Archive | March, 2011

Jesse McReynolds Does the Grateful Dead (and Very, Very Well)

By on March 31, 2011 in Music

I was clicking around Amazon today, working on my music migration to the beautiful new Amazon Cloud (more on that later) and I came upon a music recommendation for Jesse McReynolds’ newish record, Songs of the Grateful Dead .  I listened to a few clips, bought it, and was completely blown away.

As is my custom, I then clicked over to YouTube to see if I could find some live versions, and boy did I hit the jackpot.  Here’s some HD footage of Jesse’s appearance just last week at  Springfest 2011, in Live Oak, Florida.  This is absolutely some of the best music you will ever hear.  This is an embedded playlist- there are 10 unbelievable songs.

You can select HD quality and watch it full screen.

After you soak up this goodness, run over to Amazon, and buy this record.

 Songs Of The Grateful Dead

Jesse McReynolds – Songs of the Grateful Dead.

Wow!

And if you’re a fan of good music, you have to subscribe to dschram1’s YouTube Channel.  It’s the best music channel I’ve seen on YouTube.

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Snoozing Through the Xoom and iPad 2 Hype

By on March 5, 2011 in Tech

I’m a regular user of both my iPad and my Galaxy Tab, and rarely carry a laptop anymore.  As such, I keep an eye on the waves of new and updated tablets that crash, in varying levels of completeness, onto our shores almost daily.


I like the Galaxy Tab’s pocket-appropriate size

The two new tablets I’ve been most interested learning about are the new Motorola Xoom, because it comes with Honeycomb,  the tablet-centric version 3.0 of Google’s Android OS, and the iPad 2, because, well,  it comes from Apple.

Now that I’ve seen both, I’m a little underwhelmed.  There are things to like about both devices, but I’m not going to buy either one.  Here’s why.

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But the iPad is more elegant and has better apps.

The Xoom looks really nice, and Honeycomb is a significant improvement over the current versions of Android.  But it’s too expensive, too big (I really like the smaller size of the Galaxy Tab) and, inexplicably, it has to be sent back to the manufacturer in a few months to be updated to the new 4G network.  Maybe it would have been better to wait a little longer and release a mature product.  There’s simply no way I’m going to buy some device, put all my stuff on it, become dependent on it, and then mail it somewhere to be upgraded.

The iPad 2 has some nice new features, like a faster chip and cameras, but it only added one item from my wish list.  I view it as a minor step in the upgrade path, and expect the next version, likely to be out next year, to have more material improvements to offer.  Like a better display, wireless syncing, etc.

So for the time being, I’m going to keep on using the tablets I have and wait for a more compelling reason to upgrade.

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GoodSongs: Robyn Ludwick’s Out of These Blues

By on March 3, 2011 in Music

Robyn Ludwick blew me away a few weeks ago, when I saw some of her concert footage  on Youtube.  To say that I dig her is a massive understatement.

Profile_pic_OOTB_2

Today I received a pre-release copy of her forthcoming record, Out of These Blues, which will make the world a better place on April 19, 2011.

The short answer is that this is the first must-buy record I’ve heard this year.  My biggest gripe about most records in these digital days is the uneven quality of the songs.  You generally get a couple of great ones, some decent ones and some filler.  That’s not a problem on this record – there’s not an average song on it.  They run from excellent to very, very good.

Listen to Hollywood, and you’ll see what I mean.  “She left me for Hollywood.  Oh, don’t you know it feels so good.  In Hollywood.”  Awesome.

The title track has a timeless vibe, that would’ve been at home in the glory days of MP3.Com, when I discovered many of the alt. country bands I still listen to, or during the Gram Parsons-nurtured infancy of country rock.  The best music, of any genre, has rural roots, but a harder, darker edge- like someone who came to country music via Macon, Georgia as opposed to Nashville.  This record sounds like that.

New Orleans is a great song, with some excellent country noir lyrics.  Cajun country, Springsteen’s Rosalita, Austin style.

Steady has a bluesy organ vibe that just boils with an early Lucinda-like passion.  I’d love to hear Robyn cover Lucinda’s Side of the Road.  Actually, she can sing whatever she wants.  As long as I get a copy.

Fight Song may be the best alt. country torch song ever recorded.  I Am may be the second best one.   Can’t Go Back channels Guitar Town era Steve Earle. A fiddle led, danceable number that needs to be heard at Gruene Hall, after a day on the river.

Let’s recap.  We have alt. country, rock, blues and country torch.  I love the way this record so easily and effectively moves from country to blues to rock.  The arrangements are excellent.

This one will clearly be a contender for my 2011 record of the year.  Count the days, friends.  April 19 will be here before you know it.  Wake up early that morning and buy this record.

In the meantime, Robyn has two records you can buy at Amazon right now.  For So Long and Too Much Desire.  I bought them both, and they are also great records.

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