Tag Archives: Warren Zevon

For The Love Of Vinyl, Part Two

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Hey, did you catch what I wrote yesterday in Part One? No?! Well then go back and check out all the good and embarrassing stuff right now – I’ll wait.

One my favorite vinyl moments is probably also an incident which will be savaged by just about anyone with musical taste. Possibly the best thing about being a DJ at a college radio station is that, at one time or another, you’ll be pulling a 2-6 am shift with no one listening to you except a handful of drunks, insomniacs, and the utterly insane. Why is this good? Because anything is possible – no one is listening, no one will complain. So one morning, I decided to experiment a bit. Quick note about set-up… The WUNH on-air studio, at the time, had two turntables, three CD players, and two CART machines (kinda like 8-tracks, mostly used for station ID’s and public service announcements). I loaded up some acid jazz in one CD player, some random punk band in another, and a bluegrass CD in the last one. In the CARTS, I had a station ID and a PSA that was coming due in the next couple minutes. Pressed play on the acid jazz beats.

Now, the interesting thing is that I had John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” on the left turntable and the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey on the right. I dropped the needle on Coltrane and bled it in over the top of the acid jazz and found a mix. Next, I added some punk in the background, and then the bluegrass slightly louder, but still somewhat in the background. Really making some interesting noise, but not quite there yet. So I started up 2001 and cued up ”Also sprach Zarathustra” – which I then began to scratch with all the hip-hop ability in my very caucasian body, which wasn’t a whole lot. After awhile, I got bored with that and tried to scratch both the Coltrane and 2001, which was interesting to say the least.

The best part? Absolutely no calls regarding this 15-minute car wreck of a performance. Hell, if someone was listening, they probably thought it was the latest single from Aphex Twin.

Now onto some more tasty vinyl from the collection… Continue reading →

The War On Perspective

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Borrowed from ToonPool.com, artist unknown. Not the property of Designing Dad.

There’s this terrific urge to share just about every moment of our lives these days, whether your preference is Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, a blog, or something I’m not even aware of yet. It’s safe to say that, unlike any time before our own, we have the ability and the willingness to share whatever is happening in our lives at that moment in real time, without filters, and without perspective.

See, there’s the problem. Sharing live from across the world via satellite the protests in Egypt or perhaps something momentous that’s happening in your own backyard is one thing. However, letting the world at large know that this pastrami on rye is the best sandwich you’ve ever tasted and that you’d make sweet, sweet love to it if the law allowed such things… well, we don’t really need to know that.

(Unless you’re a musical genius like Warren Zevon advising us to enjoy every sandwich. In which case, rock on. Oh, and go listen to this a couple dozen times and realize this man was dying of cancer. Cancer. Stop bitching about your internet connection and do something to further the human race, okay?) Continue reading →