Bush

does anyone else think its pathetic to read a headline in yahoo that says "Bush maps out Irak War Strategy"? What, now he's mapping out a strategy?? Didn't we invade like in early 2003???

not to mention of course that he did not actually map out diddly jack!


ay ay ay

good news! pollard to tour!

i'm looking forward to seeing bob again... its been a year since i caught the DC GBV farewell gig... glad to see its a new band...from www.robertpollard.net:


NOVEMBER 29 - ROBERT POLLARD SOLO TOURING BAND IS SET
Bob's touring band for his solo tour in support of From A Compound Eye is all set:Bob - vocalsTommy Keene - guitar/keyboardsDave Phillips - guitarJason Narducy - bassJon Wurster - drumsThe tour will start in late January. Look for tour date announcements in late December.

whoomp! there it is!

Johnny Cash: The Solitary Man Interview With Tim Robbins

Johnny Cash mania is gripping America.. why else? a movie! a biopic.. the biopic genre is dicey. .. still i've heard good things about this movie and may go see it....

however, bet you learn a lot more about the man in black by downloading and listening to this interview he gave to promote American Recordings III: The Solitary Man (the first few minutes of the mp3 are cash's cover of "i won't back down")... this must have been around year 2000.. tim robbins does the fawning..... there were 3000 of these promo cds distributed to independent record stores and i snagged one... follow this link for the download: http://rapidshare.de/files/8389535/01-cash_interview_promo.mp3.html

Whats happened to Joe Liebermann? Is he senile? Brain aneurysms?

Time magazine Baghdad bureau chief Michael Ware on Morning Sedition this morning:

I and some other journalists had lunch with Senator Joe Lieberman the other day and we listened to him talking about Iraq. Either Senator Lieberman is so divorced from reality that he's completely lost the plot or he knows he's spinning a line. Because one of my colleagues turned to me in the middle of this lunch and said he's not talking about any country I've ever been to and yet he was talking about Iraq, the very country where we were sitting.

Is that Ziggy Stardust or Keith?!

I love this picture from the early 70s... yah..thats Chuck Berry! Keith on Mick: "The Crawdadday is where I realised that Mick could actually work a stage about the size of a rug better than anybody in the world- except for maybe James Brown."

Ahmet Ertegun with some of his boys... Look at Keith (left) and Ron Wood (right).. one of the things that emerges in the book is just how tight Keith and Ron were... Ron speculates that perhaps Keith found in him some of the things he missed in Gram Parsons who had been his closest friend..(this is the type of stuff you learn in this book.. i knew keith and gram were friends but tight like that?)...to all the naysayers who constantly say that the rolling stones should retire or they are too old or this or that i throw ahmets words at them: "The soul of the group has always been Mick, Keith and Charlie, and of course Bill Wyman was very important during his many years with them. The group today sounds to me as good as it ever has, maybe even better. They have kept on going because there has been no reason for them to stop. I don't know how long Mick wants to continue, but to me, when you're in the audience in a big hall, he looks just the same as he did when he was twenty-two. He's in great shape and he's very limber, and the whole band sounds fantastic. The Rollign Stones are the longest-standing circus of all time." (Quote dedicated to Armand Lione!)

this picture suffers in my photo but i think you get the gist.. late 70s john belushi with a bottle of whiskey and ron wood sitting on him backstage at SNL...god bless John Belushi....

Keith (undated but probably around 1977)... if this isn't what a rock star looks like I don't know...Keith quote, one of many classic, quotes in the book: Elvis was fantastic, but because Buddy had glasses and looked a bit like a bank clerk, you could say to yourself, "Well, it's not just for guys who look like Elvis", because otherwise it was sort of unattainable. What Buddy did was to level things out and say, "Hey, if you've got any good songs in you, you can do it", Of course later on I found out that Elvis was the real mama's boy backstage. It was Buddy who got the bitches over the fucking table; he never used to go on before he'd had a couple. It was totally the other way round from the images that people had of them.

Current reading: "According to the Rolling Stones"....it came out last year. .its sorta the official Rolling Stones bio and is told through a series of interviews largely by Ron Wood, Charlie Watts, Keith Richard(s), and Mick Jagger.. there are essay pieces by important players in the Rolling Stones story such as Atlantic Records empresario Ahmet Ertegun and Prince Lowenstein (who has handled their finances for 33 years and counting), and there are essays by some more tangential figures such as say Peter Wolf of J Geils.... but the photos and interviews are just spectacular.... the Charlie Watts and Keith Richards interviews are to me what makes this book crucial for any fan of rock and roll.... Its clear reading this that the Stones are telling their story in their own way.. they got things they want you to know and things they don't..but thats like anyone! and to hear Keith or Charlie talk about music is critical.. to me Mick comes off a bit like the jerk i always think he is but.... I've taken a few pictures from the book and will post here.... I'm too lazy to scan them and anyhow I've noticed when I scan them they tend to take up too much memory..its not really worth the tradeoff.. anyways I heavily recommend this book ..even if you're not a huge Rolling Stones fan (which if you're not you ought to be taking a good look in the mirror and asking yourself what is wrong) find a copy of this... if you look around you can probably score it for cheap as it came out last year and I've seen it as a remainder (without marks).. or get it from amazon for a song...get the hardcover...great stuff!

michael moore so on target

as far as i'm concerned this is on the money..check it http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=188

cameron crowe interview

check it at http://musicsnobs.connect.com/

its the type of converation i like having....

where do i come in on a few things:

coldplay: nay...clocks is a great song though...
new rolling stones: nay..wanted to like it but its just got too much tripe on it...i could probably find 6 good songs on it though which is saying something
self protrait: one of his best.. tremendously underrated...

Classic Christmas LP Cover by none other than Norman Rockwell! Cover says on bottom right corner "Illustration by Norman Rockwell created for Hallmark Cards".. lovely just delightful..... this is the original Decca black label DL 8171 "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians..... The music itself you ask? very tame 50s christmas stuff... nice if you're in the right mood.... choirish...first side has some upbeat fare such as jingle bells , rudolph, santa claus is coming..while the second side is to be listened to after you've had a pitcher of egg nog and are dozing on the couch: adeste fideles, beautiful saviour, silent night.. you get the idea..

And Christmas season is finally here... we can and will -wether we want to or not- listen to christmas music! Personally I love christmas records so I'm looking forward to it.. Blue Note does not have much in the way of Christmas records but I did find this one... Duke Pearson's Merry Ole Soul BST 84323...from 1969.... Duke produced this himself... the cover I'm not too sure about..... I want to say it works but I dunno... It was in charge of Frank Gauna who I think is a disgrace as a Blue Note art director....Seeing the great work Reid Miles had done I'm not sure how he could sleep at night coming up with stuff like this.. still.. it might work .... I love Duke Pearson (see my comments on his work on Idle Moments)... I also empathize with the man as he had multiple sclerosis which took him out young and must have caused him a lot of pain....Bob Cranshaw plays bass on this.. same guy that did so in Idle Moments too.... The songs are traditional but the arrangements are Pearson...I dug this one but i'm going to have to listen to it more before putting down a review....

Worse Blue Note LP cover of all time? This could be it....Jimmy McGriff's "Black Pearl" LP BST- 84373 from 1971.. one of the last Blue Notes on the series that had started way back when with Sonny Rollins....I like this record... down and dirty organ recorded at some shit dive - the Golden Slipper- in Newark New Jersey...McGriff's "Ode to Billie Joe" is kinda cool... but the LP cover??!?! what in the name of God happened? Who came up with this? It says on the back "Cartoon Covers: John Van Hamersveld"..its called "Johnny Mouth".... Art Director by this point was no longer the disgrace Frank Gauan (see Turrentine cover below) but a Norman Seeff...I have to emphasize though this is a cool jazz organ LP worthy of that great Blue Note organ stable which goes from the inventor Jimmy Smith, through Baby Face Willette, John Patton, Larry Young, Lonnie Smith, Reuben Wilson to well..here..

I always wonder what the heck happened to Blue Note after Alfred Lion's sale of the Label to Liberty. I mean look at this "brown" cover! Can you believe this picture was taken by the same guy that took all those classic shots? Francis Wolff (my namesake!).... I guess it comes down to the fact that design meister Reid Miles had left and was replaced by a chump named Frank Gauna... It just boggles the mind that this is a Blue Note LP cover... Stanley Turrentine's Common Touch BST 84315 from 1968.... What I like about this record is that its got Leo Morris (aka Idris Muhammad) on drums.. Jimmy Ponder's not too shabby on guitar and Turrentine does a nice job handling a very varies set list including Blowin' in the Wind..... I wonder if they will ever release a CD called "Blue Note does Dylan"?

Planet Xtabay has mp3d this hard to find record... This Esquivel record, although to my understanding recorded for US RCA in 1968 (in the midst of Esquivel's Las Vegas period where he recorded very sporadically), was only released in Latin America... I'm digging his version of "Guantanamera" right now...the piano on this which I assume is Esquivel is pretty cubopy

go to spaceagepop site http://members.lycos.co.uk/spaceagepopagogo/sld100.htm for a good bio on the man

another great space age pop/exotica/lounge site

check out planet xtabay at http://dennyesq.blogspot.com/

under the exotica tab you'll even find an esquivel album never released on cd (Esquivel!! 1968)...some interesting stuff also under the space bachelor tab...

happy thanksgiving!

Loungeeeeeeeeeeee!

check out Pinocchio's great site at www.easylistening.blogspot.com
some great lounge music being posted there including lounge maestro esquivel, the aforementioned abbe lane, les baxter etc.... getting in a loungey mood here.. maybe its the winter... just need something different to perk me UP....

time for a martini...