7/6 Waterloo and WTF

WTF NEW LIZ PHAIR ALBUM.... I don't know what to make of Bollywood. I listened to it like twenty times and I didn't know if I liked it or not. I mean I know it's her sense of humor, but what if she actually thinks this is a good song to start off with? I mean if it's a throwaway then the rest of the album could be great? I'm so confused... I'll be "borrowing" a "friend's" "copy" then deciding later.


Records--
Highway 61 Revisited -- 20
Zen Arcade by Husker Du -- 13
New Day Rising by Husker Du -- 10
Clear Spot by Captian Beefheart -- 12
Song Cycle by Van Dyke Parks -- 20

All of these were reissues.

Yeah... I feel like I need to sort of have more "classic" albums and I'm severely lacking in the dylan department. I would have gotten Blonde on Blonde but they wanted 30 bucks for it. So I got this one instead. Someone said that this is the album where dylan gave up being a troubadour for becoming a hipster. I heart hipsters.

Ok... Zen arcade is one of the three most important double albums of the 80s. The other two being Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation and the Minutemen's Double Nickles on the Dime. SST has been reissuing all of their stuff really cheap lately so it was a good find. New Day Rising is the album right afterward. It's more poppy. I want to say Zen was recorded in a ridiculously short amount of time, like two weeks. The minutemen were jealous so they did double nickles in like 3 nights or something like that. I think "Take That Huskers!" is somewhere on the album. Then sonic youth jumped on the bandwagon because they wrote too many songs for a single after listening to dinosaur jr.

Clear spot is another beefheart record. It doesn't have drumbo on it, so that's unfortunate but it does have a lot of good songs on it such as Low Yo Yo Stuff, Nowadays a Woman's Gotta Hit a Man, and Big Eyed Beans from Venus.

Song Cycle is one of the greatest albums of the 60's if not all time. The songs fly around in a chaotic beautiful mess. Van Dyke Parks is a genius, that's the simplest way to put it. However he can be too smart for his own good, I mean was it really necessary to have a song called Van Dyke Parks by Public Domain as well as Public Domain by Van Dyke Parks? Anyways... it's lovely.

6/11 Waterloo Records

First off let me start by saying that waterloo records is my favorite record store for reissues. They've got a really good selection and their labels make it really easy to go through stuff really fast. However I do have some problems... I don't understand how they can have every other reissue by 4 men with beards, except judee sill... come on! Also... what is it with reissues costing more than 15 bucks? I saw a reissue of cat steven's Mona Bone Jakon going for 20 bucks when they had a perfectly good used copy for 4. I can understand profit, but did it really cost 15 bucks to make a record? Cat stevens isn't that hard to find, so there's no reason for a 20 dollar price tag.

Anyways on to the records...

Wowee Zowee by Pavement -- 14
Brighten the Corners by Pavement --10
Dreamy by Beat Happening -- 14
Blues and Roots by Charlie Mingus -- 12
Odessa by The Brothers Gibb -- 5
Who Are You -- 4
Jump! by Van Dyke Parks --4

Ok... so I think the pavement albums are the most obvious. What's not to like about pavement? Lo fi-ish... Fun... Indie rock... What more could a girl want? Anyways, Brighten the Corners is my favorite, Wowee's number two. I'll probably pick up Terror Twilight sometime in the near future.

Dreamy. The second to last beat happening album. I really liked You Turn Me On, Black Candy still but less so. I figure this album should hopefully be a nice in between.

Now for the kicker. That's Right... A JAZZ RECORD... I NEVER see Mingus anywhere, but he definitely is my favorite jazz musician. I got this one because it was the one I was least familiar with (I had already heard the clown and Philanthropus erectus). Anyways it has moaning so I'm looking forward to it.

Now for the used records. This copy of odessa is freakish. Odessa was a double album but this is a single lp. It turns out in the late seventies when they did another pressing, they decided to cut down to one disc. I guess that's what you get when the original has a felt cover with golden letters.

Who are you? Who couldn't use some more of the who? "The last reasonably interesting who record"--AMG

Ok... now for the real find. Jump! by Van Dyke Parks. I got into VDP when I was into smile, the brian wilson album where vdp wrote the words. Song Cycle is really good just because it makes you think about structure. That album is due for a reissue!

see you in two weeks!