John McLaughlin

I was a teenager when I first saw John McLaughlin play live. It was at The Stone on Broadway in San Francisco. The venue is no longer there - I think it's a strip club now, but as a concert venue it was a great place to see a live show. I went with some high school buddies and we got in early, so we sat directly in front of the stage - we so happened to position ourselves to be directly in front of McLaughlin when he and his band came out.

It was in 1985 or '86 and McLaughlin was touring with his 80's incarnation of Mahavishnu (he had dropped the "Orchestra" from the band name by this time). It was also the period where he was playing mostly guitar synthesizer - the Synclavier II - but on that evening he stuck with his Les Paul for the entire show. No complaints about that from me...I even remember at one point, in between songs, someone in the crowd yelled out "Where's your Synclavier???" and someone else responded "He doesn't need it!". McLaughlin just smiled and launched his band into the next tune.

Until this show, I had only heard McLaughlin on vinyl recordings of the original Mahavishnu Orchestra as well as some of his other acoustic albums such as "My Goal's Beyond" and "Friday Night in San Francisco", recorded with Al Di Meola and Paco De Lucia. My guitar teacher turned me on to McLaughlin a few years before this show. I knew that McLaughlin was a respected player and technically very impressive, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw that night at The Stone.

What blew me away was not only the technical precision and speed at which McLaughlin could play, but the overall mastery he seemed to have over the instrument. Since we were sitting literally a few feet in front of him for the entire show I was able to focus on this. The way he positioned his left hand - almost at a right angle to the actual fretboard - made it appear that he was "controlling" the guitar rather than merely playing it. He almost never looked at what he was doing; he played with his head tilted sideways and his eyes closed most of the time while playing the most instricate, technical - and musical - solos that really complemented what the rest of the band were playing. It appeared effortless to him even though what he was playing was beyond description. I felt that evening as though I was watching a real master.

And he had a killing band too - a young Jonas Hellborg on bass, Danny Gottlieb playing drums and Bill Evans on sax. I think the keyboardist was Mitch Foreman but I can't quite remember. It was essentially the lineup he used on his mid-80's Mahavishnu albums ("Mahavishnu" and "Adventures in Radioland").

Since then, I've seen McLaughlin play in various formats: solo acoustic, with a group of Indian musicians, and in a few other electric bands - most recently with Chick Corea and Christan McBride in the Five Peace Band. I have enjoyed everything he's done, no matter the format, and he still impresses beyond belief but more than that - he seems to reinvent himself with each new band he plays in. His style, while unmistakenly "McLaughlin", adapts to the situation and the players around him. To me, this says something about a guitarist that many today consider THE elder statesman of the instrument...he doesn't have to adapt for anyone, but he does so for the sake of the music he's creating.

The original Mahavishnu Orchestra records still blow me away every time I hear them. This was a band I would have loved to see play live, and those I know who have seen them tell me that it was something like a religious experience. I've also enjoyed his other offerings since the Mahavishnu years - during the early 80s he recorded a couple of albums that I enjoyed very much: "Music Spoken Here" and "Belo Horizonte", and he composed and recorded his "Guitar Concerto" with the London Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas). In the 90s he did some amazing work with his "Heart of Things" band. These are just some of my favorites, but they all feature John in various musical formats and he breezes through each effortlessly.

My favorite CD came out in 1996 and is called "The Promise". John plays with a variety of musicians on this one - a different group of players on each track - and the results are amazing. Some standouts are a version of "Django" that he plays with Jeff Beck, "Jazz Jungle" - a 15-minute jam featuring Mike Brecker (worth the cost of the CD all on its own), and a tune called "Thelonius Melodius" with Joey DeFrancesco playing the B3. This CD sort of sums up all of McLaughlin's career, to me. Each group of players playing at the top of their game, and John content not to be the focus but happy to support the others and let them shine through.

I guess he may have learned this from playing with Miles Davis all those years ago; Miles had a way of nurturing new talent and "discovering" many musicians who, today, are considered Jazz greats: Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, John Scofield, McLaughlin...the list goes on. Many of these players went on to nurture and introduce new talent to the jazz world, and we can see that continuing today. Many of the musicians that played with McLaughlin have gone on to respected (if not entirely successful) careers of their own.

And even though John is pushing 70 as of the time of this post, he shows no signs of slowing down. His current band - The 4th Dimension - just released a new CD ("To The One") and the music is inspired as always. While I wish I could have been around for the original Mahavishnu Orchestra tours, I am glad I got turned on to him when I did and was able to catch that show at The Stone. I've seen hundreds of live shows in my lifetime but very few made any lasting impression as this one. Come to think of it, few guitarists have made as much an impression on me as John McLauhglin.

Here's an old clip of John playing "Spain" with Paco de Lucia:


...and here's a short clip of Mahavishnu in the mid-80's. This is around the time I first saw McLaughlin play live:

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion

What better time than the holidays for a little shameless self-promotion? :)


A few years back my jazz quartet recorded a CD of Christmas tunes. The CD is called "Yuletide Jazz" and is available on cdbaby.com, iTunes, and amazon.com. We're quite proud of this recording, and I hope you get the chance to hear and enjoy it! We took some well-known Christmas carols (and a few not-so-well-known ones) and rearranged them in various jazz settings from bop to swing to latin, etc.

The musicians on the recording are:

Alex Bootzin - piano
Steve Cassinelli - bass
Ruben Salcido - sax/flute
Kevin McAuliffe - drums

...as well as some appearances by friends and fellow players.

It also makes a great Christmas present for the jazz fanatic in your life (we all have one, right?)

So take a look for "Yuletide Jazz" by Nucleus. Thus ends the self-promotion for the year. Happy Holidays!

iTunes "Holdouts"?

Because of the long-awaited release of the Beatles' catalog on iTunes last week, I've been reading a lot of articles bemoaning the rest of the iTunes "Holdouts" (artists whose recordings are either not available on iTunes, or who only have a limited selection of their music available through the channel). Among the various artists mentioned are AC/DC, Garth Brooks, Kid Rock, Bob Seger, Tool, Def Leppard, as well as some of the early recordings by Black Sabbath and Aerosmith. Now I will admit to not knowing much (okay, pretty much nothing) about how the music business operates, so most of this is coming from a vantage point of complete ignorance, but I'm finding the discussion mostly focusing on the artists themselves and I wonder if that's misdirected.

The most-cited example I've been reading about lately is AC/DC's Angus Young declaring that their music was never meant to be purchased as individual tracks...that they meant for the entire album to be enjoyed, and that you don't break up an artist's work to sell piecemeal. OK - I can get with some of that statement, if it weren't just a little disingenuous (I remember being able to buy 45's of AC/DC's hits back in the day...isn't that akin to "breaking up an album" and "selling the tracks piecemeal"?) But other artists (prog-rockers Tool, for example) stress that their albums are meant to be listened all the way through, and not as individual tracks. Again, I can get with this statement as well - but iTunes does let you sell albums in their entirety instead of offering single-track downloads...so that argument doesn't really hold water either. But my point is that most of the articles I've read put the focus squarely on the shoulders of the artists themselves, and ask "why are you still holding out"?

But I'm not sure how much of this is up to the artists themselves. For example, the Black Sabbath early catalog (the first eight albums with Ozzy Osbourne on vocals) is not available on iTunes, but the rest of their catalog is. Ditto with Aerosmith - last time I checked, their early output is unavailable in digital format. So, is this selective availability really the artists' own choice? Or does this have to do with the record companies not wanting to sell the (more popular) parts of those catalogs on the (less expensive) iTunes store? Why sell an album online for $9.99 if you can still charge $15 through more traditional outlets? I haven't researched this, but is the iTunes distribution agreement that prohibitive that the record companies don't want to pay Apple's fees? And, does the artist have any say whatsoever about which portions of their discography can be sold digitally? I mean these as actual questions, by the way, and if anyone has any insight, please feel free to leave a comment.

And then we have the strange case of the "here today gone tomorrow" selections like the Frank Zappa catalog. Frank released his albums through his own record label. His catalog was available on iTunes for a short time, and then all of a sudden it was gone. I've subsequently read that Gail Zappa (Frank's widow) pulled the albums off the service because of the poor audio quality afforded by the iTunes compression scheme. OK, fair enough, but really - if that was the case, then why did they ever make it to iTunes in the first place? Did Gail all of a sudden realize after the fact that the sound quality of compressed audio is not 100% on par with a CD? Or did the catalog just not sell very well in the digital world and she realized that the CDs would sell better if left whole? One hates to be cynical...but I really think that, if Frank were alive today, he'd have no qualms about saying "I can make more money by selling CDs through my own label".

So I suspect that we still have iTunes holdouts not necessarily because Angus Young thinks his art should be left completely whole. Unless I'm informed otherwise, I would suggest lobbying the record companies if you want to be able to download your favorite holdout's catalog through iTunes.

The Travesty of "Smooth Jazz"

Back in 1990 I had the pleasure of taking a class at San Francisco State on the history of Jazz. It was taught by Grover Sales who had a unique and personal history with the music, and who taught the subject with more passion than I've seen from a teacher in many years. Mr Sales has since passed away but here's an obit from the San Francisco Chronicle; he was one of a kind and I'll never forget how much I learned in that class. And I still recall the first statement he made on day one of class: "Jazz is NOT popular music". I've come to regard this as the Grover Sales Axiom.


Jazz has never really reached the mass market in the same way as popular music has, so it was probably only natural that some day someone would try to combine the two worlds of popular music and jazz to create a more marketable sub genre of Jazz.


When Miles Davis recorded his landmark "Bitches Brew" album in 1970, he was regarded as the first to meld (or "fuse") the improvisational aspects of Jazz with modern instrumentation and styles that were popular at the time (yes, I know this point is debatable...the CTI label was churning out pop/jazz music around the same time, but Miles took it to another level). Many critics complained that Davis sold out with this new direction he was taking, but that was Miles: he never stuck with the same style of music for very long. He was always pushing, always changing styles. However, when I listen to the "Bitches Brew"-era Miles, I still hear an honesty of a musician unafraid to push boundaries and challenge a listener's expectations. And I can still hear the improvisation, freedom, and interplay with his band that (to me) are the hallmarks of what Jazz is really all about. Miles never sold out; he was always charting new directions until the day he died.

The trend that Miles started was continued by other popular "fusion" bands in the early 1970s, most notably by supergroups like the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever. The essentials of Jazz remained firmly in place on these recordings and these groups did much to expand on the groundwork that Miles had laid. However, like anything good that sticks around for a while, someone will come along and try to exploit it even further and end up creating a monster. It's arguable as to when exactly the genre of "smooth jazz" was created, but some of the earliest groups to capitalize on the sound (such as Spyro Gyra and The Jeff Lorber Fusion) started around the mid-1970s.

The difference to me between these bands and the other Fusion giants of the previous years was several-fold: the improvising was toned down, the music was unadventurous and not challenging to the listener, and the commercialism was turned way, way up. Probably the most egregious examples of the "new fusion" were guys like Chuck Mangione, Earl Klugh, and even (as much as I hate to say it) George Benson - a brilliant jazz guitarist who ventured into the "crossover" territory for years before making his money and then finally returning to his jazz roots.

The smooth jazz trend continued into the early 1980s with the formation of GRP Records, a label started by Dave Grusin and which featured primarily (though not exclusively) smooth jazz artists such as Lee Ritenour and Larry Carlton, turning smooth jazz into a multi-million dollar enterprise. But nobody is entitled to wear the crown of smooth jazz as much as one Kenny Gorelick, formerly a member of the Jeff Lorber Fusion band - later to be known as Kenny G.

Kenny G is every musician's favorite target to criticize - not because of his success (I wouldn't begrudge anyone who has "made it" in the music field...more power to them), but because he continuously promotes the same banal, mind-numbing, dumbed-down and most sterile music since I once heard a muzak version of "Play That Funky Music" in a supermarket. And Kenny G has indeed made millions off this genre. His albums have sold many millions, many times over. Compare this with the pioneers of jazz who came decades before him: Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk...even going back further to Bix Beiderbecke, Jelly Roll Morton, James P Johnson, Louis Armstrong...I am willing to bet that all of these masters combined could not outsell the tripe that Kenny G puts out year after year. Pat Metheny (one of my top 10 favorite guitarists) posted a now-famous diatribe about Kenny G, after KG cut a track of himself playing over a Louis Armstrong record...which Metheny basically considered a sacrilege.

Nobody understands this market better than Kenny himself. There is definitely an audience for background instrumental pop that doesn't challenge or offend, doesn't force the listener to really listen, and I don't have a problem with anyone who purchases this dreck - only don't call it Jazz because it's not Jazz. Smooth jazz, as a genre, to me means: boring chord changes (usually a variant of a II-V-I sequence repeated ad nauseum), boring and repetitive solos that don't tell a story or go anywhere, and no interplay among the musicians. In fact, a lot of the examples of this genre sound like sampled rhythms; I wonder if some of them even use real players. The biggest issue for me is that this is what passes today as "jazz". It's not Jazz...just apply the Grover Sales Axiom: Kenny G is popular and he plays "smooth jazz". The Axiom says "Jazz is NOT popular music". I have therefore proven that smooth jazz is not really "jazz" :)

Having said all of the above, I will admit that there are some seriously good players in the smooth jazz arena. I've seen a few of them live, playing in mostly non-"smooth" situations, and some of them can hold their own with any type of music. Lee Ritenour is one of them. Pianist David Benoit is another. I just think it's unfortunate that the music-buying public probably wouldn't buy their stuff if they played more challenging music, so they continue to record the stuff that will sell. Occasionally, however, they will venture into some real Jazz territory; these albums may not sell as much but it's nice for a change.

So call it what it is: instrumental pop, improvisational R&B, instrumental-lite...please just don't call it Jazz. Go back and listen to some of the old masters mentioned above and you'll be able to hear the difference. And again, if you're really into Kenny G and I've offended, my apologies. This blog entry was just meant to inform and I hope I've done that.

A friend and fellow musician, Tony Frye, recently posted on his Facebook wall that 80% of the "Jazz" section of his local used record store was taken up by Kenny G and the Manhattan Transfer. That's a sad commentary, and his post is what inspired me to write this blog entry (thanks, Tony!). By the way, Tony keeps an excellent music blog here - check it out!

A Morning at the Opera

The fifth season of the Metropolitan Opera's HD transmissions started today, with Richard Wagner's "Das Rheingold" broadcast live to 1500 movie theaters in 46 participating countries. If you have never been to an opera but are interested in trying it out, I absolutely recommend this as a way to experience it for the first time. Depending on where you live, there's a good chance that your local theater multiplex is a participant in the program. And for about $24, the price can't be beat. Here's a link to the Metropolitan Opera HD website which lists all the upcoming performances and more information.

Because of the live simulcast, the start time for these broadcasts here on the West Coast is usually 10am - earlier if the opera is especially long (an upcoming simulcast of "Die Walkure", scheduled to last 5 1/2 hours, will start at 9am). This season, the Met is simulcasting 12 of their operas during this season; up from 9 last year. The numbers speak to the success of this venture: 2.4 million tickets were purchased during last years' simulcasts of 9 operas while a typical attendance figure for a season at the Met is around 800,000.

The technology is amazing when you consider this is a live simulcast going out all over the world. The picture and sound quality is incredible, and yes there are subtitles so you can follow the stories. Instead of just fixing a camera on the stage, you are brought up close to each singer; this lets you see things you can't normally catch in a live performance. It's really the best seat in the house as far as I'm concerned.

I wonder how (or if) the advent of these simulcasts has affected actual attendance at the Met, or at any other opera house in the States. For myself (and I've written before about my increasing dislike of attending live performances these days), I know that I'm more apt to attend a Met simulcast (and spend $24 per ticket) than to trudge up to the War Memorial and pay upwards of $100 for a decent seat, not including parking, etc. I know that this is not helpful financially for my local Opera Company but they receive some support from me in other ways. (By the way, the SF Opera has done a few "opera in the movie theater" functions as well, but they are not live and they don't have the reach of the Met in terms of making their offerings available at your local multiplex).

Do I really want to drop $1000 on one ticket to see the Ring Cycle next summer at the War Memorial, or wait for the Met to show them at my local theater for a tenth of the price? Or wil the SF Opera film their Ring cycle and make them available on blu-ray so we can enjoy them at home, at our leisure? I'm willing to bet that the Met will do this after the season is up; the production today was one worth seeing again for sure.

I remember reading about a time over 20 years ago now when supertitles were first introduced to the Met as well as to SF Opera and other regional houses; patrons threatened to pull their subscriptions, conductors refused to conduct, and this was perceived to be the end of opera as they knew it. Instead, it opened up the art form for a whole new audience who couldn't follow opera before this. I suspect the same will happen as a result of these live simulcasts, and hopefully in-house attendance will increase not only for the Met but for many local theater companies. I think this is probably the best thing to come along for opera since the introduction of supertitles...it's certainly a game-changer.



Again, if opera seems totally alien to you, give the Met simulcasts a try - you might be surprised at how much you like opera after all!

Brazilian Guitarist Chico Pinheiro

Every so often when I'm listening to the radio while driving, something catches my ear to such an extent that I have to literally pull the car over and concentrate on what I'm hearing. Then I usually will jot down the information that satellite radio provides so that I can search it out more on my own.

This happened to me again just the other night. I was driving home from a long day at work, and I was listening to the jazz station on XM/Sirius. I heard an arrangement of Steve Wonder's "As", from his seminal Songs in the Key of Life album, and it was played in a brilliant latin arrangement by a guitarist I had never heard of before: Chico Pinheiro from Brazil. I went home that evening and looked him up on YouTube, iTunes, etc...and have been digging his stuff all weekend long (in between rooting for the SF Giants winning the NL West, and bemoaning the state of the SF 49ers...but that's for another type of blog...).

While I couldn't find any videos of Pinheiro's arrangement of "As", I did find a video of him playing another of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs: "Send One Your Love" from the "Secret Life of Plants" LP (come to think of it, I don't think I have a non-favorite Stevie Wonder song). Turn down the lights, put on some headphones and turn up the volume (the sound is a little low on this one). I especially like the soloing he does about 2 minutes in, as he weaves his lines around what the singer is doing...enjoy:




I just really dig this guy's style of playing. I found a few more videos that showcased his band playing live. Here's one more for your enjoyment - he's playing electric on this one (looks like some kind of Gibson ES jazz guitar series...I didn't look too closely). He can certainly hold his own on electric as well. I don't really know what the song is about - and I think I'm probably wrong in thinking she is really singing about "Cassius Clay" the boxer, but I'll just claim ignorance of the language and instead enjoy the groove and the playing on this one:





What really bums me out is that this band just played at Yoshi's in Oakland about a month ago - I would have loved to see that show.

Carlos Santana - The Man, The Formula

"Wow, he has lots of other records besides Supernatural". (I actually overheard this at Tower Records about 10 years ago when I was standing across from some young ladies who were leafing through Santana CDs).

Carlos Santana is a musician I have always admired.

I first got turned on to his thing when I was about 12. A friend's older sister had the "Moonflower" album and we listened to it over and over. I had never heard anything like it and I was immediately hooked. There are some guitar players that you can recognize after hearing just a few notes, and Santana is one of them for me. Since then, I've seen him live numerous times and have enjoyed his vast catalogue dating back to the late 60s, through some of his more experimental phases in the 70s ("Love, Devotion, Surrender", anyone?) and even through his (sometimes) sub-par 80s output.

What I think I admire the most about him is not only as a guitarist (though he still ranks as one of the best in my book, despite his having lost a little of his technique over the past few years). More than that, I admire his entire approach to music in general. He's always put together the most amazing bands with incredible players and he was always able to inject a little something extra into his playing. Call it spirituality, call it other-worldliness...just don't ask me to try and describe what I mean beyond this, because it will come off sounding stupid. Suffice it to say that there's always been an indescribable quality about Carlos the musician/guitarist that, to me, has placed him above most of the other professional musicians out there. I never once got the feeling that Carlos ever played a single note without really meaning it.

Most younger kids these days probably know Santana from his recent string of hit albums that he's recorded under the aegis of legendary music producer Clive Davis. Mr. Davis has certainly hit on a formula that has clicked: team Carlos with a lineup of modern-day pop singers and reach that elusive crossover market. Santana's recordings over the past 10 years have been his best selling of his career. "Supernatural", released in 1999, has sold over 15 million copies. I haven't seen the actual statistics but I think this has to be his best-selling release to date.

I can't honestly say I was a huge fan of the Supernatural-era Santana, or of the several albums that have followed over the past 10 years (all of which followed the same Clive Davis formula). To me, these albums sound over-produced and over-sterilized. It's as if the Santana band - still firing on all cylinders - got together with a bunch of top-40 singers to record some new tunes, and then Carlos would come in after the fact and lay down some random guitar tracks over what was already recorded. Still, I have to say that his playing never really lost that indescribable something on these albums. He still played everything as if he meant it. And...good for him for reaching what's probably the financial pinnacle of his recording career - if anyone deserves such success, it's Carlos.

All of which brings me to his latest release, "Guitar Heaven". Again, this one follows the same Clive Davis formula but on this release Carlos and his band cover classic guitar tunes from Led Zeppelin, Cream, the Rolling Stones, etc. Some of these covers are done pretty well ("Sunshine of Your Love" stands out for me so far), while some of them are what-were-you-thinking awful (AC/DC's "Back in Black", which is recorded with someone named NAS who raps the lyrics with what I swear sounds like the auto-tuned cast of Glee singing the choruses...just terrible). At this point, I think the Clive Davis formula has grown stale.

As a guitarist, Carlos' chops are not what they used to be...that's been apparent over the past few albums - but they seem even more sloppy on this new release. What's worse, though, is that I don't get that feeling that Carlos means what he's playing any more. Even more so than the past few albums, this one really sounds like Carlos is simply phoning it in. It doesn't really have the identity of the Santana band. Maybe this is what naturally happens after you've been through the Clive Davis machine for 10+ years; gotta appeal to the American Idol-buying public or your career is kaput-ski. I think that's a sad place to see someone like Carlos end up.

I like to think that maybe there's still enough creativity in the man to break out of this rut and record a new album of his own music, with only his own band again (please, no more "guest artists" on every track), and produced by someone else other than Clive Davis. One can only hope. In the meantime, I think I'll listen to Moonflower again.

Live Shows - Worth the Cost?

I recently sat down to watch a performance of Don Giovanni by the San Francisco Opera on my local PBS station. I thoroughly enjoyed the opera, but more than that it was the experience of watching it on a 52" HD screen with digital sound and in the comfort of my own living room. I didn't have to negotiate my way through downtown traffic, pay for parking, get hit up for spare change on the street, or pay $100 for a seat. And I could see the singers up close, noticing those nuances I would have missed in the opera house (sitting hundreds of feet from the stage), watching their facial expressions conveying what the words alone can't.

In this era of high-definition, big screen TVs, Blu-Ray discs and digital sound, is a live performance really worth the cost any more? I've read elsewhere how affordable, high-quality home theater systems may be responsible in part for declining movie theater ticket receipts, and I think live music performances may suffer from this as well.

There is something to be said about being with a group of like-minded people, gathered together to experience a performance of live music of any style. And I know that many musicians rely on live performances as part of their incomes, and that ticket prices for the opera only cover a portion of their production costs. I know and appreciate all of this, and there are still instances when I will pay to see a live show no matter the cost. But increasingly I find myself distracted by the more unpleasant elements of taking in a live show and am more and more inclined these days to stay home and pop in a DVD.

In the case of rock shows (and maybe it's just my bad luck), I always find myself seated either in front of or directly behind the most inebriated idiot in the house, and who makes it his responsibility (yes, it's always a "he") to let everyone in a 20-seat radius know exactly what he thinks of everything. As I get older that sort of thing just annoys me more and more and it distracts from my enjoyment of the music. Then there's the outrageous food/drink prices, parking hassles, and those "convenience fees" of at least $10 added to the cost of each ticket. Maybe I'm getting cranky but these things are making me become more choosy about which rock shows I will pay for these days.

I even recently decided against going to see Rush on their most recent tour. Now Rush is one band that I almost never miss; their live shows are incredible and I've seen them at least a dozen times. But I consciously skipped this tour because I can guarantee that there will be a Blu-Ray disc of this show released soon after their tour ends. Also, for probably 90% of the concert I find myself staring at the large video screens as I'm usually too far from the stage to see anything...so why not just do this at home?

Speaking of video screens, I find it interesting how the SF Opera has installed video screens in their balcony section so that you can see the singers and the translations up close as if you were watching the same thing at home on your HD screen. This serves a dual purpose, I suspect: I'm sure they film these performances as they appear on the video screens, so that they will have a DVD-ready performance to sell (or lease to PBS) long after the live performance. I'm sure the Don Giovanni that I watched the other evening was exactly what the folks in the balcony section were seeing at the Opera House.

Live musical performances can still be thrilling, and as I mentioned I will still pay to support my favorite artists or local musical organizations ... just not as often any more.

I Miss Tower Records

I love iTunes and I can't stand iTunes.

I buy a lot of music from iTunes. Since I got my first iPod in 2003 (I'm on my third now), I've been steadily building up my iTunes library with CDs from my collection and augmenting same with tons of albums purchased from Apple's online store. Even though I've been working in I.T. for the past 17 years, I'm still amazed at the fact that all of this content is available at the click of a mouse. Something about purchasing goods online is so tempting when you don't have to reach for your wallet and pull out your credit card each time you make a purchase (it's easy to forget that your card is getting dinged with each track you download). And for me, buying music has been an obsession since I could afford my first LP from paper route money (Led Zeppelin's "Song Remains the Same" double-album purchased at Musicland). This obsession continues in the digital age.

Still, I have to say I do miss the experience of shopping in a record store. For my money, nothing beats the experience of walking into a shop and seeing miles of rows of CDs of every genre, right there for the browsing - and it's specifically the browsing that I miss.

I used to make my way through Tower Records first to the "Rock/Pop" CD section. Starting alphabetically I could wander through the offerings...AC/DC (anything I don't already have?)...Black Sabbath (why don't they ever carry "Master of Reality" when you really want it?)...Depeche Mode (meh, walk on by)...etc...

It was the browsing experience that would get me feeling all adventurous and willing to try new things. It was how I discovered the discography of artists that I was just learning to get into. Most of all, I was in control and could easily wander back if something on a "Santana" album cover jogged something in my memory and made me want to wander back to the "L" section for some reason. The visuals of all the available CDs let me scan everything within eyeshot and take notice of what jogged my memory up there in the "S" section...(oh, yeah, I always wondered what this Living Colour album was like).

You just can't do the same in the iTunes store. For the most part, you have to know what you are looking for. You can't just look through everything and then decide. Sure, they will push whatever top-10 garbage is currently on their best-seller charts but if you really want to dig deeper than Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus you really have to search. And searching the iTunes store is a less-than-perfect experience.

Still - for all its faults, I love the iTunes store and will most likely continue to buy most of my music there. Yes, it pisses me off that some of my favorites are still unavailable (the Frank Zappa catalogue was there for a brief time but all too brief for me to really dig in), but for the most part I find it very satisfactory.

I still miss Tower Records, though.