lala today 4.29.10

loving some

- Roger Miller - The Very Best of

- Merle Haggard - Rainbow Stew (1981) - The lyrics in the song Rainbow Stew, he says something about "when they find out how to burn water" fits the "big" news story today about a BP oil rig that burned in the Gulf and is leaking something like 45,000 gallons of oil per day.

- Willie Nelson - To Lefty From Willie (1977)

- The Meters - Cabbage Alley (1972)

- Various Artists - Essential Dub (guessing the 80's)

I just loaded up the ipod

with

Rolling Stones Live Brussels Affair 1973 (currently listening - HOT!)

Billie Holiday - Remixed and Reimagined

Doyle Lawson & QS - Once and For Always

New Riders - NRPS

Bob Dylan - Planet Waves

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Stars and Stripes Forever

Flatt & Scruggs - Carnegie Hall

GD - 70/05/01 Alfred, NY

GD - 78/09/14 Giza, Egypt Sphinx Theatre

Meters - 75/06/21 San Francisco The Boarding House

The Who - 73/12/06 King Biscuit Capitol Center Landover, MD

Random Mix Song Ideas

Black Keys - Wicked Messenger

Nina Simone - Gin House Blues

Dirty Business - NRPS

Vic

something from live Lambchop

Gomez

MMJ

M Ward - Outro maybe Hold Time

Kinks

Uncle Tupelo ?

Waylon Jennings

Calexico

Neil Young from Time Fades Away

The Dutchess and the Duke

Rolling Stones

Dave Rawlings Machine

.... and then I went and dug up

Bob Dylan - Planet Waves

Hartford Clements - live 1974

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Stars and Stripes Forever

Flatt & Scruggs - Carnegie Hall

New Riders of the Purple Sage - NRPS ("Dirty Business")

Doyle Lawson and QS - Once and For Always

Mixed tape writers block

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.............................................................................

It is apparent that I am not listening to enough good stuff that is blowing me away when I am motivated to make a few new mixes but am having a major block as to what material to tap. I NEED lots of new music. I am psyched to have the A.Willett collection of bootlegs but bootlegs are not great sources for mix material. I would love to have the influx of new music that I experienced while burning through my school loans in Murfreesboro or during the dawning of the age of burn-your-buddy's cd collection technology age (2001-2004).

I keep thinking I need to reboot the old dell desktop. There's no telling what's on there. I've got lots to go through here, I'm just not particularly excited about any of it.

Oh well, the seed has been planted and like our potatoes, it might take a big rain a week or two from now, but the mixing of songs will happen.

A. Willett Files pt 2: still listening to lots of Dead

The A Willett Files - Part 1

I met a kind soul through work who has bestowed upon me a fraction (1/3 or so) of his incredibly extensive collection of Grateful Dead bootlegs along with a handful of other classic live bootlegs... all-in-all 302 G. Yes, you read that correctly. He gave me 300 gigs of Dead bootlegs.

It is so big because it is FLAC files which are not only big (of highest lossless quality), but also are hard for me to play. I have had this in my possession since last June. According to my know-how, it is not exactly easy to make this happen. To listen (preferably on my ipod), I will need to transfer these files to mp3s and store them somewhere. Until very recently, I have not had the amount of storage needed to store the mp3s once they are duplicated and still be able to keep the FLACs. Now, I do and I must begin the begin.

Also in this collection is a handful of WAV files that will also need to be changed to mp3s to put on my IPod. Of the WAVs is a Bob Marley and the Wailers show from the Record Plant in Sausalito, CA 10.31.73 along with the note "possibly the best reggae set ever"... and it is. I will start with it.

Do yourself a favor

If you ever stream music from the internet then do yourself this favor. Sign up for access to lala.com. It is free and easy. Once you sign up, you can listen to nearly any album. You can listen once to anything and if you try to play it again, you only get a 10 second sample but if you wait awhile (I don't really know how long) you can listen to it again.

It is great for checking out new stuff that there is a buzz about, a friend is listening to, pops up on your favorite music blog or whatever. It has also been great for me to go back to listen to stuff I have had in the past... maybe on cassette or vinyl. You can check out albums that are on everybody's 'best ever' lists even if you are skeptical with no commitment. Lately, I have used it as another source for streaming Grateful Dead shows.

I will be linking a lot of stuff I mention here to lala. I might occasionally try to post mp3s and may go back to trying imeem playlists. I did that a couple of times on squirrel brains and found it to be almost fun enough to warrant the time commitment. We'll see.

Record Store Day

I'm so tired of being too broke to buy music. Really! Record Store Day is this Saturday and I've got a list I'd like to cut into... but it just doesn't seem like the thing to be spending on at this time.

All I seem to need this time of year!

http://www.archive.org/details/GratefulDead

Wes Anderson Film Soundtracks

When I die, I want to end up living in a Wes Anderson film where everything is just right, heavily stylized and cool including the soundtrack and everyone is interesting.

Fantastic Mr. Fox Soundtrack link

Asa's Tunes

I need to keep track of his favorites and I keep saying I'm going to make him a mix to put them all together. As of now, what would be on it?

- Wagon Wheel -OCMS

- Monkey and the Engineer - DRM

- Sweet Tooth - DRM

- Any Monkey song

- Sleepy Monkey - WSP

- Sleeping Monkey - Phish

- What Would You Do? (Monkey on a String) - DMB

- Cottoneyed Joe - Freight Hoppers

- Boogie - John Hartford

This is actually a pretty poor list after Sweet Tooth. He's always getting down to stuff we listen to, but I can never seem to remember the songs.

OK, finally more good stuff on Spinner

I don't know if it's just been a bad year for releases or if Spinner has been missing them but sadly, it is my main source of hearing about and listening to new stuff. Well, I guess it's sad. It has really been a great source for me for the last 3 or so years. I used to work in record stores (circa '95-'98) and we got all of the new releases to play on the store speakers. I think it really developed my ears to hear the good and bad in all types of releases whether they would normally hit my radar or not. Now, I have Spinner.

I just browsed through this weeks offerings and saw 3 albums I am already really excited about.

I Learned the Hard Way by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

Go by Icelandic band Sigur Ros front man Jonsi.

Shame, Shame by Philly rock band Dr. Dog

I am currently listening to Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. I love love this band. They lay down an only slightly modified for modern version of old school R&B and Funk grooves that I could hear behind anyone from early Motown to Curtis Mayfield to Fela Kuti. Her vocal style fits somewhere between that early Motown sound and a version of a sorta raunchy and almost campy female blues usually backed up by a Chicago blues style backing band... something I can appreciate but am generally not much of a fan of. In this case the Dap-Kings are good enough to keep her in business.

I spun both of the others mentioned above today but didn't get a good enough listen to comment at any length. I will say Jonsi started off strong and I heard much there worth revisiting. Likewise with Dr. Dog, I will have to listen more. One of my gripes with them has always been their lack of diversity and I don't quite know where that comes from but I believe a couple of subtle changes on this one might have eased that issue a bit. I'm excited to dig deeper.

also sounding good here is:

And Then We Saw by Tunng

Sabbath and Hank

Today's highlights from the Ipod shuffle.

Could be anything

This is a diary and I'm not a writer

I want to write about how I listen to music.

I want to write about the music I listen to.

I want to do this for me.

I want to do this for posterity.