I need a haircut. I'm beginning to resemble a late 70's baseball card. I've sold more records in the last three weeks than I did in all of January and February. Music really is essential, and though my post office is only a ten minute walk away, the one trip I make each week feels like a lifetime. I am masked up and gloved, hood tight over my head, dodging and pirouetting around people with a shopping cart full of record boxes. It's a sight to behold.
As if I don't already listen to more music on a daily basis than most, I feel less guilty about it these days. My calendar for the rest of April includes staying at home, looking out the window, staying home, eating, reading, staying home, looking out the window, eating, staying at home, bellowing "I NEED A HAIRCUT" every few days and of course, music, music, and more music.
I've discovered a fantastic jazz record that I will share this week, as well as a tip on a definitive vinyl copy of a classic album on the next "For The Record," and whatever else inspires me while in my office or on my cou....I NEED A HAIRCUT!
Thanks for reading. Let me know how you are doing.
28 comments:
I need a haircut, too.
I had a zoom first date with somebody yesterday and that went pretty well, but you never know those things will work out or continue on.
This week, I am starting an Alice Cooper relisten from the beginning while I continue to work from home. "Muscle Of Love" as an album still is only about 1/2 of a good album, but man, "Love It To Death" through "Billion Dollar Babies" -- that's some good stuff right there. Those two pre-LITD albums -- that's still pretty rough overall and haven't aged well.
I need a haircut too. Be careful how much time you spend looking out the window. Remember Raymond Burr in "Rear Window". I, for one, would like to see video of your weekly trip to the Post Office, to the tune of Yakety Sax, maybe? Always enjoy your posts, stay healthy and keep moving as much as possible.
Quit worrying about your hair. No one is going to see you other than the Post Office guy and your going to have your hood over your head anyway.
Get a blow dryer and make like you're in a hair band from the 80's and enjoy it.
Randy
I'm staying home and listening to much music also. In the past two days I made it through the first four Todd Rundgren LPs. Lots of good stuff there. Stay healthy, stay home.
For the record, the hair thing isn't about vanity. It's just annoying me.
I'm fortunate enough to partnered with someone who is pretty good with the scissors so haircuts are not a worry. I have plenty to keep me occupied doing the "working from home" thing - but it's hard to keep focused with the world so off kilter. It's like being in a perpetual holding pattern and never getting permission to land.
I am glad to have this place of sanity to check in to everyday.
I need a haircut too!!!
Slowly, I'm going to look like Sébastien Chabal(but without his muscles and without his energy):
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8akRA4muQAw/hqdefault.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8akRA4muQAw
This is the first time that I visit your blog : nice blog !!
LittleJack
Hey Shriner, gotta disagree re: AC...1st & 2nd albums are Avant Garde cult classic Psychedelic highlighting band's musical chops B4 Vincent's ego blew up. gotta use different ears to listen to a band B4 they changed to public friendly AOR. And "Killer" is the ultimate rock album. Google it's influence. After "Killer", it's vaudeville, no longer R&R w/AC.
I'm jealous of you straight-haired peoples. take a scissor and snip, may not look great but for the most part it'll work. Me, I'm already starting to look like 1970 circa Billy Preston, and if I let Sue cut my hair, the best I can hope for is Larry Fine with more on top.
pretty good here, especially since discovering that Jorma Kaukonen has been doing online show/chats every Friday this month:
April 4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75XiVQiWvlM
April 11 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wTLGKvG4U0 (includes a Prine cover)
I lucked out haircut-wise. I got one two weeks before the shutdown, then replenished my TP paper towels, and paper napkins before the hoarding started.
I'm not doing too bad otherwise, it sucks not being able to go anywhere except to buy food and take a long walk. I have no shortage of projects to work on- the “upgraded” photo cataloging program on my newer iMac is a mess and needs to be reorganized and I can work on mix CD’s from all the song lists I have on file. I'll have time to pull out older albums I haven't listened to in a while, and there are plenty of books and magazines to read and DVD’s and DVR’d movies to watch. It's just boring being home most of the time and keeping focused. I'm happy to see this and other good web sites still going.
I'm with Shriner re AC, who was my first musical love and remains loved to this day -- but only with the original line-up. I'm more open to those first two albums than I was back then, but they're still not up to the measure of the next four, which are as fine a run as anybody else ever had. AC was always vaudeville, and vaudeville well-produced/arranged is better than sketchy vaudeville, so I like the 'public friendly AOR' meself. But, yes, a certain slickness started encroaching, and once the original line-up was gone, the slickness took over. Alas. Then again, "We're All Clones" was a great nuevo wavo knock-off, catchy as all get out.
C in California
Need to chime in regarding "Pretties For You" and "Easy Action," both of which I heard after I first discovered "Be My Lover" and so back then, after "School's Out" and "Billion Dollar Babies,"followed, the first two sounded...uh...different. But so do the first two Floyd records with Syd Barrett compared to what followed. On their own merit, I have to agree with Bluedream, both are excellent freakshow garage. And where's the love for "Welcome To My Nightmare?"
Not to make this an Alice Cooper thread, but -- to me -- the 4 albums from 75 to 78 (Nightmare to From The Inside) rival the LITD-BDB run. Yes, there are out-and-out AOR ballads -- but they are awesome. As far as concept albums go, Nightmare, Hell and Inside -- are just perfect. Even Lace & Whisky -- considering it's all over the place stylistically -- is full of great songs.
AC is up there in my pantheon of artists who have made a ton of albums and the vast majority of them are solid-to-great.
I'm doing better after reading your blog and catching up on some of your recommendations! It is a pain washing my hand after reading every post, but we've got to be smart!
- Wake up (hopefully)
- Meditate
- Hike
- Shower
- Eat breakfast
- Read the news
- Watch TV
- Eat lunch
- Watch recorded episodes of Amanpour, Fareed Zakaria GPS or Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace
- Household chores
- Listen to music or watch Premier League Goals of the Season
- Meditate
- Prepare dinner
- Eat dinner
- Watch TV
- Go to sleep
Repeat as necessary
I just gave myself a haircut this morning. Obviously I don't have much hair so it's easy to clip. I posted a picture on FB; if you didn't see it check it out
Ginny and I are fine, so far so good. She's working from home and I have to frighteningly do the doorman thing, being an essential and a team player and all that crap. My days consist of work, listen to music, home, listen to music, eat, sleep. Get up and do it all over again.
Hope you and Melissa are doing okay. I'm glad you're selling more records. I'm in desperate need of a hair cut myself, it's getting very annoying. And if Ginny goes another month or two without a dye job she'll look like Moses.
I know what you mean, Sal...my hair hasn't been this long since high school in the late 70's. With so much time on my hands, I feel like Burgess Meredith in "Time Enough at Last" from "The Twilight Zone." Sadly, I almost feel as isolated. I just hope I don't break my glasses; :) Your blog is a welcome friend each day, along with many others that have become perennial favorites whenever I log on. Thanks for all that you do.
Me, I love LITD-BBB, like MOL a lot, and like songs before LITD and some songs after Muscle. The slickness of BBB was a hint to me of where they were going, and it was confirmed with MOL. After that, it all sounded too slick and calculated to me -- admittedly, a personal call. But there were songs I liked off Welcome, and, as said, I loved 'Clones'. I heard the title track of Dada last year, and having long given up on AC as a contemporary love, was shocked at its artiness and menace; it made me wonder how the rest of that album sounded (Haven't had time to explore).
C in California
*BDB
C in California
I don't think I have ever heard a note of "Dada" or "Zipper Catches Skin," but "artiness and menace" is very intriguing.
"Dada" is the best of the 4 Blackout Years albums IMO (in this order for me: Dada way in the lead, Zipper Catches Skin and Flush The Fashion vie for second place depending on my mood and then way behind...Special Forces).
I was a big fan of Dick Wagner being a songwriting partner with Alice and Dada is the last album where he cowrote most of the songs. And the last album Ezrin produced for Alice for a long time.
ZCS -- has a lot of "funny story" songs. There's a great duet with Patty Donahue from the Waitresses on "I Like Girls". It's very "pop rock" with clever Alice lyrics (and there are a lot of them -- there's not a lot of musical space on this album.) "I Am The Future" is great, but it's written by outsiders for soundtrack (remade on this album.) It's the only album I would consider "fun" in his discography. And I can see why people hated it because of that.
Dada -- has it's share of story songs, but it's darker and is heavily synthesized with lots of Fairlight programming and is all Cooper/Wagner/Ezrin. It really sounds like very little else in the AC discography musically (and, at some level, sure feels like a contractual obligation album -- but if so, it's better than you would guess when you compare other albums in that state from other bands...) "I Love America" is the best ever single that never went anywhere. Side 2 is great and finishes with the really great "Pass The Gun Around" (a lost classic, IMO). Side 1 is solid.
The two metal albums that followed this -- suck. But I'm going to slog my way through them as part of my relisten.
Man, I could talk Alice albums all day during this quarantine. Sorry about that. :-)
I needed a haircut for years. It's ok.. All good here Sally...gonna be lookin for some discs now that we got the table spinnin! So here comes some more...
My hair's getting longer but not so bad it'll scare the neighborhood children (wherever they are).
I got nothing to add re Alice Cooper. So I guess I'll just lurk until the next topic rolls around.
Keep your distance and your ears open, Wood Burners.
From here in the epicenter—Ken D
all this AC talk made me go to AMG. who was/is Michael Bruce? co wrote all of Killer. I've got my hair cut at the beginning of each season for 30 years. the Trump virus ended my streak :(
Bruce was the rhythm guitarist and probably the main songwriter for that original line-up, of course!
C in California
Ive never bought anything from you and just recently started reading your blog. Just wanted to say thank you for all those giving you a hard time about delivery. Peace to you, my friend! Its people like you that keep music alive.
Kylis
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