Robert Baird

As a follow-up to my last entry, I was sitting in my favorite watering hole over the weekend, listening to my favorite jukebox&#15118 tunes for 5 bucks&#150when a couple sitting at the bar next to me struck up a music conversation about what was playing: Elvis Costello, The Shins, King Sunny Ade, Lefty Frizzell, James Brown, Arctic Monkeys, you name it. At one point, talking about the cover art of an album I can’t remember now I said, being the absent-minded old man of the bunch, 'Have you ever seen that record?'

Walking along the spring streets of this crowded city, a place where you’re literally always in everyone else's business whether you like it or not, I'm often struck by the amount of serious, pounding through the songlists iPod listening that’s going on. People are eyeballing their little screens as much as they're listening.

I've come to the conclusion that birthdays really aren't a whole lotta fun. I mean what's to like? You're another year older, fatter, dumber; in short, whatever detriment is plaguing you at the time is magnified by yet another a&#0241o.

Having heard from the good folks at Ralston Purina&#151sorry, "good folks" seems to be a trigger for 60's TV commercial flashbacks for puppy chow or something. Lemme try again...When I heard from the good folks at the burgeoning mini&#150mega empire that Concord/Fantasy Telarc has become that a new series called <I>Stax Profiles</I> was about to begin, I anxiously tore open a Concord box that arrived in the office yesterday.

Starting this blog has made me feel almost the same way I did when Frank Sinatra died and I wrote in the pages of <I>Stereophile</I> that when I became a music writer, lo those many dark-haired days ago, I knew that someday I'd have to write a Francis Albert obit. When the blog craze first began to gallop, I knew intuitively that someday, I too would be sucked into the immediacy maw and be lured into venting my opinions, valuable or not, in the blogosphere.

<I><B>Hammersmith Odeon, London `75</B></I><BR>
Columbia

<I><B>3121</B></I><BR>
Universal

<I><B>Lotta Love Concert</B></I><BR>
Rhino

<B>NEKO CASE: <I>Fox Confessor Brings the Flood</I></B><BR>
Anti 86777 (CD). 2006. Neko Case, Darryl Neudorf, prods.; Craig Schumacher, Chris Schultz, engs. AAD. TT: 34:55<BR>
Performance ****&#189;<BR>
Sonics ****

Geffen B0005345-02 (CD). 2005. Sigur R&#243;s, prods.; Birgir Jon Birgisson, Kenneth Vaughan Thomas, engs. AAD. TT: 65:34<BR>
Performance <B>****&#189;</B><BR>
Sonics <B>****</B>