I did say that I was going to try to write about everything I came across correct? Well here is this beauty. I am not sure if this was a buy that I intended to give me mother at some point and never did or if I got this from her estate after her passing. In any regard here it is. I was reading the back of it and on credit says George Clinton sang backup on one song. I googled to see if it was George Clinton from Parliament Funkadelic but I couldn't find anything which means one of two things. Either George Clinton from Parliament Funkadelic sang backup and his multi colored hair was in the same room as the coif pictured,making a picture of awesome that I hardly comprehend OR there is another musician running around with the name George Clinton, trying to make it in the music business and dissapointing people when he shows up and its not P funk. Either one of these scenarios entertains me. The interesting facts keep coming from this album. Bob Kulick played guitar on this album who is older brother of Bruce Kulick. Bob and Bruce Kulick worked alot with Kiss. Neat. My wife just came in and started singing "Fool's Game" so this album just keeps bringing the fun. I saw Michael Bolton once and it made me fear for my life. Keep in mind I have seen what was supposed to be a wutang clan and rage against the machine show. Wu tang cancelled and instead of getting refunds most of the wutang fans just lurked around being pissed that wutang cancelled. I did not fear for my life at this show. I feared for my life at the Michael Bolton concert. Your life is not in danger until its only you in the way of women being able to claw at Michael Bolton. Michael Bolton did alot for my mom emotionally though, so I am glad this record is around still.

Sacrifice me to whatever gods you deem fit but I find this the most enjoyable Wilco record. I really liked what Jay Bennett brought into the band on this album and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I think I just prefer the bounciness of this record. I can't get into the albums as much since Jay Bennett left. I saw Wilco live between Summer Teeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Jay provided so much energy it got me really jazzed to hear thier next record. By the time it came out (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) he wasn't in the band anymore and I think I was just bummed that who I felt was the lightning rod of the band was gone. It took me listening to Jay Bennett's solo stuff to get me to realize that what I really thought was special was how Jay Bennett and Jeff Tweedy worked and created music together. I listen to all the recordings after this team was gone and I don't feel a cooperation and a dynamic. I hear a solo project. Maybe it is a solo project just named Wilco that Jeff Tweedy fronts now. I suppose thats ok. Just seems so different to me. Somewhere there is somebody reading this saying "Yeah but Nels Cline is in the band now and its so awesome". To that dude/chick: I don't know who Nels Cline is. I understand that he is a well respected guitarist and he is immensely talented. I just don't like him as in Wilco as much as I did Mr. Bennett. To me the albums feel like Jeff Tweedy doesn't have to work and produce with a co hort and can just have Nels Cline be a guitar player. There's no shame in that and it has its value. I just don't value it as much as the thing I was first enjoying. Old Wilco to me felt dirty guys playing rock and roll mixed with country, current wilco feels like dress up and "laa dee da" and "look how arty we can be. I feel like I'm supposed to like newer wilco but just for the reason that its supposed to be good. It reminds of me of a bbq forum I was reading one time. A person had perfected his brisket and was just looking for the right bun to serve it on. He started with just a plain white bun and everyone said it was fabulous and not to change a thing. Thinking he could fancy things up and make it something more special he tried a bunch of different gourmet bread buns. He spent alot of time and money experimenting and sampling. After trying 12-15 different artisan breads he finally gave up that the perfect delievery system for the brisket was the original cheap white bun. Yeah, I get it Jeff Tweedy the cheap white bun was a basketcase neurotic that got to be impossible to work with. I understand. Sometime things are better sloppy and beautiful instead of perfect and technical.Sometimes the flaw in the system is what makes the whole show interesting to watch or listen to. It's not supposed to work but yet it does. That's fascinating to me.

I have a gripe pointed toward Bob Dylan and Neil Young in the current vinyl age. They are bilking vinyl lovers. If you don't want people to buy vinyl then just don't press vinyl of your releases. But putting out 10 song albums and charging 30 bucks for the vinyl is ridiculous. But the fact is that a large part of their audience is the baby boomer age and they believe that they can get away with doing this because they put in a CD of the album in it as well. Well the simple fact is that you are paying for the CD and the record at that price so it damn well better be in there. I get it. There are people that will never be able to survive with having all the of the early dylan albums on vinyl then having this one bastard stepchild of an album on the ever not so cool CD. But there are other people out there that got into records the way that I got into records. They were cheap and fun. You are ruining this aspect for me. You are going to make me a cd collector at this point. So why do I have this album on vinyl? Simple. My wife wanted a song for our wedding and I got a discount. As for the actual album itself. It's.....ok. I don't know if this will really turn on a new generation to dylan or anything. It's just an extension of what dylan has been doing since the newport folk festival: whatever he wants. Don't believe me? Go see him live right now. It's no nostalgia act as anyone who has seen him in the last ten years can affirm. It's just what dylan decided he wanted to do for this record. Apparently he was really into accordion on this record. That's something I can get into. It's like a tex mex dylan record. If Bob Dylan was playing at a mexican restaurant it might be this album. I might buy these releases to just put some karma out there to reprint time out of mind on vinyl. That needs to happen. It's a great album and the demand is out there. Get on it people with the power to do so. Mostly I support the IDEA of dylan I think. I just like that he's out there with his crazy little moustache and country band pissing people off. Pissing his own fans off. Do you think his hardcore fans were waiting with breathless anticipation for his accordion crossover record? Hell No. He's being more punk rock than most punk rock bands. I can think of alot of punk rock bands that broke no molds and played it safe. I don't even think Dylan understands the concept of being able to play it safe. He just does whatever his crazy little head spits out. Punk rock bands could learn alot from Dylan.

This is a various artist lp that is just one of those weird record store finds. The subtitle states "Country & Western fer all ye sinners and sufferers 1955-1966". What sold me on buying this album was the song titles. "Please Don't Go Topless Mother" and "Rock and Roll Killed My Mother" leapt out and informed me that I would indeed be buying this sight unheard. It doesn't have anything to grasp unto besides the theme of the record. The artists are unknown to me, and I can't even find a record label on it. To be frank I was worried that I would not be able to find a picture of the cover on the internet but I was lucky enough to find the catalog number on the spine. Fittingly enough it was CW-5icko. Did you read that correctly? Country and Western Sicko. Cute. If you happen to get a wild hair and want to find this I will give you a fair warning. There is not one bit of rock and roll cut into this. It's not a rockabilly record. It's not an americana record. This record has both kinds of music: country and western(thank you blues brothers and rip Donald "Duck" Dunn). We are talking steel guitars and the whole shebang. I am pretty sure these were songs found that preached the evils of rock and roll and was compiled by some genius.

John K Samson always seems to find a way into my ears. I first came across him as the bass player for propagandhi in their first two or three records. Years later I ran across a song on the internet that was way catchy and a good combination of pop hooks and power chords. It ended up being a band called the weakerthans and I found out later that this was the same guy who used to be in propagandhi. Seems he left the band to pursue his own thing, and since it was so different I didn't really mind. Propagandhi was still cranking out all kinds of good stuff and now another band was putting out good stuff as well. If the bands were similar that might have bothered me. A few weeks ago I ran across another song on the internet called "When I write my masters thesis" and I liked it as well. True to trend I had to investigate backwards and find out it was the same guy from the other two bands that had just put out a solo record. So Mr. Samson finds a way to impress me with alot that he does. As for my impressions on the whole record: It's a somewhat mellow affair. I like to bop along to weakerthans, rage along to propagandhi, but I have not found the suitable emotion for the solo record yet. It feels somewhat introspective and when that happens I can hear my more close minded punk rock friends calling it emo and boring. It's not a raging party album. He just knows how to write interesting things to my ears.

This might be one of those records that makes my days go by so much better. Nothing clears a room like this record. Its just one of those records that makes everyone say "What the hell is this". I think its fair to say that more people have heard Hasil Adkins songs played by other people. A trend that happens oh so often in the rockabilly genre. It says something though when you can almost easily say that no one performed them with the general abandon and recklessness that Hasil did. Who said the biggest fear is the unknown? I think that applies here. You really are unsure of what this crazy man playing music by himself is capable of. There's a genuine nugget on insanity in there and he is allowing you into his messed up head. I love that he took Elvis and Chuck Berry and this is what came out. Pure unmarketable craziness. The beatles wanted to hold your hand. The rolling stones wanted you to spend the night. Hasil Adkins wanted to put your head on his wall.

Alright kids. Here we go. I am not promising to do a long winded story about every single piece of vinyl I own but they should at least all get mentioned at some point or another. Maybe not. I'm not sure. There are alot of pieces of vinyl behind me. I technically started listening to Bruce Springsteen around the mtv video era. Probally dancing in the dark or born in the usa videos. I didn't really care what the songs were about as I was too young. I didn't really follow that. All I comprehended was that somebody had put out an album that alot of people gave a crap about for one reason or the other. Whether you worked in a factory and felt like he was speaking for you, you felt like it was a hogwash or if you happened to be female and just liked looking at the cover of Born in the USA, you had an opinion one way or the other. It might have been the biggest release of my youth that I could remember after Michael Jacksons Thriller. As it turned out Springsteen became somewhat of a folk hero of sorts. People who saw him in the 70's whispered about the shows to the people in the 80's and from there (despite some missteps along the way) he is now a certified baby boomer rock star draw and consistently fills stadiums almost purely on his live show reputation. I think thats what draws my interest. He just draws on the legend of being himself. How does one deal with that on that level. Is it a construct or is it genuine? I picture him as being pretty humble for the status that he has. I think this is the line you walk on whether or not you listen to Springsteen at all. You either buy into that whole image or you think its ridiculous that a millionaire writes songs for the working man. Upon listening to this album I get a big Woody Guthire vibe and I can't decide if its a genuine progression from the Pete Seeger sessions he did or a calculated shot at the anniversary of Woody Guthrie. I like the general feel of the songs as they have a protest feel but at some points I don't feel like the songs go anywhere. It's just the intial flash of the pan idea and then it fades. If it is supposed to be protest song feeling then that makes sense, but the work that makes Sprigsteen super interesting is when there is another layer beneath the surface. I feel that occupy wall street super influenced this record. Then the million dollar question becomes can a milloniare write a protest song about millionaires. I think they can. It just depends on how they use thier money. I never hear about how Springsteen spends his money so until then I just listen along until something strikes me. I haven't been super stricken by this record yet but it might grow on me. We'll see.

Sometime in the early nineties I found my what was left of my mothers record collection in a closet. From that small nugget of two or three bananna boxes I came across the idea of trying to start my own. I started with a milk crate and a fishbone lp. I now have few more than that. I have always thought that one of the neat reasons people get into certain music styles or groups is the stories behind why they bought the damned thing in the first place. Maybe the band ushered you into puberty. Maybe you bought it for a quarter and needed a coaster. Let's dive into my reasons.