Ruminations on a 99 cent LP
Alright, it's time for my eight month journal entry.
I've lately begun the laborious process of listening to my many impulse, I mean calculated and thoughtful purchases of thrift shop/goodwill/record store albums, mostly 99 cent LPs of (dubious) quality. In part, this clean house stems from the always-in-the-back-of-my-mind recognition of the fact that the 6-12 (20?!) boxes of records won't be heading out all too easily to a new place in the east, if I do actually end up out there somewhere come this summer. Perhaps my Ma and Pa still love me enough to take all my shit in their home, though.
At any rate, the process of removing, deduping, et. al is not going too well. Tonight, right now in fact, I am experiencing, and truly for the first time, the bizarre creation that is Jethro Tull: "Songs of the Wood," or more accurately "Songs of the Wood with kitchen prose, gutter rhymes, and divers." Buying it more as a joke than anything else- I liked the name of the group, and the cover art is fantastic, especially the turntable of the earth connection in which a tone arm has been converted to a new use on a freshly cut tree's trunk- it has proven to be a surprisingly good find. The lyrics are full of English green-wood style imagery, and are certainly a little precious by our post-ironic 21st century standards, but the instrumental work is outrageous- the drumming is dense, full of monstrous double-bass drum pedaling action, Ian Anderson's flute-solos, kicking searing guitar solos into high gear, the additions of the marimba, mandolin and, is that a glockenspiel I hear, are just lovely? Say what you will about the late 60s white boy blues rockers, the prog rockers, and the rest of their ilk (and snicker what you will about my sobriety, but I concede to only a glass of wine and a rambling 11:52 p.m. mind)- but damn, Jethro Tull is tight.
I've lately begun the laborious process of listening to my many impulse, I mean calculated and thoughtful purchases of thrift shop/goodwill/record store albums, mostly 99 cent LPs of (dubious) quality. In part, this clean house stems from the always-in-the-back-of-my-mind recognition of the fact that the 6-12 (20?!) boxes of records won't be heading out all too easily to a new place in the east, if I do actually end up out there somewhere come this summer. Perhaps my Ma and Pa still love me enough to take all my shit in their home, though.
At any rate, the process of removing, deduping, et. al is not going too well. Tonight, right now in fact, I am experiencing, and truly for the first time, the bizarre creation that is Jethro Tull: "Songs of the Wood," or more accurately "Songs of the Wood with kitchen prose, gutter rhymes, and divers." Buying it more as a joke than anything else- I liked the name of the group, and the cover art is fantastic, especially the turntable of the earth connection in which a tone arm has been converted to a new use on a freshly cut tree's trunk- it has proven to be a surprisingly good find. The lyrics are full of English green-wood style imagery, and are certainly a little precious by our post-ironic 21st century standards, but the instrumental work is outrageous- the drumming is dense, full of monstrous double-bass drum pedaling action, Ian Anderson's flute-solos, kicking searing guitar solos into high gear, the additions of the marimba, mandolin and, is that a glockenspiel I hear, are just lovely? Say what you will about the late 60s white boy blues rockers, the prog rockers, and the rest of their ilk (and snicker what you will about my sobriety, but I concede to only a glass of wine and a rambling 11:52 p.m. mind)- but damn, Jethro Tull is tight.