most likely to be included in the second order are:

Miles Davis - The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions (4 CDs)
McCoy Tyner - The Real McCoy
Ornette Coleman - The Shape Of Jazz To Come
Charles Mingus - Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

On an unrelated side note, I just listened to Bozzio Levin Stevens - Black Light Syndrome, and for probably the first time, it didn't seem to be 20 minutes too long. A review of the album I'm working on currently contains the line, "The album does outstay it's welcome a bit... there's just not quite enough ideas here to sustain 67 minutes of intent listening - at least from me." I wasn't listening very intently to it this time, but I sure did enjoy it in my somewhat passive listening state. I may have to edit that line of the review, but then again, I possibly still might find the album overlong if I listen closely. I'll probably listen to the album again tomorrow, because I'm quite curious about this new reaction to the disc.

A couple of CDs also arrived in the mail today:
Gentle Giant - Acquiring The Taste
Ui - The Iron Apple EP
Both were mentioned a couple of days ago, so no need to rehash the story behind these. :)


* - "soon" is a poor term to use when referring to BMG. The CDs "should arrive in 3-4 weeks" according to the BMG website. That's long enough, but the truth is, I expect it to be closer to 6 weeks. These guys just aren't very swift at all. Which is ironic considering how much they charge for shipping (of course, their shipping charges is where they make up a lot of the money from these "free" CDs).

I'm messing around with the "look" of this blog. I'm far from satisfied at this point, but I don't have a lot of time to experiment around with different looks. So the visual evolution of the blog will be an ongoing process.

In the CD player:
Runaway Totem - Andromeda
Tortoise - Standards
Birdsongs of the Mesozoic - Sonic Geology
Azigza - Azigza
Isotope 217° - The Unstable Molecule

Runaway Totem is pretty enjoyable. Word is that Universal Totem Orchestra's album is similar but even better, thus elevating it to a high point on my wantlist.

I have been scoping out concert schedules, and I think that in the next few months, I can see Low, Present, Tortoise, and Sigur Rós. I hope to catch at least two of those.

Currently listening to Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane - Monk/Trane. It's becoming obvious to me that I'm going to need to spend quite a bit more time listening to jazz before I can sufficiently form opinions on any. With "rock" music, even in it's most extreme forms (punk/metal on one end of the spectrum, prog/"avant rock" on the other), I have a solid enough base to form some decent opinions. But with jazz, it's clear that I'm wholly unprepared to make any decisions regarding quality. I don't know if this Monk/Trane is kicking ass or if it's totally pedestrian. My ears are so caught up in trying to discern the most basic of elements that I'm not able to recognize, understand, or appreciate the subtleties that make Monk and Coltrane "great".

Not that understanding the "greatness" of some progressive rock bands came easily. But jazz is just unexplored territory for me. Even "classical" is not so hard for me, partly due to the fact that I took two semesters of a music history course, and was exposed to a great deal of "classical" music. This class dealt with jazz as well, but only at the end of the second semester and not for a very long period of time (it wasn't a knock against jazz by the instructor, but merely a result of the fact that he had to cover over a thousand years of music in only two semesters).

I definitely have an interest in jazz, though. Free jazz will probably prove to be the easiest for me to get into, oddly enough. I'm already into "fusion", so to speak, thanks to the progressive rock community taking fusion under it's wing (as opposed to the jazz community that shunned it in the '70s - I don't know about now, as I'm not up to speed on the jazz community).

When I consider how much music I want to listen to, I take comfort in the fact that I'm only 20. Just scanning Gnosis (http://www.gnosis2000.net) is mind-boggling. Tons of obscure albums, many of which meet or exceed the quality of the less obscure ones. If I were to name my favorite progrock albums, there would be virtually no correlation between the album's obscurity and it's rank on my list. A Yes and a Crimson album would be represented somewhere in my top list, and probably Gentle Giant as well (depending on how large the list was). Then some slightly-obscure bands like Banco and Kenso would be found. Then, some very obscure bands like Atavism of Twilight and Dün (both of whom released one album in their careers, which has since been given only a small CD re-pressing) would get listed.

So, there's tons of progressive rock I want. Post-rock is also taking up a lot of my time, and who knows what will become of this movement in the future (maybe it will get a proper genre title, but the continuing Krautrock influence on new "art/avant indie rock" bands will no doubt lead to even more interesting music in the future, even if it doesn't immediately resemble post-rock). And then there's jazz and classical. Sheesh! I talked to Mike McLatchey (Exposé writer, Gnosis project guru, and all-around prog superfan) recently in the rec.music.progressive IRC chatroom that I started and help maintain, and McLatchey mentioned that he dare not get into classical music just because of the sheer volume of music... it would throw too large of a load on top of his already too large load. It's not that he's not interested, but there's just not enough time.

I'm lucky to be getting started in this Internet generation. Resources like Gnosis give me information that prog fans in the '70s could only have dreamed of. Lots of new rec.music.progressive members are people that listened to Yes and Gentle Giant in the '70s but didn't know about all these other bands "like them". Thanks to the myriad of progrock resources online, I won't spend 10-20 years listening to a limited catalog. I already have more (and more obscure) stuff than quite a few people that call themselves "prog fans". I can only imagine what I'll have in 10 years. My future career as a software designer will only help - people who sit at desks 8 hours a day tend to listen to a *lot* of music, especially if they're music collectors.

I figure if I can continue my pursued course in prog explorations, keep my eyes open to new "avant rock" movements, and hit the high notes and the "second tier" of jazz and classical, I can die a happy music buff. I'll need an afterlife to listen to everything that I want to, though. :)

Digging through all those new vinyls and CDs that I bought. I just ordered 5 more CDs and an LP (thanks to a CDNow gift certificate birthday present and some good used stuff at Half.com).

Soon to arrive in the mail:
Ange - Au-Dela Du Delire
Gentle Giant - Acquiring The Taste
Uz Jsme Doma - Ears
Mogwai - Ten Rapid
Ui - The Iron Apple EP
FM - Black Noise (used LP - 99 cents from Half.com)

Those first two CDs are among the top 100 rated albums at Gnosis (http://www.gnosis2000.net). I'll have the whole top 100 eventually (save the ones that are out-of-print). The Uz Jsme Doma is... I dunno. I've heard good things about UJD, but I've not heard them myself. But for $6.99, it's hard to ignore the praise. The Mogwai and Ui add to my building "post-rock" collection (which will be further bolstered with an order from Kranky and Constellation Records in the near future). And the FM is a prog album that I almost bought the CD of from CDNow (but the general consensus opinion is that it's not as good as the other things I bought). When I stumbled onto the vinyl for 99 cents at Half.com, I was quite glad I didn't buy the CD.

Playlist:
Brand X - Product
King Crimson - Lizard
Kansas - Song For America
Jethro Tull - Aqualung
PFM - Cook
Höstsonaten - Mirrorgames
Fly Pan Am - Fly Pan Am

Höstsonaten is such a flirt. The album keeps acting like it's going to be really good, and then stumbles a bit. It's a little frustrating because it could be so much better. Höstsonaten is a side-project of Finisterre's, so maybe I should look info Finisterre. A couple of their albums are supposed to be really good.

Fly Pan Am will probably be included in my Constellation order (which I'll likely make later this week). I need to listen to the MP3s more, but it seems pretty good. One track goes on for entirely too long, though (I believe the third, which eclipses 17 minutes despite not having quite enough interesting material to sustain that long period of time).

It's weird listening to PFM in English (on Cook, a live album recorded from US/Canada shows in 1974). I much prefer them in their native Italian. I've avoided "English versions" of Italian albums, due to the overriding consensus that these albums are typically inferior to their native Italian counterparts (and due to the fact that I have no ridiculous "must be in English!" bias). In fact, that brings us back to the Höstsonaten album, which is sung in English (Finisterre usually sings in Italian). The vocals are OK most of the time, but there are those moments when it's clear that these guys aren't native English speakers. Those moments are annoying and detract from the overall listening experience. The fact that the Finisterre albums aren't in English (and thus avoids one of Mirrorgames's pitfalls) is further motivation to pick one up.

Brand X is interesting. When I first became a progrock fan, it was a shock to learn that Phil Collins (*the* Phil Collins) used to play in a band like Genesis (and I mean the '70s art-rock version with Peter Gabriel on vocals, not the '80s/'90s pop band that mirrored Collins's solo career). It's even more shocking to hear Collins in Brand X, a fusion (jazz-rock) band. This is even less related to "pop" than Genesis (which still turned out a few singles despite not focusing on that sort of pursuit). It's a pretty decent album, despite being only the 5th highest rated (out of 9) at Gnosis. I hear that some of their earlier material smokes, so I'll keep an eye out for those. I think I might have seen a different Brand X LP at the store I bought this one from. I'll look closely for that next time.