I Stand Alone- Theophilus London

In case you were wondering I did not watch the Super Bowl last night. I did turn it on once I heard the power went out after Mrs. Jay Z’s performance. I also saw a little bit of that too, not that I care much for Mrs. Jay Z’s music. I didn’t care for the sport, the game and I did not care for the teams. I watched The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers and then watched a show about Saturday Night Lives’ first five years which did not include Jane Curtin whom I always liked on the show.

Bill came home after taking care of his mother most of the day. He drove to Atlantic City both Friday and Saturday nights and was running on a low flame after only a few hours of sleep. I hope it doesn’t turn out to Bill overworking and then crashing hard enough to be physically ill for a few days. It happens every so often and I am smart enough to see what comes down the line with regards to that. Bill came home and settled in and watched the SNL retrospective. He never saw the word association test skit with Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase before last night.

On Saturday night there was a posting from My Bloody Valentine on Facebook. After 22 years a new record was being released and I got what I thought was an invitation to give it a listen. I followed the link but was unable to get to it since there were probably a couple of thousand fan boys and girls out there all doing the same as me. I posted to my MiMB friends on Facebook and some of them were in the same boat as me, posting about their frustration and eagerness.

After about an hour, My Bloody Valentine unveiled their own website complete with offers to buy the new release on vinyl and download, on CD and download or just a download. After hemming and hawing I decided on just the download. But which download? There were three options and I decided to ask some audio engineer friends of mine. 16 bit or 24 bit WAVE files? What about the 320kpbs MP3 file? My friends chimed in and I followed their advice which was smart but ineffectual once I took their advice to heart, or in this case, to ears.

I got the 24 bit WAVE file which turned out to be a mistake. I guess the engineers that I know have more sophisticated computers and systems than I do. What would have been a walk in the park was a bear for me. They told me it would take longer to download and it did, but I did not think I would have to manually enter each file that was unzipped. It was no big deal, but it was a pain in the tuchis when I wanted to move them to my iPod. I had to burn the files onto a CD then upload them into iTunes.

Yesterday was spent listening to MBV, the new My Bloody Valentine release. It sounds great, picks up where Loveless left off in 1991. I’ve been listening ever since. I saw My Bloody Valentine twice, once in 1991 when they played the Ritz at Studio 54 and then an abbreviated set at All Points West in 2009. 1991 was all I needed to see, a physical element to the sound and I was at the back of the club, sans earplugs for what was probably the loudest show I had ever heard or seen. 2009 was nothing new, having experience it 18 years before, nothing new was going on and it was time to go home. If they come around again, I hope to be there.

And the other night I wrote how the Selecter were returning to the States. I found out their playing the west coast, no east coast dates scheduled and I am not going to Coachella.
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04 To Here Knows When

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