Matthew

I attended UCSD in the late 70s, so was able to listen to the lectures he gave to us non-music students. Very enjoyable presenter, who, as was stated in the article, inspire us non musicians to a love of jazz.

$37.79 for ten cds of live Miles -- great deal.

The Monkees: More of the Monkees. In a 60's rock thing lately for some reason.

Chuck Nessa:

I'd also stay home for Genesis without Peter Gabriel, but you how Chewy is about Phil Collins... But, If they come to Seattle or Portland, I'd probably give it a shot.

Report that the SF Giants are thinking of voiding Bonds' contract. What a fiasco this year is going to be for baseball as Bonds breaks the HR record. What a fitting way for the Bud Selig Era to come to a close. Bonds' leaked results could handcuff Giants Henry Schulman, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, January 18, 2007 Six weeks after he reached a tentative deal to return to San Francisco for a 15th season, Barry Bonds remains a non-Giant. He has no contract. He is not on the 40-man roster, and his one-year, $15.8 million agreement has not been formalized in a letter of agreement submitted to Major League Baseball and the Players Association. Now, less than four weeks before pitchers and catchers report to spring training, there are questions about whether the team wants that agreement filed. The Giants have discussed walking away from the Bonds deal, according to people familiar with their thinking, because of the myriad difficulties in finalizing a contract. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported the Giants put the brakes on negotiations and quoted an unnamed lawyer on the Bonds side as speculating the Giants might want to back out of the deal following the fallout from last week's revelation that Bonds failed an amphetamine test and initially blamed it on a substance he took from teammate Mark Sweeney's locker. In an interview Wednesday, general manager Brian Sabean declined to address the Times story or whether he is exploring alternatives to signing Bonds. Sabean merely reiterated the club's official position, saying, "The player is unsigned and contract issues remain unresolved. That hasn't changed." Ironically, the leaked drug test that embarrassed Bonds last week might be his best insurance policy for staying with the Giants in 2007. According to multiple industry sources, the Giants cannot use the failed drug test to walk away from the contract because legally they should not have received the confidential information. Even if the Giants decided to nullify the deal for other reasons, Bonds could argue in a grievance that the drug test was the real cause and win a judgment. Moreover, one lawyer who works in the industry but is not connected to Bonds or the Giants said if the deal crumbles, Bonds might have a strong case against MLB or the union for sabotaging it if he can prove one or the other leaked the positive amphetamine test. On the other hand, Bonds' case might be weakened because he and the Giants did not submit a letter of agreement to MLB and the union when they reached financial terms, which would have made it binding. The Giants say that was Bonds' choice, because he wanted certain contract issues settled first. The Giants and Bonds struck their tentative agreement Dec. 7. Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris, who declined comment Wednesday, had predicted it would take weeks to complete the language. According to a source familiar with the events, there were negotiations as recently as last week. The source said Bonds attended a daylong meeting at Borris' Southern California office, with Giants officials on speaker phone, and that a Major League Baseball official was present to discuss security for Bonds and his family as he pursues the career home-run record. The Chronicle has reported that Bonds wanted security issues addressed in his contract. The Giants' principal demands reportedly center on Bonds' conformity to team rules and restricting clubhouse access to his associates. Unclear is whether the Giants are pursuing language allowing them to dock Bonds' pay for time he might have to spend in court if he is indicted for perjury in the BALCO steroids case. Giants officials have downplayed that angle, but agents for other players the Giants brought on board this winter said the team presented them with contract language dealing with time spent in court. Some speculated it was created for Bonds but included in all proposed contracts for the sake of uniformity. The agents balked at the language, which is one reason none of the nine free agents who signed letters of agreement with the Giants has signed his contract. The Giants have rescinded the language, and Sabean said the issue of unsigned contracts was a technicality blown out of proportion in a published report last week. "As a matter of fact," Sabean said, "out of 198 free agents that have come under letter of agreement, only 21 contracts have been approved in baseball, which means the contract language and terms have been signed, sealed and delivered and reported to the union." Although Barry Zito, Rich Aurilia, Dave Roberts, Steve Kline, Pedro Feliz, Ray Durham, Bengie Molina, Russ Ortiz and Ryan Klesko have not signed contracts, terms of their deals have been reported officially and the players were placed on the Giants' 40-man roster. They are considered signed players, and even if there is haggling over contract language, their deals are binding. Bonds is not legally considered a signed player, and spring training is just around the bend. But he sounds as though he expects to be playing somewhere in 2007. Bonds, in the Dominican Republic for Juan Marichal's golf tournament, told the Associated Press on Wednesday, "I'm sure I'm going to break the (home-run) record this year." E-mail Henry Schulman at hschulman@sfchronicle.com.

Holy moly, the pre-order price on these SACD/DVDs are freekin' $43.75 . Crap! And all I want are the SACDs, I could care less about the DVDs since I only have a laptop to play them on.

John Coltrane: The Prestige Recordings. Disk 13. The best $60.00 I've ever spent.

I was thinking about this release yesterday and I'm really interested in what direction Wilson will be going on this new cd. In Absentia and Deadwing had their moments but it seems like the more I listen to them, the lesser they become. Supposedly, Fear of a Blank Planet will just have eight songs, and will be the combination that Wilson has been following the past couple of years, Metal + Prog, which is interesting to a point. The recent DVD that came out, musically, I must admit, hasn't excited me that much after about five or six listens. We'll wait and see. It'll be interesting no matter what.

Those guys rock! The drummer is so deep in the pocket, he's covered with lint!

What can I say? This is still my all-time favorite music clip.

What really struck me was: Man, Bird & Diz could say a lot in 2:30 minutes!

Bump... just to drive Sidewinder nuts.

As these are being released individually on the 23rd, at the very least check out Bee Gees' 1st. Though I'm very happy with the box of the 1st 3. I hope they continue on with Odessa & Cucumber Castle. It's important to note that while the first three albums are being released individually on the 23rd, those individual releases will NOT include the mono mixes that are found in the limited edition box set. That might not matter to everyone, but I personally love the mono mix of the first album in particular, it's much more punchy and sounds quite different than the stereo mix. FYI....

Peter Brotzmann: Never Too Late But Always Too Early. Knocked flat on my rear-end first time I heard it.

SW loves 5.1, so that's half of it. He's also a perfectionist, and it's OOP, so I'm guessing he thinks he can improve on the sound (which sounds fine to me already). Given that this was the last recording before they signed with Atlantic/Lava, I'm guessing he wants to make it available now to the newer fans. It would be nice if there was more/different music on the bonus disk, maybe disk two with the Recordings tracks on it -- I can dream can't I.

Might have to get me that when it comes out. Don't know why Lightbulb Sun is being redone, the cd is not that old, and it sounds great to me. Guess it's that 5.1 that's the hook.

So am I, that's all they wrote about when Blyleven's name was mentioned and they still do. Blyleven's not alone, there's a ton of great players from the 70s & 80s who get overlooked; case in point, Al Oliver. Great player, great line-drive hitter but it's like he never player the game.

Raffy was run out of baseball, to a large part because he threw Tejada under the bus. Hershiser got the pub, playing in L.A., beating a famous Met team, while the only thing a fan ever heard about Blyleven was how many homers he gave up. Heck, at the top of his game Randy Jones was equal to Hershiser but no one claims Jones for the HOF, and for heavens sake, I saw Jones pitch so often in his prime at the 'Murph, it's not funny, even was there when he hurt his arm. No one noticed he was hurt because Mike Ivie was kicked out of the game on the same play. Ivie, now there was wasted talent, he was compared to Johnny Bench for crying out loud. What a nut case! Sorry for going down Padre memory lane -- I wasted a lot of my youth watching them at the 'Murph.

More on the Barry Bonds front: NEW YORK -- Barry Bonds failed a test for amphetamines last season and originally blamed it on a teammate, the Daily News reported Thursday. Barry Bonds Bonds is still under investigation as to whether he perjured himself when he testified in 2003 that he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs. When first informed of the positive test, Bonds attributed it to a substance he had taken from teammate Mark Sweeney's locker, the New York City newspaper said, citing several unnamed sources. "I have no comment on that," Bonds' agent Jeff Borris told the Daily News on Wednesday night. "Mark was made aware of the fact that his name had been brought up," Sweeney's agent Barry Axelrod told the Daily News. "But he did not give Barry Bonds anything, and there was nothing he could have given Barry Bonds." Bonds, who has always maintained he never has tested positive for illegal drug use, is already under investigation for lying about steroid use. A federal grand jury is investigating whether the 42-year-old Bonds perjured himself when he testified in 2003 in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroid distribution case that he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs. The San Francisco Giants slugger told a 2003 federal grand jury that he believed his trainer Greg Anderson had provided him flaxseed oil and arthritic balm, not steroids. Under baseball's amphetamines policy, which went into effect last season, players are not publicly identified for a first positive test. A second positive test for amphetamines results in a 25-game suspension. The first failed steroids test costs a player 50 games. Bonds did not appeal the positive test, which made him subject to six drug tests by MLB over the next six months, according to the Daily News. "We're not in a position to confirm or deny, obviously," MLB spokesman Rich Levin told the Daily News. According to the newspaper, Sweeney learned of the Bonds' positive test from Gene Orza, chief operating officer of the Major League Baseball Players Association. Orza told Sweeney, the paper said, that he should remove any troublesome substances from his locker and should not share said substances. Sweeney said there was nothing of concern in his locker, according to the Daily News' sources. An AP message for Sweeney was not immediately returned late Wednesday. The Giants are still working to finalize complicated language in the slugger's $16 million, one-year contract for next season -- a process that has lasted almost a month since he agreed to the deal Dec. 7 on the last day of baseball's winter meetings. The language still being negotiated concerns the left fielder's compliance with team rules, as well as what would happen if he were to be indicted or have other legal troubles. Borris has declined to comment on the negotiations. He didn't immediately return a message from the AP on Wednesday night. The 42-year-old Bonds is set to begin his 15th season with the Giants only 22 home runs shy of surpassing Hank Aaron's career record of 755. Bonds, considered healthy again following offseason surgery on his troublesome left elbow, has spent 14 of his 21 big-league seasons with San Francisco and helped the Giants draw 3 million fans in all seven seasons at their waterfront ballpark. After missing all but 14 games in 2005 following three operations on his right knee, Bonds batted .270 with 26 homers and 77 RBIs in 367 at-bats in 2006. He passed Babe Ruth to move into second place on the career home run list May 28. Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press I know BB is a ahole to the nth degree but I just get sad about his life. "I didn't know what kind of pill I was putting in my mouth." What is up with that? I always pop pills in my mouth that I have no idea what they are -- hey, it's fun! Jeesh, what an idiot.

"Scrubs" seasons one and two. Enjoying them a lot more than I thought I would. Great series. Watched most of season one today because everyone was snowed in.

That was the biggest piece of chicken-shit I've ever seen. My regard and respect for the HOF sunk after that vote.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!!

Disk two this morning. Every time I hear JJ my regard for him soars.