On Sunday, July 5, 2020, the Fare Thee Well shows from Chicago, 2015 were streamed in their entirety. I had never had much interest, having seen the second of the two Santa Clara shows and being somewhat underwhelmed. But now I’m used to watching shows online, with Phish, Dead & Co., and the Grateful Dead […]
Read more "Fare Thee Well Reflections"I’m not a fan of the “post 10 albums – no story, no review, just the picture” thing that’s been on Facebook recently. I want to hear something about the connection of the person with the album – it illuminates both the person and the music. We have more than enough disembodied images as it […]
Read more "Spotify + The Mechanics"One Live Badger is one of those albums that I was vaguely aware of as a Yes fan during the pre-internet days. I had probably seen the Roger Dean album cover in one of his album-cover-art books. It definitely is a cool cover, with a simple winter scene with actually existing animals as opposed to […]
Read more "Review: One Live Badger"This review is for the CD containing the first two albums. I give it 4 stars for prog-loving fans of H. P. Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle stories, the rating would be lower if you were expecting something else! When I first encountered the band, I was already a long-time fan of the author H. P. Lovecraft. […]
Read more "Review: H. P. Lovecraft (the band)"One more installment – realizing that I may have seen Rush four times instead of three! I definitely saw them on the Presto tour in Worcester when I was at Clark, on the Vapor Trails tour at Shoreline in 2002, and on the R40 tour at SAP Center in San Jose. But I have a […]
Read more "#epicrushmemories 3"One of my favorite basses in my collection is a 1976 Rickenbacker 4001 in the somewhat rare Autumnglo finish. I bought it used in 2002 – I even have a picture of it hanging in the window of Cambridge Music before I bought it: I saw it, couldn’t stop thinking about it when I got […]
Read more "Nova Autumnglo: Tale of a Bass Reborn"Another installment of #epicrushmemories! Neil Peart’s death early this year sent me down memory lane. Rush was a very important band to me in high school, and I have been trying to remember when I first discovered Rush. I thought it was in 9th grade when someone suggested I listen to “Tom Sawyer” or Exit… […]
Read more "#epicrushmemories 2"The recent passing of Rush drummer Neil Peart has affected a lot of people, myself included. A Facebook friend and I came up with the hashtag #EpicRushMemories – here are mine: I got tickets for the Vapor Trails tour show at the Shoreline Amphitheater in 2002 – received a call within a day or so […]
Read more "#EpicRushMemories"I don’t remember where I picked this up – maybe Amoeba San Francisco? It’s a great collection – 4 CDs on one mp3 CD! Hours and hours of ambient music! This is a compilation of various artists from the FAX label, done in a continuous mix in four parts (originally the 4 CDs of the […]
Read more "Pete Namlook Part 3 – The Ambient Cookbook II"Pete Namlook’s recorded output is quite diverse, partly due to his great variety of collaborators. Part of what makes Sultan stand out is the virtuosic playing of Burhan Öçal, on both stringed instruments and percussion. This really distinguishes it from other FAX releases which tend to be more atmospheric – the only similar one that […]
Read more "Pete Namlook Part 2 – review of Sultan by Namlook & Burhan Öçal"