An Album Display Shelf

 Had some extra wood from a project laying around and thought I'd make a display frame for some of my classic albums! I mean, the best part about collecting these LPs are looking at them, and it makes a nice addition to my CD corner!

So many albums have such beautiful covers that it's a shame to store them with only the spines to look at- will be occasionally rotating and changing out these LPs to keep things fresh!

Oblivion Song, Vol.6

 It has been over four years since I first began the epic image comics series "Oblivion Song", the story of a man named Nathan Cole caught between two worlds, and just tonight i finished reading the series last amazing arc!

The series started out as a man jumping back and forth between the two worlds, trying to save the people who have slipped to the alien side, but slowly turned into a dramatic tale of epic proportions as it becomes a story of war against an alien race who are hellbent on using the timeslipping tech to invade out world and take over!

Lots of twists and turns, and strangely short and sweet as compared to other works of Robert "Walking Dead" Kirkman!

Saga, Vol.10

 After the deaths of so many key characters in the last story arc, the new chapter was off to a rough start, and after two issues and losing interest fast, I really lost my fascination with this strip and no longer felt it was worth it to trudge into the comic shop each month to pick up each issue. So from that point on, i would begin only collecting the trades, and this is the first of them, collecting issues 55-60.

Love & Rockets, Vol.IV, #12

 Still eking along after all these years. As I'm mostly buying my copies straight from Fantagraphics, they can get pretty expensive per issue, what with shipping and all. But they do offer alternative covers, etc, so that's a plus.

Mary Fahl: Can't Get It Out of My Head

 Mary Fahl album of classics performed with her own special brand of magic! Wonderful renditions of songs I already know and love- and quite a few songs I'm hearing for the first time, like  the Judy Collins song "Since You Asked" and the haunting Richard Thompson song "The Great Valerio"!

The cover of Neil Young's "Don't let It Bring You Down" is a particular favorite, heartfelt and haunting!

An Intriguing New Sci-Fi Series: "Severance"

 Was greatly recommended by my friends that I should catch the new Apple TV+ Series "Severance" and at two episodes in, it is a barrage of compelling situations and set-ups that has me on the edge of my seat trying to figure out just WHAT is happening!

Was told to go in blind without any prior knowledge of the show, and it has been delicious trying to piece together  what is happening by the minute clues they give us...VERY excited to see where this one goes!!!

Memories of A 70's TV Theme Song Fan

I guess like most kids from my generation, we grew up obsessed with TV show theme songs and me and my brother would use our rickety old tape recorder, pressed up against the built in TV’s speaker to save as many as we could to tape!

The recording were always of so-so quality, so when I saw this album on the shelves at my local Woolworths’ called "THEMES FROM HIT TV SHOWS", I wasted NO TIME blowing my allowance on it...imagine my surprise when I found out that NONE of the songs were from the actual TV show and were all sung by "The Pop Singers and Orchestra" D'OH...

These recordings were of questionable quality and was a sad substitute for the “real” versions, though I remember their version of “One day At A Time” had this interesting twangy guitar middle section and a second verse which I STILL think of whenever I hear the song now!

This was not the first time I’d been burned by bogus artists re-doing songs I wanted- I remember getting an album called “Disco Duck Dance Party” which featured a whole collection of the then current hits-  The Hustle! That's The Way I Like It! etc, all for one low price!! When I got home of course, the singers were NOT Rick Dees or ANY of the original artists but some knock-off versions…why did I fall for these?!

 LOLOLOL! 

My Mom HAD to rub it in, clucking her tongue and saying, “I TOLD you those weren’t going to be from the Television!” and the album was eventually put away to collect dust! 

It wasn’t tilI was already in college that a proper “TV Theme Song” collection came out in the form of TeeVee Toon’s “Television’s Greatest Hits" series, which used (for the most part) the original tracks from the original show openings, with only a few remade exclusively for the LP!

Man, me and my friends would listen to those LPs all the time and even sing along with ‘em, it was filled with such wonderful memories!Of course nowadays one can go straight to youtube and watch the openings, endings, and even in some cases the entire episodes and even seasons of shows at the touch of a button! Man, young aficionados have no IDEA how easy they’ve got it!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch the opening credits to MAUDE again….!

A Japanese-Jazz-Fusion Throwback Gift!

The other day I was talking to a co-worker about some of the lite-jazz music I liked and mentioned liking Hiroshima's "East" album back in the day. He said, 'You Like Hiroshima? I got something for you!" The next morning I come to work and he presents me with this stunning gift: A copy of Hiroshima's first album signed by all the members of the band!! WHOAAA!

Seems his Mother was friends with one of the women in the band (he has long since forgotten who) and she'd gotten the copy of the signed album then! It had since then been passed on to him, but as he didn't know Hiroshima much, it mostly sat in a box along with all of his other old LPS.

I, of course, begged off accepting such a grand gesture, only telling him i wanted to take pics of it, but he insisted, knowing it would be in possession of someone who really cherished it!

Ahhh, time to break out that album and give it a spin!!!

PS: I was so excited when he gave me the LP and showed it proudly to everyone, but all my other co-workers had no IDEA who Hiroshima was until I said, "They're the ones who did the "Hawaiian Electric" song, and then they all went "OH YEAHHHH!!!!"   So funny to think that  an innovative Jazz band with such a long career and catalog is only known by most people for that one song!