It's been so cold this week, I can't listen to my iPod while walking to the bus or waiting for it: the wires to my headphones become so stiff it's like they're on sticks and pluck themselves right out of my ears.

When I bought a lot of Music at Cheapo (and Ernie November's before that), I used to love buying used tapes. They cost about half of a used CD, so you could gamble even more on things you may not have been willing to drop even $8 on. I also picked up a few cutout tapes for even less at Sam Goody. One of those tapes was Yello Zebra. I don't even know if I connected them with "Oh Yeah" at the time, but I think I did know that they were someone the Orb had remixed. I might have confused them with Yellow Magic Orchestra.

I listened to the album in my car driving home from Rosedale that day and wow, Zebra was really good. Like what if Carl Craig had a Latin Swing jones and some weird dude vocalist and wrote songs instead of tracks? It's not all great, I'm less fond of the songs that were singles "How How" and "Do It", with all the vocals. But "I... I'm in Love" and "Night Train" and some of the others were definitely worth the risk of the five $2.99 tapes I picked up that day.

I write this because I just saw the tape last weekend and decided to find a download of it. It's most of what I've listened to this week.

You got any unexpected little gems you've found because they were cheap enough to make a gamble on?

So, what's your best of 2014 list look like so far?
Mine is after the jump.
Continue reading Friday Music Day: Jan 17, 2014 →

Nothing new to add to my 2013 best-of list yet, and nothing from 2014, either.
I read yesterday that Amiri Baraka died. I've got a few records with him on it. One of my faves after the break. Language warning. Continue reading Friday Music Day: Jan 10, 2014 →

If you haven't yet, start thinking about your best-of-2013 lists. That'll be what we talk about next week.
This week: just drop your regular random 10.

Numbered list day:
1. Just not getting into Christmas music this year. And I'm OK with that.
2. Vampy Weeks is #1 in P4k, but only #3 in Spin. Ye is #1 in Spin and #2 in P4k. I would have guessed the other way around.
3. This isn't an invite to discuss the best of the year's music yet. For those wanting to make lists and whatnot, I've get my eyes set on Jan 3, to make sure that Beyoncé doesn't drop another new album on New Year's Eve at 5pm.
4. But mostly because I need to get my thoughts in order on it.
5. I spent a lot of the year listening to old records that I hadn't tried out in a long time or was trying for the first time, and exploring a certain prolific noise artist's catalogue, but didn't really sit with a lot of new stuff.
6. Is that what middle age is like?
7. Whoa that got contemplative. Save it for the Year-End list write-up, dude.
8. Regarding #5: I remembered yet another album that should have been on my Desert Island 20 40: Barry Adamson's As Above So Below. Hard to accurately describe, but it's a concepty album about sin and death, in a I've listened to Adamson's prior albums and sampled his works since and they just don't work this well. Even listening to one or two songs from it doesn't do the overall jazz-club/noir/cinematic score/vibes/rock type thing the same as listening to the whole album. Does it help anyone if I mention that Adamson was at one time a Bad Seed (Nick Cave band)? I highly recommend everyone this side of Cheaptoy give it a spin.
9. Also regarding that DI20 business: turns out I actually own Cash's AR V on CD. I must have purchased that right before our move 3 years ago because of the box I found it in. I would definitely pick AR over V for my desert island. The highlight on V seems to be "God's Gonna Cut You Down". which would work as a title on that Adamson album is the same traditional song as that which Moby used for his "Run On" off Play, which was ruined for me by Moby's 18. So one more thing that the awful I felt from 18 spread to and infected.
T. Should I have ten things in this list? I don't think I need to.

I picked up the CD of Roxette's Look Sharp! last weekend at a church rummage sale. Turns out I don't like it.