Listened to a fair amount of vinyl over the long weekend. Here are a couple highlights:


Thin Lizzy - Black Rose

I think most of Thin Lizzy's stuff outside of Jailbreak is overlooked (at least in the U.S.) and this is a prime example. Full of great tunes, and great guitar playing, this is a real gem. I generally loathe the "epic" closer, but the 7-minute closer, "Roisin Dubh (Black Rose): A Rock Legend" has enough going on throughout the song to make it interesting including some tradtional celtic sounds.



Ray Charles - Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Vol. 2

I didn't even know this existed until I saw it at a thrift store. I'm guessing it doesn't get the love that Volume 1 does because it's really just more of the same, but if you like Vol. 1, I can't imagine you not liking Vol. 2. I especially enjoy his take on "Making Believe," done so well by Kitty Wells and later covered by Social Distortion.

can't say I'll listen to this one a lot, but a good progression for them. They've always been hard to nail down

Stream it HERE

Thank you, spotify. Have a ton of Doc's, Doc/Merle stuff on vinyl and cd and didn't want to drag it to work/digitize it.

I break this one out every summer.

For me, it's a winter album. (Though I will listen to it at anytime.) Makes me think of New Year's Eve 1996, tripping about the Dirty Dirty with my at-the-time running crew, mid-afternoon breaking bread at Johnny V's, then a stop at the public library to pick up a coupla books on the Enlightenment (for the AP European class we were all taking). FoW was in the air, as it was just getting play on the local "alt" station, New Rock 102.1 (originally, Love 102, the disco station; then, Hot 102, the hip-hop/rap/r n' b station; & since '99 or so, Rock 102, Independent Alternative Radio, & 102.1 Independent), & we were buzzing. Or I was.

(One friend was more a fan of Tool, & Drain, & the metal of the time generally. Another was favouring Republica, Future Sound of London, & Stabbing Westward. & the third, My Nemesis (to be), was grooving on Man or Astro-Man?, Powerman 5000, & Garbage.)

On a rainy, unexpectedly mild ere of 1997, the misting air tickling my cheeks, breath almost visible, one of my last entirely carefree moment with the only friends I ever had, FoW just fit.

& I think I still have the Baruch Spinoza volume I checked out, in an attempt to game my chances with the busty ex-cheerleader & sometimes thespian in that AP Euro section. (That never came to pass, either.)

Chromatics - Kill for Love
The Walkmen - Heaven
Sun Kil Moon - Among the Leaves
Gong - Flying Teapot
Aphrodite's Child - 666
Swans - The Great Annihilator
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Kicking Against the Pricks
La Sera - Sees the Light
Mount Eerie - Clear Moon

The Cult - Choice of Weapon

Stone Temple Pilots - Purple
Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Viking Skull - Cursed By the Sword
Kreator - Phantom Antichrist
High On Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis

Agreed that both of these are great, and good point about Thin Lizzy getting ignored past Jailbreak.

Erykah Badu: Baduizm
A neosoul classic. Badu's debut album was striking at the time and still holds up very well indeed. I never really tire of this one. The vinyl version cuts a few tracks, but might just be a tad more concise. Either way, a great listen.

(actually, I am listening to the FIRST Falstaff album, but this was the best that I could do for an image. it appears to be nowhere on the internet... more invisible than any album i can mention, even one of my own.)