Well, I finally made a Blogcritics post. Most of the "inside information" is from a personal e-mail from Tom Rapp, who is now practicing Law in Florida. (Until he gets it right!) I'm still on the fence about spending $60 for no music I don't already have on vinyl, indeed, only 21 songs I don't already have on CD. I've paid three bucks a song for 45's, I guess, when a b-side didn't appear on the LP, but this is a wee bit different. Still, a 60 page booklet with rare photos, interviews and notes by Lenny Kaye is additional value. I'm trying to be upbeat about this, you see, since Tom is nothing if not a deserving artist, and long overdue for some recognition if not renumeration. Hopefully a bit of the latter will accrue for each box set sold!

Last Saturday I passed on an $11 CD containing a Spooner song that I only have in mp3 format at present. (As well as a bunch of other random "Madison Music Legends" that I had little interest in...) Tough work being a Fan, I guess. Expensive, anyway. There's still $200+ of King Crimson CD's standing between me and True Fanaticism over at Robert Fripp's website. And the 21st Century Schizoid Band has an official bootleg for sale, too...

Hmm, looks like that Tempest gig is taking place the week the kids are on Spring Break (the holiday formerly known as Easter Vacation), so I may be out of town visiting relatives instead of swilling beer and listening to live and loud Celtic Rock.

Fans of Doug "Duke" Erikson, Butch Vig, Dave Benton, et al, must check out the new Spooner Fan website put together by Bob Bartel, the Madison band's manager in the late 70's and early 80's. Many pictures, lotsa good information and some full-length mp3's of Spooner rarities for your pleasure. It would take me paragraphs to describe my reaction to seeing this stuff. Nostalgia just scratches the surface. Those shots of Doug and the boys playing (the outdoor gigs especially) made me ache to be twenty again. In 1976, of course. Yeah, could happen. Well, I guess I'll have to settle for cranking "Johnny Stood Up" one more time...

The "Further Clues" link to the left will indirectly connect you to the Spooner and Fire Town page I slapped up on Angelfire a while ago. (Pity they don't permit remote linking of images since it looks like ranchoweb is going the way of boomspeed. That is, they're going out of the free webspace business. Gee, you'd think there'd be all kinds of money to be made providing free services on the internet...)