Monday, June 26, 2017


Music Week

Music: Current count 28324 [28293] rated (+31), 368 [373] unrated (-5).

I have six computers in my office, but mostly I use two. One I do my writing, website development, email, and most of my browsing on. I built it several years ago, and installed Ubuntu 12.04 on it. Somehow I never updated it as Ubuntu moved through several more releases. That's only been a problem in one respect: the Firefox web browser has always been vulnerable to bad JavaScript and Flash code, and for quite some time it would slow down and eventually crash. I've tried to combat this by running NoScript, an extension which lets me decide whether to run JavaScript and Flash on a per-website basis. I also wound up banning several websites altogether, only viewing Amazon and Facebook on other computers. This worked fairly well for a long time, but as a great many websites became mired ever deeper in JavaScript, I wound up having to allow more and more, and that tended to browser's reduce the between-crash time.

This situation got markedly worse a week or two ago -- possibly coinciding with a redesign of Twitter, although banishing Twitter didn't fix the problem, nor did radically reducing the number of tabs I keep open (normally 40-50, down to 5-10). Firefox crashed 3-5 times a day, or sometimes just hung until I would kill it. The obvious solution was to upgrade the Ubuntu release, but getting from 12 to 16 probably couldn't be done incrementally. Rather, I would have to do a fresh install, which meant backing everything up, cleaning the system out, loading the new release, reconfiguring, and restoring my data. No real reason why I can't do that, but it would be a major disruption in my work and life, so I've been putting it off.

I did find an interim fix, which is to switch from Firefox to Chromium. The good news there is that Chromium actually runs much faster than Firefox ever did -- probably because the program is multithreaded, so it's making much more efficient use of my 8-core CPU. Downsides were that I had to reconfigure lots of things, and I haven't found a satisfactory ad blocker yet -- AdBlockPlus doesn't work, so I tried Ad Remove (which seems to require me to identify all of the offending ads) then Fair Adblocker (which blocks pop-ups but otherwise doesn't seem to block anything at all). Trying one called Ads Killer now, but too soon to tell. Meanwhile, I've been shocked (and disgusted) at the extent to which advertising has taken over the web. Reminds me that I need to write that essay on why advertising is the root of all our problems. Also, Chromium crashed twice while I was writing this, but both times involved the same path, so it's an easily characterized bug.

With these browser problems, I skipped Weekend Roundup this past week, but I may not bother restarting even when I get the browser problems fixed. But that's another story. Meanwhile I had a fair week listening to music. The second main computer I have is running Ubuntu 16.04, so it's reasonably up to date. I run AdBlockPlus on it, but not NoScript, but I rarely have two windows or more than a dozen tabs, so it's not getting a heavy workout. I stream music from Napster and Bandcamp there, occasionally download things to play through VLC, and keep a tab open for Facebook. So I had plenty of music available, even though the CD queue seems to be drying up with the summer heat. (The Pending list is currently down to 9 records. Only one of this week's A- records came to me as a CD, and that thanks to the musician, not the label.)

Two A- records this week from Christgau's Expert Witness -- the Chuck Berry a late arrival on Napster. (Could be I didn't give Kano enough time, but I could also say that for Young Thug; neither got the three plays it took to nudge Starlito & Don Trip over the line.) Most of the alt-country albums came from Saving Country Music's mid-year list -- Jason Eady and Colter Wall were the finds there. I went after the Joshua Abrams backlog giving an A- to this year's Simultonality, which I can now assure you is his best-to-date. I decided to try the Rolling Stones' live shots when I was most depressed last week, and they did help to cheer me up, even if ultimately they didn't seem essential. Both were audio derivatives from DVD products.

Sylvan Esso was one of those records I picked out from my Music Tracking list -- one of those things someone likes somewhere, but I'm rarely this impressed by what I find there. I looked up Steve Pistorius while working on the Jazz Guides (currently 696 + 647 pages, still in Jazz '80s-'90s, up to Norbert Stein). Still working on it, not least because it's a fair low energy project -- much easier than trying to write something new. Still got a long ways to go, and it's not going to look very pretty once this pass is done. Most obvious problem is that I repeat myself a lot from record to record, useful in separate columns but redundant when all of an artist's records are stacked up.

I had a crisis with the website a week ago, when I couldn't update files due to no free disk space. I resolved at that point to move my website, which is probably still the right idea, but the hosting company opened a bit of space up so I can hold off a bit. I have made some progress on a few other problems, most importantly getting a lot of CD filing done. Also managed (last night) to copy a bunch of downloaded music from an old machine to the one with speakers, so I should start to check that out fairly soon.

Expect a Streamnotes by the end of the month. Currently 131 records in the draft file, so I'm already up a bit from recent months (111, 115, 114; February had 153, January 156).


New records rated this week:

  • Chuck Berry: Chuck (1991-2014 [2017], Dualtone): [r]: A-
  • Scott H. Biram: The Bad Testament (2017, Bloodshot): [r]: B+(**)
  • The Brother Brothers: Tugboats E.P. (2017, self-released, EP): [r]: B-
  • Burning Ghosts: Reclamation (2017, Tzadik): [cdr]: B+(***)
  • The Deslondes: Hurry Home (2017, New West): [r]: B
  • Dalton Domino: Corners (2017, Lightning Rod): [r]: B+(**)
  • Justin Townes Earle: Kids in the Street (2017, New West): [r]: B+(**)
  • Eliane Elias: Dance of Time (2017, Concord): [r]: B+(*)
  • The Four Bags: Waltz (2017, NCM East): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Kate Gentile: Mannequins (2016 [2017], Skirl): [cd]: B+(***)
  • Joseph Huber: The Suffering Stage (2017, self-released): [r]: B+(***)
  • Kano: Made in the Manor (2016, Parlophone): [r]: B+(***)
  • Alex Maguire/Nikolas Skordas Duo: Ships and Shepherds (2016 [2017], Slam, 2CD): [cd]: B
  • Molly Miller Trio: The Shabby Road Recordings (2017, self-released): [cd]: B
  • Jeff Parker: Slight Freedom (2013-14 [2016], Eremite): [bc]: B+(**)
  • Jeremy Rose: Within & Without (2016 [2017], Earshift Music): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Samo Salamon Sextet: The Colours Suite (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): [cd]: A-
  • Shinyribs: I Got Your Medicine (2016 [2017], Mustard Lid): [r]: B+(*)
  • Starlito & Don Trip: Step Brothers Three (2017, Grind Hard): [r]: A-
  • Sylvan Esso: What Now (2017, Loma Vista): [r]: A-
  • Trombone Shorty: Parking Lot Symphony (2017, Blue Note): [r]: B-
  • The Vampires: The Vampires Meet Lionel Loueke (2016 [2017], Earshift Music): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Colter Wall: Colter Wall (2017, Young Mary's): [r]: A-
  • Young Thug: Beautiful Thugger Girls (2017, 300/Atlantic): [r]: B+(***)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • The Rolling Stones: Some Girls: Live in Texas '78 (1978 [2017], Eagle Rock): [r]: B+(**)
  • The Rolling Stones: Totally Stripped: Paris (1995 [2017], Eagle Rock): [r]: B+(**)

Old music rated this week:

  • Joshua Abrams: Natural Information (2010-12 [2014], Eremite): [bc]: A-
  • Joshua Abrams: Represencing (2011 [2014], Eremite): [bc]: B+(**)
  • Joshua Abrams: Magnetoception (2013 [2015], Eremite): [bc]: B+(***)
  • Steve Pistorius & the Mahogany Hall Stompers: 'Taint No Sin (1989 [1991], GHB): [r]: A-


Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Sheryl Bailey & Harvie S: Plucky Strum Departure (Whaling City Sound)
  • Silke Eberhard Trio: The Being Inn (Intakt)
  • Aruán Ortiz: Cubanism: Piano Solo (Intakt)

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