This'n'That

[katefans@world.std.com (Chris'n'Vickie of Kansas City)]

Vickie here. Playing catch-up.

Michael Hui writes:

> Can someone suggest a good music mail order store for the type of
> music in Vickie's playlists? I have given up on Ottawa's local record
> stores, as well as our community radio station for this type of music.
> Most times the announcer asks listeners to phone in requests, and the
> ensueing music is rather uninspiring. There is no specialty show
> remotely equivalent to Vickie's show in Kansas City on our community
> station. That station is really into rap and Australian music right
> now, and nothing else. So it might not be because they don't get the
> records Vickie plays, but they simply may not be interested in playing
> them. For example, I went to all the record stores in Ottawa today and
> could not find anything on the latest playlist, except the ones with WIDE

I'm a scavenger. I search every nook and cranny of every record store I
come across. Sometimes I'll go for weeks without buying anything 'cause
I'm too broke and other times I'll spend way too much. I'm just like
anyone else. I don't like paying money for something that I have no idea
what it sounds like. I pass on a lot of things that I'm not sure about.
(Usually I find out months later that it was a great album and I should
have gotten it). Of course sometimes I buy it and it might turn out to
be a disco rip-off/reject from 1979 or something like that. It's tricky.

As far as a mail-order store, Ladyslipper has the best selection of music
by women, but even they don't carry a lot of the "alternative" music I
dig up. No one's as crazy as I am when it comes to unearthing forgotten
music. It's a passion. Expensive though (we only make average non-yuppie
struggling regular-type people wages too), so I wouldn't reccommend it as
a hobby. If I never bought another record I could continue doing shows for
about 5 years on what I have (though I might have to dip into my "Only If
Extremely Desperate" stack of records and cassettes. I wouldn't get so 
desperate that I'd have to touch my "Never In A Million Years" stack. Those
are ones so bad that I'm even embarrassed to take them to a used record
store. 

Gregory got to Richard before I did:

>> locke@pdn.paradyne.com (Richard Locke) asks:
>> (Re Vickie's playlist)
>> Do you know if [Escher's Triangle] is released in the US?
>> I've been trying to find some Chandra/Monsoon for a  reasonable price
>> for a long time.  In fact the only think I've even found for sale
>>  was a CD copy of "Third Eye" for $24, which is hard to me to shell out...

> I bought _Third Eye_ and three Sheila Chandra solo CDs at Tower Records
> and Newbury Comics in Boston/Cambridge;  all of them were around $18.
> IMHO _Third Eye_ is worth the $24 -- it's a remarkable album.

First, none of Sheila's albums have been released in the US.
Second, I agree wholeheartedly with Gregory's assessment of _Third Eye_,
it is a remarkable album indeed and I think it's well worth $24.00.
I had the album for a long time but was ECSTATIC to find it had been
re-released on CD. It was a dream come true (now if I could only get
Victoria Williams LP "Happy Come Home" on CD. I'll write more about her
soon).

> The three solo Chandra albums are on Indipop, distributed by MNW Records
> (address PO Box 71, S-185 00 Vaxholm, Sweden) (!!!????)

>    _Out on my Own_, #SCHCD 1
>    _Quiet_, #SCHCD 2
>    _The Struggle_, (hey, lucky guess!) #SCHCD 3

> The CDs include all the tracks of four albums (the above titles plus
> _Nada Brahma_) plus some singles and remixes... a good deal.  None of
> the solo albums quite hit the peak of the Monsoon album, but they are
> all worth the price of admission.  Interestingly, just about everyone
> from the Monsoon album appears on the other three, the one exception
> being engineer/coproducer Hugh Jones.

Also the new one:  _Roots & Wings_ SCHCD5, same label (Indipop)

Of all those solo albums, my very, very favorite is _Quiet_. My favorite
Sheila solo song is on the LP _Nada Brahma_ (the song "Raqs"), though it 
appears on the CD of _Out On My Own_. The record company put half of _Nada
Brahma_ on that CD and half on the CD of _Quiet_.

Still, my all-time favorite Sheila Chandra recording is Monsoon's album.
Pay the $24.00 if you have it. 

Vickie (one of Vickie'n'Chris)
katefans@world.std.com