BoomMF

I still have my wine red Les Paul Studio. It was my first LP and when I played it I had this feeling like I arrived or something. (I listened to some recordings I made with it back then and I most definately had not arrived.) When my oldest gets big enough to appreciate it, it'll be his first "real" guitar. Hope it means something to him. It's an early-90s model, which were some damn good years for Gibson. I still play it because it has the thickest neck of any guitar I own and sometimes you just want to feel something substantial (that's what she said).

Decided on the preamp. Stuck with Transrotor and their Phono II. Now I'm ready to switch over to a moving coil should such an emergency arise. A couple of One-Steps arrived too. I don't know why people sleep on Folk Singer, but whatevs, it makes it cheaper for the rest of us. Aside: This hobby is getting ridiculous (moreso than is the norm) with the announcement of the AP Steely Dan UHQRs and the Bill Evans Riverside Box reprint, so finding (relative) deals is especially a treat and colors my enjoyment of whatever I got over on. (Chad's not who he used to be.) One of These Nights isn't my favorite Eagles record, but it has the coolest cover and that's enough to want a definitive version of the LP. Lyin' Eyes is just a bonus. And there a wizard little record store in Spring, Soudn Revolution, and I picked up a bit. I love me some 60s bubblegum and the Seekers are probably a bit better than that, but given what bubblegum has become in modern music, 60s bubblegum feel like German prog rock in comparison. Also, Adam Ant is criminally underrated. You might want to check out Mammoth WVH. I'm curious to hear opinions on it. I was pleasantly surprised - it has a high floor if it never quite touches the stratosphere.

That's my jam, which is really just a Jazz III, the pick of picks. #plectrumtalknotgoingaway

Speaking of Come As You Are... My wife and I made the pilgrimage to Aberdeen. And visited a bunch of places we've only read or heard about. Like Kurt's childhood home. And the bridge under which he and his friends used to hang out. It's definately muddy under there and it overlooks the Wishkah river. The bridge makes an appearance in the opening lines of Something In The Way. (Side note, while in Seattle we went to see The Batman and unbeknownst to us that song features prominently. I dig serendipity like that.) Adjacent to the bridge is a small park in honor of Kurt. I don't think the city really embraced their hometown hero until recently, perhaps a lot of that had to do with Kurt's public general dislike of growing up in Aberdeen, but times have changed and he's everywhere now. While we were at the park a lady walked by obviously giving a tour and she mentioned proudly that she went to high school with Kurt. There's a funny sign in front of the house nearest to the park. Man, considering the traffic we saw in just the short time we there I'd hate to live in this house. Seems the owners don't like it all that much either. We didn't get to talk to Phil. We visited some lesser known places like the alley where Kurt was arrested for graffiti. Unfortunately, the graffiti has since been removed. I bet they'd like to have that back. Or his high school, where he never graduated from but ended up getting his first job, as a janitor. Up the street from the high school a bit is the site of his first place after moving out and where he started becoming more serious about writing songs. We even dropped by Krist's childhood home. It's about a mile away, as the crow flies, from Kurt's, but a world apart. There's a really cool little record store downtown, Boomtown Records. I picked up some overpriced Nirvana LPs for some friends just so the receipt would say Aberdeen, WA on it. I picked up some Melvins for me because obviously. The store recently put up a white board below that large Nirvana pic for visitors to sign. The wife and I have center stage. Aberdeen isn't near as bleak as I was expecting. It has a small town vibe, for sure, but it also packs a good amount of personality. Check out Billy's if you like chicken fried steak. I watched Tech beat Texas from one of the booths so I'll probably skip it if I'm ever back here...

Speaking of, still waiting on news about these... https://www.instagram.com/p/CfcZjOBvyBc/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

This dude is behind me at the Baltimore Hard Rock. Best seat in the house.

Billy Strings's jams with Molly Tuttle are phenominal, if you get a chance.

Has anyone ever won a weekend like Wolfgang won this past weekend? Would have been cool to see him play his dad's first Ernie Ball, which, if you look at the science, is the Telecaster's only rival for sheer amount of concentrated dork. But still, would've warmed the heart to see it. I don't think I gave him a fair chance because of the nepotism and being Team Anthony, but that ends now. The guy has wicked chops and seems like a sweetheart.

45RPM UHQR of Kind of Blue arrived and its fantastic. Is this the last time I'll need to buy this album? Probably. Will it be the last time? Probably not. It came just in time to test out my endgame turntable. After much hemming and hawing, I went with the Transrotor Zet 1. I haven't decided on my endgame stylus or preamp, but they're coming. I never thought I'd have a shot at one of these. Now, styli...

We got the plug pulled midset in our high school talent show. We had the bright idea (read: stolen from Pearl Jam iirc) to play Another Brick in the Wall as an outro and it was going awesome, but when the crowd started singing along (We don't need no education, etc....) it was too much for the admin and they killed the power. Just came on stage and stole the mic and stand and killed the power (which freaked me out because I read that you need to let you tubes cool before turning off and I was scared shitless that my Peavey Stereo Chorus was fried!). But we were gods at lunch for like 2 days after.

Dear Diary, The kids continue to like playing Catan, And we've started a Star Trek Adventures campaign with my daughter as the GM. She calls herself "The Picard" in reference the TNG episode, Who Watches the Watchers, where humanoids believe Picard is their god. LOL So we joined the two loves and played Star Trek Catan. Fun little twist with the thematic player powers. Enjoyed it enough to track down the OOP Federation Maps expansion. That's next. Of the new hotness, had some friends over to play Castles of Mad King Ludwig Royal Collector's Edition. I thought it was clunky and the gameplay clumsy, but the casuals in the group liked it. My Father's Work didn't suffer from clunk, as such, but it did start to drag around Act III. The theme is right up my alley, but the copious amounts of reading from the app started to drain the experience. Played more Dune: Imperium, this time with the Rise of Ix expansion. Great game made better. Nuff said. Also received the latest Windward expansion, so used the opportunity to finally play the base game. Intersting pickup-and-deliver game that plays quick enough and looks gorgeous on the table. Going to give this one a few more goes to see if it has staying power with us. Also also wik, played T.I.M.E. Stories for the first time. Got to bust out the acrylic pieces. I can see why this game has been passed over, however, the who-dunits are new to me and I did enjoy unraveling the mystery. I'll probably look for a top 10 list and play a few more of their better stories. We continue to really enjoy Return to Dark Tower. Got to play all the expansion content for the first time and, although we died horribly, we had a blast. My oldest son and I started a Solomon Kane campaign. It's going to be "our thing." Super cool control mecahnisms and the story books are fun to go through. Looking forward to playing the All-In, after all, if not painting all of it. Sheesh. Still play my personal favorite, Edge of Darkness. I can't explain why I keep wanting to play this one, but I enjoy it every time. Maybe it's something about solving the resource debt as a puzzle I dig, who knows. And, of course, Kingdom Death: Monster. At this point I just might be a masochist. On a Friday we decided to go to GenCon and made it there for the weekend. (Shot up to see James Dean's grave in Fairmount, too, but that's a different story.) This was our fist one, but we had a blast. Missed a lot due to our noobness and the immutable fact that days are only 24 hours long, but we'll be back, wiser. On the storage front, I FINALLY solved my neoprene map storage. Turns out theres a fairly deep hallway closet outside the game room that works perfect for storing mats. After building some quick wine-rack-type shelves, all the maps (expect for the 2 4x4 Fat Mats) have a home and it's a great relief! With the mats out of the way, it meant I could add another 5x5 Kallax. ...which is already starting to fill up. 😶 LaserOx now makes a crate for Ankh, so organizing that behemoth is doable. Everything from the all-in fits in one Kallax cube. I tried LaserOx's insert but it's "junk drawer" style way of organizing the followers isn't a great solution for me, so I'm keeping the Gaming Trunk insert instead. It fits in LaserOx's crate like a glove. Now to finish painting it all... Zzzzz And I found a dude on Etsy who made some custom card cases for a few games that were overflowing their containers. Came out great imo. And now, Constant Reader, you are caught up. Nah, just a good old fashioned obsession.

.

Finally got to visit one of the brightest young trumpeters of the bebop era, whose life was cut tragically short in a car accident. Check out Clifford Brown & Max Roach (1954) and imagine what could have been.

This series from Drumeo is everything: If you haven't checked out the drummer from Snarky Puppy doing Enter Sandman you're wasting the internet. In other news, The Roland TD-50X brain that's been backordered since the dawn of creation finally arrived and Sweetwater honored the initial sale price, which has since been bumped up about $500 or some such nonsense. The people on Rock Band Rivals aren't gonna know what hit them.

Yeah, Nirvana Nevermind Super Deluxe hit this past week. Bout to crank it. Pretty stoked for this one. Especially looking forward to the ephemera. And my copy of Art Pepper arrived (ordered because of this thread!). As much as I'm a fan of 50s/60s jazz, it surprises me how Art Pepper has managed to sit in my blindspot for so long. This ends now. The replacement for my jacked up copy of the Pallas Rumours showed up as well. And, after forgetting I ordered from the band's website an eternity ago, some rather hard to find Kitten records arrived too. About to be busy and loud at the Boom household.

Dear Diary, "This is your last chance, Jasco." Actually, really enjoyed Street Fighter: The Miniatures Game. Previous Jasco products haven't resonated with me, and Evil Dead was flat out terrible. But this one's a keeper. It took 2 years to deliver the all-in, but that time was spent well. The game plays efficiently and, as a fan of the video game, I dig the thematic inclusions. Played Foundations of Rome and it might've won the weekend. Everybody loved it. So, naturally, I have to paint it all now... Also did a scenario of Chronicles of Time, 2400, with the in-laws. Interesting and fresh new dynamics which expand on the previous game, cybernetics! These Chronicles games are always a good time with large groups of people, especially "non-gamers." And Mindclash never misses. But Perseverance doesnt really shine until episode 2. And the Kingdom Death campaign continues. Probably the game I'm most into atm. 😶 Played Wonderland's War this weekend. It's a gorgeously produced bag builder and area control game that everyone really enjoyed. Haven't finished painting it but was too excited to play. We're in the part of the timeline where a glut of boxes are showing up for games that I forgot I kickstarted 2 years ago. Also introduced Hadrian's Wall to the in-laws. As predicted they loved it. And the second wave of Solomon Kane hit. This is nonsense. I will probably never get to half of these boxes. I'm starting to lose the excitement I normally felt when these large campaign games delivered... Some more Kingdom Death. Lantern Year 8 out of the way and have only managed to lose 2 survivors. The wife has grown so attached to hers that if any of them die I fear tables will be flipped and curses uttered. We're still playing remotely with people half a continent away. The pandemic might have made remote setups a necessity, but the change might not be temporary - we're going to be playing physical games remotely with friends for quite a long time now, at least. About to start a Lord of the Rings RPG campaign with a similar setup too. Looking forward to that one. Played Wonder Book with the family. Quite a unique production, though the gameplay is pretty boilerplate. I'd recommend it for family game night but that's it. Now, Constant Reader, you are caught up.

We're gonna be all over the place this weekend. (When I was younger I didn't really appreciate this version of Layla - OG Layla is the goat rock song and this was neutered too much for me. Now that I'm older and more lame, I've come to appreciate this take.) I have the super deluxe of the Black Album, and it's a stellar presentation. This one of Ride the Lightning looks similar. Now if your boy can just find an SD Puppets for less than the cost of a late model Toyota...

Thriller 1-step just launched pre-order over at mofi.com. Seems significant.

This weekend's listening sorted. 50s jazz played on a turntable is as God intended.

There's a great little movie about some kids in Dublin starting a band to impress a girl, Sing Street, with a bit of appreciation for the musicianship of Duran Duran. When the movie came out in 2016 first thought was it was about time they got credit for their songcraft. John Taylor's autobiography, though, left a lot to be desired. He does well to document the fascinating times of the early days of Duran Duran's ascent, but I was there for the juicy bits about the members' relationships, especially with Simon or the early departures, and he glosses over almost every bit of that. Regardless, Team Duran Duran.

Been using a Venta Airwasher for years and love it. But be warned, the stuff it pulls out of the air will make you reconsider breathing.

The Dual Professional (in classic 40's V-front) reissue that was teased before the pandemic might finally be making its way into produciton. Fender MIGHT announce something concrete at NAMM this June. This is holy grail reissue type stuff. https://www.musicradar.com/news/joe-bonamassa-reveals-signature-fender-48-dual-professional-amp Before this you pretty much only had Rift and Victoria doing modern versions of this amp: https://guitar.com/review/rift-amps-tweed-vee/ But if the mothership makes this a thing I'm in like Flynn. As seen in the background of that famous pic in the Guitar Player magazine article where Billy Gibbons was asked to point at his dorkiest guitar.

Heard they're bringing Dragonlance back too. Sign me up for all of it.

Probably not $50k. It's an ungraded beta, but should pull a 6 without much issue. The Serra is beta too. I don't have any alphas. I got into Magic during Antiquities/Legends, back when that beta Black Lotus could fetch about $200 from some desperate sucker,, and even then alphas were rare.