Rhyan\djay

A few years back, I owned the album, 'Til The Medicine Takes. I remember listening to it a couple times and thinking it was pretty good, and then, at some point, selling it. This has been a bad habit of mine for years. I buy an album, listen to it maybe twice and then sell it because I shouldn't have spent the money on it in the first place.
Well, since my finances are pretty much on track again, I decided to treat myself to a CD, and went looking for The Toadies' Rubberneck. Not wanting to splurge horribly, I went to Cheapo to dig up a used copy. I looked through all their recent arrivals, which took about an hour and half, and didn't find it. I did however come across three other CDs that called to me to buy them. They were Widespread Panic's Bombs & Butterflies & 'Til The Medicine Takes, and The Big Wu's Tracking Buffalo Through The Bathtub (this will my third copy of this disc I've owned). They were only $3 a piece, since they were 'scuffed. I decided to give 'Til The Medicine Takes to Ben because he's been listening to a lot more Panic than me (I hadn't been listening to any Panic at all, in fact), and keep the other two for myself. I spent a whopping nine bucks on three CDs. Whooo!
(of course, I then trekked over to Best Buy and spent a horrble seventeen bucks on Rubberneck)
Now, I haven't been overly impressed with Widespread Panic in recent history. Most of my exposure has been through live shows I've downloaded, or the couple live shows that Ben has. The quality hasn't been great on any of them. This would be fine, except that I'm not familiar with Panic, so it just annoys me that I can't hear the details of the music, because I don't it. (By contrast, if I'm listening to a Phish show and I can't hear the keyboard very well, it doesn't bother me, because my brain automatically fills it in for the most part).
Now, however, that I have a beautifully produced studio album to listen to, I find that I really enjoy Widespread Panic. John Bell's voice isn't irritating at all as long I'm hearing it in context of this band and not trying to compare to something else. I especially enjoy the song, Tall Boy (I've been disappointed to discover that it's only on one of the six or seven live shows I have), and have listened to it a lot more than the rest of the album.
Now what I need is a nice soundboard show to listen to with Tall Boy on it. I'm interested to hear what sorts of things they do with the song live.

I think I may be having a chemical imbalance. It may be related to a lack of McDonald’s, as, since I’ve moved and can now eat lunch at home, and am not so reliant on McDonald’s for cheap food, I have not had anything from McDonald’s in several days.
Of course, it all may be in my head as well.

I fixed my VCR last night. It gave me a tremendous sense of accomplishment that lasted as long as the notion that a working VCR actually has some significant meaning to my life, which, as it turns out, it doesn’t. However, knowing that I can go home and sit my ass down to watching some bootlegged Mystery Science Theater does make it hard to concentrate on work. Also, my apartment is still a mess, as I have not yet figured out what to do with the immense amount of small not-partiularly-useful objects that were previously residing in several boxes. I don’t want to keep cardboard boxes hanging around all over the place, nor do I have a significant amount of storage for said small objects. Perhaps a ‘cleansing’ (in the ethnic sense, but without all the bloodshed, since plastic toys don’t bleed) is in order.

List of things to accomplish in the next week or so:
Obtain a decent-sized garbage recepticle.
Find out where my high-speed internet will be coming from.
Contact the landlord regarding the leaking dishwasher (and ask about the heating, which doesn’t seem to ever turn off).
Get hooked up with a local phone number.
Organize or destroy all those strange small objects currently strewn about the living room floor.
Rock out at the 400 Bar and the Urban Wildlife Club with Jabberwocky.

A long time ago, I saw the Toadies open up for White Zombie. I hadn't heard them before, and they impressed the shit out of me with their strange rhythm songs. I bought Rubberneck and rocked out to “Possum Kingdom” and “I Come From The Water”. At some point, I sold the CD, and haven't thought much about since other than when I hear Possum Kingdom occasionally in a bar.
A week or so ago, Ben & I were trying to come up with songs for Jabberwocky to cover, and suggested this song, “Tyler”. I didn't recognize the name, and upon listening to it, I thought it was kind of a generic rock song (I had been expecting some kind of cool time signature, it being the Toadies and all), and I didn't remember ever hearing the song at all, even though it was on Rubberneck, which I once owned.
After listening to this song a dozen times or so, to familiarize myself with it, I've realized that is fully RAWKS. Quite possibly a better song that 'Possum Kingdom' (most certainly a better song that 'I Come From The Water').
This made me realize that I never really gave the album the thorough honest listen it deserved, and I fully intend on purchasing another copy at some point.

The system of albums is an interesting one, because you can listen to an album entirely 10 times, and still not be all that familiar with a lot of songs, because, invariably, you will end up being distracted at some point in the middle of the album, and the music will become background. No doubt this is part of the whole TV-stole-my-attention-span syndrome.

I've made a couple of interesting compilations lately that have made me appreciate songs on their own. I didn't really put a lot of thought into any of the songs I was picking, other than to pick songs by artists I like, but whose albums I don't own, and whose songs I haven't heard in a long time. It's really fun to listen to these compilations in my car and think to myself, “Damn! The Replicants' version of “Destination Unknown” is AWESOME!”