[Mike D]

A desert island CD is a CD that, if you were stuck on a desert island with a HiFi system, what CDs would you take with you?

We have had such wonderful listenning exchanges over the past year or two, that I'm guessing I'm not the only one who has lost track of all of the great music.  A reference list here would allow us to purchase CDs bit by bit.

I'll start:

Ella Fitzgerald - "'Round Midnight" - A collection of ballad guaranteed to make your toes curn in extasy.  

Duke Ellington and Ray Brown - "This One's For Blanton" - Gather 'round, children, and let Uncle Duke tell you all about it.

Stan Getz, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Astrud Gilberto - "Girl From Ipanema"
World class beach music for your dreamy naps.  By "naps" I am refering to sleeping, not your hair after you wake up.  

Miles Davis and Gil Evans - "Miles Ahead" - This entire collection of Miles/Gil Evans music is highly influenced by the impressionism of Claude Debussy and the instrumentation of Duke Ellinton's "Ellington Indigos" album.

[/u]

[kirch]

Seems my choices change every few months/years, but Miles is certainly always included.  Hard to decide which one these days though I do like the Miles/Evans collaboration.  I still may have to go with the SACD version of Kind of Blue - even if I have to settle for the old version, that one's gotta be tops on the list for me.  After what seems like a million spins, I'm still amazed by that one.

IF WE COULD BRING 10:

Jazz:
Miles - Kind of Blue
Giant Steps - Coltrane
Umm - Mingus
Duet - Corea/Burton
Waves - Terje Rypdal ("way out there" jazz guitarist from somewhere near the Netherlands)

Rock:
Genesis - Lamb Lies Down
Roxy Music - Stranded
Grateful Dead - Blues for Allah, no, wait, Mars Hotel, no, wait, Blues for Allah, no, Mars Hotel
Neil Young - Decade
Pink Floyd - Animals

Of course, ask me again in a month and the list will most likely change.  I'm listening to a lot of SRV Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett lately . . .  not necessarily in that order.

Kirch

[fabaudio]

Any Keith Jarrett trio and Bill w/Scott LaFaro would be on my list

[electricbear]

If we could only take 10, here's mine in no particular order.

 Kate Bush   -  Hounds Of Love
 Pink Floyd   -  DSOTM
 KLF            -  Chill Out
 Roger Waters  - Radio Kaos
 Mussorgsky  - Pictures At An Exhibition
 Marillion  - Misplaced Childhood
 Jennifer Warnes  - The Hunter
 Tangerine Dream  - Hyperborea
 AC/DC  - Dirty Deeds
 Rainbow  - Ritchie Blackmores Rainbow

 I think these desert island selections are a window into ones sole. They say a lot about a person and what motivates them.

[Scott F.]

Ouuu, 10 is really tough.

Rock
Allman Bros Band - Live at the Fillmore
Rush - Moving Pictures
Deep Purple - Machine Head
Chalk Farm - Notwithstanding

Chill Out
Zero 7 - When it Falls
Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain

Jazz
Pat Metheny - We Live Here
Pat Metheny - Imaginary Day

Classical
YoYo Ma and Emmanual Ax - Brahms Concertos
Pachabels Canon in D Minor (RCA Red Seal version)



I know this isn't fair but 10 discs are just too few. So I decided to to list a few more that could be interchanged with my list above

Very Honorable Mention (in no particular order)

Slick, Freidberg, Kanter - Baron Von Tollbooth
Ambrosia - Life Beyond LA
Crosby Stills and Nash - CSN
Pete Townsend - Empty Glass
Trapeze - Medusa
Robin Trower - Bridge of Sighs
Poco - Running Horse
Rory Gallegher - Calling Card
Montrose - Montrose
Sammy Hagar - Standing Hampton
Humble Pie - Smokin
James Gang - Best Of
Jethro Tull - Aqualung or Thick as a Brick
Kansas - Leftoverture or Masque
Little Feat - Feats Don't Fail Me Now
Dave Mason - Headkeeper
Pink Floyd - The Division Bell
Roxy Music - Avalon
Santana - Moonflower
Toto - Best Of
Traffic - Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
Led Zepplin - Physical Graffiti
UFO - Lights Out (Live)
Wishbone Ash - Theres the Rub or Argus
Yes - Close to the Edge
Jesse Colin Young - Best Of
Frank Zappa - Apostrophe
ZZ Top - Tres Hombres or Rio Grande Mud  
Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
Joe Walsh - So What

...uuummmm thats 33 (or so). Does that mean I can't ever be stranded?
Oh, and since we have imaginary power, I'd kinda like to bring tubes and vinyl rather than ceedees  

[gongos]

maybe you'd get stranded with an ipod.

[orthobiz]

What's amazing is how an individual album affects everyone differently. For me, given a Zappa choice it would be Overnight Sensation or Hot Rats, never Apostrophe, but I understand why some else would pick it. Pink Floyd? Never Animals for me, always Dark Side or Wish You WEre Here! Santana? Santana! That's what makes music so cool.

Anyway, here's five:
1) The Move: Shazam
2) ABBA: Thank You For the Music collection (hey, Elvis Costello listed it in Vanity Fair as his ABBA pick so I will, too!)
3) Eno: Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy (see, I didn't pick the 3 disc ENOBox2 vocal compilation)
4) Bowie: Ziggy Stardust
5) Beatles: The Beatles (White Album: almost 2 disc's worth of treasure, almost cheating again).

biz

[kirch]

Response to orthobiz and the pink floyd thing - musical tastes etc - it's like I used to tell (or complain to) people when I was on air here, music is like food, there's no bad food, just different tastes.  This was back when we had the opportunity to chose the music we played on-air and not have a playlist from some dork in LA or NYC forced on us, so I always tried to get in a real variety.  Sometimes people called and complained, other times they called and said "cool".  Complaints were few, but it's only human nature for them to carry more weight.

Actually, I've always loved DSOM.  Just got tired of hearing it.  Here in St. Louis, you could hear a whole side at a time on one of two stations a couple times a week.

Great lists from people so far though.  It's always cool to see what it is people really like vs. what is rammed down our throats on the local radio stations.  Why don't the consultants ever check out posts and lists like these?  I'll answer my own question - because they consider guys like us "the fringe".

Nope, not bitter about it, just very bored with it.  Funny though, everyone I talk to about this boring radio issue regardless of the market agrees with me.  How can that be?    

Thoughts anyone?

[Mike D]

Its definately not good for Magnum Dynalab and other companies who sell high dollars FM tuners.

I like our local 88.7 in the mornings.  The rest of the time it is hit or miss.  Poor radio.  KSHE classics on Sunday mornings is good from what I have been told.

Maybe I'm aging, but talk radio has more to offer when the sun is out than any local radio that I have discovered so far.
 

[elcaptain88]

I live in Chicago - close enough. A few great albums that I have 'discovered' in the last year or so:

"Headhunters" - Herbie Hancock
"Without a Net" - Grateful Dead
"The Bends" - Radiohead
"Sex Without Bodies" - Dave's True Story
"Avalon" - Roxy Music
"Being There" - Wilco

Without the internet - I would have never stumbled onto any of them.

[Mike D]

What is Dave's True Story and Roxy Music all about?  

[kirch]

Avalon is Roxy Music's most commercially successful recording.  Most of their stuff went virtually unknown here in the States, although "Love is the Drug" from the Siren LP ('75) got a lot of airplay at KSHE.  Avalon is a very well done record, but absolutely nothing like their older stuff, which dates back to 1970 or '71.  Waaaay ahead of their time.  

I can't say I've heard of Dave's True Story  -  have to look into that one.

kirch

[elcaptain88]

Avalon is defintely a unique record (& their last) for Roxy, really hard to compare it to anything. Early 80's synth sound done very well with additional arrangements and Bryan Ferry as vocalist - kind of a 'dream like' album.

Dave's true story has a few releases on Chesky records. Well recorded. Kind of an upbeat jazzy lounge sound - with great female vocals and intelligent/witty lyrics.

[Scott F.]

Without the internet - I would have never stumbled onto any of them.

You know, thats interesting you mention that.

Once upon a time I had planned on doing a scathing article on the music industry that focused on commercial radio. I was going to slam the Evil Empire (Clear Channel), the RIAA and a few of the other Hitler Youth groups out there. But then one night last fall I got into a lengthy conversation with (Radio) Rich Dalton, another local DJ. As we talked, he brought up a really good point.

Today, we have more choices in music than ever before in history. We can choose to listen to commercial radio, steaming radio over the internet, the music channels on cable, music videos on cable, or we can even subscribe to Sirius or XM. I thought about that for a while (not that it was that deep or anything) and looked at what I'd been doing for my music fix.

I (personally) gave up on commercial radio just about the time when Kirch went off the air. Thats been what..... 10-15 years. I listened to talk radio and was satisfied with my record store finds. But then the internet came along. And then Amazon and the ability to listen to 30 seconds of a cut on an album. Then streaming audio in high bandwidth (126k) connections became commonplace.

Now, I listen to steaming audio all day at work. My stations vary but it's usually KZAM eclectic. The internet stations are almost just like commercial radio used to be back in 'the day'.

When I hear a song that trips my trigger, I type the name into Mozillas Amazon search engine and voila, there is the album. I can sample the rest of the CD and if I like it, I toss it in my Wish List. I usually try to doa search and see if I can get it on vinyl first but thats just me.

elcaptain88, I'm with you, if it wasn't for the internet I'd have never found some fantastic music. Stuff that never gets played on commercial radio. Perfect example is the Zero7 and Chalkfarm I mentioned. I've found so much music off the internet that I don't know what I'd do if Al Gore hadn't created it.

Oh, I missed a couple of crucial albums in my (ever expanding) list. The music I listed has to be great from first to last cut, not just a song or two in order to make it to my list.

Stevie Ray Vaughn - In Step
Bruce Hornsby - Spirit Trail
Crowded House - Best Of
Tonic - Sugar
Lyle Lovett - Joshua Judges Ruth
Esbjorn Svensson Trio - Somewhere Else Before
Pat Metheny and Charlie Hayden - Beyond the Missouri Sky
Keb Mo - Keb Mo

maybe you'd get stranded with an ipod.

I might need the one with the 120gig hard drive

I think these desert island selections are a window into ones sole. They say a lot about a person and what motivates them.

hmmm.... from YoYoMa to Nine Inch Nails. I hope nobody is looking too close  

[elcaptain88]

This is one of the reasons I'm considering getting satellite radio at home. I've been using XM in the car and absolutely love it. I'm a fan of the 80's, hard/classic rock, and jazz channels. Just a flip of the dial & you have it.  Absolutely indispensible for the morning commute - commercial (& news) free. Heck, if got XM, I could even listen to Cardinal games if I got the urge.  

The only station I listen to regularly here in Chicago is 93.1 WXRT - but even they are loaded down with commercials and other crap. 93.1 does have good playlists & programming though - you can get the feed off their website.

[orthobiz]

Some random thoughts about radio:
At work there's an opportunity to play music in a mixed crowd of five or six people. Problem is I personally get so much new stuff that I like but this music doesn't seem to fly with the group.

So I've realized that new music is like new food to a kid and most people in America are stuck in the "chicken fingers/grilled cheese/macaroni and cheese" phase where any new taste is intolerable. It's one of those things where if they haven't heard it before then they can't listen to it and it makes you wonder how they ever heard a new song in the first place.

So we wind up listening to Classic Rock which is music you've always ever head before. Thing is I grew up when classic rock was created (at 49 it still seems like it was yesterday that I came home with Paul Butterfield "Better Days" AND "Dark Side of the Moon" on the same day!).
In NYC we had WNEW which had NO play list and everything was important and all songs deserved airplay when new albums were released.

Now they've boiled down Aqualung to Aqualung, Crosseyed Mary and Locomotive Breath and yes, it's easy to get really tired of it evenutally. What about all the other songs. Better example: Just got my Lingo on my Linn so my 15 year old and I are listening to Houses of the Holy and it hit me that EACH AND EVERY one of these songs were good, I heard every one of them on the radio and probably one or two gets played now, even on the radio station "devoted" to all that stuff.

So what they need to do is free up one song a year and let us hear it once in awhile. For Tull, how about ANY song from Stand Up or Benefit. And how about giving us some respite from Bungle in the Jungle? And even though I own the album, does anyone on the planet really need to hear "More Than A Feeling" from Boston ever again?

Then in the late 70's WLIR started playing New Wave and all the Buzzcocks, Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Lene Lovich, Wreckless Eric, etc. etc. came out, again with no playlists. What a glorious period.

But the real clinker in the whole insane mess is all the good music that is still coming out. With my tastes I'm talking Ted Leo and the Pharmacists (who I just heard for the first time), Fiery Furnaces, Broken Social Scene, Decemberists, the Wrens, AC Newman to name just a few. There's so much stuff out there that needs to be played that's good and is just overlooked.

So anyway, what was this thread about in the first place? Sorry for rambling but I feel better now.

biz

[DeadFish]

Well, I might as well join in this thread before the points get away from me...
You've all got great taste so far, and my list underlines or embellishes, I hope.
First, Scott and orthobiz: "It's a desert topping AND a floor wax!"
The current cd version I have has Apostrophe & Overnight Sensation, and you both get your way and me too.  
This stuff is in no particular order, but a current playlist that frequents some stuff I listen to gear with, as in:

Beyond the Mo. Sky - Metheny-Hadyn (thanks Scott!)
Heritage- Darol Anger
Imagine - Eva Cassidy
One Quiet Night- Pat Metheny
Live Dead- The Grateful Dead (W/ live Dark Star jam)
The Telluride Sessions- Strength in Numbers
American Beauty- The Grateful Dead
East/West- Jacqui Naylor
Just Won't Burn- Susan Tedeschi
Live Dead(2nd live album)- Grateful Dead (with Bertha)
Europe '72 or Beatles White Album
And as a bonus, for medical reasons,I want:
Emergence - R. Carlos Nakai for 'winding down.'

Okay, the list is endless, but all of these are pretty well etched in my head, and the most fun alone on an island would be braying along with the music as a dog howling at the moon.
I still hear 'new' stuff in some of these, so that would be refreshing.

Regarding radio, I have a particular bias, socio-politically, whereby I turned off my radio about 1971 or so.  I've been an insomniac since puberty, and remember the only thing in the middle-of-the-dark to be something bouncing under the clouds on a.m. radio.  First FM was some freak paid to keep the tubes warm at some daylight licensed classical station, playing whatever he darned well please between pizzas and smokes.
Then *they* saw the power of the buck in the rising tide of baby-boomers and created a new format, in stereo.
(Phew! don't get me started....)
ANyway, longstoryshort, too many headshop and waterbed commercials and the beginnings of tailored 'classic rock' ran me off to chose for myself what I liked.  Of course, living in a vacuum, I have no idea who a lot of groups since are.  However, relying on the kindnesses of others, and  hopscotching artists sitting in on albums I did like and then drinking them in... Its been fun.
Also, with bad ears, generally fm is a bit 'lofi' for me to enjoy hearing, OVER the stuff I've listened to countless times, in my head.
When I drive, I turn the radio off.
But thank God for all you folks out there that have given me some great listens to add to *my* list!


Regards,
DeadFish

[lonewolfny42]

orthobiz,

Thanks for the radio memories....WNEW-FM and WLIR-FM, 60's and 70's !!! Both always played some excellent tunes. [/list:u]
I really enjoyed WNEW....Friday's, "Things From England" with Scott Muni, the professor...and  what a great voice. "The Night Bird", Allison Steele....late nite , sexy and sweet. Rosko, with his poetry...and excellent musical selections. And ...  Vin Scelsa's "Idiot's Delight"....which still can be heard today(on saturday nites)...WFUV-FM.[/list:u]
That's when radio was

really good !!! [/list:u]

[Mike D]

Lonewolf,

I just looked at your gallery.  Thank you for posting it.  Very nice, indeed.  

Just one question: What is up with that Harlots of 42nd street picture?  Who are they and Why?

[G]

If we could only take 10, here's mine in no particular order.

 Kate Bush   -  Hounds Of Love
 Pink Floyd   -  DSOTM
 KLF            -  Chill Out
 Roger Waters  - Radio Kaos
 Mussorgsky  - Pictures At An Exhibition
 Marillion  - Misplaced Childhood
 Jennifer Warnes  - The Hunter
 Tangerine Dream  - Hyperborea
 AC/DC  - Dirty Deeds
 Rainbow  - Ritchie Blackmores Rainbow

 I think these desert island selections are a window into ones sole. They say a lot about a person and what motivates them.

I'll go along with dirty deeds but you gotta have the "Warsaw Concert" if you want to go with TD. Also lets not forget LZ IIII.