Talking Heads - Speaking In Tongues

1. BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE 4:00
2. MAKING FLIPPY FLOPPY 4:36
3. GIRLFRIEND IS BETTER 4:25
4. SLIPPERY PEOPLE 3:30
5. I GET WILD/WILD GRAVITY 4:06
6. SWAMP 5:09
7. MOON ROCKS 5:04
8. PULL UP THE ROOTS 5:08
9. THIS MUST BE THE PLACE (NAIVE MELODY) 4:56

With maybe the exception of Stop Making Sense, which got me hooked, this is easily my favorite Talking Heads album. In my opinion, when you have their most beautiful song, “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” and their most badass, rockin’, dancin’ song, “Burning Down The House,” combined with less-easily-labeled classics filling up the gap between the two, this album is unstoppable. Better yet, I got a 100% scratchless, clean copy for $6.

Earth, Wind, and Fire - I Am

Wikipedia (w)

1. “In The Stone”
2. “Can’t Let Go”
3. “After The Love Has Gone”
4. “Let Your Feelings Show”
5. “Boogie Wonderland” (with The Emotions)
6. “Star”
7. “Wait”
8. “Rock That!”
9. “You And I”

Can’t say I’ve ever listened to this one, but part of the idea behind me purchasing a turntable was to build up my collection of old-school funk, soul, etc, beyond the couple Parliament/Funkadelic albums I have. Earth, Wind, & Fire is one that registers on my radar, so I grabbed this copy since it was the cheapest and luckily it appears, found one of their popular albums. As I just now am flipping to Side 2 and hearing “Boogie Wonderland,” I’m catching on as to why… this is good stuff. Anyone reading, I need more 70’s funk and anything else worth my time. What artists should I have my eye open for?

I’m currently on the prowl for The Commodores, The Mohawks, The Gap Band, Frankie Smith, Rick James, Rare Essence, and not much else that I would recall off the top of my head…

…just bought these two:

Pioneer PL-400 Turntable: original advertisement

Grado Prestige Black Cartridge: link

So… just have to get a preamp since my reciever has no phono inputs and I’m set. That is, I officially have way too many components in my stack.

Hey dad, do you still have that vinyl brush?

I recently acquired the lil’ blue beauty you see pictured above as a direct result of totaling my old car on the way to Summer Camp a month ago.  The accident seems to be a mixed blessing.  One of the unexpected pros of the situation was learning to drive a stick.  A more pertinent “benefit” would be the truck’s stereo setup, or lack thereof.  Specifically, I am now cruising around with a Clarion cassette tape deck with no visible screen.  I may not be able to bump like I used to, but I am now faced with the forced opportunity to fall back in love with cassette tapes, whose usefulness to me was rather limited before the age of 10, when we got a CD player in our house.  But, a decade and a trip to the used record store later, I am the proud owner of three gently used classic cassettes:

That’s right.  The best of The Allman Brothers, Boston’s self-titled, and the Best of Grand Funk.  Classics, indeed.

At this point, I would like to ask anyone reading this who has some jammin’ Phish or Dead tapes to share if they would be willing to send ‘em over for some good ol’ fashioned blanks & postage.  Shoot me an email at kanejamison@burningoak.com, I’d greatly appreciate it, since I have a few upcoming road trips and the local shop has zero Grateful Dead or Phish tapes for sale.

Additionally, any classic albums I should be considering for road trips?  My next trip to the record shack will likely involve the purchase of some Little Feat, Rolling Stones, and taking a hint from a favorite character of mine, some Creedence.  This may be the start of a new obsession…

Update:  It should also be noted that I will only be accepting cassette submissions from bands and promoters from this point forth.  CD’s will be passed among friends or delegated as coasters.

I just caught wind of an amusing application via False45th called the Last.fm Mainstream-O-Meter. If you have a Last.fm account you can just pop in your username and it will compare your listening habits to anyone else who has listened to that artist, and then spit out your “mainstreamness.” You can check out my results here, anyone got me beat?

Sidenote, I think I’d prefer they named it “mainstreaminess,” taking a page out of Colbert’s book.

[google -4024933457546621375 nolink] 

June 17, 1991, Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey:

Opening the show with “Eyes of the World,” one of my favorites, this video was apparently transferred from a VHS as you can see at the beginning, and has good quality video and audio for a transfer.  It starts in with a cool zoom in through the crowd, already dancing, and has a lot of good closeups of all the band members.  Looks to have been done professionally.  Total Time: 14:48.

Don’t forget, you can stream the entire show’s audio at Archive.org:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd91-06-17.sbd.miller.25608.sbeok.shnf

Setlist from DeadBase.com:
June 17, 1991, Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey (Mon)
Set One:
Eyes of the World >
Walking Blues
B. E. Women
Masterpiece
Loose Lucy
Cassidy >
Might As Well

Set Two:
Saint >
Ship Of Fools >
Dark Star Jam >
Truckin >
New Speedway >
Uncle John >
Jam >
Drumz >
China Doll >
Playin Reprise >
Sugar Magnolia

Encore:
The Weight