I've been trying to read a bit more lately, Mike and I went to the bookstore last week and I picked up Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story of Frank Zappa . So far, it's been a really good read. I always admired Zappa both as a musician and as a person.

Last night, Tom called and asked if I'd like to go to the bookstore with him, so I picked up another book, this time not a music-related book. Rogue River Journal is the story of John Daniel, who in November of 2000, climbed into his pickup, drove to a cabin in the Red River Gorge, and quit civilization. it sounded like a pretty good boo, so I bought it and am gonna give it a try...

There's a blog that I have been reading quite a bit lately, The Daily Nightly. This blog was created by Brian Williams of the NBC Nightly News, and provides a great view of what the people who tell you the news are talking about...

I just saw a Ford ad today, and they were using music from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" as the music bed. Is there anything that will remain untouched?? That's a classic and again they bastardize it for a freaking car commercial!!!!!!

I went to see Rusted Root at the Webster Theater this weekend. What an awesome show. Everytime that I see them perform, they put on a mind-blowing performance. I think this is the 4th time that I have seen them. My first time seeing them was on one of the Further Festivals (I think in 1998), and I have been a huge fan ever since.

Without having a studio CD released on a major label since 2002, the band still tours. Their live shows have become a celebration, and the manage to pack the house. This is the second time that they have been at the Wesbter this year (the last time was in March.)

They were in great form, the musicianship was top notch. Musically, they covered a good range of material from their career, culling quite a bit off their major-label debut, 1994's "When I Woke." They even pulled out a couple of great covers, Neil Young's "Powderfinger" and working Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" into "Cat Turned Blue"

The vocals of Michael Glabicki were in top form, backed by the tasteful harmonies of Jenn Wertz and Liz Berlin. Glabicki's acoustic guitar playing is unparalleled, and accompanied by the rock solid rhythm section, the band ROCKED. Rusted Root is a band that has never disappointed me when I've seen them.

Allright, I'm starting something new here (besides actually POSTING here!!)...a series...

Double Albums That Should Have Been Single Albums!

I know I'll get a bit of flack over this (and I have), but...


The Beatles- The Beatles (a.ka. The White Album)

Ok, my friend Mike and I have been debating which songs should be cut off this one to make it a single album. (NOTE: Mike dosent agree with me that ANY of the songs should be cut off- he wanted me to let you know that. )If you're talking 1968 standard album length, then there's going to be alot of cutting. If you're talking standard 2005 CD length, it makes it a bit easier...

We both agree- the first one to be cut would be "Back in the USSR"- what an annoying song that is anyway. "Birthday"- buh-bye! Another really annoying song that I skip whenever the White Album is in the CD player (you know, CD's actually are great because of the "skip" button!). "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" gets the axe too (seems like a McCartney filler junk tune to me!).

The first three were the easiest, the other songs, all have great parts, and I could go back and forth on which songs to keep or which ones to cut on several:

Why Don't We do it in the Road? (cool sounding, but really a meaningless song)
I Will
Wild Honey Pie (gets points for weirdness)
Honey Pie (loss of the weirdness point here)
Long, Long, Long (the title says it all!)
Cry Baby Cry
Rocky Raccoon (allright, a killer song, but maybe should have been on one of Paul's solo albums)
Martha My Dear (nice, but a little hokey)
Piggies (great instrumentation, but a little hokey- gets points though for the lyric "What they need is a damn good whacking")

I think that "Revolution #9" should have been cut, or perhaps placed on the "B-Side" list. Please, do we really need this? Definately gets points for the backwards stuff though!

All in all, "The Beatles" is a great album, though I think it's all over the map musically, and you can see the band going in their different directions. In my opinion, the best work in the later Beatles' catalog is "Abbey Road", and they avoided the filler crap they fell into when assembling this album.

...stay tuned for the next part in my series!!!

It's that time of year again!

Funny, I noticed that ABC is airing "A Charlie Brown Christmas" this year. Notice the top of the album cover, it was originally on CBS.

It's been a while, I know. I don't really know if anyone even reads this anymore, but anyway, if you do, I'm still alive and kicking. Work has been getting progressively busier over the last few months, and whenever I'm on the computer, I've been either ripping my CD collection to add to the Zen Player, or downloading stuff. Over the next few days, I'm going to change some of the sidebar links on the page, to include some of my favorite MP3 blogs as well..

Have a happy T-Day and I'll catch you later.....

I picked up an early birthday present for myself- a Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox Zen XTRA. I've been wanting a portable digital music player for some time, and I figured "Why Not?" This thing is awesome. I can take my music along with me while I work (finally, I dont have to keep switching radio stations while driving around in the work van) I've been using it at home, hooked up to the stereo using the "Play any song" function, so it will pick a song at random.

Two words that I'm using to describe it with...
FUCKING AWESOME

Many of you know that I just love free concerts in the park during the summertime. This weekend, I didn't only go to one show, but 2..... Friday night, Craig called and (last minute) suggested that I high-tail it to Hamden to see the Gregg Rollie Band play at Meadowbrook Park. Gregg is the founding keyboardist of Santana and lead vocalist on many early Santana hits, including Evil Ways and Black Magic Woman.

The band was superb! They played a couple of newer GRB tunes, but the rest of the show was devoted to Santana tunes. The band the Gregg assembled was well up to the task, with the percussionist and bass player both coming from former Santana incarnations. Of exceptional note was the guitarist, Kurt Griffey. He was just amazing! At one point, I went up to the front of the stage and joined in the many people dancing. I had closed my eyes, and I could swear that it was Carlos Santana himself playing the guitar. It was just perfect!!

Rollie was also a founding member of Journey (along with ex-Santana bandmate Neil Schon), leaving the band after 1980's Evolution album. The band didn't acknowledge any Journey material durung Friday night's performance.

Saturday night, I again trekked off to the New Haven Green to see Blues Traveller. Well, hear them would be more accurate. I had a hell of a time getting a parking spot, as I was a bit late, but I made it onto the Green for the band's second song ("Hook"). They just ROCKED. I caught up with Steve and Darlene and we had a great time. The Green was packed like I've never seen it before, even more packed than last year at the Isaac Hayes show.

I've been receiving numerous emails lately to my Yahoo! account (which I rarely use, but I do use it), claiming to be from Yahoo! The emails state that my account is in danger of being closed, or a confirmation of a password change that I didn't do.

From: webmaster@yahoo.com

To: xxxxx@yahoo.com

Subject: WARNING MESSAGE: YOUR SERVICES NEAR TO BE CLOSED.

Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 16:27:12 -0400

Hey Yahoo,

Your e-mail account was hacked please take 5-10 minutes out of your online

experience and confirm the attached document so you will not run into any

future problems with the online service.If you choose to ignore our request,

you leave us no choice but to cancel your e-mail account

Virtually yours,

The Yahoo Support Team

+++ Attachment:

No Virus found +++

Files: important_details.zip (52k)

Every one of these messages that I received has had some sort of attachment to it. Now, I didn't download the attachments, or even download the Emails to my PC, I simply looked at the text using the Yahoo! Mail webpage. The funniest parts of this hoax message were the grammatical errors, and how they addressed the message to: "Hey Yahoo."

I sent a message to Yahoo! Account Services today (this is the 4th message that I got) and here's their response (well, automated response, but whatever) :

Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:20:56 -0700
To: xxxx@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: Feedback Report a suspicious email claiming to be sent from Yahoo!
From: "Yahoo! Account Services" account-security@cc.yahoo-inc.com

Hello,
Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.
***************************************
Please do not reply to this email.
***************************************
Thank you for bringing this incident to our attention. Yahoo! will
investigate this report immediately and contact you if any additional
information is required. We appreciate your concern and thank you for
your report.

Your Yahoo! ID and password are your own confidential information. No
Yahoo! employee will ever ask you for your password or personal
information in an unsolicited phone call or email message. If you are
ever asked for your password in an unsolicited manner, or by someone
you do not believe to be a representative of Yahoo!,
*do not* share your password with them.

If you replied to an email asking for your password or entered your
Yahoo! ID and password on a phishing site and found that you could not
log into your Yahoo! account, please contact the Account Security help
pages by clicking the link below:
(edited)

Last night, I took Delilah to see the Neville Brothers perform on the New Haven Green. The concert was part of New Haven's Concerts on the Green series. When I asked Del earlier in the week if she'd like to go to see the concert, her response was an enthusiastic "Yes!" without even knowing who was performing.

We've* been taking Delilah to see concerts since she was a little baby. Many of them were to the Monday Night Jazz Concerts in Hartford (back when they were in Bushnell Park) and to see the Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz (which was also this weekend.) Last Year was the first time that I took her to see concerts in New Haven, culminating with Isaac Hayes. I think these events are giving Delilah a pretty good exposure to many eclectic artists.

The Neville's put on an awesome show. I wasn't too familiar with their music, but I did know some of their tunes, and they added their New Orleans style to a some cover tunes as well (the show closer was Bob Marley's One Love/People Get Ready**). The weather was a bit humid, but it was pretty comfortable, and the atmosphere was perfect, aside from a few rowdy drunk people.

It's starting to be a tradition with Delilah and I that we make a Father-Daughter event out of these concerts. We pack a picnic dinner and set up in the park and have a great time. I'm already looking forward to next week's Blues Traveler show and the Jazz Festival next month

* This is something we used to do with her mother as well.
** Yes, I know that "People Get Ready" is a Curtis Mayfield tune

I picked up Sly and the Family Stone's "Higher" anthology collection at work today. I was working in one of my stores, and the CD caught my eye at the register. I immediately picked it up and scanned the titles to see if their cover of "Que Sera Sera" was on there, and it was. This was a song that I had been looking for since I had seen the movie "Heathers" many years ago. The song plays as the end credits roll.

The only copy that I had until now was on a cassette tape of one of my old radio shows at CCSU's WFCS back in 1992. The station had an old vinyl copy of Sly's album "Fresh", and I had played the song on my show. So, finding a good, digital copy of this song was kind of in a way, finding the Holy Grail!

Well, back to the CD. GREAT! The mastering sounds great, the artwork is top notch, the song selection is awesome! I give it an A+

(I would have provided a link to the actual CD, but Starbuck's web site appears to have gone down while I was composing this)

I've got a bunch of music on the computer. I really havent done much with it for a while, but lately I've been bitten by the bug again. I've been creating new playlists in Winamp, and letting them play for hours on shuffle.

Here's the most recent playlist. - just in case you've been wondering what I've been listening to.

I realized that I havent updated much of ANYTHING on here in a while. So, I'm deleting old links, adding new ones. One of my favorites recently is Brewbakers on Main Street right here in Middletown. They have the best damn sandwiches.....

Also, seeing as I havent been updating much, I'm doing some posts WAAAAY after the fact. Check back a few entries so you dont miss anything.

It really hit me today- Summer is here! And to think that next weekend is July 4th. I cant believe how fast this year is flying by. I've allready passed my one-year anniversary at Starbucks.

Thinking of time passing so freaking quickly.... My 20th High School is coming up this year. Man, is time flying. What am I doing with my life? Aside from bringing up a beautiful child, what have I accomplished?? Have I fufilled my purpose in life? Or am I destined to some greater purpose.

When I started this blog, I thought I was on the verge of some sort of major spiritual turnaround in my life. What happened to that? Where'd my muse go?? I need some sort of new inspiration to get me really crancked up again.

Oh, well....they say that inspiration to do things comes at weird times. I just felt the need to get on the computer and write in my blog.....at 12:20 am. I really should be sleeping....

Mike and I went to see Robert Fripp at Toad's Place last night. Fripp is the guitarist for the Prog-Rock band King Crimson, and an amazing one at that.... He also experiments with electronic music and treatments of sound. Back in the '70's, he was a pioneer in electronic music and effects, inventing what he called "Frippertronics." He also collaborated with many other musicians, as a performer and producer. One of those collaborations with Brian Eno, "No Pussyfooting" is still one of my favorites.

Back then, all the effects and layering of sounds he did by utilizing tape loops. Of course, the tape has been replaced my digital samplers and whatnot.. He's calling is current solo tour "G3: Soundscapes- Words and Music." So, I was expecting some of his layered playing techniques and Spoken Word--cause that's what Toad's billed it as.

Fripp did play his layered-guitar technique....it mainly sounded like a keyboard. It was new-agey sounding material, and it was ok. But Fripp didn't kick it up a notch past that, and I had really wanted to see him "rip it up." That was a bit disappointing. At one point during the performance, a voice from the back of the house shouted "Play something, Fripp!"

The highlight of the evening was the "spoken word" portion of the night, which was really a question and answer session with the audience. He had a few ground rules- mainly "don't ask about what equipment i'm using" and "I get to ask you a question." He really showed his humor (I had heard he was pretty aloof) and shared some stories from his years as a musician.

Ironic note to the evening. The last time that I was at Toad's, it was to see Fripp's bandmate in King Crimson, Tony Levin!!!

NPR's Talk of the Nation this afternoon aired an interview with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth on the mix tape. Now the mix tape (now replaced by the "mix CD" or "podcast" or whatever...) is a subject close to home. I have made dozens of them over the years. The Talk of the Nation web page even had a link to "Tiny Mixtapes.com"...a site that has been a link here for, like, forever.....

Link to NPR's Talk of the Nation Interview

Link to TinyMixtapes.Com

Sorry for the sporadic posting, I've been working some crazy hours lately, and the last thing I've felt like doing is blogging, let alone checking my email.....

I was having lunch at the Taco Bell in the same plaza at the Manchester Starbucks store, and this guy pulls up in a minivan next to me. A few minutes later, he returns with a tatooed, long haired musician-type guy ("dude")* and pulls out a guitar case. As he opened it, I noticed that the body of the guitar looks like a V-Twin motorcyle engine. "Pick it up by the headers" he tells the "dude"!!!

After the "dude" left and the other guy was putting away the guitar case, I yelled over to him "sick guitar, man." He comes over to me and extends a business card "I make these over in Glastonbury" he says. The card he handed me had a picture of the guitar and a website, www.chopperguitar.net . He also went on to tell me that Jessee James of West Coast Choppers, and the Discovery Channel show Monster Garage had ordered guitar number 3 from him. Cool!!

I've been thinking about people that have been in my life in the past. And how sometimes, people are in your life for a specific time, for a specific reason. And then they're gone. I've gotten used to having to let go to them. After a while every trace of them seems to disappear.

I used to find it very difficult, but it seems to have become easier over time. Some have been harder than others (especially people I've dated) and still there are traces of them that occasionally remind me of them. It's like cleaning the attic, sometimes you have to go through all your stuff and throw out the old stuff....and move on to the new...

I'm happy with they way things are now. I don't need to keep going back to the past....