Slow Train Coming

It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody.

What a great album! I just transfered this one to the hard drive, it is so great to hear Bob really enthused with a topic. Yes, it is aggressively Christian, yes, he really did get baptized in Pat Boone's pool, and yes, this is a great Dylan album. I have the SACD, which sounds fantastic. I have not heard the remastered version that was released a few years ago. Slow Train is great, so is I Believe In You, and the title track.

This video version from an awards show rocks hard. Bob was hoping the audience would hear him, you can feel it. And he is right you know, you gotta serve somebody.



I love the background singers and the driving rhythm on this version. Rock on Bob.

250 Years

Happy birthday Guinness! And thanks for the 250 brew. It literally wiped the taste of the draft-in-a-can water out of my memory. Oh, it is not as solid as your export, not as creamy as your nitrogen infused draft, but it is tasty! Easy to drink, and it goes great with Mexican food. Try yourselves some people.

a sad put down

Way

too

watery.

Nice

ad

though.

Lights On

Here is a little lights. I heard of this lady from Stephen Meijas over at the Stereophils blog. Stephen is younger than I , definitely not an old fart, and he turns me on to new music. This is fun, well recorded and very evocative. I have the ep and it is full of sweet techno stuff. Usually, this kind of music does not catch my attention, but there is something more human and touching about this. The sound on this vid is actually pretty good, giving you a glimpse of how nice the disc sounds. And it is from 2006, definitely this century!

affirmative

I go through months were I needs me some Yes. For years, literally, I would listen to Roundabout, from the Fragile album, and sulk. Where was the bass? Oh, I could hear the trebley part of the bass on that amazing line, but where were the bottom octaves? The deep stuff? It was not on the first copy of the album I bought. I heard a little bit more on the British copy of the album, maybe even a tiny bit more on the Japanese pressing, but the bass was never in the place.

Then came cds. Fragile was one of the first cds I bought, but it sounded so tinny and tipped toward the treble that it hurt my ears. I decided I would never hear the real bass. The father of one of my daughter's classmates is a bass player in town. At some school even we got talking, and it turns out he had been searching for the same grail. Where is the bass on Roundabout? He had never found it either.

Then came the DVD-A of Fragile. DVD-audio uses a dvd disc for almost strictly music. The music is presented at much higher bit rates than cds. They sound great. And the format is dead as J. Edgar Hoover. But that version has the bass. It shakes the room when I play it. It moves your guts around. I told my friend about it, and he bought a special player just for that disc.

I am ripping that version to my computer this morning, so I can listen to the bass at the push of a button on my computer. I expect to annoy my wife a lot this month! Well, more than usual.

As for the album itself, it is hit and miss for me. Roundabout is killer, obviously, but the little sections done by the individual members are not what I buy a Yes album, well, several damn version of this Yes album for. I buy them for Long Distance Runaround, South Side Of The Sky, and Heart Of The Sunrise. The trippy stuff. Man.

Oh sure, Mood For A Day is OK, and The Fish is kind of interesting, but Cans and Brahms still sounds horrible even on DVDA. To me, that was just time that the lads could have used for a proper song.

I saw the band in Red Rocks. The bass was there in the foothills of the Rockies my friends. The band even had surround sound which they tastefully used exactly twice, once on Roundabout and once on Owner Of A Lonely Heart. Surround sound at a large outdoor arena is intense. I think 35% on the audience peeked right then.

So get out your Yes, and give Fragile a listen. Play some air guitar or bass or drums, and try to not hate me because I can hear the bass on Roundabout.

mini me

Well, mini heine is more correct. My friend Doug invited his cigar smoking friends, mine too, up to his house for a herf. A herf is where you get together and drink beer and smoke too many cigars. Good clean fun in other words. Sadly, I was the only person who made it. Happily, we had a jazzy time listening to tunes, smoking cigars, talking life and politics, and drinking beer.



I brought a Heineken mini keg to the meet. I was interested in trying one, and my own limited beer drinking capacity had kept me from getting one for myself. This little puppy was easy to use and spurted out excellent beer with no fuss. We both had several.



I usually prefer ales, but I recognize Heineken as a good German lager. Good examples of the beer have a clean taste but a rich, malty goodness under the hops. The ones from the mini keg were frankly outstanding. The exciting thing is that there are multiple choices in terms of the type of beer that is available in mini kegs. Behold. Well, behold up there as I cannot get Blogger to put the image down here.

I have seen ads for Newcastle in the mini keg. That would likely be outstanding as it would address the skunking issues I decried earlier. There are plenty of beers I would like to sample in this delivery system, but I need friends to help.

Thanks Doug and Toni for the great fun as we tried the mini keg! I hope more of our herfing pals show up for the next meeting. I will bring another mini keg for us to try.

Sweet!

Another brown ale here, this one brewed in Atlanta. And we have a winner! Well, not world class by any means, but very pleasant and likable. It pours a clear mahogany color, not much head to speak of. As the beer warms a bit you get a bit of malty and nutty aroma. This is a very smooth beer, not very complex, but tasty. The wife likes it, which is always a plus dontchaknow. I prefer it in comparison to my memory of the Pete's. This is more of a subtle nut brown, despite the darker color. No aftertaste really, so you could pound this beer. But don't cause, well we are too grown up for that around here. Right?

This has my hearty endorsement as a nice, sturdy beer. Not a classic, but reasonably priced and easy drinking flavor. Git some!