Black Music (Chocolate Genius, 1998)

Chocolate Genius (these days "Chocolate Genius, Inc.") is the alter ego/collective project of one Marc Anthony Thompson, a well-connected but not well-known artist. I was visiting V2 Records in New York (before V2 got huge with Moby, the White Stripes, etc.) and got this as a freebie. These days I'm more familiar with the album because every time I update iTunes these tracks keep getting updated regardless of if I listened to them or not. Not sure what causes that to happen, but just about every song title is burned into my brain.

Fans of Breaking Bad will recognize the first track, "Life", which was played in the finale of Season 2. Whoever did that show's soundtrack music was a very perceptive and clever person. The rest of the album is pretty much along the same morose tempo, drifting a bit around genres, making the "R&B" tag sort of default in nature, as the music incorporates rock, jazz, folk, and even a little electronica. Thompson has a fairly large ensemble backing him on these tracks, most notably New York jazz regulars John Medeski, Chris Wood, and Marc Ribot, as well as the venerable Abe Laboriel, Sr. contributing to the songwriting. Pretty solid connections!

This album doesn't get the "lost band of the 1990's" branding because Thompson had somewhat of a solo career in the 1980's and the CG Inc. project continued to release albums into the next decade. Maybe someday I'll go check some of them out.

Welcome to the Paradox (Cola Moon, 1998)

Sometimes these "lost bands of the 1990's" are downright invisible. I can't even find any cover art! A preliminary Google search turned up a lot of conspiracy theories (note to self: do not use "moon" and "paradox" in the same search). With the power of quotation marks, I found a few scraps, two of which were left by yours truly. I spun a couple songs from this EP back in my radio days and one of the stations aggressively archives all playlists. Even playlists that are over 15 years old.

I will tell you what I do know. Back in the mid-1990's I had a very Web 1.0 website hosted by my college. Somehow it managed to get indexed by every pre-Google search engine, something I was probably cool with because the notion of spam hadn't crossed my radar yet. Consequently I would get e-mails saying "ah, I see you like such-and-such" and interesting conversations would ensue. I struck up a friendship with a gentleman in Manchester over our mutual admiration for the early Glenn Hughes band Trapeze (for what it's worth we are now Facebook friends). Anyhow, noticing my involvement in college radio, he mentioned a new band he was helping promote in the UK called Cola Moon and sent over a copy of their debut EP. I figured "what the hell" and gave it a listen - pretty good for a bunch of high school kids (note: they are now in their 30's). We gave them a lot of airplay in 1998 (even reported them to CMJ, their first press in the USA) and I carried them back to California, and that's where those Google search results came from.

It was very enjoyable to listen to the four songs of Welcome to the Paradox. I have to say that they still hold up after all of these years. Over time, my "favorite song" opinion has shifted from "Tangerine Tower", through "Route One", to "Robber's Dog", an aggressive rocker that has stuck with me through the years. I'm not sure what the lads of Cola Moon are up to these days, but they can take comfort that somebody out there is still playing their music and enjoying it!

Back to Babylon (Tormé, 1986)

Tormé is an unusual little twig in the Deep Purple family tree. First off, this is Bernie, not Mel, so if you are expecting smooth crooning versions of "Family At War", "Front Line" and "Love Guns and Money" you will probably be disappointed.

Bernie Tormé came into prominence when he joined one of the strangest bands of 1979, Gillan. Ian Gillan had assembled a bizzaro new band around brainiac composer/keyboardist Colin Towns, bouncy bald bassist John McCoy, and himself. His initial drummer and guitarist didn't work out, so he brought aboard an Irish punk guitarist (Tormé) and Mick Underwood on drums, an old chum from his Episode Six days (and the guy who introduced him to Ritichie Blackmore, which became a gig in Deep Purple). Thanks to horrific management, the band nearly died after a single album, but thanks to Richard Branson, they followed up with a top ten album the following year. Success either caused or couldn't mask the gross instability of the band, in which nobody seemed particularly happy. By 1981, Tormé had enough and quit mid-tour, entering a period of wanderings, which included gigs with Atomic Rooster and Ozzy Osbourne. Five years after his departure from Gillan came this, his first proper solo album.

This is a fairly average album for its day, fitting neatly in the seedy underbelly of glam metal (see below for various connections to that scene). Most of the songs are war-centric, and sounds more like the soundtrack to Iron Eagle than any kind of attempt to condemn all the bad things about war, especially of the Cold and Middle Eastern variety. It has more of a disposition of "here it is, take it for what it's worth."

Tormé continues to rabble-rouse from the sidelines. This band had a couple more albums in them (although the last was a totally different lineup and six years removed from the others). Other Tormé projects have been fleeting, most notably a collaboration with John McCoy in which Tormé handles vocal duties. Like McCoy, he continues to have nothing good to say about Ian Gillan, but is happy to endorse unauthorized releases of material by the Ian Gillan Band and Gillan.

I received this as a cast-off from the radio station back in 1998. It was getting too old to fit the format of most current metal shows, so I was happy to give it a new home. Tormé is also a great way to link Deep Purple to Guns N' Roses. Singer Phil Lewis was (is) in L.A. Guns, and Tracii Guns was the "guns" in GNR, though gone before their biggest albums. I'm sure Axl Rose and Ian Gillan have much to discuss.

Open (Blues Image, 1970)

The Blues Image is known by most, and not by their name, for one song: "Ride Captain Ride", a fine late-night classic rock staple. In fact, I never would have given this album any thought if I didn't like that song. The funny thing about Open is that none of the other songs sound like it, and, for the most part, that's a good thing. Otherwise it would be a very poppy album, when in fact it fall comfortable among the hard rock of the day, with a Latin tinge. The Santana-style percussion section is prominent throughout, accompanied by some bluesy vocals, and fairly heavy guitar. If you think "Captain" is wimpy, check out songs like "Pay My Dues" and "Clean Love", which are anything but.

This album used to be crazy expensive (over $200), but a re-release with bonus tracks deflated that unexpected windfall. Eventually the even-harder-to-find first and third albums were released as a two-fer, so it seems that the Blues Image isn't so obscure after all. The band falls into what I've called "organ donor" status to other bands. Founder Mike Pinera would join a later incarnation of Iron Butterfly, and a later member of the band, Kent Henry, would catapult on to Steppenwolf, leaving poor old Blues Image as a veritable one-hit wonder.

See My Friends (Ray Davies, 2010)

I have mixed to negative feelings about tribute albums. I mean, is one of today's hottest artists going to do a better version of "You Really Got Me" or "Waterloo Sunset"? Does it make things any better that Ray Davies, in full nostalgia mode, accompanies every song? Could be worse I suppose.

I'm torn. On one hand it is really heartwarming to see the show of support for the music of the Kinks among rock royalty like Metallica and Bruce Springsteen. On the other hand, covering a classic song is a surefire way to disappoint. Having Ray Davies around raises matters considerably from this being just another tribute to the Kinks, but the generation gap is palpable when he's sharing the stage with the likes of Metallica or Billy Corgan. Although a "safe" approach, more rewarding partnerships have been forged by Carlos Santana and Tony Iommi, who team up with the next generation to perform original material. Ray certainly has done well as a solo artist since the end of the Kinks, so why not?

Thankfully for Ray there is no real "out of left field" artist (like Ke$ha or Eminem, someone along those lines) that would just cause a lot of undirected rage. For example, having the Flaming Lips play "Smoke on the Water" on a Deep Purple tribute album caused so much anguish among the fans that it drowned out any sensible commentary on the rest of the album. Additionally, Ray is mostly able to hold his own against his "friends" - I cannot say the same about what I've heard of the John Fogerty & Friends CCR tribute!

Killing Machine [Hell Bent for Leather] (Judas Priest, 1979)

I must confess that I picked up most of my pre-British Steel Priest in a flurry and didn't take much time to appreciate the development of the band during the 1970's from just another hard-prog band into heavy metal legends. Killing Machine (Hell Bent for Leather in the USA, because you know how sensitive Americans are about "killing" being mentioned in album titles) marks the end of one era and the beginning of another for Judas Priest.

Previous album Stained Class is pretty much the last gasps of the progressive Priest. For many bands, I would be lamenting this, but I'll make an exception for Judas Priest. They were smart enough to realize that they weren't going to be the next King Crimson. Rob Halford & Co. were always more comfortable playing hard and fast than trying out intricate, extended instrumental workouts. Plus it was pretty obvious by 1979 that playing progressive rock was a dead end street. Most of the prominent bands of the era had broken up (King Crimson), retreated inward, or went pop (like Genesis and Yes, among others). Meanwhile, fueled by the self-destructive punk movement and encouraged by the NWOBHM scene, heavy metal was becoming stronger with every year.

Pretty much all of the elements were in place to give Priest the power it needed to chug through the 1980's as a bastion of the genre. Really, the only changes after this were a "locking down" of the writing credits to "Downing-Halford-Tipton" and new drummer Dave Holland, neither of which had a huge musical impact on the band.

On a random side note, a friend and I once thought about making (like we could actually "make" it) a Judas Priest Christmas humor album called Hell Bent for Christmas for which many of the songs of this album could be adapted. I mean, come on - "Delivering the Goods" should be Santa's theme song! Plus, "Hell Bent for Leather" has lyrics and a song structure that can be easily adapted to just about anything. If I've inspired you, just put me in the "thank you" section of the liner notes. Just throwing it out there for y'all.

Leftoverture (Kansas, 1976)

It's easy to get hung up on the album title as just a clear portmanteau but it is actually a fairly apt description of the composition of the album. Obviously "Magnum Opus" and somewhat "Opus Insert" are patchwork approaches, with little bits of songs brought together under a single track. However, it isn't a stretch to see the crazy bridge of "Cheyenne Anthem" and the bouncy intro and outro parts of "Questions of My Childhood" as more examples of bringing different song approaches under a single heading. Even the big hit of the album, "Carry On Wayward Son" employs two different (arguably more) styles, deftly switching among them.

For a band named after one of the flattest and most conservative states in America, Kansas has a pretty wild history. They were formed from a much more progressive scene (retroactively called Proto-Kaw), largely centered around guitarist Kerry Livgren. Although never tossing off the progressive elements, they found more success with a mainstream formula, of which this album is a good illustration. This lineup was solid until the end of the 1970's, and then the weirdness really began. Following Livgren's conversion to evangelical Christianity (his "seeking" lyrics finally locked on to something), the original lineup disintegrated, first with keyboardist/vocalist Steve Walsh, followed by violinist Robby Steinhardt. Livgren himself and bassist Dave Hope quit to form Christian rock band A.D. shortly thereafter. Reduced to a trio with two original members, the band eked out one more song, then died.... Suddenly a non-Livgren Kansas emerged around Steve Walsh, guitarist Rich Williams and drummer Phil Ehart (both from the ill-fated trio) and some new faces. The history got pretty sketchy after than, with a smattering of reunions featuring various members of the other half of the original band, though Walsh, Williams, Ehart, and Hope's replacement Billy Greer were mainstays throughout. Walsh is poised to retire this August and the band plans to continue. Man, I'm confused just writing this...

This is one of the earlier albums I picked up in life, probably around early college, as I was suitably impressed by classic rock standards like "Carry On". I haven't invested further in Kansas other than the 1986 album Power, featuring Steve Morse. In 1994 Kansas officially became a branch of the Deep Purple family tree through Morse. Congratulations!

Ellington at Newport (Duke Ellington, 1956)

When we think of genres in music, words like "classical", "jazz", and "rock" all come to mind. Then there's "pop" music. While the first three describe the music, "pop" relates more to how tapped in to the culture of the moment the music is or was. Classical, jazz, and rock have all enjoyed "pop" status and various times, and in many ways the last of those three still intermingles with pop. Jazz enjoyed its pop years back in the early half of the 20th century, primarily before the Second World War, fueled by the big band and swing crazes. Duke Ellington reached the zenith of his career in the 1930's, hitting after the "Jazz Age" but falling very much into the Swing Era of the 1930's. Although Ellington's passion was in composition and he aspired to be the continuation of the Western classical tradition (evidenced in longer pieces), he was inextricably linked to the pop era of jazz.

The problem with pop music is that is forgets too easily. It has no sense of any heritage, so its stars can easily go from being all the rage one year to being yesterday's news the next. Even though Ellington is universally upheld as a giant of jazz, shockingly, by the 1950's he was largely seen as washed up, a has-been. For a comparison look at the Billboard Hot 100 for 1999 and look at how many songs still get played on Top 40 radio (probably none), let alone the artists themselves (a few). Jazz in the 1950's was going through a transformation that shift the center to bebop, a movement largely shunned mass popularity and favored listening over dancing and (by this time), wasn't concerned about being confined to four minutes or less per song. Not only that, but the original beboppers were either dying off or spawning subgenres left and right, such as hard bop and modal jazz. No matter what Ellington thought of the new jazz movements (he was mixed), he got lumped with the pre-bop dinosaurs among jazz fans, while pop fans were moving in droves to rock and roll.

Ellington's appearance at Newport came at such as dismal time that the promoters probably included him out of courtesy or pity. Nobody expected that the Duke still had a way with his fans in a live venue. The vacuous comments from the announcer show no real interest in the fact a living legend was performing in their midst. Ellington himself generally avoided his old Blanton-Webster songbook except for "Take the A Train" and focused more on longer pieces, included a three-part suite written expressly for the festival featuring names he made up on the spot. Of course the real star piece of the performance is the stretched-out-beyond-belief "Diminuendo and Cresendo in Blue" which provoked actual dancing on a scale not witnessed since before Pearl Harbor. The oblivious festival organizers kept trying to stop the show but the audience wasn't having it! It's a remarkable document of an album just for the crowd reaction alone, capturing a near-riot not seen since Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" literally spilled blood in the aisles. (Sort of kind violence in movies, we're a little jaded these days about rowdy fans at concerts, but back then...oh wow!)

One weird thing about this album is that a lot of the music on the original album was actually recorded on a sound stage in New York, something remedied by the 2-CD reissue featured here which brings all the real live music to the front. I'm sure the perfectionists wince over each and every wrong note, but as somebody who's favorite live albums are by rock artists in the 1970's, where it is rare for a song to not have muffed lyrics or missed notes, I can assure you that the Newport recordings were just fine.

Commenting enabled....pray for me

With a minor sense of ambivalence, I've opened up the commenting to anyone who feels so inspired to do so. I don't need comments to validate my life (this project is for me, not for mass consumption). Stupid troll and robot comments will be dealt with as they appear and if the spam gets to be too much I can always reverse myself. So, you think I'm full of bunk? You're probably right, and now you can tell me to my virtual face.

Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 1-3 (London Symphony Orchestra/Igor Markevitch, 1995)

Apparently the first three symphonies couldn't stand seeing the second three appear in this blog, so without further ado here they are. In my early classical discernment, I sought a copy of Symphony #6 (Pathetique) and intended to focus just on that one. I found and obtained the Mariss Jansons recording, then a relative dropped all six on me. While it's nice to have them all, I am trying to focus on one piece of music at a time!

My usual forum for these albums in my morning drive. I hate to admit it, but most of my music listening is not devoted to listening to the music itself. I'm usually doing something else: working, driving, reading, cleaning, etc. Let me say that this disc (and just about every classical disc to grace this blog) is not good driving music. Maybe my car is too low-tech, but the soft bits get squashed by the sound of my tires on the road, plus assorted engine sounds. Since there's a lot of music here, I've taken it to work as well. Now I can here the soft nuances better, except that my focus is far more positioned toward doing work!

Perhaps as I do with reading, I just need to block out some time to just listen. Ah, but when?!

Lost Souls (Doves, 2000)

I don't know a whole lot about Doves, I just kept a mental note in the back of my mind for over ten years that this may be a good album to pick up. They were playing the album over in the music section of the first Borders I worked at (this would be around 2001) and I liked it, especially "Sea Song". Of course I filed it way back, so it probably became muscle memory. When I was digging through the CD's at the library sometime last year I stumbled on this and like a bolt from the blue said, "The time has come!"

So, destiny has been fulfilled. Along with the likes of the Coral, Muse, and (in a moment of weakness) Franz Ferdinand, Doves seems to represent hope for recently made music. Sometimes I get so hung up on the five years (give or take) around 1970 that I give more recent music less attention. It's easy to get depressed by auto-tuned gobbledegook barfed out by Chris Brown or whoever won American Idol because they drown out the most honest stuff.

Now, if you will excuse me, I must return to "The Cedar Room".

Illinois Speed Press (1969)

It's always fun when something obscure pops up here. Today it was the Illinois Speed Press (ISP), a band that actually got around quite a bit around 1970, rubbed shoulders with more famous bands (Chicago), and contributed to other, quite different bands (Poco).

ISP was born out of various garage groups around Chicago with rapidly shifting personnel (Peter Cetera was part of this prehistory), coalescing around a steady lineup and more aggressive sound by 1968. Producer James William Guercio packaged them with three other up-and-coming bands from the area: Aorta, The Flock, the Chicago Transit Authority, and ISP. Aorta sort of crashed and burned (I just read an unfortunate story about an ill-advised acid trip prior to a show), The Flock was best known for contributing violinist Jerry Goodman to the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the Chicago Transit Authority shortened its name to Chicago and the rest is history, and ISP, while not experiencing any Aorta-style disasters, slipped into obscurity. Outside of Chicago (the band), the package deal was kind of a bust.

On paper ISP had a lot to offer. Guitarist Kal David provided raw blues energy and other guitarist Paul Cotton was more versatile, with country and acoustic tendencies. Their support, though a little shaky (they changed bassists right before the album was recording), was able to provide enough energy to match the twin guitar sound of David and Cotton. It's pretty clear which compositions are the Kal David ones (they are heavy) and which were penned by Paul Cotton (more laid back). Occasionally there is a mismatch ("Sky Song") which doesn't quite work, but overall its a good blend of heavy and rollicking ("Pay the Price") and wistful/introspective ("Here Today" and "When You Come Around").

Supposedly this album had a strange opening "collage" of the different songs, something so abhorrent to the band that when it was released on CD they cut that part out. According to replies to very upset customers on the World's Largest Marketplace, this intro track was relegated to the CD-ROM bonus tracks. Unfortunately it seems to work best with obsolete technology, so I still have not heard this introduction that apparently is the best or worst track ever. I happened on the disc (packaged with Duet, their second and last album) by pure dumb luck while at Amoeba in Hollywood. It was a little pricey, but nowhere near what online sellers are demanding for it these days!

To conclude the ISP story, a promising start (with a regular gig at the Whisky) quickly disintegrated into nothing. Never able to overcome continuous lineup trouble, the entire band save for David and Cotton were sacked between albums and replaced with session musicians. Duet is a little more country than the first album and more lush in a few spots, but still a decent album. However, David saw the writing on the wall and exited the band to join the Fabulous Rhinestones. Shortly thereafter Cotton saw no problem with putting ISP to rest by joining Poco, a band he would stick with for a good deal of their extensive history. Oddly enough, Kal David was the voice of "Sonny Eclipse", an animatronic robot at Disney World, in addition to lending his talents to other Disney stuff, all stuff you would probably overlook if you knew nothing of ISP.

A Go Go (John Scofield, 1998)

The jazz just could not be stopped this weekend, though there isn't a whole lot in common between this album and the previous day's selection from McCoy Tyner. Here there be electric instruments and avant-garde tendencies. Well, not a whole lot I would consider avant-garde outside of the last track, "Deadzy". Most of the songs here aren't too wild, which is interesting considering that Medeski, Martin & Wood back up Scofield on all tracks. However this is first and foremost a John Scofield album, so his supporting trio's increasing experimentation (they were on the eve of releasing Combustication and had already shown a willingness to break with tradition on 1996's Shack-man) is kept largely in check. Perhaps I'm going out on a limb by saying that MMW wasn't essential to the album's overall sound, but they did push the needle from making this a decent album to one of his best. In fact, it just wasn't practical to submerge the entire trio underneath him after this point and on future endeavors they would all share the billing as "Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood" (even though they would all support Scofield as individuals here and there on his albums).

Overall, this is a fairly mellow album. Perhaps conscious of coming across as a rock guitarist playing jazz, Scofield never blows out the amps and shreds like a maniac. He is a little more adventurous than your standard Wes Montgomery style of electric guitar (you can't deny the evolution of the instrument!) in that he doesn't shy away from adding effects to his playing. Meanwhile, MMW are largely held to classic "organ trio" roles, which generally keeps Scofield dominant in the mix, though he trades licks with Medeski on most of the tracks.

Scofield continues to release albums across the musical spectrum with surprising frequency. His third collaboration with MMW (the second to be credited to all four) is due out this September - should be interesting!

The Real McCoy (McCoy Tyner, 1967)

For 1967, McCoy Tyner's debut for Blue Note was a bit of a throwback. No avant-garde leanings like his old employer, John Coltrane. No electrified instruments or flipping the rhythm and lead instruments as Miles Davis was tinkering with. Just five straight up solid originals. In tow are Davis and Coltrane alums Ron Carter and Elvin Jones, while Joe Henderson handles tenor responsibilities.

While this isn't an album featuring any rule breaking or risk taking, it's a solid piece of work and one of my personal favorites even though it usually dwells in the middle section on most "top 100" lists. As this album indicates, Tyner would largely represent more traditional jazz patterns and eschew the fusion scene of the 1970's and its various splinter movements.

The Best of Django Reinhardt (1996)

There are a zillion "best of" compilations of the music of Django Reinhardt. For a guy that recorded about a zillion songs, something good is probably missing from every one. I was pointed to one called the the Quintessential, put it was very out of print and even a banged up copy would set me back twenty bucks. Thankfully, this particular compilation, while packing a few number of songs, seemed to do the trick.

Jazz as a genre is already sporting flexibility just by keeping big band and bop traditions under a single umbrella. Django forced the genre to think even more broadly, both musically and geographically. France was eagerly listening to what America was playing in the 1920's and 1930's and more than happy to respond. As with all good jazz, the French subgenre incorporated its own local music traditions, in this case that of the Gypsies. The guitar/violin combo presented a wholly different face of jazz, almost as if one launched a heavy metal band with saxophones.

Although Django (as far as I know) didn't go in the on the electricification movement, pioneered by Charlie Christian, he did set the foundation for guitarists across genres to play extremely fast (hot!) rhythms and leads. The guitar/violin dueling technique would re-emerge in the fusion era, particular in the early Mahavishu Orchestra albums pitting John McLaughlin against Jerry Goodman.

How We Quit the Forest (Rasputina, 1998)

I've been on a bit of a cello rock jag lately, with ELO's debut No Answer as the soundtrack to my drive home yesterday (the Randomness only controls one album per day - I determine the rest of the day's music). Although ELO abandoned its strict cello-sawing ways after that album (regrettably though it probably wasn't realistic to maintain that trajectory), they inadvertently inspired a later generation to pick up the instrument and make it the centerpiece. Cello has colored an array of music from the light brushes on the Moody Blues' excellent "Legend of a Mind" (a.k.a. "Timothy Leary's Dead") to the mournful flourishes on Nirvana's "Something in the Way", but aside from numbers like "Time Seller" by the Spencer Davis Group and The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" it doesn't often get to be the main attraction.

Two bands in particular rode the cello rock wave of the 1990's. One was Apocalyptica, a Finnish "cello metal" band notorious for a debut album of all Metallica covers. Another was Rasputina, which took a completely different approach. The band catapulted to infamy through the only consistent member Melora Creager playing cello for Nirvana in their last tour as well as a set of remixes done by Marilyn Manson just prior to this album. The band features Creager and an ever-rotating and no-longer-exclusively-female two supporting chairs, all playing cello, sometimes clean, sometimes wildly distorted. Drum services are provided by a non-member (in this case the producer Chris Vrenna) just to make things lope along better. Generally the songs stand on their own, though there are a few weird filler songs along the way.

Rasputina helped me get through a particularly angst-ridden chapter of my life at the end of the 1990's. This was one of the few albums I first heard at the college radio station, but bought my own copy later rather than fish for a promotional copy (which didn't happen). The mix of aggressive and sad tracks are just the right prescription for a depressed person. A few years later I did go the promotional route with Rasputina when I found much later album Frustration Plantation in the freebie bin at the bookstore, an album that is remarkably different in both personnel and sound from this one. Later albums, which I have not heard, were released on an independent label, and though they are still around, the heyday of the band is now well behind us.

The Vintage Guide to Classical Music (Jan Swafford, 1992)

I've said many times here that I really know nothing about classical music and if you are using me for advice, you are probably making a big mistake. Deciding to combine my passion of reading-to-learn with my nascent interest in the artform, I turned to this book for a helpful overview, and it was indeed very helpful!

The book's primary strength is in its biographical essays of key composers, beginning with a traditional overview of the composer's life, followed with advice on how the interested listener should approach their work. It is very heavy on the Romantic and Modern era composers, but I think that's largely because we know so much more about the composers of those eras.

Interspersed among these essays are sidebar essays about topics like counterpoint, sonata form, and atonality, to help the novice listener identify the various components of classical pieces.

In the end, I think I may have even more questions than answers about Western classical music, but at least now when I see a name attached to a piece of music I have a lot more knowledge to work from in my understanding of the genre thanks to having read this book.

Armageddon (1975)

For a day where it was hard just to wake up, dialing up this album was a godsend. Those in need of high-energy 1970's hard rock need look no further, especially if you've gone through the major bands and are sifting through the vast array of lesser known acts. Although easily available through downloads now, this used to be a hard album to find at a reasonable price back in the day. Through dumb luck, a co-worker was able to secure a special order for the CD when for some reason a single copy managed to pop up in the ordering system back in the Borders days.

Most people will come across this album because of the singer, Keith Relf, best known as the frontman of the Yardbirds. Although he received more applause than Eric "Slowhand" Clapton on the Five Live Yardbirds album, Relf was not an ideal singer for a blues-rock band like the Yardbirds, whining where only singers howl. Recognizing he had more potential and interest in the growing folk-rock scene, he and drummer Jim McCarty represented the "quiet" faction of the latter-day Yardbirds, breaking away to form the mellow Together, then moving on to generally folky outfits like Renaissance and Illusion. Meanwhile, the "loud" faction of the Yardbirds, Jimmy Page and Chris Dreja, set the stage for Led Zeppelin. So imagine the shock when by 1975 Keith Relf was fronting a new band that was trying to do a heavy end-run around Zeppelin!

According to some of the sources I read, the band wasn't meant to be that heavy (why pick a name like Armageddon and supply a cover like that for a non-heavy band is beyond me), but with the introduction of Bobby Caldwell, a hard-hitting drummer from Iron Butterfly and Captain Beyond, things got kicked up to the next level. Guitarist Martin Pugh was no slouch himself, coming from early hard rock outfit Steamhammer. Between Pugh and Caldwell, the instruments are so loud that Relf is routinely being submerged. However, I think of this album as something you find because Keith Relf is on it, but listen to and appreciate more for the musicians playing with him.

Alas, this would be Keith Relf's final recorded work. Already a mess from drugs and ill health, he died the following year in a freak electrocution accident. Supposedly between his poor health and the even worse management and promotion of the band, Armageddon had folded months earlier.

Bach: Brandenburg Concertos 1-3 (Berlin Chamber Orchestra/Peter Wohlert, 1990)

The Baroque is back...er...Bach? Take it as pun or don't, because for many (most?) Bach is the quintessential composer of the Baroque period, with apologies to Handel. I'm fresh off reading my classical music primer (post on the way), so it was interesting to listen with some history under my belt.

I need to be careful what I ask for. Since my classical music appreciation is still developing, I am trying to focus on a small number of better known pieces before scattering in all directions. When I mentioned to a relative that I was seeking a recording of Brandenburg 2 and 3 (probably the most easily recognizable of the six), I was suddenly gifted all six concertos, plus, included on this disc, the Harpsichord Concerto for good measure. So I've got plenty of Bach to enjoy in the short term.

Oddly enough, I used the opening of Concerto 2 as the "evening news theme" for a play I stage managed (and ad hoc sound designed) in college. It just sounded right. Of course, now every time I hear it I think it's time for the news to begin!

Pet Sounds (The Beach Boys, 1966)

It's so cheeky to have to write something about one of the most respected albums of all time, but the Randomness thus dictates, so here we go.

I don't think anyone would have anticipated the Beach Boys were capable of such an album back in 1962 when every song was about cars, girls, and surfing (all in California, of course) and even the most banal lyrics could be covered up with world-class vocal harmonies. However, like most bands of their time, they were not immune to the winds of change, and acutely aware of what was happening in Britain. Unlike most bands of their time, the British, particularly the Beatles, were listening back, creating a sonic war of sorts that erupted in 1965 and fizzled by late 1967.

Pet Sounds was Brian Wilson's attempt to outdo the Beatles after hearing Rubber Soul. Interestingly, this album is nearly the polar opposite in approach from the Beatles' own next album, Revolver. However it was clear that Pet Sounds had been absorbed by the Beatles juggernaut upon the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which sent Wilson into a tizzy and ultimate sunk Smile, the album intended to be the followup to Pet Sounds (Smiley Smile is but a faint reflection of Wilson's original vision for Smile, but that's a whole other tome to explore).

This is not a party album, which is ironic for a band that released an album called Party! just the previous year. It's lush and quiet and the perfect soundtrack for your "alone" time, much as the music and lyrics reflect the inner personal world of Brian Wilson. So in some ways it's a bit of a shock that the album is so introspective, considering over 70 musicians are credited and the big rollicking hit of the day ("Good Vibrations") is nowhere to be found.

In spite of a coworker routinely telling me this was the greatest album ever, I held off on getting this album for far too long. A few years ago he passed away in a car accident, so I make a point of playing this album start to finish on the anniversary of that fateful day.

Door to Door (The Cars, 1987)

Door to Door is probably the weakest album of the Cars' discography, the afterthought of a two-peaked band history. Right out the gates, the Cars enjoyed great success in the late 1970's with their self-titled debut and its successor, Candy-O. The next two albums didn't fare so well, though "Shake It Up" was one of their best-known songs. For Heartbeat City, they changed producers and sound to embrace a much more synth-pop oriented approach that yielded a number of big hits. Things crested with the single "Tonight She Comes" (the Cars had a gift for the double-entendre) in which an album's worth of production was poured into a single song to support their first greatest-hits package.

Sporting a sound far removed from their early days, the Cars were experiencing a full-blown crisis of consciousness over their identity by 1987. Songs like "You Might Think" had been pretty much unthinkable in their earlier, scrappier days. Hence Door to Door sports of more "live" sound than Heartbeat City, but the approach is uneven and some songs come off overly slick ("Fine Line") or rough ("Double Trouble" and the title track). One consistent feature is the band sounds beat down and bored much of the time. It was no surprise to anybody that the band broke up shortly afterward. A Cars reunion seems difficult as the 1990's wore on, with the band split between the enthusiastic (Easton and Hawkes), the pessimistic (Robinson and Orr), and Ric Ocasek's burgeoning career as a producer. When Benjamin Orr passed away in 2000, difficult seems to trend toward impossible even though a "New Cars" largely fueled by Easton did the rounds. Finally, an Orr-less Cars released one of the most unlikely of solo albums, Move Like This, in 2011. The next day there were reports of unusual cold weather in the underworld.

Oddly enough this was the second Cars album I bought. I was just a teenager and my parents liked to scrutinize my purchases so I was prudish about albums with hot women on the cover, hence I angled toward albums like Panorama and this one rather than their better albums.

Paranoid (Black Sabbath, 1970)

If you know Black Sabbath, then this album needs no introduction. Even though I tend to side with the "Ozzy is a clown" faction of the fanbase, it is nearly impossible to deny that Paranoid is a landmark moment in the early history of heavy metal. True it wasn't their first album. Also true was that they didn't invent the genre out of thin air. One can cite at least three bands that were already building the foundations (Blue Cheer, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf, etc. and so forth) at the time this album hit the shelves in 1970. In fact, Black Sabbath, to paraphrase a lame quote from Ozzy Osbourne during the recording the album 13, was playing some seriously dark blues.

Pretty much every song on the first side is legendary, but the second side is where things get especially grim, especially with the songs "Electric Funeral" and "Hand of Doom". Yet throughout the album if you cut through the slowed-down riffs and distortion, the blues are right there in front of you. The first album is pretty much the same, but with a freer-flowing song structure and a lower-register Ozzy. However, this was really the last album where the doomy sound is strongly embraced without it sounding like a parody of itself. As I mentioned elsewhere, the band spent far more of their history trying to escape the "Black Sabbath" sound than promote it. You can already here that distancing as early as 1971's Master of Reality. After that, through Sabotage there's still plenty of gloom and doom, but Tony Iommi drives the music more through the riffs than the solos.

I'm not sure why I have the remastered version of the album with no bonus tracks, since I generally only went after the ones that either had bonus tracks I needed, or didn't already have. Maybe I wanted the pretty liner notes. Or, more likely, I wanted a cleaner copy of the album. My original CD was riddled with problems, mostly notoriously a prominent dropout in "War Pigs" that forced me to reach for the volume knob every time.

Nuggets II - Disc 1 (Various Artists, 2001)

After an extended absence, the mighty Nuggets return! Anyone needing a rock and roll education (or maybe reprogramming to remove all traces of Bieber) would do well to start here. Well, in all fairness, start with what I call the Big Six of the British Invasion (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Animals, The Who) and spend quality time digesting their 1960's output, from Merseybeat classics to early rock operas like Tommy and Arthur. If you are finding the psych-era stuff by those bands appealing, this is your next logical step. A few of the bands here are just a shade below in profile (Small Faces, The Creation and The Pretty Things, the latter two both closely linked to the Kinks and all cozy to the Rolling Stones) and the rest are more "buried treasure" but nothing too obscure, at least not the bands featured here that hail from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada. Then you can decide from there if you want to go into progressive stuff (Yes, Pink Floyd) or hard rock (Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple) and work on your 1970's education. If you make it to the 1980's I'll have to turn you over to somebody else for guidance.

As is the case with the third disc, a number of the bands featured here have connections to better known artists, usually in the 1970's. Here's a quick rundown:

The Creation is largely a force unto itself, but Ron Wood would log a little time in the band before ultimately joining the Rolling Stones. An early member, John Dalton, would later join the Kinks.
Fire made a huge splash with the single included here. Paul McCartney apparently had some input on the final mix, while Tony Clarke, later producer for the Moody Blues, is credited as producer. However, Fire didn't do much of anything after this song.
The Move and The Idle Race would eventually coalesce to form the original Electric Light Orchestra in 1970.
The Smoke, The Eyes, and The Sorrows are all UK bands that somehow managed not to intermingle with their colleagues or form other big-name bands.
Tomorrow was a short-lived but stacked band that featured Twink (Pretty Things, Pink Fairies) and Steve Howe (Yes, Asia).
The Action served as the launching pad for Reg King's solo career, though the other King (Alan) would later form the band Ace.
The Easybeats, though very well-known themselves, would contribute two producers to the early albums of AC/DC.
The La De Das were from New Zealand, which had a more aggressive-sounding scene than the UK.
The Fleur de Lys was surrounded by high-profile figures of the era such as Jimmy Page, Chas Chandler, and Jimi Hendrix, but two of the actual band members, Gordon Haskell and Pete Sears, would later appear in King Crimson and Jefferson Starship, respectively.
The Motions, one of a handful of Dutch bands included here, would lose band members to Golden Earring and Shocking Blue.
The Mickey Finn was the band supporting one Mickey Finn, who later joined the glam movement (Heavy Metal Kids) and reverted to his given name, Mickey Waller.
Q65
The Pretty Things are somewhat well known to casual fans of the genre, though they got no respect for anything they were doing at the time. Guitarist Dick Taylor, an early bassist for the Rolling Stones, helped launch Hawkwind in 1969.
(The) Marmalade is still around, but with no original members. There are an extensive list of former members over the nearly 50-year lifespan of the band.
The Koobas lost a latter-day drummer to an early version of Yes.
The Mockingbirds' Graham Gouldman is better recognized for his songwriting, most notably for the Yardbirds.
The Haunted represent Canada here. Canada's garage scene was more American sounding than the other countries represented here.
Small Faces were extremely well connected to numerous other groups: The Faces, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Humble Pie, etc. etc. and so forth!
Los Bravos were from Spain (geographically isolated - so sad).
The Thoughts' Peter Beckett would re-locate to L.A. and play with Player and the Little River Band. Apparently having a single written by Ray Davies doesn't mean instant fame.
The Masters Apprentices were quite big in Australia, but not well known elsewhere. Oddly enough they too contributed to the history of the Little River Band.
We All Together was from Peru and I believe their song is the chronologically last song of the entire box set (I guess nobody told them the psychedelic era had ended three years earlier).
Kaleidoscope featured Daltrey....Peter Daltrey. Their first album was called Tangerine Dream, which has no relation to the band of the same name. What tricksters!
The Tages were from Sweden, another geographic outlier.

Da Capo (Love, 1966)

Da Capo is a groundbreaking yet deeply flawed album. Over half the album is set aside for the regrettable "Revelation", a failed attempt to capture the live sound of the band in the studio. Oddly enough it sounds kind of like the B-side of the Stooges' Fun House, released four years later, only considerably limper sounding. The real price of admission for this album is redeemed by the six songs that comprise the A-side of the album. By themselves they would have made a tidy EP release. In under 18 minutes, Love explores an entire range of emotions from sweet ("Orange Skies") to bitter ("Seven and Seven Is"). Although the cover of the album seems to just be a reproduction of their first album, all songs (even "Revelation") show expanded instrumental development and point the way to Forever Changes, which remedied many of the problems of this album.

I was fortunately enough to get all of the Love albums from a friend a few years ago. It's unfortunate that the band was largely a financial failure and struggled mightily among themselves. However, those that can look past all of that can recognize this band had a lot to offer. Although they almost never left Los Angeles, their influence reached to Europe where some of their music was covered (check out Episode Six's version of "The Castle" if you can find it and note how Ian Gillan compares with Arthur Lee).

Private Eyes (Tommy Bolin, 1976)

Apparently the Randomness was not done with Tommy Bolin. Go figure.

As mentioned previously, Private Eyes is quite a different album from Teaser, but in all fairness, Tommy was in a different place by this time. The world was still getting to know Tommy when the first album was released and his claim to fame was being the best guitarist of mid-grade band The James Gang since Joe Walsh. Private Eyes was recorded just two months after the demise of Deep Purple, a band Tommy played for briefly (around one year) under an intense global spotlight. The most official story I've heard is that following a series of disastrous gigs marred by drugs and violence, David Coverdale, Ian Paice, and Jon Lord quit the band, leaving Glenn Hughes and Tommy to figure it out for themselves. Initially the two thought about forging on together (though the Deep Purple name was likely off limits to them), but ultimately moved ahead with solo projects. In fact every member of the band was in the recording studio doing solo material (Lord and Paice within a band context) later that year, though Glenn got waylaid with an abortive Trapeze reunion. However, Tommy somehow managed to have his album in stores at breakneck speed, officially releasing Private Eyes in September 1976.

Private Eyes was an easy album to find back in the day (unlike Teaser) as just one of the vast archival trove of Columbia Nice Price releases. I imagine it is still readily available to anyone interested. While it's not his finest album, it's the best snapshot of where Tommy was headed musically before his death in December 1976. It's strangely confident, with the only warning sign of trouble in his life appearing in the lyrics of the epic "Post Toastee", the best track on the album. The supporting band is almost entirely new, with drummer Bobby Berge the only holdout from the early days, and even he is sharing duties with others (bassist Stanley Sheldon was probably too busy with Frampton Comes Alive! to assist). Jeff Cook, vocalist from Tommy's Energy days, helps out substantially with the writing of this album though he does not perform.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (Midnight Oil, 1982)

Seeing that I had ten possibilities for Midnight Oil, it's a little surprising they didn't show up here until July. Oh well. They are a little different than the rest of the stuff here, so a quick explanation is in order. I first saw Midnight Oil on TV in 1993 performing "Truganini". I went out and bought that album, then noticed they had about nine other albums to choose from. Randomly, I selected Head Injuries from 1979 (a totally different album!) and then worked to fill in the gap of all the albums in-between. Somehow between their 1970's and 1990's output, I managed to embrace all of the rest in spite of my inclination to dismiss the eighties as a musically weak period.

The Countdown album (I can't keep typing all those numbers!) is one of my favorite. It's a big shift in sound from their first three albums in terms of production, courtesy of Nick Launay who was behind the band's best albums. However, unlike a lot of bands that "went eighties" you can still hear and feel the "real" instruments that make up the backbone of the album. For example, a song like "Read About It" clearly shows a lot of slick production work, but the mandolin-esque strumming in front and center in the mix and drives the song.

I like the think of the first nine albums by Midnight Oil in groups of three. The first three were the "punk" albums, the second three were the "eighties" albums with enhanced production. The last three (the "nineties" albums) maintain the higher production levels, but with earthier sounds. After 1996's Breathe, the formula breaks down, though I've only heard the barest scraps of the last two albums, so I wouldn't call myself an authority figure on the band's later period (actually would I dare even consider myself an authority on any period?).

Finally, one of my biggest regrets is missing the opportunity to see the Oils in concert. I was just too young to go out on a weekday night to the Warfield in San Francisco. That would have been my big chance to also see the Counting Crows before they were famous (for the record, I'm not a fan, but it would have made a great "opening act before they were famous" story!).

In the Court of the Crimson King (King Crimson, 1969)

Featured today is one of the unquestioned landmark releases of progressive rock. Previous work by the artists that formed the band really gave no indication that this album was coming. I recently listened the the lightweight but enjoyable Cheerful Insanity of Giles Giles & Fripp and couldn't help but wonder how Robert Fripp progressed so rapidly from the whimsical to the profound.

Of course Fripp has excellent support, far removed from just the Brothers Giles. Michael Giles remains on drums, but the sound is wildly influenced by multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald and bassist/vocalist Greg Lake. The album features some of the most inspired Mellotron work outside of a Moody Blues album and Lake plays across the spectrum, from the fragile "Moonchild" to the aggressive opening salvo of "21st Century Schizoid Man".

Needless to say, this one was a daunting act to follow, and the most common criticism about the next album was that they basically re-did this album. Of course the financial side of things wasn't holding up at all, and since the band didn't own a time machine to whisk them to the 1990's to prove how influential they actually were, the breakup began soon afterward. Greg Lake would steal lyricist Peter Sinfield for his own use in Emerson Lake & Palmer. Meanwhile, the vocalist slot in the band continued to pay dividends for other bands, such as Bad Company (Boz Burrell, even though he wasn't their singer), Uriah Heep, and Asia (John Wetton). Nevertheless Robert Fripp somehow managed to remain far above all of that, eschewing riches and producing complicated and quite uncommercial music with like-minded new musicians.

Interestingly, King Crimson remains one of the few bands that doesn't do iTunes, Amazon mp3's or any of that stuff. This album is easy to find at most libraries; the others not so much!

Island 40, Volume 3: Acoustic Waves (Various Artists, 1998)

To celebrate their 40th anniversary back in 1999, Island Records released a five-disc series chronicling their progression from Jamaica to all around the world. The third and fourth discs made it to me as freebies during my college radio days, while I still have yet to hear the others. To quickly summarize, disc 1 is first-wave ska, 2 is British R&B, 3 is folk/acoustic rock, 4 is psych and glam rock, and the last disc is reggae.

"Acoustic Waves" is a bit misleading as a subtitle. The disc is primarily folk rock bands that aren't necessarily acoustic (Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band), or rock artists doing the acoustic thing (Traffic, Murray Head, Cat Stevens). Of course there are a few genuine folkies thrown in for good measure (Nick Drake, Sutherland Brothers). Toward the end of the collection, the folk rock movement is seen clearly moving toward a greater acoustic emphasis, emphasized by Amazing Blondel and the "pure" Chieftains, who close out the compilation.

Unlike the fourth volume, this compilation features a lot of artists that are either unknown only passingly familiar to American audiences, with the exceptions perhaps of Traffic and Cat Stevens. Fairport Convention, whose family tree dominates this collection, was only so-so popular across the Atlantic. With a little scratching, though, it's easy to tell these are not obscure artists. Murray Head, for those who missed him as Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar (the original soundtrack recording), would have a big hit in the 1980's with "One Night In Bangkok". Renaissance featured former Yardbirds frontman Keith Relf on vocals. Sandy Denny (who appears both as a part of Fairport and solo here) sang alongside Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin's "Battle of Evermore".

First Underground Nuclear Kitchen (Glenn Hughes, 2008)

If the title seems a little random, keep in mind you need to think in acronyms. If Return of Crystal Karma didn't give you the hint as to this seemingly random title, well, shoot, I don't know what to tell you.

Glenn enjoyed a very good run in the middle part of the last decade with his solo career. Soul Mover launched this renaissance, and Music for the Divine pulled things in a funkier direction. This album takes it even further, with some tracks feeling like parts of an official followup album to 1977's classic Play Me Out. All of these albums are well worth hearing and investing in. In fact, nothing went wrong in the end, it's just that both he and Chad Smith (yes, that Chad Smith) decided to change direction structurally and work within band contexts instead of continuing on as the core of Glenn's solo career. For Glenn it was off to Black Country Communion and its successor group California Breed (plus an emergency fill-in gig with Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell), while Chad was working with Chickenfoot and a certain spicy food group.

For a guy that lives in Los Angeles, it's notoriously difficult to actually see Glenn in concert if you live in the United States (seriously, I think the Balkans have logged more shows that the U.S. in the last fifteen years). I finally had my chance, back at the Whisky-a-Go-Go following the release of this album. After we suffered through about four other bands of varying quality, Glenn took the stage sometime in the 10 PM hour. Most of his band on stage were either from far previous albums or the less prominent players of his then-current band. However, Chad Smith was able to sneak out of his house and crash the encores, which was pretty cool for such a tiny venue. Glenn Hughes remains the most vibrant member of the extended Deep Purple family outside of that band itself.

Anthology 1 (The Beatles, 1995)

Between looking at the third installment of this series awhile back and then reviewing this one, one of the most remarkable things about the Anthology project is how rapidly it shifted scope. Two interesting features of this set, the interview clips and the featured new song, were completely absent from the final set. In fact, with regard to the interview clips it feels more like those were abandoned halfway through this set. Not that these were make and break features, but it does contribute to an uneven feeling across the entire project.

Nevertheless, Anthology 1 is an excellent document of the early development of an unlikely group that would become the biggest rock band in history. Their success wasn't just dumb luck; even the ideas for the songs they threw out (either the entire song or just the way they tried to play it) are often better than the finished documents of other bands of the time period. The first 21 tracks appear nowhere on the canon Beatles albums and some of the fidelity is downright rotten (but come on, did they know where they would be within 5 years?!). However it's probably the most Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best you will hear on any legitimate Beatles recording, even though they ripped off Pete's face on the cover!! Also included are the failed Decca auditions and the songs tossed out by George Martin. The second third of the compilation is dominated by live performances, mostly from 1963. The must hear song in this group is "Twist and Shout" mainly because it includes in the introduction one of the most famous phrases John Lennon ever uttered, showing even in these early years he was a rabble rouser at heart. Finally the last section of the album is mostly outtakes and alternate instrumentations of songs from A Hard Day's Night and Beatles for Sale, some of which are incredibly sharp, though the vocals are too raw for any of them to be credible finished products.

At the time the Anthologies came out I was a poor college student and these were too rich for my blood. I remember watching the debut of "Free as a Bird" on TV and hearing bits of the second set around campus and liking it. However I didn't invest until around 2005 or so, but then I went in big, getting all three sets as well as the excellent first BBC compilation (which the Anthology project was careful to avoid duplicating).

Singles A's and B's (Deep Purple, 1993)

At one time this compilation provided a much-needed service of providing late-arriving fans with Deep Purple songs released only as singles or B-sides to others. In the interest of being comprehensive and accurate, some songs are included that are easily available on the regular albums and others appear in their "single version" which means either they are trimmed down to radio-friendly running lengths, or are completely different editions. For example, the songs "Hush", "One More Rainy Day", "Fireball", "Strange Kind of Woman", "Demon's Eye" and "Love Child" are all the same as their album counterparts. "Kentucky Woman", "Never Before", "Smoke on the Water", "Might Just Take Your Life" and "You Keep On Moving" are all "cut" versions that the world outside of radio probably could have lived without. "Bird Has Flown" and "Speed King" however are awesome alternative versions of their album counterparts (Gillan even gets the lyrics exactly right on "Speed King"). The rest are all B-sides that appear as bonus tracks on most current deluxe CD editions of the regular albums, with two exceptions. The big exception is the song "Hallelujah", a Mark 2 oddity in that (1) it's a cover song, (2) Roger Glover is not yet a member of the group (appearing as a session man), but Ian Gillan is, and (3) it was the last Deep Purple song produced by Derek Lawrence, who produced the first three Mark 1 albums. I think it's probably on at least a couple box sets, but if you don't feel like blowing a ton of cash, this is an alternative. One other, slightly less critical inclusion is "Coronarias Redig", which here is the unremixed version (the anniversary edition of Burn only provides a remix version). You really shouldn't buy an entire album just for this.

So as time has gone on, Singles A's and B's as become more of a "Best of" style compilation than a "fill the gaps" compilation. Facing this reality, the ordering of the songs could have been more creative, but for the time the compilers were more concerned about maintaining accuracy than trying to woo new listeners.

The House of Blue Light (Deep Purple, 1987)

The House of Blue Light is an illustration of a band in rapid decline as the old animosities that broke up the band in the 1970's were clearly coming back into play again. I've heard this album described as the Fireball of the 1980's, which isn't a bad comparison. Both albums followed more harmonious releases and both were the first to show the virtually inherent instability of any band featuring Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Gillan.

The album is undeniably the most "eighties" the band got, with lots of synthesizers and slick drums. Like all of the Blackmore reunion-era albums, it starts with a Jon Lord classical-inspired intro. Gillan's voice is struggling mightily and I have to admit that his post-1982 vocals are a bit of an acquired taste for the casual fan, though his lyrics are often clever (how "Mitzi Dupree" even got past Blackmore's objections is a minor miracle). In spite of some good moments, overall there is a sense of malaise all over this album. The band would attempt to "cure" the problem by sacking Ian Gillan, a decision quickly reversed after one controversial album. After one more acrimonious album, the Blackmore era came to a crashing end with the guitarist permanently severing his ties with the band.

This album used to be a little hard to find since nobody was craving 1987-era music in the mid-1990's when I was first getting into Deep Purple, so I picked mine up secondhand. One of the nice perks of the early CD releases is that most of the songs are "extended" to take advantage of the extra running time of a CD compared to a single vinyl record. The extensions aren't essential (it's pretty clear on most where the song was probably supposed to end), but I also haven't had much motivation to "upgrade" my copy because that would involve the truncated versions.

Teaser (Tommy Bolin, 1975)

For a long time this album was impossible to find, probably tied up in legal limbo. Thankfully it is now readily available, though in a somewhat over-bloated "ultimate" edition that triples the running time. Since I acquired this through "alternative" means about five years ago, all I have is the original album which for now is satisfying enough that I'm not losing any sleep over not having the outtakes.

Teaser is the first of only two proper solo albums by Tommy Bolin. Whereas the other, Private Eyes, is credited to the "Tommy Bolin Band" and sports a consistent lineup and sound, this one is all over the map, with different personnel (not all credited in the liner notes*) and styles on each track. About half of the songs were previously workshopped elsewhere, either by Tommy's rock/fusion project, Energy, or in live "Tommy Bolin and Friends" shows. This is also one of the last recordings to feature substantial jazz personnel on a number of the tracks (Jan Hammer, David Sanborn), as Tommy was moving steadily away from the fusion scene by the mid-1970's, evidenced by his move from supporting various jazz artists to more established rock bands.

* - Glenn Hughes completists should take note that he sings the final verse of "Dreamer", a song with a long history through the band Energy. Since this album was virtually overshadowed by the near-simultaneous release of Come Taste the Band, Glenn goes uncredited here, yet another disservice to what should have been a much more successful album financially.

Tattooed Millionaire (Bruce Dickinson, 1990)

Tattooed Millionaire is probably Bruce's strangest solo album, primarily in the sense that it is so straightforward and a product of its time. His first three solo albums were largely attempts to distance himself from the Iron Maiden sound, which had largely crystallized by the late-1980's into a readily identifiable, unmistakable style. And of those three, this was the only album released while Bruce was still a part of that group.

In some ways, 1990 was the last year of the 1980's as far as the sounds of the time are concerned. The following year marked the opening waves of the "Seattle sound" that both muddied and de-synthed the stereotypical 1980's sound. So, not surprisingly, Bruce sounds quite 80's on a lot of the tracks here, particularly the title track (actually a rant against Nikki Sixx of all people). Other tracks however work very well in any year, particularly "Son of a Gun" and "Gypsy Road". Janick Gers, who would join Iron Maiden immediately following this album, co-wrote just about all the songs with Bruce and plays remarkably tight on most tracks, defying his "wild" reputation in Iron Maiden.

This was some of the earliest metal/hard rock I ever listened to. Some of the tracks were included on a mix tape made by a friend to convince me that metal was worth listening to (ah, how the times have changed).

A followup to this album was planned but jettisoned when Bruce crossed paths with producer/guitarist Roy Z and changed direction with sophomore release Balls to Picasso, an excellent album that established Bruce as a credible alternative to an increasingly weary Iron Maiden. For those who wish to hear some of "what could have been", check out the second disc of Bruce's "best of album" which collected a few of these oddballs, including what should have been the big hit of the album, "Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter", which was nicked by Iron Maiden and turned into a #1 single for them! (at least Steve Harris was nice enough to let Bruce keep the sole writing credit)

Evolution of a Nation (Daniel Berkowitz & Karen Clay, 2011)

Undoubtedly the most academic book I've read (and probably will read) all year, and for that reason fell a bit short of my expectations. The central premise of the book is fascinating but the quantitative reasoning was far beyond my education. One needs a fairly advanced grasp of statistical mathematics to appreciate the tables presented in the book, though with careful attention to the narrative, the graphs are useful in illustrating the evidence and findings presented.

Basically stated, the authors make a very compelling case that initial legal and geographical conditions (e.g. rainfall, distance to water) have an impact on legislative competitiveness in a given state. Hopefully the findings can be incorporated into future works for wider audiences.

Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (Charles Mingus, 1964)

The music of Charles Mingus is rightfully held in high regard by the jazz community of listeners and performers, but full appreciation requires attention and focus. Four albums in and I still can't fully wrap my brains around even his more accessible albums. This one marked the end of a particularly fruitful period in Mingus's career and one can hear contributions (some more explicit than others) from prior albums like Mingus Ah Um and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. It's not as complicated as the latter, but more ornate than the former, and usually falls just short of those two if one is forced to rank their preferences.

This is actually a fairly recent acquisition for me, so I'm still absorbing it. However, having spent time with some of his earlier albums, I can safely say it is relatively accessible, but I cannot recommend it as background music (perish the thought!).

Days May Come and Days May Go (Deep Purple, 1975)

Though it's really intended for diehard fans like myself, Days May Come and Days May Go offers a fascinating glimpse into a band in transition. The listener is a veritable fly on the wall of a recording studio, witnessing the meeting of a venerable British rock band and a feisty new American guitarist, Tommy Bolin. It's a combination of jams and songs, two of which ("Owed to 'G'" and "Drifter") would appear on their only studio album together and another ("Dance to the Rock and Roll") that appears in bits during live performances.

The title is particularly apt, as it is a line from the song "Drifter" that didn't make it to the final version that appears on Come Taste the Band. Ultimately the band would part ways with the studio these tracks were recorded at and start anew in Europe. The Bolin era itself was very short, ending with the collapse of the entire band in 1976. Bolin himself died of a heroin overdose at age 25 in December of that year.

Zealot (Reza Aslan, 2013)

I recently finished Zealot and I have to say that Reza Aslan has yet to write a bad book. His first book, No god but God is an indispensable introduction to Islam. Zealot isn't a direct Christian parallel (mainly due to an overall higher familiarity in the United States), but rather an exploration of who Jesus of Nazareth was or may have been (a.k.a. "the historical Jesus"). Although general audiences are the targeted readership, Aslan's scholarship is impeccable (even our resident Old Testament scholar here at the seminary approves). The narrative is also clever. This isn't a straight-up retelling of the life of Jesus. In fact, the first section devotes all of a single paragraph to his birth, ministry, and death. This is done to advance the chronology to the time when the bulk of the scriptural material was written, following the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70. Not to be missed is the third section, where the Church of Paul and the Church of James are compared and one really gets a sense of just how looming a figure Paul was not just in the earliest Church but also in the creation of the very scriptural canon that Christianity rests upon.

Nefertiti (Miles Davis, 1967)

Most of the jazz I've collected comes from "best" lists, since I still consider myself to be in a discerning phase of my interest in the music. This particular album, however, joined the collective much earlier than most of the stuff that appears here under the "jazz" tag. Like many a college student, I heard some essential Miles Davis (Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain) and then randomly reached out and got something else. While Nefertiti usually doesn't grace any "top jazz" lists, except maybe in the lower reaches of the top 200 or so, it is an interesting and important album in the Miles Davis discography.

Nefertiti was one of the last albums recorded by Davis using the classic quintet instrumentation that had defined bop and its ilk for the past 20 or so years. Although every member of the "second great quintet" would go on to record heavily in the fusion era (Davis, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams in their own names, Wayne Shorter and Ron Carter within ensembles) they all play in "traditional" instrument roles. One key innovation, sort of a "road not taken" by Davis on future albums, was to flip the lead and rhythm sections on the tracks penned by Shorter: "Nefertiti", "Fall" and "Pinocchio". On these tracks, Hancock, Carter, and Williams get to improvise around a repeating riff by Davis and Shorter. The other tracks (written by Hancock and Williams) take a more standard approach, though Hancock acts more as a lead than a rhythm player.