The Now Spinning/Recent Purchases Thread

I've been listening to Michael McDonald's solo hits myself namely "Sweet Freedom" from the soundtrack album Running Scared I also have a few instrumental cover versions of the song to me I thought it was one of his Best post Doobies effort along with "Our Love" from No Looking Back. Even though Rod Temperton wrote Sweet Freedom. McDonald seemed to make it His own in a way.
 
Patrick Simmons' single kind of got lost in the fray but was a lot more interesting musically, and way out of left field stylistically (which is why it probably appealed to me): "So Wrong" (from his album Arcade).

I really liked that song a lot and figured it for a bigger hit than it turned out to be. I also liked "Sweet Freedom," mentioned above by Bobberman. That's probably my favorite post-Doobies McDonald song. He put out a new album fairly recently that sounds pretty good -- he's still got the pipes.
 
Specifically, I'm listening to Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta from this disc:

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I can safely say Bartók is an acquired taste. I seem to prefer modern composers over the likes of Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, etc. (Although I do like chamber music.)
 
I had these two EPs! :laugh: I think you had to send in two box tops and a small price for these. Mine are kind of old but probably still playable. Funny that Cal Tjader would cover this first song on one of his records!



Look closely at the songwriting credit for this track. Yes, it's the same person. :wink:
 
The website for the Banana Splits CD & other cartoons is: www.wingnuttoons.com (Wing Nut Toons). By the way, Ronald Webb host Psycedelic Bubblegum Show every Saturday morning from 11:00 till 1:00 in the afternoon. Ronald also host the show "Goldmine" about the magazine & other things. Matt Clark Sanford, MI
 
Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan (aka Donald Fagan and the Steely Dan band) are hitting both Detroit and Cincinnati this summer.
 
Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan (aka Donald Fagan and the Steely Dan band) are hitting both Detroit and Cincinnati this summer.
I saw the prices. :wink: $125 for the better seats here, or far less to get lawn seats and take the chance of being rained out. "Dream gig" would have Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and Michael McDonald playing with both bands, but that won't happen. (I don't even know if Baxter plays guitar anymore.) McDonald opened for Steely Dan in 2006, then joined the Dan halfway through their gig.

I'm actually hoping for a Stray Cats tour--they announced a one-off gig in April, in Vegas, for a rockabilly festival. I've seen Brian Setzer many times, but not with the Stray Cats. (I'd also like to catch one of Lee Rocker's gigs--he has a great band as well.)
 
McDonald seems to be touring on his own now. I'm waiting on the much rumoured (ahem) Fleetwood Mac tour that allegedly may be happening this summer.
 
Fascinating:

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This is a collection of nine tracks from Gentle Giant's first three albums, plus a tenth track ("Freedom's Child") previously unreleased, from the first album sessions. The fascinating part is that these were remixed by Steven Wilson from the surviving multitrack sessions from the first three albums--three tracks from Gentle Giant, two from Acquiring The Taste and four from Three Friends. Wilson has done an excellent job. The balances are pretty much true to the originals on Three Friends (which I know in and out), yet everything can be heard so much clearer now. The Columbia LP and CD of Three Friends was always muddy.

This is on a BluRay set with the Three Piece Suite in high-res, stereo and surround versions. It also has stereo instrumental versions. And on the second disc, high-res flat transfer from the original tapes for the first three albums.

There is also an "official" video for "Peel The Paint" (from Three Friends)--even on a YouTube video, it sounds really good. Trippy! :D



Three Friends follows the tale of three friends from childhood, school and careers as a blue-collar worker ("Working All Day"), Artist ("Peel The Paint") and rich man ("Mister Class and Quality"). For my 10 year old self, this album was a bit...different. :laugh: But it really stuck with me over the years. I only came into it as a promo, one of several LPs my cousin gave me when we toured the studio he worked at (GM Studios, in East Detroit...where he had mixed Gallery's "Nice To Be With You" just that week).
 
^^^^^
Rudy, my favourite album as a kid was "Thick As A Brick" by Jethro Tull (I was obviously a very weird child). :D That "Peel The Paint" song sounds in a very similar vein. Good stuff! I think I'm going to add that Blu-Ray to my wish list.

I still have my 45 of "Nice To Be With You". I remember that record skipped so badly, that I had to put a quarter on the tonearm! :laugh:
 
Rudy, my favourite album as a kid was "Thick As A Brick" by Jethro Tull (I was obviously a very weird child). :D That "Peel The Paint" song sounds in a very similar vein. Good stuff! I think I'm going to add that Blu-Ray to my wish list.
Interesting about the Tull album, Murray! :D I probably felt a bit displaced myself when I was younger and, especially, in school where most of the classmates had their typical 70s arena rock bands and I...well, I wasn't anywhere near the same neighborhood in terms of music. :wink: At that age, I really had no clue as to what it was. OK, it had a rock quitar, but all those other sounds were quite different...and it had a sax and trumpet, violins here and there (I really like the plucked strings at the beginning of "Peel The Paint"), a synthesizer, and a few other things. I'm pretty sure at least a couple of the band were classically trained, which explains the complexity of some of their tunes.

The whole Three Friends album is on YouTube if you want to give it a whirl. Some regard their Octopus album as one of their best but I haven't really played it enough yet.

I still have my 45 of "Nice To Be With You". I remember that record skipped so badly, that I had to put a quarter on the tonearm! :laugh:
In retrospect, I did something kind of dumb. My cousin cut me a lacquer master of that song which I still have as a souvenir. Only thing is, I played it on some of my crappy old systems and it is a bit worn. (Lacquer is fine to plate with metal and make stamper parts from, but really is too soft to be played back more than once or twice.) It would have sounded fantastic had I just left it in its sleeve for a few decades. Even back then, though, the sound had this really sharp, forward character to it with lots of detail...very punchy. Which is what a lacquer would sound like.

At any rate, they had just worked on the song that week, mixed it, and he mentioned they all thought it was going to be a "million seller." It may never have gotten quite that far, but it was still certified Gold, hit #4 on Billboard (#1 on Cash Box), #1 in Canada (I'm betting CKLW was all over it), and it's still one of those tunes many 70s music listeners recognize right away.

And just now, looking for an image, I see it even has a very distant A&M connection:

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That was one of the licensed records from Sussex. (Same way Bill Withers ended up on A&M in the UK and/or Europe.)
 
The whole Three Friends album is on YouTube if you want to give it a whirl. Some regard their Octopus album as one of their best but I haven't really played it enough yet.
Even better, I just looked and their whole catalog is on TIDAL. I got a free six month subscription for buying a pair of Sennheiser headphones before Christmas.
 
I've been obsessing over a song I discovered on that A&M HISTORY 100 CD set from Japan that I recently found.
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The song is A&M Single #1354 called "Simone" by England Dan & John Ford Coley. The record went nowhere in the US but shot up to #1 in Japan. As I listened to it, it sounded somewhat familiar - I think I may have heard it back in 1971-72 on the radio and now it's all but forgotten.
 
I've been on a quest for a long time to find some of the A&M music of England Dan & John Ford Coley. They had a "best-of-A&M-years" LP out, but I'm not sure it ever came out on CD. Heck, obscurities like Pisano and Ruff have been CD-ized, why not Dan and Coley?
 
In doing a little research, it appears that "Simone" was put on a Japanese WEA comp as a Japanese bonus track. That's out of print too and selling for three-digit dollars, while the US version without the track can be had for $10 or less.
 
I certainly remember Nice To Be With You. :uhhuh:

I think a lot of folks who check in here are all over the place with their musical tastes. As a kid I listened to the TJB, Beatles, various big band records, the Grand Ole Opry, bluegrass, Cream, Janis Joplin, Rosemary Clooney, some classical, old blues artists - lots of stuff. Still listen to a variety - just whatever grabs me.
 
I certainly remember Nice To Be With You. :uhhuh:

I think a lot of folks who check in here are all over the place with their musical tastes. As a kid I listened to the TJB, Beatles, various big band records, the Grand Ole Opry, bluegrass, Cream, Janis Joplin, Rosemary Clooney, some classical, old blues artists - lots of stuff. Still listen to a variety - just whatever grabs me.
Variety is what it's all about. And May I Say You've got Good Taste there.
 
Always something interesting to be found on Pandora. This album turned out to be really neat:

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Always something interesting to be found on Pandora. This album turned out to be really neat:

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Is this the California based Real Music Record label that produced instrumental New age artists like pianist Jim Chappell and others? The name seems familiar to me.
 
I think a lot of folks who check in here are all over the place with their musical tastes.

I have a buddy who "thinks" he has a wide variety of tastes, but in reality he listens mostly to 80s hair band rock. Whenever we go anywhere I always try to play tunes he likes (since I like that type of music too), so he THINKS we have similar tastes, but I'm sure if we played only MY favorites, he'd be breaking the windows out of the car to escape before very long. I've often wondered how far he'd get through Sergio Mendes' Primal Roots, or even Stillness.
 
I have a buddy who "thinks" he has a wide variety of tastes, but in reality he listens mostly to 80s hair band rock.
Oh, true, I know a few like that. They'll say they listen to "just about everything"...until you play your own version of"everything." :laugh: I can skip from classical to prog rock to Stan Kenton to Edù Lobo all in the same session.

One complaint our audio club has is that a few of the members get tired of having to listen only to small group jazz during our meets. Understandable, but since someone brought it up recently, hosts have mixed up the playlist quite a bit. It's easy to fall into a rut with these sorts of things.
 
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