Oh, in the unlikely event that anyone reading this wants to contact me, try " mrdrdave at yahoo dot com " until I get around to doing some HTML work on this template... I accidentally told my boss I'd get some work done this week...

The Oldies Station (not to be confused with the Classic Rock Station or the Retro Rock Station) that plays a "Forgotten Oldie" every morning at 6:50 has been playing local (Milwaukee & Wisconsin) tunes the last two weeks. A good concept that you might not expect from a MegaConglomerate-owned (Clear Channel) station, IMHO.

Anyway, they run it as a contest where they take phone calls and give away some promotional item to whoever can name the artist. It seemed like they'd been dumbing-down the contest recently ("Eve Of Destruction" "forgotten"? You don't exactly have to be a Trivia Champ to know Barry McGuire did that one, right?), so it's nice to get Obscure N Provincial for a bit! (Though to be fair, the morning after "Eve" they played "Dawn Of Correction", and I could not remember the artist. I also didn't remember the song sounding so terrible, but that may have been the first time I ever heard it on a speaker larger than two inches in diameter.)

So, it's been nice to hear tunes like The Messengers "That's The Way A Woman Is" and one of the Robbs many not-quite-Hot-100-bubbling-under-near-hits on the radio for the first time in 30+ years... Underground Sunshine's copy of the Beatles' "Birthday" is nearly the definition of pointless, but what the heck. They played a song by the Larry Lynne Group this morning, but I couldn't identify it. But that's okay, cuz Tuesday morning I was the ninth caller and won a couple dinner coupons for the Thunder Bay Grille, correctly identifying Thee Prophets as the guys playing "Playgirl". Another 30 seconds of fame plus Free Food! Life is Good...

Here's another five hours of mp3's. The first batch (up until EL&P) are Milwaukee and Wisconsin bands from the 60's and 70's. Some good tunes there, albeit in rather low fidelity. Information on many of these bands can be found HERE. I thought this site might have been where I downloaded some of them from, but I can't find any sign of active links at the moment. The rest of it is my usual melange of pop hits from the 60's, obscurities, and oddball stuph spanning the ridiculous to the sublime and back again the long way...

Mustard Men - I Lost My Baby
Baroques - Mary Jane
Robbs - Race With The Wind
Shivvers - When I Was Younger
Shagg - Stop And Listen
Thee Prophets - Playgirl
Legends - Lariat
Underground Sunshine - Birthday
Esquires - Get On Up
Legends - Say Mama
Paul Stefan & Royal Lancers - I Fought The Law
Gypsy - Gypsy Waltz
Paul Stefan & Royal Lancers - Say Mama
Harvey Scales & Seven Sounds - Broadway Freeze
Baroques - Iowa (A Girl's Name)
Robbs - Bittersweet
Esquires - And Get Away
Death - Depression
Emerson Lake & Palmer - Toccata
Soundtrack - Debbie Does Dallas
Aphex Twin - Hot Butter Popcorn
King Crimson - Groon
Bach - Invention #5 Glenn Gould
Biffy - Under The Double Helix
Captain Beefheart - Carrot Rabbit Diamond
Battlefield Band - Miss Kate Rusby
Gluckstein - Chopin Nocturne Opus 15 #3
Chopin - Nocturne Opus 15 #3 G Major [Rubinstein]
Thunderclap Newman - Ice and Essence
Ken Griffin - Koekoekswals
Offenbach - Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffm
Gluckstein - Schumann - Traumerei
King Crimson - Providence
Soundtrack - Deep Throat
Man Or Astro-man - Curious Constructs
Metallica - Star Wars Imperial March
Morte Macabre - Lullaby from Rosemary's Baby
Black Mass Lucifer - Solomon
Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Telephone And Rubber Band
Henry Cow - Bittern Storm Over Ulm
King Crimson - Larks' Tongues In Aspic Part III
Adrian Belew - I Have A Dream
386 DX - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Spooner - From My Head To My Shoes
HAL 9000 - Sorry Dave
Firesign Theatre - Confidence In The System
Spooner - Working Girl
Bonzo Dog Band - Sofa Head (Peel Session)
Golliwogs - Walking On The Water ( Early CCR)
Garbage - Butterfly Collector
Gary Glitter - Rock And Roll Part 2
David Seville - Witch Doctor
Viv Stanshall - The Young Ones
Mega Smegma - Bad Bunny
Klaus Nomi - You Don't Own Me
Human Sexual Response - What Does Sex Mean To Me
Ramones - Carbona Not Glue
Nils Lofgren - White Lies
Neil Young & Graham Nash - War Song
Pearls Before Swine - City Of Gold
Lefty Frizell - Saginaw Michigan
Janis Ian - Society's Child
Neon Philharmonic - Morning Girl
Paul Mauriat - Love Is Blue
Unit Four Plus Two - Concrete And Clay
Hedgehoppers Anonymous - It's Good News Week

I Meant To Do My Work Today
Richard Le Gallienne

I meant to do my work today,
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand--
So what could I do but laugh and go?

Here's my latest Winamp playlist. It's undergone minor evolution over the last week or so, and it's about time to empty it out and start a new selection from the mp3 Archive. But it gives a snapshot of some of my listening lately, so there ya go... Perhaps this will become a weekly feature.

Tom Rapp - Margery
Cat Stevens - If You Want To Sing Out
Ian Tyson & Sylvia Fricker - Changes
Flying Burrito Brothers - To Ramona
NGDB Hillman & McGuinn - You Ain't Going Nowhere
King Crimson - Ladies Of The Road
Homer Simpson - In Your Face, Milwaukee!
Garbage - The World Is Not Enough
Gorkys Zygotic Mynci - Face Like Summer
Buffalo Springfield - Sad Memory
Gene Clark - Some Misunderstanding
Kinks - A Well Respected Man (BBC)
My Morning Jacket - Heartbreakin Man
Go-Betweens - Part Company
Leon Russell - Tightrope
King Crimson - Prozakc Blues
Moody Blues - Ride My See Saw
Only Ones - Love Becomes A Habit
Residents - Return To Sender
Nils Lofgren - Keith Don't Go
Captain Sensible - Wot
Arthur Prysock - Ebb Tide
Pete Townshend - Flying Boy
Cyrkle - I'm Not Sure What I Wanna Do
Ramases & Selket - Minds Eye
National Health - The Collapso
Leonard Cohen - The Captain
Pearls Before Swine - Suzanne
Peter Perrett & The One - Daughter
Justin Hayward - John Lodge - I Dreamed Last Night
Dr. Feelgood - I Can Tell
Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Tomahawk Kid (live)
Flying Burrito Bros - Beat the Heat
Rick Roberts - Davy McVie
Best of the Moody Blues - Go Now
National Health - Elephants
Cat Stevens - Foreigner Suite (Full Version)
The Rolling Stones - She Smiled Sweetly
Cyrkle - Red Rubber Ball alternate mix
The Balloon Farm - A Question of Temperature
People - I Love You
Michael Nesmith - Born to Love You
Nils Lofgren - Cry Tough
Cat Stevens - Don't Be Shy
Crosby Stills & Nash - Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
John Martyn - May You Never
Dream Academy - Life In A Northern Town
Pearls Before Swine - I Shall Not Care
Blood Sweat and Tears - Fire and Rain
Pearls Before Swine - When I Was a Child
National Health - Toad Of Toad Hall
Moody Blues - You Can Never Go Home
Van Morrison - Have I Told You Lately?
Egg - While Growing My Hair
Tim Rose - Hey Joe
Kronos Quartet - Marquee Moon
Chris Hillman - Create In Me A Clean Heart
Chad & Jeremy A Summer Song
Cyrkle - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You
Switched On Bach - Two Part Invention in D Minor
Wendy Carlos - Two Part Invention in B-flat m
Danny Gatton, Joey DeFrancesco - Blues On The Half Shell
Serge Gainsbourg - L'abominable strip-tease
Cyrkle - Big Little Woman
Buffalo Springfield - Bluebird (long version)

"Stairway To Heaven" is my daughter's new favorite song. If you've been listening to FM radio the last thirty years (like I know I have), you're probably sick of the song, too. It's become a joke, or a punchline anyway, and any respectably hip music snob will have little good to say about it. The song's primary fault, however, is that it's been overplayed. It spent a decade or two as radio's "most requested song" and the Media, as we know, Gives The People What They Want. (As trite, predictable and boring as radio has become in the post-deregulation Clear Channel era, it's been an incremental change, not a massive paradigm shift.)

So, as I was looking through some CD booklets, some of the Zep photos inevitably reminded me of Almost Famous which Lora & I watched on video last weekend. Exactly why that movie was rated R is a little unclear to me, BTW. You can see more raw sex and drug innuendo on Fox between seven and nine PM any day of the week. It seemed like Matt was a little interested in it, but as he's only rated to PG-13, we tried to shoo him away. As if it's possible to keep a kid from gravitating to an active video screen these days.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, "Stairway To Heaven". Huh. It's a darn good song. As Sarah played it over and over while doing her homework last night, I came to appreciate it and then enjoy it again. It's cool to hear old songs through new ears. The recorder can be an effective instrument in a Rock context. Page is a very skilled guitarist. (Duh.) Plant's vocals and lyrics are highly appropriate. (If you want to make fun of the bustle in my hedgerow, be my guest, but your mocking is irrelevant. If you're some Sid Christgau wannabe who finds it pretentious cuz it isn't really rock and roll if it's more than 3 minutes long and you can't dance to it, why don't you just go away right now. Shoo!) And when the Loud Part begins with those ringing Dsus4 chords, well, that's just the archtype of a Rock & Roll Moment. Classic. Defining. Like McGuinn's 12-string intro to "Mr. Tambourine Man" or Daltrey's scream in "Won't Get Fooled Again". Make your own lists. (E-mail them to me if I get a link working around here.)

[Zo]So, I immediately wanted to play her the "Stairway" version on Zep's BBC CD, but suppressed the urge since that Historical Moment would mean relatively little to her. (It was before LZ IV was released, so, as the intro was played there was no Ovation of Recognition cuz the audience had never heard it before. Imagine that. I can't remember the first time I heard it. I remember the first time I heard "Ramblin' Man", but that's another story...) Then I thought I'd burn her a CD of "Stairway To Heaven" and "Over The Hills And Far Away" and "Tangerine" and any other songs I could dig up that feature the Acoustic Side of Zep more than the Heavy Blues N Rock Juggernaut Side...

However, before I got my stack of Zeppelin CD's down to the computer desk, I remembered that I have too many other unfinished projects at hand to take on this fun but ultimately pointless exercise at this time. Well, I'll know where to find Disc Two of the Led Zeppelin Box Set for the immediate future: in Sarah's CD changer in heavy rotation with her Anime Soundtrack CD's...

"We are not as holy as you are,
But we are not as cruel."
- - - Tom Rapp (Pearls Before Swine)

Some stuff I've read lately:

Penny Arcade:
"Of course, you needn't concern yourself overmuch with Victory. My probability algorithm, made with Science, calculates your chances of victory to be very, very near Zero."

Fragments From Floyd:
"Know the difference between a large pizza and a writer?"
"A large pizza can feed a family of four."

And a couple more until I get around to expanding my links section at left:

Shadow Of The Hegemon
"A liberal response to the dominance of conservative rhetoric online." If that's what floats yer boat.

Sweat Flavored Gummi
Rebecca is an amusing and profane young writer. Not a Guaranteed Interesting Read but an often amusing slice of somebody else's life for when you feel like you don't have one of your own...

I'm having some second thoughts about this Toogood nonsense, having read a little about the Irish Traveller Drift, Grift, Scam & Scram lifestyle. But my disdain for the mother and the suspicion that the kid was maybe hit because she somehow blew the "return stolen merchandise for cash" scam doesn't really impact on what I wrote below very much. For the record, I suspect that she loves her kids and is raising them to a life of petty theft and small time fraud. I doubt that sentencing her to Counseling would improve matters much, but I anticipate considerable Outrage that she's not Locked Up when all is said and done.

So at the moment I'm reading Nick Hornby's new novel, How To Be Good. It's pretty enjoyable, though in contrast to High Fidelity and About A Boy, the main character is female and I'm not sure how convincing his female first-person voice is. I'll have to get Lora's opinion when I finish the book. I'd compare it to the way many female cartoonists don't draw men convincingly. Not that Mort Walker captures female attributes in a realistic manner, but somehow the guys in Cathy (and several other strips I can't think of at the moment) always come off looking effeminate. They probably spend too much time drawing their hair and eyes and stuff.

But, getting back to the book, it's a trifle disturbing because the main character is a Doctor and she's been married to her glum, crabby and overweight husband David for 20 years and they're bored and dissatisfied with their lives and stuff. If I thought this was a Birthday Present With A Message, I'd be worried. But now I'm getting towards the middle of the book and bizarre and funny stuff is starting to happen. I don't see John Cusack or Hugh Grant in this movie, though. Maybe James Lileks. Or Sid Smith. Heck, if there was more physical comedy in it, maybe I could play David. But it'll probably star Meg Ryan (unless there's another actress who can play early 40's attractively...), which means Tom Hanks or Michael Keaton would play my role. Heh heh.

Yesterday I came across a slightly interesting article Nick Hornby wrote last year about the state of popular music as reflected in the best seller chart. "I decided ... that my own lack of familiarity with what people are actually buying in bulk was far too shaming, and so I sat down and listened to the ten best-selling albums in the United States according to the July 28, 2001, issue of Billboard." Yow, talk about suffering for your art...