Posit:

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are the worst thing to happen to music in the last 25 years. Discuss.

Somehow...

...the records I meant to get rid of got packed along with my keepers. The upshot is that I'll be able to listen to the records I didn't have a chance to. The downside is that I managed to drag an additional ten pounds of detritus to my new place. I probably won't be posting any record reviews for a while, at least until we get the turntables moved over.

Script of the Bridge

Title: Script of the Bridge
Artist: The Chameleons
Purchased: Long Borrowed, never returned, from my friend Seth (I think)
Verdict: You can get your album back any time now

Maybe I actually got this at a thrift store. I just remember my friend Seth being a big fan. So were a lot of other people in college in the early 90s. Ah, those were the days! Back when British musicians were once again poised to invade these shores and displace our bloody hold on pop music with their sexually-beige "brit pop." Well, I never thought I'd say this, but thank god for pop-grunge of Alice In Chains and their ilk for ensuring that never came to pass.

Script of the Bridge sounds like A Flock Of Seagulls with 20% more instruments and 20% less catchiness. I really have nothing more to say about it. Bleah.

Live At The Country West, Marshfield, WI

Title: Live At The Country West, Marshfield, WI
Artist: The Al Perry Country Affair featuring Donna Love
Purchased: December 2006, Half Price Books, Madison, WI
Verdict: Keep, but only out of pity

Okay, it's a half-baked album of country covers recorded "live" in Marshfield, WI with canned applause. Al Perry is a fairly good slide guitarist, but over all, it's pretty abhorrent. Dull, plodding, uninspired. And if you're going to record a fake live album, why not make it at the Grand Old Opry? As you might be able to tell from the stark, almost Soviet cover, it's a vanity record. So if it's so bad, why am I keeping it? There was an 8x10 black and white publicity photo signed to "My best to my friend Grandma Maud, Al Perry." I mean, if his own family didn't want this album, someone has to want it. That someone is going to be me. Damn my sentimental heart.

Curtola

Title: Curtola
Artist: Curtola
Purchased: I have no recollection
Verdict: Eeeech.

Part of the reason I started this blog, unspoken until now, is that I often find myself in a thrift store calling Anita to ask her about an album I am considering buying. All too often, there is no information on the internet, as a lot of thrift store albums are forgotten to time. So I'll buy it, and bring it home.

Well, if you are, for whatever reason, in the same situation, let me say this. Do not buy this album. Do not consider it. I mean, I should have realized that if someone does a cover of "Watching Scotty Grow," you should throw it to the back of the bin and never look back. I would have done that, but I never knew that's what the song was called. It starts off with "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden." As much as I love Lynn Anderson, I will concede that "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" is not a soulful song. Curtola's version strips it of whatever vestiges of soul it once had. I have a problem with comedians that do lounge singers because they are gross carractures that never live up to the joke. They're paper tigers. Curtola lives up to every lounge singer parody I have ever seen. This album is just dreck.

Please. If you see it in a thrift store, break it in half, take it to the fron counter and tell them that they have a broken record that should not be sold.

Listening with One Ear...a plea

Hey you people who read this.

I've been running on mono since we blew one of our powered speakers at a charity event the Cordial Squad was DJing. I took it to be repaired, and it will cost some $300 to repair. Why? The company does not have a certified seller or repair place in New York (the closest is California), and they only sell the complete circuit board, not the parts on the board that need to be replaced. Circuit board? Yes, they are powered speakers, so you don't need an amp. Oh, and the model we have is no longer made. If anyone runs across a working American Audio APX Power Pro speaker, or if you have other powered speakers that work well and you want to get rid of them for a reasonable price, please let me know. Thanks.

Circuses and Bread

Title: Circuses and Bread
Artist: The Durutti Column
Purchased: Absorbed from my brother's collection, 1988
Verdict: You lucked out this time

I'm looking at things a lot harder now, because I'm packing for a move. Nothing puts things into perspective like having your living room dominated by boxes of records with plenty more records yet to be packed. As such, it's going to take a lot more than one good song to make me keep it. Come to think of it, I shouldn't be wasting my time writing a blog while I should be packing, but I just gotta be me.

I have had Circuses and Bread for almost 20 years without once listening to it. after looking at the condition of the vinyl, I doubt my brother even listened to it. I knew that it was a Factory Records thing, but I that's about it. I put it on expecting something dreary or synthy, or generally shitty, and I was sharpening my claws for just such a record. I was surprised. It was mellow, guitar and strings. Really pretty. Kind of soothing after a long day of packing. I'm keeping it, and playing it the entire time I unpack so I can keep my unpacking temper tamped down and not kill someone.

Eight-Second Review: Antony and the Johnsons with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra at BAM

You don't have time to go to see gender-dysphoric torch singers perform with orchestras . Hell, you don't even have time to read about them. So here's what you should know about Antony and the Johnsons with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra at BAM, March 9, 2007, in less than 10 seconds.

Number of songs performed in complete darkness: 1
Paralyzing thought: Jesus, what if they light up that whole bank of lights behind the orchestra for the entire thing?
And did they? Well, no, only for about 30 seconds.
Covers that would blow your mind: Beyoncé's "Crazy In Love"
Total length of time: About an hour
Guys that were there with their moms: Probably just me