vinyl – michael jarmer

#787: L is for The Lemon Twigs

When brothers Brian and Michael D’Addariofirst started making records, they were 19and 17 years old, respectively. Today, neitherof them are out of their twenties, and in theintervening decade, they’ve released six fulllength albums and one e.p. of music as The Lemon Twigs, one cover album of songs written by their dad, and Brian has releasedContinue reading “#787: L is for The Lemon Twigs”

#782: L is for lang, k.d.

I found myself in the middle of an MFA creative writing programlistening obsessively to k.d. lang, in particular these three albums, Ingénue, All You Can Eat, and Drag. Even though the first of these threewas released a couple of years earlier, I discovered her in 1995. How I came across this music, I do notContinue reading “#782: L is for lang, k.d.”

#773: K is for King, Carole

As a child I must have heard hersongs on the radio hundreds of times, and I remember distinctly that while my older brother was in his reel to reel phasehe had the album Tapestry in that format. Yeah, that was a thing: commercially availablereel to reel tapes of the great artistsof the day, late 60’s,Continue reading “#773: K is for King, Carole”

#769: J is for John, Elton John

I ran a search of all my poststo see how many times I had written about or at least namedElton John in a blog entry.The result: nineteen times. He was my first rock star idol. I was a fourth grader and my cousins played me Goodbye YellowBrick Road from start to finish. Almost immediately after,Continue reading “#769: J is for John, Elton John”

#720: G is for Grandaddy

Before streaming, but longafter the days of asking a record store clerk to play something on the shop systemthat one was interested in hearing, there was the new tech developmentof the in-store listeningstation, some crazy multi-discplayer with a user interfaceand a decent pair of headphones,it gave you the perusal powerof a dozen or two dozenContinue reading “#720: G is for Grandaddy”

#698: F is for The Flaming Lips (95, 99, 02, 06)

In the catalog of musical artists whomake you wonder if there’s somethingwrong with your stereo, sit The Flaming Lips, the band about which I have written mostoften on the blog, and, behind Elbow, aremy favorite band of the 21st century. The Flaming Lips make their debut, actually, in the late 80’s, make music for nearlyContinue reading “#698: F is for The Flaming Lips (95, 99, 02, 06)”

#696: F is for Finn, Liam and Neil

It seems like it was only a few daysago when I was listening to Crowded House, but it’s been actually about a month and a half. Listening as much as I have been since the start of October, sometimes the experience becomes a bit of a blur. So I went all the way back toContinue reading “#696: F is for Finn, Liam and Neil”

#692: F is for Feist

It’s been decades since I participatedin any kind of record club situation. When I was young and poor it was the easiest and cheapest way to accumulate a CD collection, and whenI was a kid, my dad allowed me to orderrecords from his subscription at Columbia House. When I became an adult, I put awayContinue reading “#692: F is for Feist”

#690: F is for Father John Misty (12, 15, 17)

This guy, Joshua Tillman, appears to havehad his big break in rock music as the drummerfor Fleet Foxes. The breakout album he playedon happens to be in my collection, the 2011Helplessness Blues. The drummer’s identity didn’t register with me at the time, nor should it have, as I wouldn’t hear a song byhis adopted monikerContinue reading “#690: F is for Father John Misty (12, 15, 17)”

#684: E is for Elbow

I have written about this Manchesterband here somewhere in the blog at least on six different occasions, and a little better than ten yearsago, in a similar listening challenge,but with the CD collection, where I vowed not to listen to everything, butto one full album by each artist, I couldn’t help myself. I listenedat thatContinue reading “#684: E is for Elbow”