I'm in the middle of a tedious project, finally ripping all of the unripped CDs that we own. This has been going on for almost two weeks now and I can see the end. There are three stacks like this or so left to rip, plus anything we root out of the cars or the kids' CD players.

My great-great-grandfather looks on disapprovingly (he was a plain-spoken sort, that one), at this digital frippery.

"Why can't you just be happy?" he says, "All this foolishness, you haven't been in the war, nor worked double-shifts over glowing, molten glass at the glass factory."

"At least I'm not posing with a drawing of a horse, nor dead. Yet," I mutter, out of range of his hearing, of course.

There's some pasta/play-doh sculpture at hand, as well, thanks to my girls.

You can poke your snoot in if you'd like to see the titles on the cases.

Stevie Ray Vaughan's uniquely eclectic and fiery style sounded like no other guitarist, regardless of genre - a leading light in American blues. STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN LIVE: PLAY HARD & FLOOR IT! showcases the guitar master's career with some of his finest performances caught on tape. Airs Friday, September 7th, 8:30pm, Sunday, September 9th, 10:30pm and Wednesday, September 12th, 8pm

You know how I love Stevie Ray.

I heard two of my favorite old country songs this evening on... wait for it... XM:

• El Paso, by Marty Robbins
• I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, by Hank Williams.

The first is a longtime favorite, maybe back to elementary school, where I heard it on record player at my dear Grandmother's house for years. I still have a scratchy cassette copy of it that also includes old country greats such as Lynn Anderson and Johnny Horton. I cold probably find a CD of it or even nab just that song on iTunes, but it really wouldn't be the same.

The second was heard occasionally, but not dear to me until I'd really discovered Hank Williams. He came tumbling in the wave of discovery that carried Johnny Cash, Joe Ely, Doyle Bramhall and the like to me. Now look what I've become.

Some pre-bed XM brought me Under The Milky Way and a button click brought it to me again.

Time enough for sleepin' in the grave!

Corb Lund's Roughest Neck Around:

It's 35 below or its 98 above
And he's workin' thru it all, cuz baby this is what he loves
Drives a hundred-fifty miles make sure his kids are doin' fine
And he sees 'em when he can but he's married to his iron

You'd better hire him on, he's the roughest neck around
He got the power in his hands to pull the dragons from the ground
Yeah.

And the Stone Coyotes (Live@XM also) American Child:

He's a little bit bored
And a little bit wild
I'm looking for
An American child
Give me Jerry Lee Lewis
Give me Joey Ramone

Damn shame though, that I can't find the lyrics for White T Girl, by Cory Branan

Technorati Tag: gut musik

The White Stripes will perform their first-ever live audio web cast for NPR.org on September 27. Fans can hear the band's full performance from the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD online, along with opening acts by M. Ward and The Shins. It's the latest in NPR Music's live concert series from All Songs Considered.

Guys, please, keep that dude with the robot voice who does voice-overs on NPR away!

Technorati Tag: white stripes

A child of the 70's, I grew up on a diet of Solid Gold Hits. Afternoon Delight, Hotel California, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and on it goes. I had an AM radio from elementary school onward, dutifully tuning in KLUF and creeping around the dial at night dragging in the AM giants and talk-show kooks from the center of the continent.

Rock music blasted from every crappy car I owned or was a passenger in during the 80's, hoping to impress someone. Looking back, I'm sure we failed. We installed bigger and more speakers, blasting what now passes for Classic Rock to pedestrians and fellow motorists. Despite the volume, I really never had a favorite band, preferring to buy cassettes and some LP's of many things, nothing especially deep or musically interesting. The guy who loved The Cure was a little strange to be sure; "such devotion, how abnormal" opined the conformist teen robots. My friend Doug had every Rush cassette, neat but too intense for me. "Can't we just listen to Tom Sawyer? 2112 makes my head hurt." Music shouldn't be such hard work.

In college, I was freed of that conformity, introduced into a place where the weirdo was welcome, the opinion and preference better for their strangeness. It was cool to be deep about something and to hold forth, someone always listened. Even this guy, Curtis, my Bolshevik friend, wasn't mocked for his Duran Duran collection. He was the first person I ever knew who had real bootlegs and import singles of his favorite bands.

Then I fell.

I'd heard Stevie Ray Vaughan for years, radio cuts, nothing deep. Then Stevie was killed in a helicopter accident and now he became a limited commodity. No more music could spring from that vein, so I lapped up all that existed. I was a man on a mission spending my minimum-wage earnings to learn the tunes and riffs and feel the music. Even today, the hair stands up on my neck to hear Voodoo Chile (Slight Return).

Then I fell again.

Around the holidays in 1994, I picked up a KMFDM single, Bargeld, at Soundwaves with a few other discs. When I finally listened to it, I was blown away. The music was hard and angry but perversely interesting. The guitars, my gawd. Nursing a vicious hangover (damn you, Satellite Lounge), I detoured to find more KMFDM on Christmas Eve while on the way to see my family for Christmas. I felt like an addict of some sort.

But is love to be found again?

I've bought almost everything (or downloaded it) KMFDM has released since then, but the fire has cooled. The overtly political WWIII sort of turned me off and I find myself revisiting the older stuff less and less. Plus, Laura despises it, something like "makes me want to bash my head against the wall..."

I've fallen and now I can't get up.

What's to be said? The meaty guitar, Meg's simplistic drumming, the honest lyrics, what a combination. Who can resist Meg and Jack? One CD yesterday, after a week of rooting around the Internet for tasty bits. The web is heaven for junkies of any sort, and I've had lots of luck finding bootlegs, photos, and articles. Amazon will deliver two discs and a DVD this week. Even The Wife was digging White Blood Cells last night.

Stevie Ray did justice to Jimi Hendrix and Howlin' Wolf. Jack White, in a burst of courage, played Son House's Death Letter on the Grammys last year. Wow, nothing but "wow".

It's all mildly embarassing.

Technorati Tag: music

Yep, I pinched that title from Rush, but it fits the bill here. I mentioned some six months back that I had acquired a new hobby (like mosquitoes, they keep finding me). After our frantic Spring, things are beginning to calm a bit, and I've had more time for listening to the shortwave radio in the evenings.

With the invaluable aid of the Passport To Worldband Radio, I've enjoyed a number of interesting radio shows from central Europe this week. The stations include: Radio Slovakia, Radio Prague, Radio Tirana (Albania), Radio Vilnius (reminds me of the Vilnius schoolmaster), and Radio Sweden. The National Geographic World Atlas has been getting a workout!

At this point, I'm really only a baby-geek in radio, but enjoy it immensely. My best friend is pushing me to get in involved in the ham side of the hobby, but what would I have to say on the radio? Who'd listen to me prattle on? Heh, the same could be said for the blog...

One benefit of using the Internet is increased interaction with people who share your hobbies or views. You can join any number of mailing lists, discussion forums, and comment on blogs about a million different topics. The shortwave listening hobby is no different; a Google search delivers a wealth of information on the hobby. One valuable resource for the "DX-er" is Glenn Hauser's DX Listening Digest.

Much like coin collectors or birders, checking off those interesting and hard-to-find items, many find it fun and challenging to capture that distant signal or program out of the air. And when you do, many radio stations offer QSL cards in return for reception reports. I've provide a couple of reception reports this week, and eagerly await the arrival of that postcard, and maybe a sticker or program guide in the mail. These things are small, but tangible tokens of some interaction with people half a world away.

For the interested, I'm using a Sony ICF-SW7600GR with the wind-up single-wire antenna.

Technorati Tag: shortwave