New Year's Resolution

First up, a nice interview I did on a podcast called The Secular Buddhist is up now. So go here and have a listen.

Next up, dig this review of the New Hope compilation. The New Hope was a compilation album dedicated the the Cleveland/Akron hardcore scene that came out in 1983. It was the very first record I was ever on!

If you don't wanna buy the LP, just look it up on iTunes. It's there!

That last post I put up got so much response I almost hate to break up the party. But I decided a while back to try and update this blog at least every three days. I've been traveling and haven't been able to for a couple days. Now I'm back in Brooklyn.

I'm going to do a book review of a book I borrowed from my friend Rod Firestone of the Rubber City Rebels. The book's called A Very Bad Wizard: Morality Behind the Curtain. But since I haven't finished reading it yet, I don't think I'm ready for a review. It's pretty good. Maybe next time I'll review it.

I was also thinking of reviewing West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology, which I just got and listened to on the road. Quick review: It's not quite as entertaining as the previous boxed set of Hendrix alternate takes, The Jimi Hendrix Experience. That had the full-length version of If Six Was Nine, which nobody ever thought would get released. The story goes that Hendrix left the master in a taxi and the take heard on the record was edited together from the undamaged portions of a badly stored rough mix. A couple years ago they restored the the damaged bits and now you can hear the whole thing. The rest of that anthology is mainly alternate takes of familiar songs from the days of the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

West Coast Seattle Boy includes both pre- and post-Experience recordings. It provides a whole disc of Hendrix's so-called "chitlin' circuit years," when he was a struggling nobody backing up various r&b singers including Little Richard and the Isley Brothers. None of these tracks are especially amazing in themselves. But you get to hear Hendrix developing his soon-to-be signature sound.

The other discs are sometimes revelatory, sometimes cool, but often kind of boring. Jimi taped most of his jam sessions and he is damned good as are the people he played with. But jamming is still jamming. It's fun to do, sometimes fun to see done live, but usually boring to listen to decades later. Unless it's The Who's Live At Leeds album. But maybe that's because Pete Townshend was a songwriter and jamming by The Who in those days was more like instant composition right on stage than just noodling in the key of A.

My new year's resolution was to set myself a schedule and stick to it. I'm already way off schedule today. Ah well....

But I did get a new Suicide Girls piece done and turned in on time. It will run on Monday. It's about depression.