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THIS BLOG IS RATED WWW-MA.

Update 2020-12-16: (True sticky posts banned; click to read.) So, owing to the evolution of the internet, or at least my own approach to it,...

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Q: Why did the student throw the mainstream news magazine out the window?

A: He wanted to see time come to a sickening THUD on the ground so he could sit back and indulge himself in cool music.


Why, yes, I did choose the last name "Adams" in honor of Douglas. How did you know?

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Pussy - Pussy Plays (a quick review by ~C.A.~)

This is, in a nutshell, half of a classic psych/rock album. Four of the eight songs shine, and the other four (three of these are instrumentals) are just kind of there. So, strong start with good, organ-driven psych/rock: "Come Back June" is a good, mainstream-ish rock number that could have been a hit...maybe; "All of My Life" is another good one, with a softly spoken refrain; and "We Built the Sun" is a slower song with a wonderfully eerie bit of organ, piano and gentle electric guitar. At this point, two unengaging instrumentals appear; I would have liked a bit more along the lines of the spoken bit at the end of "Comets"...oh, well.... Then, perhaps the coolest song on the album, "The Open Ground".......a mostly spoken depiction of the world after the utter obliteration of life thereupon, over a wah-wah guitar....great song. The two remaining pieces after this don't really do it for me, though I can sort of understand the ability to dig "Everybody's Song."

Many thanks to Lost~in~Tyme for introducing me to this album. I wish you the best in permanently establishing and maintaining your online library of obscure and wonderful records.

Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky (a quick review by ~C.A.~)

It seems to me that the Alan Parsons Project gets kind of a bad rap. I don't know why; they have some mighty fine music in their catalog. Perhaps my own musical sensibilities are just more pop-oriented than those of most of you that I see on the forums and blogs, and so the sort of borderline pop/prog that the APP plays just appeals to me more than others. This music is different; it's accessible without being too poppy; it features orchestration without being, well, boring; it's original and progressive without being too self-indulgent; and, while I say it isn't too poppy, it nonetheless features nice hooks that I, for one, can easily dig. And the sounds they make are just........cool.
On this album, of course, you got the Chicago Bulls opening music in "Sirius," followed by the pleasant radio hit and title track. "Children of the Moon" has that wee bit of synthesizer that gives it ...um...a different feel, a bit of a trip in time, nothing bad at all, in my opinion. Interesting choral bits and chord changes in that one. "Gemini" is nice and dreamy, just like me.... *ahem* The relatively extended (7:20) "Silence and I" is a couple of hushed ends bookending a classical/orchestral bridge, which is cool and makes itself known. "You're Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned" is a good, strong bit of pop/rock; some might think that the APP couldn't pull off a "straight" pop/rock sound, but I think it works here.
I think "Psychobabble" might be somewhat well-known among some; I remember it was once incorporated into my old high school's marching band's repertoire. Good, kind of weird vibe to that song. Nice. The instrumental bit that follows, "Mammagamma," I can probably do without; it's rather ground in the pseudo-disco sounds of that era (1982), not to mention unexciting. "Step by Step" is another more poppy song; I played this one a couple times before saying "Yeah, it's okay." And the capper, "Old and Wise"...well, the title sums it up, I think, as the album ends on a quiet note.
Look for this on the fora sometime soon. There are some bonus tracks as well, if anyone's into that sort of thing.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Lovely Day!

Just spent some time jamming on the guitar out in the springtime sunshine, and boy, do my left fingertips ache. So beautiful outside..........

I'm going to guess that at least two-thirds of the people that walked by while I was playing were wearing either headphones or cellphones.

Heck, every once in a while, I see a person with a headphone in one ear and the other headphone dangling in front of them while they use that other ear to hear the phone.

Something is dreadfully wrong with these people.

Anyway, did I mention it's been a lovely day today?

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Truth be told about dreams....

The contents of a "good" dream may indeed seem like a wonderful experience of utopia, nirvana, and all that good stuff, but, truth be told, the realization upon waking up of the fact that it was merely a dream leaves a feeling of disappointment and futility that lingers on like the smell of curry and effectively cancels out and replaces all previous feelings of happiness.

A wholly uplifting and inspirational message from the pan-dimensional jungle of the mind of Cheshire Adams

Friday, April 18, 2008

An earthquake?

What the heck was that?! The windows and monitor started shaking for no apparent reason. I suppose if I lived in California or Japan, I'd recognize those things and not think much of it....
"Everything's fine except for your table."

The words of a restaurant worker to a waitress at a restaurant where I was the only diner left by that time of the weekday evening.

Comforting, eh?

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Bastards (probably part one of many such installments)

I'm not a moviegoer, so today when I tried to rent a film from Blockbuster for a school assignment, I was rather stunned to find that it is apparently no longer possible to simply hand over a bit of cash to have the film for a couple days. It is actually required that one has an account and a credit card just to have a shiny disc or two for a couple days. I told them to stuff it, rode my bike across town, and got the thing out of the library for free.

Incidentally, I had tried to download the thing earlier, and I ended up with a complete, hour-and-however-many-minutes film that didn't have any sound. Grrr....

Monday, April 14, 2008

Man...I must have thought of so many great things that I was going to post on this blog before I created it...now I can't remember them. CURSES!

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Boz Scaggs - Silk Degrees (a quck review by ~C.A.~)

I was talking with one of my regular bus drivers, and, one way or another, the conversation turned to this album. I had heard it in passing once before, but my memory of it was dim, so I checked it out a second time earlier this week. While wholly ground in the decade in which it was released (the Seventies), it's not unpleasant, I don't think. All in all, though, I feel that the two hits from the album, Lido Shuffle and Lowdown pretty much sum it up. Actually, I hadn't heard Lowdown in quite some time; I think the first time I heard it, I thought "Meh...okay" and waltzed right on. I played it a couple of times after playing the full album....I came to realize, it's a pretty cool song. Doesn't that happen frequently with certain pieces of music........

Friday, April 11, 2008

I expect some of you forum-ers are wondering....

....where all the music is. You know, I advertise this (relatively) new blog, and you probably expect it to be at least the equivalent of Floodlit Footprint, or Musicology, or one of those, and instead you find a bunch of supposedly humorous one-liners and complaints about my personal life.

As I said in a previous post, I've decided to keep the albums on the forums and just post single songs here, maybe a homemade comp somewhere down the line. But I've also decided to occasionally spotlight an album into which I've recently gotten and just write a little bit about it. If the album isn't posted on the forums, it's probably on a blog. So, there we go...a nice little something to retain the interest of the music fans who have climbed to what they thought was the top of the hill and merely found themselves on a bit of a platform leading to more hill.

Stay tuned......
If Charlie's wife was able to hand him a sandwich every day, why didn't she hand him a nickel?

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Algorithm

The pace at which a former vice-president operates.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Octopi

8 × 3.1415926535897.....

On the fora now

I've decided to mainly feature singles on this blog, as far as music goes, and leave the albums to the fora (or "forums"). My most recent uploads:

Tucky Buzzard - Time Will Be Your Doctor

Joni MItchell - Ladies of the Canyon (recommended!)

Paul Kantner ("Jefferson Starship") - Blows Against the Empire

At It's PSYCH, the Gathering, and Groovy Fab.

The purchase of albums you dig is highly recommended (assuming they're available). If you do not wish a specific album to be posted, just let me know, and I'll remove it.

Thought

(And also a song by the Motions)

Let me know what you think of this thought.

I have often wondered what life would be like in the complete and utter absence of time-keeping devices. No clocks.....no calendars. The reason is, it seems our entire lives are governed by deadlines. We are all expected to have everything done by a certain day at a certain time, and to be entering different main phases of life at certain years of age. It seems to me that all of this makes for a cold, rushed and unfriendly culture.



(Thanks to my Anthropology 175 professor for this cartoon by Tom Cheney. I wish Blogger would show the whole image...)

So, what would happen without clocks and calendars? Would there, maybe, be a more relaxed atmosphere? With no rigid deadlines, would we be willing to let ourselves and each other take our time....make sure we get it right?

Or would total chaos and pandemonium ensue? What do you think?

Perhaps sometime in the future, when all humans, all clocks/calendars, and all, well, everything, are controlled by one central computer which then crashes, we'll find out......... (We're nearly there now, I think.)


Here's a song sent to me by a friend from It's PSYCH. It's a folk-style tune (parts of which sound very similar to Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's All Right) by the Motions, and it's called "Take Your Time." Cheers, Alex!

I just wonder, babe, why they can't slow down...........


Saturday, April 5, 2008

Bewilderment.....Outrage......

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22251370/

Friday, April 4, 2008

Saw my therapist today.......

Question. The typical, mainstream notion is that therapy/psychological help is supposed to, you know, help us out....make us feel better. Yet I generally feel worse when I emerge from a session compared to when I entered it. Does anyone else see a psychologist or something like it? Is this normal? Does relative sanity settle in eventually?

My frank opinion, which is unlikely to change anytime soon, is that if being fully mentally healthy equals being utterly miserable, I will have no part of it.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Do-o-o-ooooong

I just thought of something groovy I wanted to say on here, and then I got so caught up in answering a joking comment with all kinds of things that I forgot what it was. I think my therapist owes me some of my dough back.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Imagine that Paris Hilton is taking a class of some kind with some other celebrities, and a number of hunky men among them. The teacher assigns everybody into pairs for a long-term assignment, and so Paris is hoping to be paired up with one of the hunky men......and she gets paired up with Al Gore.

That, more or less, is how I feel right now.

My sinuses think they're the media, and I've been having trouble sleeping. Two of the three classes I'm taking are groovy, but the third one bears a certain resemblance to a wet dog......

....and I'm now being kicked off the computer after far too few minutes. Later.........
I feel like such a fool.....I found out that the word is "emanating".....I had always previously thought the word was "emanting." An impressionable mind tricked by a typo, maybe?

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

A tip for the "outsiders"

Some of you may not be too familiar with how a blog's "comments" work. Quite simply, you can communicate back to me by clicking on x comments at the bottom of any given post (where x is however many comments that post has), saying whatever you have to say in the provided typing field, and "publish(ing) your comment." This way, you can, for example, casually joke about a specific post without going out of your way to e-mail me. Dig?

Welcome

Ha ha, I have a bit of a tendency to fidget when I'm on camera, so when my hands are below the shot, it kind of makes it look like I'm up to something I shouldn't be. Hee hee. I assure you that everything happening in this video is G-rated. I think.




Questions? Complaints? Requests? Hints and allegations? E-mail me here or here, follow me here, or Facebook me here.

This blog is dedicated to Lucy, whom I thank for seventeen years of pleasure, and to Loki, Abby, and Linus for their contributions to memories as far back as my own memory goes.

Peace............