Heavy Rotation #6

As we start a new month, here's a look at what I couldn't stop listening to at the end of January...

The Beatles/With The Beatles

Crooked Fingers/Dignity And Shame

R.E.M./Reckoning

Spoon/Transference

Bruce Springsteen/Darkness on the Edge of Town

Aftermath

We spent our annual Christmas at my parents' house the past few days. The season started with a drive through icy conditions to pick my brother up from O'Hare on Wednesday night and included a road being closed right before I was going to go on it; I lost time but was able to get him back to my house by 1:00 in the morning. By 1:00 the next afternoon, we had already decamped to DeMotte and got into the swing of the season with a traditional party and tons of food. Yesterday we opened gifts and got a great reaction out of my son when he opened his new PS3. Lots more eating and some euchre playing and the joy of being together as a family followed.

I am now back home, though in a couple hours we will be off to another traditional party with some very close friends. In the meantime, I'm in my usual post-Christmas state of not knowing quite what to do with myself. There is so much I can do that I have a hard time committing to any one thing, so I've been shuffling through my iTunes and poking around the internet.

I do have plenty to listen to, including The Beatles stereo remasters boxed set. I've actually never heard 5 of their albums all the way through (I know, I know) and I still haven't listened to 3 of them yet. In addition, I got the new live Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers anthology, R.E.M.'s deluxe edition of Reckoning, and a Roxy Music album I've never heard.

I also decided to not read the three library books at once - I have three books stockpiled that I've been wanting to read when I have the time. I have the time now and should take advantage of that; after all, I can always check those other books out of the library again. So, I started Peter & Max, the first prose novel set in the world of Fables, on Christmas Eve.

Maybe it would be a good idea to read some more of that and stick Beatles For Sale in the stereo (that's one of the ones I've never heard). Think I will...

Old Faves, New Ways

My pop culture consumption this last week has been mainly focused on some old favorites being presented in new ways, or at least ways new to me.

Two weeks ago I picked up JLA/Avengers at the sale at the comics shop. This softcover collects the mini-series from 2003-04 by Kurt Busiek and George Perez, which I didn't read the first time around and don't really remember existing (it must have come out when I wasn't paying close attention to comics). I am a big fan of both Busiek and Perez and they did not disappoint here. One standard of the super-hero crossover is a fight between the sets of heroes and it's not one that I'm too fond of. That said, there is a reason for it to happen in this book but it also doesn't go on forever. In fact, there is an alternate reality wherein the JLA had a crossover with the Avengers every year and not the JSA. Fun and cool moments abound in a shifting reality and shifting rosters for both teams. Perez really pulls out the stops with his "camera angles" and singular super-hero prowess. It seems that this is the last DC/Marvel crossover for the forseeable future (and maybe ever); if so, they went out on a high note.

Tuesday saw the release of a new R.E.M. album, Live at the Olympia, which presents highlights from a five night run of rehearsals they did in 2007...and invited the public to. At the start of the double CD, Mike Mills announces "this is not a show" and Michael Stipe refers to the whole experience as an "experiment in terror." Their impetus for the shows was to rehearse new material they were going to record and indeed, you can hear 9 of the 11 songs from Accelerate (one in a different form) as well as 2 that didn't make the record (I really like the change of pace that is "On The Fly"). The rest of the songs span the breadth of their career and many are from Chronic Town and Reckoning, two albums I've still never gotten around to picking up. After hearing "Second Guessing" and "Harborcoat" I know I need to rectify that fact. The band sounds great and bangs out classics like "So. Central Rain" and "Cuyahoga" and "Pretty Persuasion" as well as should have been classics like "New Test Leper"(New Adventures in Hi-Fi seems to be forgotten these days). It's also a testament to their solid songcraft that the new songs don't seem out of place with the rest. I have a feeling I'm going to be listening to a lot of their music over the next month or two.

Sunday Shuffle #150

I can't leave the Sunday Shuffle holding at #149 for who knows how long, so I'm back already to get it to a nice even number. Yes, I am a nerd. And yes, I am a music nerd too...

1. Alone (a.k.a. Shakin Sugar) (demo)/Wilco (2)

2. Moral Centralia (demo)/Harvey Danger (13)

3. Starling Of The Slipstream/Pavement (7)

4. Set Me Free/The Kinks (2)

5. Me In Honey/R.E.M. (15)

6. Apartment Story/The National (19)

7. From/Dr. Dog (10)

8. Highly Suspicious/My Morning Jacket (8)

9. Hand-Me-Down Tune/The Avett Brothers (11)

10. Impossible Germany (live)/Wilco (9)