Vinyl playlist commences now!
First up is a band called Gamma, with their 1979 album Gamma 1. This is a hard rock album under the direction of Ronnie Montrose, whose first major band was the eponymous Montrose. Ronnie had broken up Montrose two years earlier, and in 1978 he issued the solo album Open Fire before forming Gamma.
Leading off Side One is a rousing glam-tinged rocker called 'Thunder and Lightning'. Pretty standard stuff for late-70's AOR, it's nonetheless well-performed and -produced (as most of the album would prove to be). Continuing this theme is the Clint Ballard Jr.-penned, Hollies-released 'I'm Alive'. Even with Gamma's sound, this track is a classic, and Gamma's rendition is worth holding on to. 'Razor King' comes next, with a darker and edgier (pun intended) ballad about a street gang thug who fights the law, and well, the law wins. Long and moody but well-paced, it fits well. Finishing up the side is 'No Tears', which I think is a breakup song. Despite its upbeat mood and tempo, it's about leavin' when the lovin' runs out. 'Run With The Pack' by Bad Company would find good company in this last track.
Opening side two is 'Solar Heat'. Spooky wind to begin and end, and a neat instrumental in between, with all of the titular warmth. But before the wind dies down, we're shifted - and hard - into the fast and subtly menacing 'Ready For Action'. Thumping and aggressively paced, it's a great rock-out moment. This gives way to the introspective and dark 'Wish I Was'. If you need a sad song, this will do the trick. Last but not least is the rollicking and aggressive 'Fight To The Finish' (it's all there in the title).
Overall, the album is a pretty good artifact of late-70's AOR arena rock. Good, if typical guitar work makes this a good listening experience. I would slip some of the brighter gems into the mix, for further listening. I'm skeptical as to how the album would hold up under repeated listens, given its common sound. I still recommend Gamma 1 to fans of Styx, Bad Company, Peter Frampton, and the like.
Next is a 1978 LP called Rose Royce III: Strikes Again! I'd expected a hair metal band from the cover. Boy was I wrong. Rose Royce turned out to be a soul/funk group I'd never heard of. Not a bad sound, at first impression. The lead track is a party and dance song called 'Get Up Off Your Fat'. I'm not even kidding. It still made me smile, and it's got a classic beat, eve as it shifts into 'Do It, Do It' without a break. Also danceable. 'I'm In Love And I Love The Feeling' has a very light, mildly romantic feel to it. 'First Come, First Serve' is a funky breakdown, but not much else. 'Love Don't Live Here Anymore' finishes up Side One, and was the hit single from the album. A breakup song, some moody strings in the background and a soulfully down mood make for a real classic.
Flipping over, we next hear 'Angel In The Sky' and 'Help', two soulful pieces of slow pop. The difference being that, according to the liner notes I overlooked when I freeloaded the disc from Dave's, that 'Angel In The Sky' was sung by Gwen Dickey, while 'Help' could either be Kenny Copeland or Kenji Brown. 'Let Me The First To Know' keeps the easygoing soul sound and pace, with more of a romantic lyric this time. For a rousing finish, the band rolls out on 'That's What's Wrong With Me', a loud party track to wake up the neighbors with (with which to wake up the neighbors). Really good vibe, good beat, and some awesome guitar work from the aforementioned Kenji Brown.
Turns out that this band was a frequent vehicle for the songwriting of legendary Motown producer Norman Whitfield, and the album was issued on Whitfield's own label, created after leaving Motown's employ. If the name Rose Royce sounded familiar to you, they performed 'Car Wash' and 'I Wanna Get Next To You' from the 1976 movie Car Wash. Not a bad album for fans of disco, 70's soul, and R&B in general.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Friday, July 6, 2012
Love Is The Coal That Makes This Train Roll
Had a one-man vinyl listening party a couple of weeks ago and I'd wanted to post the results, but didn't find the time. Too much other stuff going on. SO!
I started off with a couple of singles I'd picked up recently at Dave's Music Mine on the Southside. Great little music store. I go there quite frequently. On rare occasions, they'll leave some records outside after closing time as a giveaway, but I don't believe they do that anymore. A few things I've gotten from them came from those boxes.
First off was Summertime Blues, by The Who. I saw this and had to have it. Phenomenal song for a cover, and it's on Decca, so it's mainly a collectible. But the magic continued onto the B-side. That's a song called Heaven And Hell, and it was penned by the late, great John Entwistle. After hearing his song My Wife from the album Who's Next, I had long been curious to hear more of his material. It's a straightforward but nonetheless excellent Mod-era track that deserves to be remembered.
Also playing was Love Rollercoaster by the Ohio Players. Seventies disco/funk at a very classic point. Highly enjoyable (also pronounced "AAAAAAAARGH!") as was the B-side, It's All Over. A classic soul/funk breakup song, It's All Over is just as good as its A-side, like, legit.
Now for the big one. The Black Keys. Brothers. Two discs of vinylicious hard blues-rock, the Akron duo get high marks on every category in my opinion. Everlasting Light is the perfect lead song, a light-but-stompin' love song with Dan Auerbach doing an atypical but fitting falsetto vocal. I had to listen close to make sure it was him, since it was so unexpected, but dang, it fits so well. Side A is all hits: Everlasting Light, Next Girl, Tighten Up and Howlin' For You (the latter two being the singles issued for this release), Sides B and C are slower but still interesting, and Side D wraps it up nicely. Holy crap I cannot get over how almost perfect side A is.
The Brothers package also comes with a poster (helpfully labeled as such, like the rest of the packaging) with lyrics on the back, and a copy on CD. Nice touch; I'm told that copies of their older albums one a single slice of vinyl come with a coupon for a free MP3 download, which is also good.
Last up, since I was heading out that evening, was Blow By Blow, by Jeff Beck. I was surprised to discover two Stevie Wonder covers on side B (Cause We've Ended As Lovers and Thelonius) as well as a Beatles cover on side A. It's an instrumental jam album, primarily, but it's good stuff. Mid-70's mildly-to-heavily arty rock, with a prog or jazz feel to it. It's well worth checking out. Listening to this album also answered a longstanding rock question for me: what the hell was the song WRRK would play every time someone asked for Jeff Beck?
About thirty seconds into Freeway Jam, I realized that I was listening to it. I remembered the riff, but it doesn't start right at the beginning of the song. It took a moment for the lightbulb to come on. Man, that brought back some memories.
A very productive Saturday, indeed. I'd like to do so again this Saturday, but we'll see how things go.
I started off with a couple of singles I'd picked up recently at Dave's Music Mine on the Southside. Great little music store. I go there quite frequently. On rare occasions, they'll leave some records outside after closing time as a giveaway, but I don't believe they do that anymore. A few things I've gotten from them came from those boxes.
First off was Summertime Blues, by The Who. I saw this and had to have it. Phenomenal song for a cover, and it's on Decca, so it's mainly a collectible. But the magic continued onto the B-side. That's a song called Heaven And Hell, and it was penned by the late, great John Entwistle. After hearing his song My Wife from the album Who's Next, I had long been curious to hear more of his material. It's a straightforward but nonetheless excellent Mod-era track that deserves to be remembered.
Also playing was Love Rollercoaster by the Ohio Players. Seventies disco/funk at a very classic point. Highly enjoyable (also pronounced "AAAAAAAARGH!") as was the B-side, It's All Over. A classic soul/funk breakup song, It's All Over is just as good as its A-side, like, legit.
Now for the big one. The Black Keys. Brothers. Two discs of vinylicious hard blues-rock, the Akron duo get high marks on every category in my opinion. Everlasting Light is the perfect lead song, a light-but-stompin' love song with Dan Auerbach doing an atypical but fitting falsetto vocal. I had to listen close to make sure it was him, since it was so unexpected, but dang, it fits so well. Side A is all hits: Everlasting Light, Next Girl, Tighten Up and Howlin' For You (the latter two being the singles issued for this release), Sides B and C are slower but still interesting, and Side D wraps it up nicely. Holy crap I cannot get over how almost perfect side A is.
The Brothers package also comes with a poster (helpfully labeled as such, like the rest of the packaging) with lyrics on the back, and a copy on CD. Nice touch; I'm told that copies of their older albums one a single slice of vinyl come with a coupon for a free MP3 download, which is also good.
Last up, since I was heading out that evening, was Blow By Blow, by Jeff Beck. I was surprised to discover two Stevie Wonder covers on side B (Cause We've Ended As Lovers and Thelonius) as well as a Beatles cover on side A. It's an instrumental jam album, primarily, but it's good stuff. Mid-70's mildly-to-heavily arty rock, with a prog or jazz feel to it. It's well worth checking out. Listening to this album also answered a longstanding rock question for me: what the hell was the song WRRK would play every time someone asked for Jeff Beck?
About thirty seconds into Freeway Jam, I realized that I was listening to it. I remembered the riff, but it doesn't start right at the beginning of the song. It took a moment for the lightbulb to come on. Man, that brought back some memories.
A very productive Saturday, indeed. I'd like to do so again this Saturday, but we'll see how things go.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Gimme Shelter
If I were to hypothetically hire Roger McGuinn to assassinate Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, would I be killing two Stones with one Byrd?
Monday, July 2, 2012
Turn Yourself Around, You're Not Invited
One of these things is not like the others. Can you guess which one?
What Was The Hipster? - Mark Greif
Watch Out Portland, Pittsburgh's Lookin' Hip - Bill Toland
Cities and Ambition - Paul Graham
Will The Last Hipster Please Turn Out The Lights? - Zev Borow
Look At This Fucking Hipster - Joe Mande
Recently a friend and I had a discussion on the second aticle in line and how in the hell trendy types like hipsters would end up in of all places, Pittsburgh. (That article is not the correct answer, by the way; it's the next one in line, by Paul Graham.) After all, it's a recovering mill town far from tradtional centers of 'cool'. But our odd article out may have a clue as to why hipsters live where they do (Williamsburg neighborhood of NYC, Silver Lake of LA, etc.)and help us answer the question - are hipsters really here?
Graham often reminds his readers of the case of the Milanese Leonardo. Theorizing that if genetics meant that a person of equal artistic ability to da Vinci grew up and painted in Milan, surely he would have produced something for future generations to take note of. And yet no such person exists. Florence was the city at the center of the art world in the 1500s, and any budding artist would have been a fool to go anywhere else to learn.
So the hypothesis is, as with Graham's voluminous insisghts into tech startups, that for a particular field or pursuit, there is a hub city, or ground zero. That means that people interested in said field would be best served to move there, to live where there is a core of people involved in said pursuit. Silicon Valley is a garden for internet startups for a number of factors better explained by Graham. After all, he created one himself.
As an aside, Paul Graham's essays make for some compelling and fascinating reading. I strongly recommend checking them out.
But hipsterism is a fashion, right? Can't that happen anywhere? True, and there are parts of any city that could seem to cater to any fashion you can think of. But there is something different about hipsterism that should be explained before we go any further. According to Mark Greif (number one on the list, and for good reason) the hipster was, at first, a neo-bohemian creature born of nineties rejection of consumerism, morphed from 1999 to 2003 into a whiteness-celebrating urban redneck (keywords: porn-stache, trucker hats, motorcycle jeans, 'wifebeater' undershirts) with a twee and precious reverse side, and then into a slightly childish and pastoralist 'green' phase (keywords; outdated technology, green, sustainable, organic, recycle) until about 2009. (And I'm not even going to get into facial hair.)
The material culture of hipsters is whatever is waiting to be made cool again, with them at the forefront. A key trend in hipsterism is the possession of, or pretension to have, a priori knowledge of what's the new thing, what to claim you were doing or liking before anyone else (or in some cases, how obscure it is). Subtle advertising and grassroots-level endorsements (and the fact that until hipsters decided they liked it the brewing company was in a death spiral) drew hipsters to PBR. Local music and vinyl collections - both are obscure and highly niche parts of the music business that have been close to the hipster's interst and aesthetic.
So what we have is a culture and mindset walking backwards into the future, while pretending to walk towards now out of it. Where the hell is someone like this going to live?
To answer that question, recall that the activation energy for hipsters was the reactions of the neo-bohemians to their customers (often new money types that didn't look it), and that the neo-bohemians were also artists in their spare time. So this activation energy consists of some kind of artistic/craft/design movement. But is everyone in such a movement always a producer? No. There has to be a consumer for such an idiom and aesthetic to take off. And the consumers of the hipster period did something unusual. They asserted that their consumption of the idiom gave them the same interesting and creative vibe that the original creators possessed. In this sense the average hipster resembles the 'moochers' of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, feeling that they are owed a part of this cool thing without contributing anything of value. Hipsters are largely hangers-on. (So for every year that hipsterism persists, we get hangers-on to hanger-on-ism, as it were. Not to mention that hipsters are certainly overwhelmingly leftist, a la the aforementioned moochers.)
So we've got an interest (however self-absorbed) in an offbeat, often underground creative scene that likes the material culture of the past, but not so much its politics. Well, Williamsburg was a fairly natural deposit of old-city aesthetic until they moved in and isn't far from the arty East Village, not to mention the NYC obsession with art-as-brand (art-as-stuff is a Paris thing nowadays); similar for Silver Lake, but substitute Cali progressive attitudes, a preference for better living, and good weather for any single neighborhood. Webcomic author Jeph Jacques once remarked that the crowd at his local bowling alley was '50% Massachusetts hipster, 50% Massachusetts redneck'. (Given the white hipster, I wonder if a Venn diagram would have been more appropriate.) Massachusetts progressivism isn't so different from California's; and to boot, a nigh-upon foreclosed manufacturing culture that had disappeared or given up was an acceptable background.
Two possibilities emerge. The message these cities and neighborhoods seem to send to hipsters is to look like you're not trying (whether you are or not). Or, hipsters are the people with a natural predilection to invert the larger message of their environment. NYC still respects big money, so the hipsters subvert it by acting and dressing in the inverse fashion from their perception of it.
And what about Pittsburgh? Is the Steel City 'cool/not cool/wait, what?' enough to support the hipster? Well, yes. Yes it does. I should know, as I could easily be described as a hipster. Bloomfield is rumored to be a big hipster enclave in the city, even though (because?) it's Pittsburgh's 'Little Italy'; and Shadyside, though expensive, has the organic old neighborhood feel. (Also an American Apparel. Thanks a lot, Dov Charney.) The South Side hosts hipster tastes to a lesser extent, but the rent is somewhat cheaper than other parts of the city. A lot of bros from Duke and Pitt hang out down there, but there are the few hipster-friendly hangouts. I actually frequent Dee's Cafe, and last time I was there I was thanked by a fairly obvious hipster for playing 'Float On' by Modest Mouse, while listening to two other hipsters discuss whether Jack's was still a good South Side bar, which happens to be my other favorite place to drink down there. (Dee's wins these days for a better jukebox and always having an open seat at the bar.)
What Was The Hipster? - Mark Greif
Watch Out Portland, Pittsburgh's Lookin' Hip - Bill Toland
Cities and Ambition - Paul Graham
Will The Last Hipster Please Turn Out The Lights? - Zev Borow
Look At This Fucking Hipster - Joe Mande
Recently a friend and I had a discussion on the second aticle in line and how in the hell trendy types like hipsters would end up in of all places, Pittsburgh. (That article is not the correct answer, by the way; it's the next one in line, by Paul Graham.) After all, it's a recovering mill town far from tradtional centers of 'cool'. But our odd article out may have a clue as to why hipsters live where they do (Williamsburg neighborhood of NYC, Silver Lake of LA, etc.)and help us answer the question - are hipsters really here?
Graham often reminds his readers of the case of the Milanese Leonardo. Theorizing that if genetics meant that a person of equal artistic ability to da Vinci grew up and painted in Milan, surely he would have produced something for future generations to take note of. And yet no such person exists. Florence was the city at the center of the art world in the 1500s, and any budding artist would have been a fool to go anywhere else to learn.
So the hypothesis is, as with Graham's voluminous insisghts into tech startups, that for a particular field or pursuit, there is a hub city, or ground zero. That means that people interested in said field would be best served to move there, to live where there is a core of people involved in said pursuit. Silicon Valley is a garden for internet startups for a number of factors better explained by Graham. After all, he created one himself.
As an aside, Paul Graham's essays make for some compelling and fascinating reading. I strongly recommend checking them out.
But hipsterism is a fashion, right? Can't that happen anywhere? True, and there are parts of any city that could seem to cater to any fashion you can think of. But there is something different about hipsterism that should be explained before we go any further. According to Mark Greif (number one on the list, and for good reason) the hipster was, at first, a neo-bohemian creature born of nineties rejection of consumerism, morphed from 1999 to 2003 into a whiteness-celebrating urban redneck (keywords: porn-stache, trucker hats, motorcycle jeans, 'wifebeater' undershirts) with a twee and precious reverse side, and then into a slightly childish and pastoralist 'green' phase (keywords; outdated technology, green, sustainable, organic, recycle) until about 2009. (And I'm not even going to get into facial hair.)
The material culture of hipsters is whatever is waiting to be made cool again, with them at the forefront. A key trend in hipsterism is the possession of, or pretension to have, a priori knowledge of what's the new thing, what to claim you were doing or liking before anyone else (or in some cases, how obscure it is). Subtle advertising and grassroots-level endorsements (and the fact that until hipsters decided they liked it the brewing company was in a death spiral) drew hipsters to PBR. Local music and vinyl collections - both are obscure and highly niche parts of the music business that have been close to the hipster's interst and aesthetic.
So what we have is a culture and mindset walking backwards into the future, while pretending to walk towards now out of it. Where the hell is someone like this going to live?
To answer that question, recall that the activation energy for hipsters was the reactions of the neo-bohemians to their customers (often new money types that didn't look it), and that the neo-bohemians were also artists in their spare time. So this activation energy consists of some kind of artistic/craft/design movement. But is everyone in such a movement always a producer? No. There has to be a consumer for such an idiom and aesthetic to take off. And the consumers of the hipster period did something unusual. They asserted that their consumption of the idiom gave them the same interesting and creative vibe that the original creators possessed. In this sense the average hipster resembles the 'moochers' of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, feeling that they are owed a part of this cool thing without contributing anything of value. Hipsters are largely hangers-on. (So for every year that hipsterism persists, we get hangers-on to hanger-on-ism, as it were. Not to mention that hipsters are certainly overwhelmingly leftist, a la the aforementioned moochers.)
So we've got an interest (however self-absorbed) in an offbeat, often underground creative scene that likes the material culture of the past, but not so much its politics. Well, Williamsburg was a fairly natural deposit of old-city aesthetic until they moved in and isn't far from the arty East Village, not to mention the NYC obsession with art-as-brand (art-as-stuff is a Paris thing nowadays); similar for Silver Lake, but substitute Cali progressive attitudes, a preference for better living, and good weather for any single neighborhood. Webcomic author Jeph Jacques once remarked that the crowd at his local bowling alley was '50% Massachusetts hipster, 50% Massachusetts redneck'. (Given the white hipster, I wonder if a Venn diagram would have been more appropriate.) Massachusetts progressivism isn't so different from California's; and to boot, a nigh-upon foreclosed manufacturing culture that had disappeared or given up was an acceptable background.
Two possibilities emerge. The message these cities and neighborhoods seem to send to hipsters is to look like you're not trying (whether you are or not). Or, hipsters are the people with a natural predilection to invert the larger message of their environment. NYC still respects big money, so the hipsters subvert it by acting and dressing in the inverse fashion from their perception of it.
And what about Pittsburgh? Is the Steel City 'cool/not cool/wait, what?' enough to support the hipster? Well, yes. Yes it does. I should know, as I could easily be described as a hipster. Bloomfield is rumored to be a big hipster enclave in the city, even though (because?) it's Pittsburgh's 'Little Italy'; and Shadyside, though expensive, has the organic old neighborhood feel. (Also an American Apparel. Thanks a lot, Dov Charney.) The South Side hosts hipster tastes to a lesser extent, but the rent is somewhat cheaper than other parts of the city. A lot of bros from Duke and Pitt hang out down there, but there are the few hipster-friendly hangouts. I actually frequent Dee's Cafe, and last time I was there I was thanked by a fairly obvious hipster for playing 'Float On' by Modest Mouse, while listening to two other hipsters discuss whether Jack's was still a good South Side bar, which happens to be my other favorite place to drink down there. (Dee's wins these days for a better jukebox and always having an open seat at the bar.)
Thematics:
Hipsterism,
My Life,
Pittsburgh
Location:
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Thursday, May 24, 2012
I Spent My Change, I Fell Out Of Line
Beck Hansen, in his anti-folk days. Very interesting to hear.
Reposted from beckmangroup, archiving Beck's early days for posterity.
Reposted from beckmangroup, archiving Beck's early days for posterity.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Gazing On A City Under Television Skies
Not a fan of television anymore. (Not the band.)
About the only show I enjoy these days is Craig Ferguson. The surprisingly witty, self-described 'creepy old Scottish dude' is one of my very few connections to the broadcast world, and only a handful of shows on the cable channels interest me. (Mostly shows like Gold Rush and American Pickers. I'm such a dork.)
I think television is over for a number of reasons. Firstly, I see a convergence of the TV device and the PC device, in the same way we've seen a convergence of the cell phone and the laptop computer. Secondly, there's more flexibility with an internet-based source for 'shows'-no need to schedule time to watch. TiVo and DVRs will delay recognition of this fact for some time, but eventually a service whereby all programming is on demand, ie the internet will render such devices obsolete.
Enough people watch stuff via internet piracy. The media companies aren't beating them anytime soon, as we learned in Prohibition and the heyday of phone phreaking. Try to bar people from something, and they'll find a way to get it. Why don't the media companies just use the internet?
About the only show I enjoy these days is Craig Ferguson. The surprisingly witty, self-described 'creepy old Scottish dude' is one of my very few connections to the broadcast world, and only a handful of shows on the cable channels interest me. (Mostly shows like Gold Rush and American Pickers. I'm such a dork.)
I think television is over for a number of reasons. Firstly, I see a convergence of the TV device and the PC device, in the same way we've seen a convergence of the cell phone and the laptop computer. Secondly, there's more flexibility with an internet-based source for 'shows'-no need to schedule time to watch. TiVo and DVRs will delay recognition of this fact for some time, but eventually a service whereby all programming is on demand, ie the internet will render such devices obsolete.
Enough people watch stuff via internet piracy. The media companies aren't beating them anytime soon, as we learned in Prohibition and the heyday of phone phreaking. Try to bar people from something, and they'll find a way to get it. Why don't the media companies just use the internet?
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Give Me One Good Dose Of Thunder
Never thought I'd be as into music from the 90's as I am right now. Once upon a time I thought only Nirvana mattered; now I find they're not alone.
Take the album Bossanova by the Pixies, for example. Or listen to Bob Pollard shout 'HOT FREAKS' in your ear with GBV's Bee Thousand spinning. All surprisingly good stuff.
Meanwhile, I've been digging through the free vinyl at Dave's Music Mine on the South Side. Managed to get a hold of City to City - Gerry Rafferty; Blow by Blow - Jeff Beck; Tales Of Topographic Oceans - Yes; Feats Don't Fail Me Now - Little Feat.
These would all be cool if id hadn't turned out SOME HIPSTER swiped the discs out of Litttle Feat and sides one and two from Yes... That said I think my dad has Tales Of Topographical Oceans. I may steal it from him just to hear the disc. Incidentally, if anyone has a spare copy of sides one and two thereof, let me know; I'd like to have it to complete the album.
Take the album Bossanova by the Pixies, for example. Or listen to Bob Pollard shout 'HOT FREAKS' in your ear with GBV's Bee Thousand spinning. All surprisingly good stuff.
Meanwhile, I've been digging through the free vinyl at Dave's Music Mine on the South Side. Managed to get a hold of City to City - Gerry Rafferty; Blow by Blow - Jeff Beck; Tales Of Topographic Oceans - Yes; Feats Don't Fail Me Now - Little Feat.
These would all be cool if id hadn't turned out SOME HIPSTER swiped the discs out of Litttle Feat and sides one and two from Yes... That said I think my dad has Tales Of Topographical Oceans. I may steal it from him just to hear the disc. Incidentally, if anyone has a spare copy of sides one and two thereof, let me know; I'd like to have it to complete the album.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Ten Years Gone
I can't believe it's been three years since I posted on this. This is ridiculous. Naturally, ninety percent of the things I wanted to write about are nowhere near started, if I'm still thinking about them.
That said, one thing that is up and running is my Robotech Republican Compendium. (Fear not, Democrats, if you can put aside politics for some good bad science fiction. This compendium is republican with a little 'r'. Mostly.) While the first chapter isn't quite up yet, one can glean some idea of the world that the story takes place in by reading the synopses of the various combat equipment used by nations appearing in the story.
I'm also actively building LEGO trains again. The Spirit of 9-Volt contains my creations. Of interest is the 2-6-2 Prairie steam locomotive, and passenger cars.
Last but not least I hope to start doing album reviews. I've plowed into a pile of new music since abandoning this blog all that time ago, and it really needs talked about. Also I plan on at least recording a demo of some music I'd written in college for a band project I referred to as The Tunnelmotors. I figure I can share that here, too.
Anyway, I guess I'm back.
That said, one thing that is up and running is my Robotech Republican Compendium. (Fear not, Democrats, if you can put aside politics for some good bad science fiction. This compendium is republican with a little 'r'. Mostly.) While the first chapter isn't quite up yet, one can glean some idea of the world that the story takes place in by reading the synopses of the various combat equipment used by nations appearing in the story.
I'm also actively building LEGO trains again. The Spirit of 9-Volt contains my creations. Of interest is the 2-6-2 Prairie steam locomotive, and passenger cars.
Last but not least I hope to start doing album reviews. I've plowed into a pile of new music since abandoning this blog all that time ago, and it really needs talked about. Also I plan on at least recording a demo of some music I'd written in college for a band project I referred to as The Tunnelmotors. I figure I can share that here, too.
Anyway, I guess I'm back.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)