E is for EPMD

My intern Josephina quit a few days ago.  Kind of a misunderstanding... I'll just let her email explain:

See what I mean?! Well, she's a good kid.

So I've been ripping all these damn CDs myself for days!!! What a pain in the ass!!! I'll give her this... she was right about the "20x" importing thing-- it really is a lot faster. When she cools off I'll send her a text.

Speaking of crazy women, it was a real trip to see my copy of The Gasoline Age by East River Pipe again. I first heard this on a cassette my buddy made me when I was going through my divorce way back. Actually, I was going through lots of crazy shit at that point: divorce, major illness, and a bitch of a new job that I was laughably unqualified for. All I ever listened to for a few months was Lucinda's Car Wheels (for the divorce), Murda Musik (for the job), and this cassette, which I guess was for my rapidly deteriorating nervous system.

For some reason, I began to believe that The Gasoline Age starts with "Hell Is An Open Door" and not "Shiny, Shiny Pimpmobile," which actually opens the album. I not only believed this mistruth, but I even went on record declaring "Hell... " to be one of the greatest opening tracks of all time. If you start at track #2 and stop before you get to the awful Atlantic City song, you're looking at an amazing album.

I've chosen to alphabetize "number bands" by their spelling and not their numerical value, so 801 Live belongs in this discussion. You won't find this square peg of a record in many discussions at all, unless you keep very peculiar company. For the unenlightened, 801 was a side project art-prog supergroup featuring Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music), Brian Eno (band name came from one of his songs), Francis Monkman (ex-Curved Air, future founder of Sky), Bill MacCormick (ex-Crimso Ian MacDonald's brother), Lloyd Watson (prog session guitar guy), and Simon Phillips (drums for Jeff Beck, Judas Priest, Pete Townshend, The Who, Asia, Toto, etc.). Like I said, a supergroup.

The record itself is weird as hell. Supposedly it was one of the first live albums primarily recorded "direct" (not mic'ed or off the board) to tape. That explains a few things, but the song selections are the story here: oddball Eno covers, standards by Kinks & Beatles, and wacko prog-fusion instrumentals. You might say that I found this album to be influential on my own career...

The best part of 801 Live, however, is particular to my very own copy of the E'G Records CD. It shouldn't surprise readers to read that I listened to this recording with friends while drinking cough syrup from time to time. One afternoon years ago I woke up to find this beloved treasure completely soaked in Maximum Strength DM-- the jewel box looked like a melted grape Fla-Vor-Ice sheath. Pictured at right is the actual booklet, complete with tussin discolorations.

I already dragged the Eno reissues through the mud a while back, so I won't do it again. On a positive note, I'll nominate side two of Before and After Science as my favorite flip side of all time.

Everybody loves EPMD for reasons that are obvious to those of us blessed with a pair of functional ears and/or legs. It's the morons that judge rap solely on "importance" that miss out on all the fun. Pretty tough to beat Strictly Business on any level, and I'll throw "So What Cha Sayin'" in with the cream too. Nothing we don't already know...

I will volunteer some new theories regarding the other rap giants of the E section, the Gog and Magog of hip hop... Eric B. & Rakim. I once brilliantly outlined a one-to-one correspondence of the catalog of Wyandanch's finest and another LI/NYC crew called the Velvet Underground. Yes, these two hugely influential musical acts followed dual paths, as demonstrated by their pristine recording tetrads. I can't exactly remember the finer points of my case, but I know that "My Melody" and "Venus in Furs" had something to do with it. Or maybe it was "Lyrics of Fury" and "I Heard Her Call My Name"... not sure. Since I've also famously presented the VU and Uncle Tupelo catalogs as analogs, it follows that Eric B. & Rakim and UT should also correspond. I'll leave that one to the listeners.

D is for Dumptruck

First things first... I've settled on a storage system for my orphaned CDs and booklets. The big black Case Logic wallets have served me well for many years, but they don't stack or stow well at all. Since I'll be packing these "fusion frisbees" away long-term, I need something durable, prismic (preferably), and cheap. The winning system is shown at right:

The D-block immediately lifted me out of my musical swamp. Jeez, the Dambuilders were one hell of a live band. My favorite shows of all time were behind the kit opening for these guys, playing my ass off knowing that drummer Kevin was going to kick some majorette butt later on. Not that I had anything close to his chops, but I'd usually bust up a cymbal or two just to make him squirm. Oh yeah, the rest of the 'Builders were really good too.

Josephina left me a hilarious voice mail asking me, "Who the fuck is Das Efx?" and, "How do you have seven of their CDs?" and, "How could you possibly be missing two more?!!" My answers were, "Next question," "I don't know," and "I don't know," respectively. Side one of Dead Serious was as good as things got for a while there. Now, not so sure.

The question she should have been asking is, "How the fuck do you have so many De La Soul CDs?" These guys put more of their 12" singles out on CD than any other band I can think of, and single-handedly kept me feeling "in touch" with hip hop for years. You see, I don't buy vinyl 'cause I refuse to store or maintain it properly. It's a big damn pain in the ass. This makes it tough for one to consider oneself an actual fan of rap music, obviously. Somehow I've made it work, and the Tommy Boy Records marketing department is a big part of that.

The question I was asking was, "Where the hell are my Deee-Lite CDs?!" These hipsters were in heavy rotation for a while there (1990?), along with beer balls of Matt's and lots of acid. In fact, I'm pretty sure World Clique was the soundtrack for the LSD-inspired painting of our living room at the time... a really, really bad idea (lots of swirls and flowers with a hideous black skull in the upper corner of the wall). I remember Deee-Lite completely disappearing as suddenly as they arrived, probably due to the Built to Last Dead tour finally ending, as well as the absurd rumors that Lady Miss Kier was actually a man.

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh... Deicide. Legion is easily top-ten "records you don't ever play at someone else's party" material.
THEM: "What the hell is this??!!!"
US: "It's Deicide!"
THEM: "WHAT??!!!"
US: "It's 'Satan Spawn, the Caco-Daemon!!'"
THEM: "WHAT???!!!!!!!"
US: "It's..."
THEM: "TURN IT OFF!!!!!!!!!!!"

I really wish I knew more about Deicide (the band, not the conceptual act)... any band whose lead singer burns multiple inverted crucifixes onto his forehead, gets a gig canceled when a live bomb is discovered and ultimately detonated on stage, and allows pit bulls to violently mutilate a (fake) body filled with entrails during one of its shows seems worth investigating some more.

I had a Bob Dylan harangue all cued up, but I just don't have it in me right now. I'll end with a CD by Liz Durrett that I picked up on tour about five years ago. It was the one night I actually drank beer after I played, so of course I bought stuff from the girl we played with. I only remember one song she played, which was spectacular; I spent the rest of her set making the songs sound like the one I liked in my head. Mezzanine is pretty good, but the recording doesn't really capture what I heard (or at least what I think I heard) that night in Athens, GA. They never do.

 

C is for Cavedogs

Finally, the third installment of the unabashedly self-indulgent "Lee's CDz from A to Z" series.

The C-section has delivered one bundle of joy after another. I was just getting started when my beloved pre-legal woes Captain America popped off the spindle. Along with Tougher Than Leather, this is one of the few records that actually makes me taste and smell beer whenever I hear it. Amazing. Licensed to Ill is the all-time winner for "beerfeel," but a bit unfair since the CD itself is actually covered with malt liquor and literally smells like beer. Anyway, "Buttermilk" from CA's "Flame On" was a boozy fave back in the day. With lyrics like "buttermilk was on her chin, same color as her white skin," it's no wonder the record was recalled! Also no wonder I was thrown out of their show at Club Babyhead for over-consumption of beer.

I'm getting all kinds of shit 'round the compass about how long this is taking... well excuuuuuuuuse me!! Do the math, Euclid!! Let's say each CD is 45 minutes (conservative estimate!), and I'm well over 500 already... so that's at least 500 hours of ripping time! Add the time it takes to put the discs in and out of the computer, plus typing all the song titles into iTunes, and we're talking about months of work! Josephina was yowling something about "doing it at 20X" the other day, but she usually has no idea what she's talking about anyway. Most of the time she's just looking for ways to bill more hours for her internship...

oh dear god in heaven!

Wowed by The Cars in a big way. What a great fucking record. "Bye Bye Love" is pretty much perfect, and segues seamlessly into another vision of perfection. That would be "Moving in Stereo," aka "the song that makes every guy born between 1960 and 1970 instantly pop a boner."

Once again, missing tons of CDs. Between Josephina's notes and my spotty memory, here's the death toll: 3 Cream, 4 Eric Clapton, a ton of Cure CDs, a few John Cougars, possibly 2 (!) Chi-Lites discs, and God knows how many releases with Crosby and Stills on the spine. It's possible that each of the above titles were mysteriously replaced with Cypress Hill CDs, of which I somehow have eleven. What the heck happened?! And where's my Coolio record? 

About two-thirds of the way through the letter-grouping, I unearthed a piece of plastic that belongs in some sort of museum (or laboratory)-- my Giant Steps CD. This thing found its way into trouble so many times I was sure I chucked it! Nope, still here.A buddy of mine that crashed on my couch in college for at least a full semester had something to do with it. We took acid one night (actually, dozens of nights... but I'm referring to one in particular here) and ended up in a familiar scenario: taking turns playing records for each other. At some point, "Fruitfly" (not his real name) threw the Coltrane on, which I was certainly familiar with but by no means expert. My friend launched into several lectures within 30 seconds, namely (a) an etymology of the title "Giant Steps," (b) a quick discography of Paul Chambers, and (c) something about bungee jumping. At the same time, Fruitfly had unsheathed his bass guitar and was furiously playing along with the song, to my ears, perfectly.

Like many LSD experiences, fascination quickly morphed into terror. Fruit's fingers were moving so quickly that I imagined them as the blade of a circular saw, which made me shrink back about two feet. I stammered out some sort of suggestion about "Giant Eyes" or "Giant Squares" as an alternative title, and made an end run around Fruit over to the CD bookshelf. I considered hanging on for dear life until "Naima," but that was light years down the road at this point. I grabbed a disc off the top of the bookshelf just before 4:30 on the display and made a slick switcheroo. A brilliant transition popped into my throbbing orange brain in the 10 seconds of silence between records. Something like "here's your fucking Coltrane!" slid off my tongue as I skipped to track two of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.

Fruitfly cowered in mortal horror as I practically climbed on top of him, with "Bring the Noise" shaking the walls of our building. I regurgitated some jive I'd tried out a few nights before on cough syrup, but fired off my lines about twenty times faster and clearer than the first time. "You're overwhelmed right now!! You're musically and conceptually overwhelmed!! This is politics, lyrics, production, innovation, humor, dance, race, EVERYTHING AT THE SAME TIME!!!"

I don't even think we made it to the end of the track; I felt like a rogue linebacker after breaking a placekicker's neck. It didn't take long for us to settle down and make friends... I think we went outside and watched cars for a while. Pulling a nasty stunt like that takes a lot out of you.

The Giant Steps CD resurfaced years later on Long Island, when I somehow left it in a paper bag with four other titles on a stool at Gunther's Tap Room. Next time I walked into that hole the bartender threw the brown package at me, sneering, "These are yours." The 'Trane was in there, but my brand-new Iron Maiden collection wasn't. I hate that bar.

looks kinda like a fish...

Somewhere along this odyssey, the CD was damaged badly. Who knows where,  who knows how? Regardless, there's a swatch of digitally encoded polycarbonate missing from the disc's underside. The missing data is near the outer edge of the program area, possibly during the alternate take of "Syeeda's Song Flute." I attempted to import this monstrosity a few weeks ago, and nearly destroyed my computer. As the CPU tower started to shake, a sound I immediately compared to running over a putter with a lawnmower filled our apartment, waking up two of the three sleeping children currently residing at Chez Mazzola.

I'm starting to worry about ripping my Red Hot Chili Peppers CDs, if I still have any. I know for a fact that one of my copies of Freaky Styley was submerged in orange juice for at least two hours.

B is for Bad Brains

Not vinyl but bloody brilliant

If the "digitization" of my CD collection were a cross-country trip, the B section would be the first hour of Pennsylvania: a few initial thrills followed by nerve-deadening boredom. I never thought I'd be so thrilled to see David Byrne's The Catherine Wheel emerge from a freaking spindle.

Highlights:Original Émigré pressing of Basehead's Play With Toys ("Not Over You" is a forgotten classic), a copy of Biz' I Need a Haircut with a chainsaw-sized cut-out notch in the booklet, a promo-only single of Bodeans' "Closer to Free" with the Party of Five cast on it, a couple of weird BDP discs, and more Bill Bruford CDs than I'd like to admit. Oh yeah, Lindsey Buckingham's Words and Music too-- a collection interspersed with dorky musings and comments about the songs by LB himself (director's commentary-style).

MIA: nearly all my BÖC, Jeff Beck, Sabbath, and my Last Waltz double disc... no question that these were traded in during the early '90s depression days. Needed a 15-pack of Stroh's? That certainly seemed worth four or five perfectly good classic rock CDs. Now? Not so much. Remarkably, I'm even missing some additional Bruford recordings.

[The fucking Rays just scored five runs in the time it took me to write two paragraphs.]Flat-out missing are Vincebus Eruptum, Power of Pussy, This Is Big Audio Dynamite, Last Splash, and one of my Richard Buckner CDs. Like, I have the booklets but not the actual music. I guess they all might've walked at the same party, but seems a bit fishy.

Funny as hell watching my computer try to import We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll... hiccuping and wheezing over the horribly scratched CD like a tubercular pigeon. After multiple attempts and piecewise ripping, only "Sweet Leaf" was declared to be unimportable and omitted.

A is for Audioslave

As I staggered around my living room watching Carmelo Anthony with a Miller Lite in my hand, trying not to step on my daughter's head, I wondered aloud, "What the hell am I doing?" Of course, I knew the Knicks had no chance of beating Boston in a 7-game series, and I actually love Lite beer, so I was searching much deeper. "Why do I have thousands of CDs stored in giant black wallets taking up valuable storage space in our apartment? What the hell am I doing?"

My CD collection's display value has varied inversely with my age, in years, over the last two decades according to the following equation:

da = 20
(let d = display value, in percent)


In other words, my CDs are currently hidden from view and somewhat accessible on demand. In other words, there's gotta be a better way.

Scary good.

I always laugh when people talk about "digitizing their CD collection"-- isn't that like liquifying your urine? Anyway, I bought myself a big old portable hard drive at Costco on 116th and started lettin'er rip!!! We've officially finished the A section, featuring well over 100 pieces of plastic. My new intern, Josephina, is doing a kick-ass job so far, even if she misspelled every one of the twelve Autechre releases she notated in her accompanying Excel file. "Lee, why do I have to type these in? iTunes does it automatically..."

Here's what we've learned so far:

Most of my indie rock CDs seem to be missing: Atari Teenage Riot, Archers of Loaf, Amnesia, etc. These are all on my original Excel file (typed by my old intern, Michelle), but nowhere to be found. Hmmm...

Totally forgot that AZ started out on RCA as "AZ the Visualiza." Wonder why that never caught on?

AC/DC might be the greatest band of all time. Their stretch from 1975 to 1981 is unbeatable. OK, they're the greatest band from 1975 to 1981.

The Bargain Bin

Drawing inspiration from (1) Charles Simone's touching memoir "An Ode to the Record Store," and (2) the Yankees' recent success with scrapheap sensations Bartolo Colón, Freddy Garcia, Andruw Jones, Eric Chavez, Russell Martin (sort of), Kevin Millwood (possibly), etc., I present an homage of my own to diamonds in the musical rough. Each trashcan treasure below spent many months (or years!) in the 99¢ cut-out bins on St. Marks and elsewhere, crying out for savvy shoppers like myself to snatch'em up and share. Props to S.T. for pointing a couple of these out...

Cool Down Time - Dan Zanes (1995, Private Music)
Between the Del Fuegos and his Nick Jr. superstardom, Dan Zanes made a weird pop record with cool production and sticky tunes. I think I bought three copies in Princeton for less than $5.

Thank You - Royal Trux (1995, Virgin)
My wife backed off a bit when I asked her for a formal rec on this one, but we certainly agreed that it was a bonanza in the bins. A cheap, cheap high.

Keep a Secret - The Mysteries of Life (1996, RCA)
An industry buzz-band that sold nada outside of Indiana, whose debut features wonderful pop tunes and superb drums courtesy of Freda Love Boner.

A Series of Sneaks - Spoon (1998, Elektra)
Sure, these guys are huuuuuge now, but nobody outside the record biz had this little old masterpiece back in the day. Happens to be their best album, too.

Dirt Floor - Chris Whitley (1998, Messenger)
Not a major label promo-spawn but still a cellar dweller cut-out tragedy. I used to buy this one every time I saw it for less than five bucks, which was often. Great fucking record, great fucking guitarist... crying shame.

Knicks-Celtics / Yanks-Rangers Live Blog!!!

6:46 - As soon as I get Jr. to bed, I'm on it!!!

7:46 - One hour later, and tied 28-28. Jr.'s asleep but Lil Mz is roaming the living room virtually unsupervised. Good enough.

7:57 - Figured I'd try typing with my 14-month-old daughter on my lap. My laptop immediately went to a terrifying black screen, with a garish font warning something about system reboot. Children under the age of two have an uncanny ability to make computers (and other electronic devices, particularly cell phones) do things they've never been seen to do. Lee Jr. once caused my screen to rotate 90 degrees with the strike of a single key, which was harder than you might think to fix. I had my head and spine orthogonal as I tried to make corresponding moves with my mouse, which I was terrible at.
I can barely pick my nose properly while looking in the mirror-- something is seriously wrong with my brain's ability to reflect images.

8:08 - Pretty good so far. Bounces and calls seem to be going our way for the most part, and no one's broken their leg(s) yet. We have a chance.

8:09 - I really thought about postponing the boy's bedtime and having him watch the game with me on the couch. You know, a real "father-son" moment. Or something like a farmer taking his boy out to see the slaughtering of chickens ("geeking") as a rite of passage; maybe even the equivalent of the Maasai Eunoto ceremony, where pubescent warriors eat raw oxen flesh as they are promoted to the ranks of full tribesmen.

---(MID-THIRD QUARTER)... JR. HAS HORRIBLE HONKING COUGH FIT AND NEEDS TV TO RE-OPEN WINDPIPE... "MAX AND RUBY: EASTER" AND "MAX AND RUBY: PARADE" ARE ON-DEMANDED ARE WATCHED TWICE EACH FOR A TOTAL OF 96 MINUTES OF AIR TIME... REMAINDER OF KNICKS-CELTICS MISSED COMPLETELY, WITH MINIMAL ACCESS TO BLACKBERRY SCOREMOBILE... LAST 21 SECONDS OF GAME TAKE AT LEAST 10 MINUTES OF FROZEN SCREEN TIME... MISSED REMAINDER OF YANKEE GAME AS WELL...

Can someone tell me why the fuck i even bother writing about this bullshit?!! Anyone?!!!

Huges, Huger, Hugest!

Glad ESPN got this news to us right away...



Pistons 99, Knicks 95

People have been asking me, "Lee, why don't you write about the Knicks anymore?" Well, they really say, "Lee, you asshole, why don't you write ANYTHING anymore??!!!" but that's besides the point. Let's talk about the Knicks.

Truth is, I'm terrified. Every time I turn on MSG when the Knicks are on, they immediately go stone cold and disappear into a 12-2 run by the opponent. Seriously, at least 80% of the time. I fear my beloved team have become Eurydice to my Orpheus, punishing my lack of faith with eternal misery.

Upon further reflection, I realize that this is not a new phenomenon. The Knicks have sucked as soon as I turn on the TV for the last 10+ years! Forget the Greek myths, this is like saying, "Wow, I looked out the window at midnight tonight and it was dark out!" It's just that now the Knicks are sort of good again, I think. Maybe.

SEE???!!! They were up by about ten when I turned it on tonight, and they just lost the damn game to the Pistons. O Knicks! Return thy selves to the Erinyes and Hades himself, for you my gaze shall ne'er find!!!

Charlie Don't Surf

Wow. Sheen's-Korner is so powerful, so awe-inspiring... it's not logical to even begin a discussion.  I'm half staring-at-the-light in Close Encounters and half staring-into-the-Ark in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  It's a brave new world, or maybe an eternity damned.