Monday, September 28, 2009

C.V. For Today


9-28-09


C.V. FOR TODAY


Here are my answers to these Curriculum Vitae questions. Please feel free to use the same questions and return your responses to me.


What was the last record / CD you obtained?

Omsk Russian Ensemble” LP for 50 cents at the Claremont record swap meet on Sun. 9/20/09. It’s a 1968 CBS UK LP, and I thought it was amusing to seethe word “Omsk” on an LP cover (I know the word mainly because of The Nits LP of that name).


If you could recommend a record / CD (of music) to someone and have that person actually listen to it, what would it be?

Lately, I have been recommending Aksak Maboul / Marc Hollander “Onze Danses Pour Combattre La Migraine” (1977) to people. I never tire of that album.


Do you think record stores will all close and people will only be able to purchase music (LP’s/CD’s) on-line eventually?

Certainly starting to look that way! More L.A. stores have closed, and a few new ones have opened, but none of them have been all that great. Mostly, they are being run by young people who think “vinyl is cool”, without having heard anything released before Nirvana’s “Never Mind” – apart from their older brother’s copy of “Dark Side Of The Moon” or their parents’ Beatles records.


Do you ever copy music for yourself or your friends? What format(s) do you use?

Yes, I do sometimes generate a ‘CD on demand’ for my friends. I have one friend who will text me and ask, “Do you have any Scott Walker?” (Answer: No) – but sometimes he will hit the jackpot and ask for Nick Drake – the next time I saw him, I was able to fit all three original ND albums onto 2 CD’s. Mostly CD-R’s at this time.


Do you watch TV very much anymore? If not, why?

Almost nothing since the switch to digital. We watched “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” for a while…but the musical guests were better on Jimmy Kimmel and even the Carson Daly show. Also liked “I Survived a Japanese Game Show”.


What’s for lunch?

Today, I might have one of those Indian rice bowls from Fresh ‘n’ Easy. Had a “Mango Chicken” rice bowl last night, which was pretty good.


Seen any good films lately?

No, not really. I think the last film I went to was “Slumdog Millionaire”, which was OK.


Any plans to leave your home anytime soon?

Yes, Las Vegas and San Francisco coming up. Maybe something bigger at Xmas.


What other question(s) would you like to know the answer(s) to?

How much longer will I be able to buy new / used CD’s in brick-and-mortar stores?


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What was the last record / CD you obtained?

- VA: RetroActive2 - 12" singles on fine Canadian compilation series. OMD & Fuzzbox.

If you could recommend a record / CD (of music) to someone and have that person actually listen to it, what would it be?

-The last OMD album, Universal. I've been re-listening to the late model Andy McClusky only "OMD" output and re-thinking my opinions of the first two, but not the last one, Universal. It still towers over the other two he put out (and all of the post-Junk Culture OMD albums in sequence) with just incredible songwriting (Paul Humphreys contributed writing to this one) and some of the best "middle-aged" lyrics I've heard in a long time. 2-3 cuts are among the best he's ever done. The title track I consider the finest OMD single, but paradoxically, only in the LP edit! The actual single edit excises the deep intro, which sounds like an outtake from Organization. There's a wide variety of styles on the LP, many of which are new to OMD. Best of all, there's only ONE of the dreaded "mid-tempo ballad @4:45" songs that are the bane of the other two Andy/OMD albums!

Do you think record stores will all close and people will only be able to purchase music (LP’s/CD’s) on-line eventually?

- Yes. It will fall to thrift stores to stock the things and they will get tired of that stuff pretty quick. Any vinyl worth having will gravitate to collectors. It's already pretty much that way now for me, anyway. When these collectors die, there will be amazing things in the Goodwills of America, but by that time, maybe I won't care? There will still be a LOT of music unavailable online due to ownership conflicts. Just because it's cheap and efficient to distribute music as downloads, that doesn't mean that it will ever happen as long as there's music industry lawyers around!

Do you ever copy music for yourself or your friends? What format(s) do you use?

- Yes, I generate a private label of CD reissues for an intimate circle of distribution. But I did it for my ears first, naturally. I ended up putting so much work and thought into these issues on CD that I thought that my friends should hear/see the results.

Do you watch TV very much anymore? If not, why?

- No. I stopped cold after trailing off seriously for several years in 1993. As Isabelle Antena memorably put it, la vie est trop courte Ronald Reagan's gutting of the FCC made TV an even vaster wasteland than Newton Minnow ever dared think.

What’s for lunch?

- Smoked tofu + veg in black bean sauce in a wrap.

Seen any good films lately?

- Yes. Two yesterday, in fact. My wife and I both enjoyed "Cold Souls" in the theatre and came home to watch "Shakespeare Behind Bars" a fascinating docu. We thought Slumdog (when we finally saw it on DVD) was fair but certainly not living up to the hype. I consider Danny Boyle only a fair-to-middling filmmaker with a few interesting ideas, and a few not-so-interesting ideas.

Any plans to leave your home anytime soon?

- Not until Thanksgreiving, when we will spend it with friends in Chapel Hill.

What other question(s) would you like to know the answer(s) to?

- When will American society fully collapse? Will it be in my lifetime?