brainsplotch

I'm trying to shake up this blog a little bit, so this is the first in a series (?) in which I take a random album from my collection, listen to it, and then just briefly discuss it. Nothing deep and profound, the aim is to be conversational. So the first album is the 1968 self-titled debut by English folk-rock band Fairport Convention. I chose this because I happen to be reading record producer Joe Boyd's memoir White Bicycle: Making Music in the 1960s. It's a book I picked up at Elliott Bay Books in Seattle, Washington. (Shameless vacation mention and indie bookstore name drop). Joe Boyd, among many other act including Nick Drake, was behind the board for Fairport Conventions stellar recorded output from 1968 to the early 1970s. I got into Fairport Convention quite by accident. I heard their 1969 album  Liege and Lief at a Borders' listening station sometime in the mid-'90s. I'm pretty sure I'd read a little bit about them before, probably in the R...

I know it's been awhile since I last wrote in here. I am currently plugging away on a "review" of the Tragically Hip's Fully Completely, the fourth installment in my ongoing look at the Hip's discography. Unfortunately, this Fully Completely post has become an albatross. I feel as if I will need to either do some heavy editing or just publish it in two parts. I'm leaning to two parts in order to make it more digestible for anyone who might want to read it. As for when I will hoist this colossus upon my dear readers, I hope within the next week. But we'll see. So what else is new? I'm surviving our Idiot-in-Chief, often trying as much as I can to forget that he is president. It's about the only way to keep my sanity. Still, the man does at least one embarrassing thing every day and he is difficult to ignore. And really when you get down to it, he's too dangerous to completely ignore. I'm cutting this post short because it's getting...