Johnny Cash -- All Aboard The Blue Train With ...

  Folkabilly mastermind's best Sun years train and travel related numbers.  There are songs of love, loss, loneliness and longing all sung by our favorite outlaw ... Johnny Cash!

Bee Gees -- Odessa

  Long before they were the Saturday Night Disco douchebags, the Bee Gees were a Beatles influenced 60's pop group.  Odessa is their sixth studio album although the version I have is the 76' single disc edited re-issue, not too sure if that's a good thing or not.  The album is a pastiche of baroqued psych-Beatles, Barrett style Floyd and Band-esque countrified Americana.  The record missed the success boat by at least a year or two, but is nonetheless an interesting disaster.

the Grateful Dead -- Workingman's Dead

  Americana masterpiece by the Grateful Dead.  Workingman's Dead sneaks the band away from 60's Psychedelia, finding their roots in Folk, Country and Blues.

The Subhumans -- Times Flies ... But Aeroplanes Crash

    The good parts of this EP sound like The Clash if they had stayed with their 77' Punk sound.  The big surprise was the piano lead Eno-esque track Susan.  The leftovers were shoddily produced live Hardcore garbage ...

Parliament -- Mothership Connection

  What do you get when some pimp talkin' funkateers take over the airwaves from outer-space?  One helluva great record -- Mothership Connection!  

Smokey Robinson and The Miracles -- Greatest Hits, Vol. 2

  Vol. 2 covers The Miracles's best numbers from 65' to 67'.  Smokey was like the Dylan of Motown, his lyrics speak right to the spearhead of our emotional vulnerabilities and their truths, with a voice so damn smooth it carries the music to new heights. 

U2 -- War

  First things first ... I f*cking hate U2, bonehead's annoying vocals, the cheesy ass lyrics and that goddamn irritating over effects guitar, this all equals, "turn that crap off."  That aside I actually like this album, I find this is the band at the height of their shtick.  I knew there was a reason these guys were so popular and it's a three letter word WAR!   

Tones On Tail -- The Album Pop

  Pretty much a premonition of the Gothy Dreampop formula that was going to be Love And Rockets, was done first by Daniel Ash, before he recruited ex-bandmate David J. 

The Cure -- Disintegration

  While having a evening alone, anti-social, dealing with my personal demons of self-loathing, feeling like a toothless hatchet-face.  I have to admit I had a moment with The Cure's Disintegration, it almost seemed like the perfect setting for this particular record, and I never enjoyed it more.  Side one's sound of hope was definitely an easier pill to swallow than side two's pit of total despair.  The best and most surprising part of the album is its loose psychedelic jamminess, mixing synth drone with flange driven surf guitar that just "pulls on your pout."

Can -- Tago Mago

  Can's prolific sophomore release Tago Mago.  After the original singer's nervous breakdown, Can found their new lead vocalist busking on the street of Germany.  I'm not sure where music would be without this album, they obviously inspired Radiohead's Kid A period, the Happy Mondays baggy sound, and the list goes on and on ...  Record one features four numbers, songs with structure and weight, while the second record is a sound-scaped cut up of Musique Concrete, which is cute in theory, but is totally unlistenable and is a complete write-off.  All in all this album is a corner stone of music history, a lot of the sounds and beats we love today wouldn't exist if Can didn't do it first!     

The History Of Jazz Volume One: N'Orleans Origins

  Don't really know much about this album, other than you've got some early Dixie/ Ragtime Jazz with a little bit O'Blues.  For the most part the music is clarinet driven, you think you died and went into a Woody Allen movie, style music.  The record is a great comprehensive of early American music ... especially for vinylheads like me!

Cannonball Adderley -- The Best Of ...

  Not too sure how great of a comprehensive Best Of this is since he has countless albums and who knows how many songs, while this record has only six numbers.  There isn't anything that is blow your mind off outta this world about this album, other than its got some smooth flowing Jazz to sooth your nerves, you can totally see why Davis chose him to be part of his group on several records -- consistency ...

The Rural Alberta Advantage -- Hometowns

  All I can think of, of this debut modernized Mountain Goats meets Neutral Milk Hotel album, is the terrible tractor accident I was recently in, which had delightfully taken place in Alberta.  The story goes ... we were innocently making a hay delivery, so I jumped in for the ride to get a scope of the local landscape.  On our way back home, my ex-girlfriend's brother and I were slammed from behind by a truck, right in the flatbed, the tractor jumped from 16 mph to 50 in a matter of seconds.  The tractor jackknifed, and we started to go over ... the rest was a shock and adrenaline driven blur of being belligerent to the ambulance technicians, getting my face sewn back together and my ex's traumatized look at the very sight of my face.  All in all it wasn't the Rural Alberta Advantage I was hoping to find, luckily the first part of the trip was normal.