I can transfer a scratchy vinyl copy to CD if that will work for you, Jilli?

I will love you forever, and send you fuzzy monsters if you want.

Jilli -- I did a transfer this morning. I should be able to get you an mp3 sometime this weekend. Profile addy OK?

How about some photos of the jungle wallpaper?

Done. Hard to get the real impact from the picture, but if you zoom in you can see the pattern. Also note it's a split-level bathroom, with the sink (not visible) & toilet raised about 10 inches above the level of the shower. I assume it's some swingin' '70s bachelor pad thing, a package deal with the wallpaper. The rationale escapes me, but I dig it. Meeting w/ the lawyer at 2 to sign the contract.

Jon & other Bostonistas, I'll be in Boston from next Friday (8/4) through the following Wednesday for a trial. Shouldn't be as hectic as last time, but not really sure of the schedule. Friday or Wednesday night is probably the best bet as trial starts on Monday & the weekend is sure to be a madhouse. I'll be at the Boston Harbor Hotel, which is about midway between South Station & Faneuil Hall.

Enjoyed the Christgau article. He's amazingly unjaded for a guy whose career began around the time I was born. I'll also point out that if he's reviewed 12,000 albums he's probably listened to 75K. (Maybe not all the way through, but I think I remember him saying he gives everything at least three tracks.) Except for his yearly "Turkey Shoot" and one "Dud of the Month" the Consumer Guide concentrates on stuff he thinks worth recommending. So just given the usual ratio of good to bad art, and given his view that slagging off the bad isn't worth his time or yours, figure at least 10,000 of the 12,000 reviews were more or less positive, and he's listened to at least 50K & maybe as many as 100K bad records. Mindboggling. Here's a nice article he wrote about John Prine & Iris Dement. Sue's list reminded me of it.

Everything great about music and movies comes together at last. In 1978.

Jilli -- I did a transfer this morning. I should be able to get you an mp3 sometime this weekend. Profile addy OK?

Yes, absolutely.

Insent, Jilli.

Hey, it's Roller Derby Night in my neighborhood!

Emmett's been waiting seven years for Roller Derby to come back to Kezar.

ot: "Roller Girl" - Anna Karina

Ray Newman says: "August marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' 1966 album Revolver. I've spent two years working on a short book about the making of the album which is available as a free PDF download. It's licensed under Creative Commons"

[link]

Hey, it's Roller Derby Night in my neighborhood!

Roller derby has gotten big in B'more this year too and a bunch of friends are involved with it (head ref is our friend Dean aka Johnny Crash). So we have a new roller girl song.

THE Beatles have been outed. The Fab Four’s first album, Please Please Me, has been named as one of the top 50 gay albums of all time.

John, Paul, George and Ringo’s 1963 LP, featuring Twist and Shout and I Saw Her Standing There, is ranked alongside records by Abba, Elton John and Boy George in a gay pop pantheon published by Attitude, a gay lifestyle magazine.

“That summer it was the gay album,” said Simon Napier-Bell, the former manager of Wham! who nominated the record. “Every party, every club, everywhere you went, Please Please Me blasted out. George and Paul singing into one microphone, their cheeks touching, was the gayest thing we’d ever seen.”

The Beatles rarely wrote about homosexuality, although You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away is thought to have been about Brian Epstein, their gay manager.

But the magazine claims the Beatles’ first album, ranked 30th in the list, represented “a turning point — the beginning of the modern gay era”, because it embodied a sense of sexual freedom and tolerance.

The top 50 includes Barbra Streisand, Take That and the Pet Shop Boys, but only one album dates back further: a 1961 recording at the Carnegie Hall in New York by Judy Garland, a gay icon whose role in The Wizard of Oz gave rise to the term “a friend of Dorothy” to mean a gay man.

The list is topped by the eponymous debut by Scissor Sisters, the New York band. Their success coincides with a boom in gay music.

“It has become fashionable to listen to gay music whether you are gay or not,” said Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner. “Gay culture is seen as the cutting edge of all kinds of invention, not just in music, but also fashion, art and design.”

For Boy George, who nominated David Bowie’s 1970 record The Man Who Sold the World, the days of gay musicians portraying themselves as straight are over.

“Now lots of straight boys in rock bands paint their eyes and exude camp,” he told Attitude. “I say ‘God bless ’em!’”

[link] (link does not have the actual list)

Also,

“Gay culture is seen as the cutting edge of all kinds of invention, not just in music, but also fashion, art and design.”

No way!