The College Crowd Digs Me

" And Paul said,  'What are you doing for the next few years?'" ~ Laurence Juber ~ Hailing from East London, but now calling L.A. home, Laurence Juber has had plenty of days playing in the sun.  With a 30-plus discography of critically acclaimed CDs under his belt, the fellow definitely knows his way around a guitar.  Juber is recognized as one of the top acoustic guitar players of all time and was once voted Guitarist of the Year .  He has received two Grammys, and his fingers have never once left his hands.  The guy can play.       Since moving to California, Juber has put his guitar stylings to good use composing or co-composing soundtracks and scores for shows as diverse as Dateline NBC, Ken Burns documentaries, and even The Brady Bunch.  Juber has added his guitar to soundtracks and dozens of films and television shows.  From "Good Will Hunting" to "Dirty Dancing."  From Eric Carmen To Harry Styles.  The man walks throu...

Sandman Mystery Theatre: Vol. 5 Dr. Death and The Night Of The Butcher Matt Wagner /Steven T. Seagle (writers) Guy Davis/Vince Locke (artists) Vertigo Comics First published April 7, 2007 Graphic Novel, 208 pages   NO SPOILERS:       This is late-1930s, early 40s crime noir.  The two stories within are dusted with a delicious pulp flavor, making them all the more fun to read.  But don't be fooled by the time era; the violence is real and in your face.  One story is about someone who determines if a person's life is worth living; the other story is about a serial killer.  Much darker than one might expect.  The words and drawings within fill your senses with a wonderfully unsettling atmosphere.  Our hero, Wesley Dodds, aka The Sandman, is a pudgy, average social businessman who solves mysteries with his wits, donning a rather clumsy gas mask and carrying a sleeping-gas gun.  No superpowers whatsoever. Sandman Mystery Theatre: Vol. 5 ...

"Down To Middle Earth" - The Hobbits (1967)      The album name and cover art 'had me at hello.'  And as it turns out, the music is pretty good, too.  If you’re a fan of pop-psych that rubs shoulders with sunshine pop,  The Hobbits... ”Down To Middle Earth” will be your cookie.  There are ten songs…each oddly different and clever, as if the artist is having us on.  Not overly psychedelic, and yet it's there.      There are a few tracks that are obviously meant for the mind, but a lot of this has a “more than meets the eye” kind of vibe.  A grower by design.  There are a couple of weaker tracks, but no bad ones.  Not a whole lot is known about the album other than it's a Queens, NY Jimmy Curtiss project, and any other involvement is mostly speculation.  This album has been tagged with the “exploitation” label as if that’s a universal bad thing.  Well, it’s not.  Not always.  Sometimes the square ...

"Presence" - Led Zeppelin (1976 )      Believe it or not, I've never owned a copy of Led Zeppelin's "Presence."   In any media format.  Nor did I have any recollection of ever listening to the square front-to-back at any time.  So I was excited to find a nice used first pressing for $12.  It was at a garage sale.  Literally.  Everything for sale was inside the garage.  Anyway, the cover and spine were clean.  The embossed title on the front is still readable.  And most importantly, the vinyl was a strong VG+.       I have to admit, watching the needle drop on a Led Zeppelin album I knew very little about for the first time gave me a bit of a rush.  This was the follow-up to Zeppelin's tour de force, "Physical Graffiti,"  so, of course, "Presence" was obviously gonna pale in comparison.  No surprise there.  But after shaking hands with the square a few times, apart from one misguided dir...

  "That Acapulco Gold" - The Rainy Daze (1967)       The Rainy Daze one-and-done offering,  "That Acapulco Gold,"  shakes hands a little with the psych driver but leans a little more into some good garage crankage.  And it is good.  Nothing here that's gonna really blow your mind.  On the other hand, there's nothing to make you want to lift the needle either, even if the songs are all over the map.  There's a little bit of everything.  The Rainy Daze even throw in a couple of covers and a medley. (Nothing special, but they do no harm.)  The title track "That Acapulco Gold"  is a kind of jugband thing atypical of the rest of the album and was released as a single, but then radio stations quickly pulled it from rotation because of the subject matter.  And finally, amongst all the other, there are still a few tasty lysergic affairs to keep the square real.      The variable Yahtzee cup of songs could've...

The Dead Zone by Stephen King (1979) Hardback, 426 pages NO SPOILERS:       The Dead Zone was Stephen King's fifth novel (not counting Bachman) and had the unenviable task of following his epic tome, The Stand .  That's too bad for any book.  Whaddyagonnado?  But I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into it.  It was also the earliest novel of his that I hadn't gotten around to reading until now.  It's not horror, this one.  The story is more of a slow-burning thriller wrapped inside a mystery.  The main character is John Smith.  Smith is a nice, average fella, a schoolteacher, who suffers an unfortunate accident and recovers only to find he has occasional premonitions.      John Smith is just another one of King's well-written characters who, through no fault of his own, catches the wrong end of the life-stick.  We like Smith, and we grow to hold a great deal of empathy for him.  King develops or ...