As I searched through the new arrivals at the Princeton Record Exchange, I kept coming back to this album. I knew nothing about Oscar Brown Jr.&#151had never even heard of the guy&#151but the pain communicated in the album title and cover art intrigued me. Even if it turned out that I didn't like the music, I'd at least get an interesting piece of art. And for just four bucks!

It’s been a Guitar Fest here in NYC lately. I’ve seen Bill Frisell (always superb), Kenny Burrell (a very rare pleasure because he hates to fly) and Mike Marino (with new Blue Note pianist Aaron Parks). Tonight is a tribute to Fender's Jazzmaster guitar headlined by Nels Cline, J. Mascis, Thurston Moore and Tom Verlaine. Must be frets in the water or something.

If you were to judge this album just by its cover, you might imagine the music inside to be weird and awesome. At least that's what I imagined. If you're like me, you'd be absolutely desitively right. Dr. John's <i>Babylon</i> is something else.

Earlier this year, in an <A HREF="http://cgi.stereophile.com/cgi-bin/showvote.cgi?551">online poll</A>, we asked the magazine's readers if they were ready for a music server. The response was startling: 32% of you had already set one up, and 44% were ready to. Only 7% responded "probably not" or "never." In the polls we conduct online, we rarely get this kind of positive consensus about <I>anything</I> audio.

Earlier this year, in an <A HREF="http://cgi.stereophile.com/cgi-bin/showvote.cgi?551">online poll</A>, we asked the magazine's readers if they were ready for a music server. The response was startling: 32% of you had already set one up, and 44% were ready to. Only 7% responded "probably not" or "never." In the polls we conduct online, we rarely get this kind of positive consensus about <I>anything</I> audio.