Listening to Albums...

I just hooked up this cool second-hand Technics turntable and brought down the record collection - recently collected at thrift stores. And then my buddy Braniac4 comes over. So here's the listening for tonight...


Monty Python - Contractual Obligation

I had this when I was like 14 to 17. I was in the middle of my lifelong Python love affair, and while it's kind of lame in some ways, there's some brilliant crap on it. Like the Henry Kissenger song - and I can't believe that evil fuck was on the TV the other night, shilling his advanced imperial crap. The bastard's a war criminal!! He can't go into several European countries because they want to hold him for questioning!! What the hell are they doing? Reaching that far back on the bench to bring out the old Nixonian retreads??

Anyway, the bookseller sketch on Contractual Obligation is killer. The review at allmusic pans it, and I'm like it's not that bad, but it's not their best.

Again, Allmusic says one thing, and Wikipedia says another.

Stranglers - Gospel According to the Men In Black (Beware - the link totally pans the album. I heartily disagree)

A great hit with the two of us in the basement at the time. This sci-fi dark new wave album I first encountered in the mid-80s, before the Men in Black movie made it comic. The first SF convention I went to had these evil-businessmen posters from the Church of the Subgenius, and the Men in Black were just cool. And the Stranglers rocked.

I'm also tickled pink to have this on a playable medium - I've looked for it in vain before at CD stores.

Oh - and this Wikipedia Stranglers entry has a commentary I agree with more.

Repo Man -various artists

Brainy and I went through the 'good box' of things that I'd picked out from sorting the stuff from the pile upstairs (where my sweetie wanted them out) and he picked this one.

This was the album that introduced me to punk rock. Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Pablo Picasso - and the movie made me a huge Emilio Estavez fan, which I guess wasn't cool. Fuckit.

At this point, things became a little confusing. My roommate and a friend of his (a former free radio DJ) come down into the basement. And now there was four of us.

Brainy and I had gone to college together, did college radio together, had a big joint birthday party... our musical tastes ran down several well-known tracks.

The younger crowd - the roomie and the DJ, also have definite ideas on music, so if we're going to be hanging out in the basement, we might as well get everyone in on it. I put on my next choice - after the roomie said he didn't like the Ministry album () and that Bowie album was his least favorite (Young Americans), I figured I'd put on...

The Police - Ghost in the Machine

Which was Brainy's choice between that and the Bowie, but since I'd asked the DJ to pick the next one, we only played through to Invisible Sun, which was one of my favorite young teen angst songs.

This was about the point that the DJ picked her album:

The Beatles - The White Album

Ahh - a classic. I've also got that Led Zepplin album with Stairway to Heaven on it (the one that's all symbol-y) (roomate says it's commonly known as 'Four') and that fit in the same 'this is cool that I have this' category. A big fave in my Beatles phase, which was around college and a bit after. Love 'em. Great band.

She picked it because Blackbird is one of her favorite songs of all time, and it was on there. A brief discussion about record sides, and whether the rest of the White Album should be played. (It was - sides number 1 and 2, not the second album.)

Neil Young - Comes a Time

This was the roommates' pick - and he said he only wanted to hear one track from one album - Lotta Love.

We're having discussions about the propriety of rules (i.e., I've been developing a rules set for taking turns. They include:
* Everyone gets a turn, one after the other.
* Everyone gets their pick played.
* Everyone is entitled to hear the entire album - which later became, hear both sides of an album, in the case of the White Album.)

and my roommate is calling me on setting rules. The phrase "Turntable Fascist" was being thrown around. (Setting, not telling, and being generally dictatorial about them - yeppers!)

He then puts on the cut, and lets it play. And then, I bet when we get to the point where the Technics restarts the album, he'll let it go play again. (He did.)

(Ooooh - a discussion of Battlestar Galactica. Did those of us who were watching TV when it came out fans? Was it creepy Mormon propaganda? I think the Cylons were cool.)

Blue Oyster Cult - Some Enchanted Evening


OK - this wasn't the album I thought it was. But it was the first arena concert I went to was BOC. (The first ever was in a gym, and it was Cheap Trick)


OK - enough of this for now.