crapforgenius

Thanks for the heads up! The Men limited 7" ordered.

First store visit of the new year today - was trying to hold off to stockpile funds for my LA/Amoeba visit in February, but I was good and kept it to the $1 7" bin: Samantha Fox - Touch Me (I Want Your Body) Bananarama - I Heard A Rumor Human League - (Keep Feeling) Fascination (Figured I would find a good condition copy of this after "Total Panic" finally gets reissued on last year's 'Dare!' box, but oh well.) The Jacksons - State of Shock Whitney Houston - How Will I Know? Pet Shop Boys - Domino Dancing promo (7" mix on both sides) Prince - Partyman / Feel U Up Dance party, my apartment, right now.

Maybe it's just me but I don't think $21.99 was that bad for this - a few dollars more than your average new LP, sure, but given the archival work that (theoretically) went into it and limited run nature, I was expecting to pay a little more. Friday Records post-'Head' Monkees reissues for $29.99+ A piece? That's nonsense. ($30 for fucking 'Pool It!'? Seriously? And I say that as a fan of the record.) 'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness'? That was price gouging. This? Making sure you can recoup to bring more records down the line, and if a few extra bucks is going to help assure more releases, I'll go for it.

Never realized that. Well, there goes that explanation. Green is pretty?

Personally, I've always preferred colors and especially in a situation like this, where the original is black only it makes the reissue make more sense. I don't have an original - even when it was new it always eluded me - but if/when I do find a copy, I'll then have a black AND green copy rather than two blacks, retroactively justifying the reissue purchase. It makes sense in my head, anyways.

If you think you do, you probably do and will regret not getting it later. That's my motto, anyways.

My dentist appointment ended at 11:55 and I was able to grab a green one on my phone after I got out to my car. Very excited. Can't wait to blast "The Pod" so loud my ears bleed.

There's no way this will be as good as 'The Big Roar' - that was such a kick-in-the-teeth-out-of-nowhere, where have you been all my life? type of album, it would be pretty impossible for them to top it. That said, everything I've heard so far has me excited and I'm expecing pretty great things from 'Wolf's Law'.

I'm not going to be able to be at a computer at noon, so hopefully something's left for me later in the afternoon. Not likely, but I guess it wasn't meant to be then.

As I mentioned earlier, this LP set has caused me to give 'Mellon Collie' a serious reassessment and I'm enjoying it way more than I have in ages. Listening now, my thought is that if they had put "Stumbeline" at the end of side F where it belongs, the third LP would be just about perfect. I've also always had a very, very soft spot for both "In The Arms of Sleep" - one of the most beautiful songs Billy's ever written - and "Tales of a Scorched Earth", so there is that.

This is also the third place this one has been offered, after All Tomorrow's Parties and Rough Trade. The second one won't have that issue - I imagine, though I wouldn't be surprised if Rough Trade gets some - so it should be a little easier to get ahold of. That said, order as soon as you get the e-mail about it because these obviously will go.

This was initially available only at ATP in the UK and I was terrified I was never going to get a copy. Then, Rough Trade UK tweeted they had a handful of copies and I snatched one up at $17. Then this website finally went live and I was a little miffed but I don't regret the $5 extra to secure a copy. Beyond excited it's a series and can't wait for the next one. Mine arrived a few days ago and I've spun the hell out of it. Also, 'LSXX' is going to own 2013. The tour is going to be incredible. I saw the band in 2010 and Jo was a surprise fill in for Mando on bass because his girlfriend had just had a baby, and they did almost exclusively 'Last Splash' and 'Pod' material. (I think they only did "Huffer", "Bang On" and one other from 'Title TK' and 'Mountain Battles'.) It was *incredible*. (And I say that with 'Title TK' as being my favorite album either Kim Deal or Steve Albini have ever been involved in, but there's just something magical about 'Last Splash'.) Also, Kelley has a new band called R. Ring and their debut 7" was released last fall. It's similarly glorious: http://misrarecords.com/artists/r-ring/ There's also a 2-track tour-only CD single from the summer out there. I couldn't make the tour but Mike was kind enough to send one to me when I asked about it on Facebook. They may still have copies around if you ask nicely. Finally, there's a Daytrotter session from October that's available to download on the Daytrotter website. 2013 will be the year of the Deal sisters and I am loving it.

My Kim Deal 7" showed up today. Heavenly.

I wasn't given any as a gift, but I counted the Elbow box as a gift to myself.

Billy's mentioned working on bonus material for 'Aeroplane' more than once, so I'd imagine it'll be next. It's probably going to be another incredibly overpriced massive set like 'Mellon Collie', but that's to be expected I suppose. I wonder if there will be a 5xLP set with packaging similar to the 'Mellon Collie' set. (And then another Amazon.ca price eff up so I can justify purchasing it.)

Rough Trade just got in a few copies of the Kim Deal ATP 7", so apparently my record shopping for 2012 wasn't quite done. Now it is. (I say, half-hoping some other piece of amazement will fall into my lap in the next 12 days.)

I tweeted Yep Roc thanking them for finally putting this out and asking about 'Welcome Interstate Managers'. They replied: glad you're loving it! We're in talks for a bunch of vinyl re-issues this year. Stay tuned... Make of that what you will.

'Utopia Parkway' just showed up and is on right now. Sounds fucking great and I'm so excited to finally have this one. 'Welcome Interstate Managers' please and thank you.

So I have to say that after spending some time with the reissue - the first serious time I've spent with the album in many years - I may have been giving it the short end of the stick all this time. There's still some dreck that hasn't aged well, but there's also many gems that I let get overshadowed by what I didn't like. Song for song I still think 'Aeroplane' is stronger, but I was pleasantly surprised by my listening experience in terms of the songs themselves. So in that regards, reissue success! (That said, I still can't see myself committing to listening to the entire thing all too terribly often.)

Before I moved to Jersey City in March, whenever I came to visit I used to spend my days eating myself around the City. It was *very* hard to not do that on a daily basis when I got down here.

Truth. I've always wished it had been the first single like Billy wanted it to be.

I went with a female friend to see her live on the tour for this record. It was a great show but MAN did I feel out of place. She was (understandably) a pretty big deal around Rochester (Buffalo is about an hour away) long before she blew up nationally soon after this, but still on an intimate level, if that makes sense. The show I saw was a small theater show that we got tickets for the day of, and two years later she's selling out the arena in town. Mindblowing when things like that happen.

So my copy arrived yesterday and I picked it up from the mail room today. For something I was so on the fence about and ultimately didn't want until the Amazon price drop convinced me to give it a shot and see what happens, I'm actually glad it's here. That said, I was expecting the book to be a little sturdier than a glorified concert program, especially since it was one of the big selling points in the press release and presumably one of the things that was driving the price of the set up. Had I paid full price, I'd be a bit miffed at that, but I didn't so moving on. Of course, I went right to "Zero". It's a bit loud and there's definitely noticeable distortion - especially on the vocals - as we approach the end of the song, so close to the center of the record, but certainly nothing as bad as McPherson123's sound clip and nothing that makes it unlistenable. I guess I got lucky once again with this set.

This is the one Ani DiFranco album I actually still care about. I may have to get this.

Steve Mason just announced a new LP for March, so that's going to be pretty great.