My brother handed me a CD today and said that he thought it my by "up my alley". The album, Grandaddy's The Sophtware Slump, is apparently one of the more hyped-up "indie" releases of the year. In essence, it's ambient pop (though not quite "ambient") with a clear Radiohead influence. They also at times reminded me of Stereolab, with digital sequencers in place of Stereolab's twinkly vibraphones. Imagine the Radiohead songs on OK Computer and Kid A where Thom Yorke comes the closest to actually "singing", and add distorted guitar (occasionally math-rock like) and the sequencers, and that's pretty close to this album. My biggest complaint is that the singer will just not shut up. The best moments on the disc are easily the ones when he's not singing. On some tracks, he's pleasant, but mostly I'm annoyed. I do have to say that I'm pleased with this in terms of how it applies to my brother - musically, it's far more substantial than Blink 182, Limp Dickz, or pretty much any of the bands mining the leftover ruins of grunge. It's also not 5 seconds of the same snippet of music repeating (as found in much of what's called "techno"). Pitchfork Media's review of the album was a little more positive than me (mostly they just bitched about it being similar to Radiohead - which is only partially true).

Hmm, this final track of the album sounds like it has mellotron on it. Probably a synth with a "strings" patch, but the mellotron effect is nice regardless.

Actually, it just got better. This last track, "So You'll Aim Toward The Sky", is probably the best one on the disc. I'm hearing a mellotron in the left channel (as well as perhaps some real strings? Maybe another synth effect), and a cello in the right. I doubt that either are "real" (though the cello sounds fairly authentic, although it's a bit low in the mix to tell), but it's an excellent effect regardless. The vocalist isn't overpowering the "mellotron" and "cello" in the mix, thus making him much more bearable. :)

Anyway, onto my new stuff. Species Being's Orgone Therapy is a 52 minute album consisting entirely of improvised instrumental prog-rock. Despite being entirely improvised (no overdubs, either), the music is very tight. Surprisingly, the band never treads into overly-wanky territory (too often the result of extended improv - see Liquid Tension Experiment's "Three Minute Warning"). It's a guitar/bass/keys/drums quartet from San Francisco, and I'm watching their show schedule for SF show dates. An improv band this good has to be amazing live.

Mogwai's Young Team, of course, is outstanding. Not that this is news, as I've had the entire album as MP3s for some time. But I had to have the album itself. While EP+2 is still my favorite Mogwai release, this one's not far behind. I look forward to the new disc, Rock Action.

And Miles, well, Miles owns. The first two discs of this Complete Bitches Brew Sessions box set are phenomenal. They contain most of the original Bitches Brew album, and the rest appears on the last two discs along with a bunch of stuff that was recorded along with the original album. It's wonderful. I haven't felt quite that strongly about the other two Miles Davis discs I just got, but then again, I've only heard each of those once (and I had Complete BB Sessions as MP3s for a while - though only listened a few times). Where once there was not a jazz collection, now there is one. I can only imagine what trying to listen to the 8 CD Coltrane set and the 6 CD Miles Davis set will be like. That'll probably happen over a period of months, which is just fine by me. It's going to be a mass swirl of jazz, progressive rock, and post-rock on my CD changer and car deck.

Oh, and while this isn't related to new CDs of mine (but I'm typing it here anyway, because this blog is written in stream-of-consciousness, whether you like it or not), Kenso's Ken-Son-Gu-Su is nothing short of amazing. The performances are incredibly tight, and the band does so well in tinkering with their compositions live. They'll take them on the edge of getting "out of hand", and then come slamming back. Very similar to their ProgFest 2000 performance (basically the same setlist, and this was recorded only a few months before the ProgFest show - and was first released domestically at that show). I'd kill to see them live again. I was completely unfamiliar with their material at ProgFest and it still knocked me on my ass and continued to kick me while I was down. This CD was easily worth the hefty $25 it cost.

Being a music collector makes the daily trek to the mailbox an adventure. Heck, these days when I go to the mailbox, the first thing on my mind is "any new music arriving today?", leaving "did I get accepted to (insert college here)" as a secondary concern. :)

More new stuff today:
Mogwai - Young Team
Species Being - Orgone Therapy
Miles Davis - The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions

I bought the Mogwai at Borders... I was very surprised and happy to see most of the band's catalog (including the earlier Jet Set Records releases) there. They lacked the new Rock Action album, but oh well. On a similar note, the new Tortoise album (Standards) was not only available at Borders, but was one of their featured albums... up on the top racks and hooked up to one of their headphone sets. Go post-rock!

Music moment of the day: Driving through a very heavy rainstorm, listening to Young Team. Mogwai, or at least early Mogwai, could be thought of as a metaphor for a rainstorm... the calm, serene drones juxtaposed against the fierce and violent climaxes. Oooh, there are the pretty clouds overhead... just passing by, no rain falling yet.... but uh oh, there's a drop... and now here's the dounpour! But eventually the downpour ends and the clouds still remain, and it's back to calm.

Currently listening to the Miles Davis - Disc 1. It's wicked cool. The packaging for the box set is similarly cool. The "box" is actually a sleeve for a mini-book, which houses the CDs as well as a ton of information and pictures. The booklet seems quite sturdy (hardcover, metal binding, etc), so it should last. I'm pretty pleased. Clearly, this set earned the Grammy that it won.

Music moment of the day: Pulling out of my driveway on my way to go workout, Thinking Plague's "Dead Silence" (from In Extremis) playing their oddly dissonant-yet-beautiful sounds that seem to have something in common with the gray clouds over my head (yes, another cloud-related moment). On a side note, I can't imagine an album having an album cover that more accurately depicts what's on the CD than In Extremis's cover: a desert twister over a dull (and not clearly defined) landscape. To download an MP3 of Dead Silence, click here: Thinking Plague - Dead Silence (4:00, 3.84MB)

A few new BMG arrivals today:
Miles Davis - In A Silent Way
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch

Only listened to In A Silent Way so far, but it was very nice. I'm also chewing my way through that four-disc Coltrane Complete '61 Village Vanguard Recordings set, and some of my Djangos order (particularly the Cuneiform discs: Birdsongs of the Mesozoic's Petrophonics and Volapük's Polyglöt, as well as the not-on-Cuneiform-but-the-band's-later-albums-are Thinking Plague's In This Life). Good stuff. Also revisiting some of my older Cuneiform discs (Univers Zero's 1313, Thinking Plague's In Extremis, Miriodor's Jongerlies Élastiques (Elastic Juggling), Djam Karet's The Devouring, and Boud Deun's The Stolen Bicycle). Cuneiform tends to focus on "avant-rock"... the more cutting-edge progressive rock bands. A lot of Cuneiform's bands are RIO (rock-in-opposition) bands, which often features dissonance, unusual instumentation, complex/unconventional song structures, and everything but the kitchen sink (and the best of it manages to stay beautiful and even melodic). Not all of their stuff is RIO, though... Djam Karet is more like instrumental Pink Floyd but with better players, and Boud Deun is strictly fusion. One thing that Cuneiform is almost universally, however, is "good". I can't think of another prog label that is as consistantly good as Cuneiform. Musea has a lot of good stuff, but lots of crap too. Inside Out and Magna Carta have more crap than good stuff. Mellow Records is probably in the same boat as Musea. Cyclops... I think Cyclops is 100% dreck. Maybe there's some good unknown bands on there, but the flagship bands are bleh. Hmm.... Vinyl Magic re-issued a lot of good Italian stuff, but re-issued some things best left untouched. Laser's Edge is underrated, but not quite Cuneiform. Hmm.... that's about it, everything else I can think of is either independant releases, big-label releases, or labels that only carry a handful of bands (and a good number of prog bands fall into one of those three). Regardless, Cuneiform deserves praise. I'm confident that I could buy random Cuneiform discs and not get something that was utter crap. Undoubtably I would like some more than others, and some I might not like at all, but nothing would be wretched. Way to go, Steve Feigenbaum (Cuneiform label head).

Music moment of the day: Driving home from my night class (well, more like late afternoon/dusk class since the time change), I was listening to Birdsongs of the Mesozoic's Petrophonics. As I drove on the rather light-traffic freeway, I noticed the clouds in the distance were a purple hue, and the few slivers of clear sky not obscured by the clouds were a light orange-ish color. Remarkably beautiful. In my rear-view mirror, I saw the clouds coming down over the mountains in the east - these clouds were much more darkly colored. As I turned off the now-somewhat-rural highway and headed back into town, I noticed the sky to the north was something of a balance between the two - moderately dark, blue clouds. The key to this whole light vibe was the Birdsongs music. Had I been listening to Yeti or Magma, I would not have been in the frame of mind to notice the colorful skies. What I would give to have some of those images captured and turned into a couple of small posters...

Yay! Lots of stuff arrived today!

New arrivals:
John Coltrane - The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings (4 CD)
Soft Machine - Volume 2
Birdsongs of the Mesozoic - Petrophonics
Faust - Faust IV
Faust - Faust / So Far (2-on-1)
Thinking Plague - In This Life
Volapük - Polyglöt

The Coltrane is, of course, the first of my BMG CDs. I'm listening to Disc 1, and so far it rocks (jazzes?). I think I'm really going to dig this. Haven't listened to the other new acquisitions yet. I'll have lots of music listening notes in the next few days. :)

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.