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  • Home sweet home… for now…

    Home sweet home… for now…

    Our furniture is here. Our cars are on the way. I think we’re home sweet home… for now…


    Motley Crue sings “Home Sweet Home”…

    I’m not really a big fan of 80s hair bands, but “Home Sweet Home” by Motley Crue just popped into my head as I’m sitting here thinking that for the 6th time in seven years, I’m “home sweet home”. I’m glad to be in Germany, though the process of getting here and settling wasn’t particularly easy. It helps to have lived here before, though. In fact, coming back here after five years kind of feels like a homecoming. While we lived in the Stuttgart area for only two years last time, it was our favorite place to live and we became quite comfortable here. As soon as our cars get here, it should be somewhat easier. I won’t necessarily be stuck in the house all the time like I was last time.

    It does seem weird that I feel more comfortable in Germany than I did in Texas. Maybe it has to do with the weather, which today is cold and rainy.


    Van Morrison’s stormy “Close Enough For Jazz” makes me think of living in Europe again, especially when it’s raining.

    Hopefully we won’t be “Homeward Bound” anytime soon. At least not for good.


    Going home won’t involve a railway station…

    Actually, we do have to go to Virginia in November and Virginia is my home. We’re going to attend our annual Thanksgiving family reunion, which is held by my side of the family. I used to be a regular attendee of the annual reunion, but when I got married, we quit going so much. Last time I was at the annual shindig was in 2010. I had a great time, but the following year, we went to the Caribbean and the year after that, we went to Scotland. This year, we’re going because of my dad’s death. That’s when his memorial service is going to be. I’m supposed to contribute a song. My mom asked me to sing, then said she hoped I could provide a “tape” of my own accompaniment. I don’t use tapes anymore, but I do have a CD.

    In the meantime, I have to rehearse, which seems a little hard to do in our new German house. I’ve found that sound leaks a lot, probably because the walls are concrete and echo a lot. Germans are also kind of particular about a lot of things, including noise. The last thing I want is someone knocking on my door to tell me to pipe down.


    Jimmy Hughes sings “Neighbor, Neighbor”, a song I might need to dedicate to someone at some point…

    The first time I heard “Neighbor, Neighbor” was in Germany. Gregg Allman was singing a cover version on his album Searching For Simplicity. That CD has the distinction of being the very first item I ever got in the mail in Germany back in 2007. I ordered it before we left the States and it was waiting for me in the post office. This time, we couldn’t get a box right away, so I had to wait for my first package. And this time, I didn’t bring any CDs.

    I realize this post is about a whole lotta nothing, but it’s all finally sinking in. We’re settling in one more time and hopefully for longer than a year or two.

  • Exciting news for fans of the Allman Brothers Band

    Exciting news for fans of the Allman Brothers Band

    I just found out some exciting news for fans of the Allman Brothers Band and I can’t wait to share it!

    One of the best live albums ever, The Allman Brothers Band’s At Fillmore East, has been expanded into a new and completely remastered box set! The new box set, entitled The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings, will come in three different configurations: six CDs, four LPs, or three Blu-rays.

    Fillmore East was rock promoter and impresario Bill Graham’s iconic concert venue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was open from March 8, 1968 until June 27, 1971 and served as an eastern companion to Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium and later Fillmore West venue in San Francisco, California. Fillmore East was famous for hosting some of the hottest rock acts of the time and The Allman Brothers Band were a much celebrated guest there.

    The expanded Fillmore East box set comes from recordings made over the weekend of March 12-13, 1971, as well as the entire Allman Brothers Band performance on June 27, 1971, Fillmore East’s closing night. Bill Graham handpicked the Allman Brothers Band to headline that night because of their phenomenal ability to play live gigs.

    The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings box set will also include a 36 page booklet with detailed notes written by Allmanologist John Lynskey, as well as fifteen previously unreleased tracks. These concerts have been remastered in 5.1 surround sound from the original multi-track recordings. They should sound great on whatever machine you want to use to play them!

    I am very excited about this new box set because I have been a big Allman Brothers Band fan for years. While I’ve always enjoyed their studio recordings of such classic hits like “Ramblin’ Man” and “Statesboro Blues”, I especially enjoy their live tracks. I think one of the best measures of a band’s collective talent is how good they are live or on live recordings. The Allman Brothers Band is consistently top notch in a live venue; they are well-known for their effortless, innovative jams. And I do love a good live jam!

    So, if you love live music by the Allman Brothers Band, mark your calendar for July 29th. That’s when you can get your hands on this brand new box set!


    An ad for The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings…

  • a few quick recommendations of 2014 albums

    I don’t have much to say about music from 2014 yet beyond “Here are some albums I’ve listened to a couple times that are definitely good”. I’ve been short on music-listening time this year: there’s been my mom’s cancer and my revival of my teenage fascination with the TV show Doctor Who, plus various temporary issues. That’s why I’m still far from done with my Best-of-2013 review countdown, even. But in case you’re curious, here are some 2014 albums I’m happy with, along with sketchy, tentative descriptions:

    Bastards of Fate, Vampires are Real and PalpableLoud, woozy, strange, carnivalesque, racing from one idea to another, and prone to explosions — all with crooned melodic vocals.

    Jon Langford & Skull Orchard, Here Be Monsters. Americana from the former leader of the Mekons: lyrically smart, politically charged, with arrangement ideas (especially percussion) that are just a little bit off.

    Laibach, Spectre. Slightly-poppy industrial dance from Slovenian pranksters who’ve made a long career of toying with fascist imagery (for example, the minor tinkering needed to turn Queen’s “One Vision” into a Nazi rallying call), but finally decided this year to explicitly sing as their leftist selves — which, it turns out, works just fine, and infuses them with new energy.

    Muuy Biien, D.Y.I. An abrasive, churning, hostile splatter of echoey 2-minute punk-rock songs, more spoken/yelled than sung, that’s very well-played for what it is and ends up striking me as lots of fun. The surf-rock influence helps.

    Neneh Cherry, Blank Project. Sensual, minimalist R & B. The most aggressive songs sound to me like sparer feminine takes on Kanye’s Yeezus, while the rest put almost all the emphasis and power onto her jazz-and-hip-hop-influenced crooning.

    Reconaissance Fly, Flower Futures. Arty avant-cabaret with strange melodic progressions and tuning and playfully weird lyrics (reminding me of Slapp Happy, if their songs had gotten longer instead of shorter as they got weirder). Extremely well-sung, although willfully distant.

    Sage Francis, Copper Gone. My favorite album of 2014 so far is dense, energetic hip-hop full of leftist politics, personal reflections and recriminations, complicated wordplay, and cultural-allusion mixmastering that often pays off in oddball insight.

    Seeming, Madness & Extinction. Or, my favorite album of 2014 so far is a lavishly beautiful, massively layered goth-pop album about, yes, madness and (human) extinction. Not normally my kind of thing; it’s just so well done.

    St. Vincent, S/T. Another layered, dark pop album, helmed by the solemn vocals and twisted King Crimson-ish guitar work of Annie Clark. This is St. Vincent’s slickest and most accessible record: “dance music for funerals” is I think how she described its intent.

    Stars in Battledress, In Droplet Form. A very English, precisely composed, good-natured keyboard-pop record with influences baroque, Kid A-ish, quirk-poppy, and Stereolabby.

    Stephen Malkmus, Wig Out at Jagbag’s. Guitar-heroics indie-pop of a laid-back nature, as if the Allman Brothers had been geeky university Northerners instead of not like that at all.

    Tori Amos, Unrepentant Geraldines. At least musically, it would be very easy to believe this was a long-lost predecessor to Little Earthquakes: piano-centric, direct, easy-access. I’ll probably decide it’s great once I give it the attention it deserves; for now I’m annoyed that all the reviews are so ecstatic that this isn’t like the Beekeeper or Abnormally Attracted to Sin, both of which I think are wonderful, wonderful records. But even though right now I find it an unwanted corrective and haven’t listened very well, I can tell it’s no worse than good.

    TunaBunny, Kingdom Technology. A very strange amalgam of vocal-harmony-driven rock’n’roll, drone/ambient, and Fall/Wire-ish post-punk.

    White Hinterland, Baby. Jazzy, soulful minor-key piano-pop songs with nifty experimental edges.

    Wovenhand, Refractory Obdurate. Dark, dry, gothy minor-key post-punk guitar-rock that reminds me of early Echo & the Bunnymen, Chairs Missing/ 154-era Wire, and the Chameleons.