Wait - what the...AC/DC to Steve Vai? What about your obsessive compulsive alphabetizing? Well, I'm only mildly obsessive compulsive. Besides, the CDs are in order, I just jumped out of sequence in re-ripping.
Steve's The Ultra Zone was one of the CDs that got stolen. I've been slowly (very slowly) rebuilding those lost CDs through eBay and wherever else I can find a bargain. I had bought some stuff from Amazon and stumbled on The Ultra Zone on sale for $6.99, so I bought it. When it came in, I decided to rip it immediately since I didn't have a low-quality backup, and I decided to burn some of the rest of my surviving Vai discs. So in addition to The Ultra Zone, I ripped the excellent Real Illusions: Reflections and the more excellent EP Alien Love Secrets at the same time. Unfortunately, I realized that I don't have the even more excellent Fire Garden. I somehow managed to lose that one twice and I still haven't replenished the most excellent Passion & Warfare...
Alien Love Secrets is a spectacular EP sandwiched between Passion & Warfare and Fire Garden. As I remember it, he had already done the Vai band album to mixed reviews and wanted to up the grandeur of Passion & Warfare, but knew it would leave fans wanting for too long, so he gave us the EP to tide us over.
This isn't an EP in the sense of half-baked cover songs and throwaway "previously unreleased tracks." No - these are all new songs recorded just for the EP, only just 7 magical songs over 30 minutes, rather than the normal 12-14 over 80 that he normally delivered. It's hard to pick my favorite, but "Juice" and "Tender Surrender" are towards the top. The 7th song on Vai's albums are always ballads, and "Tender Surrender" holds down that spot in the lineup and it is great. "Juice" is a throw-back shred song which features some of the best clean-picked 16th note runs I've heard. I can't remember too much about the time in my life when this EP came out. It was during a time, though, when I was stocking up on CDs (and debt) and this was one that I regularly go back to.
I'm re-experiencing The Ultra Zone for the first time in a while and I realized I really missed this album. When I listened to it after initially buying it, I never thought it stood up to Fire Garden, so I don't think I invested into it too much. Now that I'm re-experiencing it, I think I wasn't fair to the disc. While it doesn't seem to be as cohesive as Fire Garden, it does have its share of high points. Steve seemed to be going through an Indian phase as a few of the songs - "Blood and Tears" - have an Indian flair through them. "Jiboom" is a pure shred fest and "Oooo" is a good experimental gem. Things take a turn for the very weird on "Voodoo Acid". If there is such thing as voodoo acid, maybe the lyrics are explaining the trip. The guitar playing definitely represents it. For a guy who's never afraid to experiment, this is some of his most out-there playing and use of effects. "Windows to the Soul" fills out the aforementioned 7th spot fabulously. Also included on this album is "Frank" which is dedicated to his late friend and mentor Frank Zappa. It's a great instrumental, although I can't quite put my finger on the Zappa influence - perhaps Steve meant it in a different way?
Real Illusions: Reflections was the first full-fledged studio album Steve released after The Ultra Zone, some 6 years later. Again, my initial reaction when purchasing this album was that it was strong bounce back after The Ultra Zone. Well, I do still think it's better, but the difference isn't as great as my memory thought. The unity and cohesiveness seems to be strong on this album and Steve manages to keep pushing himself both technically and technologically. For me, "Firewall" and "Freak Show Excess" are an incredible 1-2 punch of just flat out Vai insanity. They both feature some of the most complex instrumentation and arrangements that he's done. My only complaint is "Yai Yai", which is sort of a sequel to "Ya-To Gak" off of Alien Love Secrets which I always considered a throwaway.
As an aside, we got to see the tour behind this album and "Freak Show Excess"is so complex, he wasn't ready with his band to perform it live yet...and this was a band featuring Billy Sheehan and Tony MacAlpine, among others.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Session 2 - AC/DC
I'm a fan of AC/DC - not a huge fan - but a fan. So I have 4 of their CDs -High Voltage, Highway to Hell, Back in Black and Live and just haven't gotten too much into the newer albums.
With the exception of Live, these are all classics in the rock canon; I'm not going to be able to shed any light on these that other vastly superior writers than me haven't already covered. I will say this, if you don't have any of the albums, Back In Black is absolutely required and the other two studio albums aren't far behind. Live isn't bad, but isn't a notable live album.
I used to work as a cook in Chili's and it was common for me to close on Saturday which meant leaving typically between 1:00 - 2:00 AM and turning around and opening Sunday at 7:30 AM. We had a required set of listening we did during prep to get us up and moving before the restaurant opened, and Back in Black was always #2 or 3 on the list (Master of Puppets was always the first - ALWAYS - ...but I'm getting ahead of myself).
I've found myself really enjoying High Voltage since re-ripping; it always got overlooked while I was shuffling my songs. The tightness of the grooves is evidence of a band that had been playing together for a long time. The build-up into to "It's A Long Way to the Top..." is hard to beat.
With the exception of Live, these are all classics in the rock canon; I'm not going to be able to shed any light on these that other vastly superior writers than me haven't already covered. I will say this, if you don't have any of the albums, Back In Black is absolutely required and the other two studio albums aren't far behind. Live isn't bad, but isn't a notable live album.
I used to work as a cook in Chili's and it was common for me to close on Saturday which meant leaving typically between 1:00 - 2:00 AM and turning around and opening Sunday at 7:30 AM. We had a required set of listening we did during prep to get us up and moving before the restaurant opened, and Back in Black was always #2 or 3 on the list (Master of Puppets was always the first - ALWAYS - ...but I'm getting ahead of myself).
I've found myself really enjoying High Voltage since re-ripping; it always got overlooked while I was shuffling my songs. The tightness of the grooves is evidence of a band that had been playing together for a long time. The build-up into to "It's A Long Way to the Top..." is hard to beat.
Session 1 - 311 - A Perfect Circle
Being mildly obsessive compulsive, I have my CDs alphabetized. Unlike Apple, I have numbers coming ahead of the alphabet, so the first day I began re-ripping, I just made it through 2 discs, 311's Transistor and straight into A Perfect Circle's Mer de Noms.
311 is one of those bands that people love to hate. They came out in the early 90s with a rap metal vibe somewhere in between the musically innovative and lyrically substantial Rage Against The Machine and the, well, completely opposite Limp Bizkit (expect more on both of those bands a few months down the road...). I bought a few 311 discs over the years, but the only one surviving the infamous theft is 1997's Transistor. It is a mixed bag; it seems like the band was trying to prove they were a serious band by incuding 21 songs.
I remember buying this CD at a Wal-Mart recently after starting to date my now wife. The other thing that I remember about this CD is that it was my lawn-mowing soundtrack with my old Sony Discman. It was the perfect length for mowing my front lawn and I sort of used it as my pace car as I knew where I needed to be as I progressed through the yard. Some good tracks and memories.
Like many people, I bought Mer de Noms because of the involvement of Maynard James Keenan from Tool. I used to be a huge Tool fan and the lead single "Judith" had somewhat of a Tool vibe, so I got it. I don't have much emotion tied to this band or album; I enjoyed this album for the most part, I haven't bought any of the follow-ups and I tend to skip the songs if they come up in random play. It's not that they're bad, I just don't connect anymore.
311 is one of those bands that people love to hate. They came out in the early 90s with a rap metal vibe somewhere in between the musically innovative and lyrically substantial Rage Against The Machine and the, well, completely opposite Limp Bizkit (expect more on both of those bands a few months down the road...). I bought a few 311 discs over the years, but the only one surviving the infamous theft is 1997's Transistor. It is a mixed bag; it seems like the band was trying to prove they were a serious band by incuding 21 songs.
I remember buying this CD at a Wal-Mart recently after starting to date my now wife. The other thing that I remember about this CD is that it was my lawn-mowing soundtrack with my old Sony Discman. It was the perfect length for mowing my front lawn and I sort of used it as my pace car as I knew where I needed to be as I progressed through the yard. Some good tracks and memories.
Like many people, I bought Mer de Noms because of the involvement of Maynard James Keenan from Tool. I used to be a huge Tool fan and the lead single "Judith" had somewhat of a Tool vibe, so I got it. I don't have much emotion tied to this band or album; I enjoyed this album for the most part, I haven't bought any of the follow-ups and I tend to skip the songs if they come up in random play. It's not that they're bad, I just don't connect anymore.
Why?
So what's this thing all about, anyway? I recently decided to re-rip my entire CD collection (there goes the suspense of the blog name) after having already ripped the majority of my 600+ CD collection several years ago (the reason I say majority is because I had 70+ CDs stolen at one point and many of those CDs weren't yet ripped). Why did I do this?
1) Quality. I did a bad thing in that I just shoved each CD into iTunes and let it rip to it's default of 128K AAC. About 1/4 of the way through, I switched to 128K MP3, and at some point later, to 160K MP3. So I had several thousand inconsistent low-quality files representing my backup of the thousands of dollars I'd spent on the CDs over the years.
2) Principle. I'm getting quite fed up with Apple. I don't own an iPhone or iPad, but as a software developer, I don't at all like the stance Apple has in restricting how developers can develop apps for those devices. I do own an iPod Nano, but I'm close to the point of needing a new one. Since Apple decides to only allow me to update the device through the bloated iTunes and restricts which file formats I can put on it, I'm likely not to purchase another iPod.
So I've decided to re-rip my whole collection in a lossless, open-source codec without the help of iTunes. Just in case you're dying to know, I've decided on foobar2000 and flac as my new standard.
So why the blog? Well, as I started to re-rip one CD at a time, I've revisited where I was in my life when I bought each CD - at times wondering why I bought it - and thought it would be sort of neat to chronicle certain parts of my life through my CDs. It's strange - for some of these CDs I can remember exactly what it was that prompted me to buy and where I bought. So this will be a somewhat biographical and critical review of my life through music.
We'll see if it ever gets turned into a movie or if it just winds up being a journal that no one reads but me. Either way, I think I'll enjoy it.
1) Quality. I did a bad thing in that I just shoved each CD into iTunes and let it rip to it's default of 128K AAC. About 1/4 of the way through, I switched to 128K MP3, and at some point later, to 160K MP3. So I had several thousand inconsistent low-quality files representing my backup of the thousands of dollars I'd spent on the CDs over the years.
2) Principle. I'm getting quite fed up with Apple. I don't own an iPhone or iPad, but as a software developer, I don't at all like the stance Apple has in restricting how developers can develop apps for those devices. I do own an iPod Nano, but I'm close to the point of needing a new one. Since Apple decides to only allow me to update the device through the bloated iTunes and restricts which file formats I can put on it, I'm likely not to purchase another iPod.
So I've decided to re-rip my whole collection in a lossless, open-source codec without the help of iTunes. Just in case you're dying to know, I've decided on foobar2000 and flac as my new standard.
So why the blog? Well, as I started to re-rip one CD at a time, I've revisited where I was in my life when I bought each CD - at times wondering why I bought it - and thought it would be sort of neat to chronicle certain parts of my life through my CDs. It's strange - for some of these CDs I can remember exactly what it was that prompted me to buy and where I bought. So this will be a somewhat biographical and critical review of my life through music.
We'll see if it ever gets turned into a movie or if it just winds up being a journal that no one reads but me. Either way, I think I'll enjoy it.
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