since I have a few minutes before my ridiculously puny Lean Cuisine pizza cools off, I feel it's time to vent some sadness, disappointment, and frustration.

As if I've ever needed a reason to wait....BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA....I AM YOUR DARK CLOUD, BABY.... (Ok, it ain't that bad)

In the past few weeks, several artists/bands that I like have released new albums -

Oasis
Better than Ezra
Damien Jurado
Bruce Springsteen
Ryan Adams

my response to all of these has been a collective "meh?" As a fellow musician/music junkie (High Fidelty could have been written about me) I am always looking for something that sounds good - but in these cases, I don't think any of the albums live up to their predecesors.

Ryan Adams (who's former band, Whiskeytown, was the one I took for my online poker handle) has done the best - a bit of a return to the roots and his female backup singers remind of me Catlain Cary back when WT was going strong. Damien and Bruce I need to listen to more closely - I'm sure there's a gem or two on there.

But I don't know what to say about Oasis and BTE - actually, BTE's albums tend to start out a bit slow on me and pick up with repeated listenings - so we'll see. That Oasis album though....major suckage - Noel G. was the king of songwriting in the mid 90's - that band couldn't miss - christ, their B'sides on Masterplan were better then 90 percent of the drivel in the world, but unfortunately, they were better then this album too - he's letting too many of his bandmates write now and the sweeps, the hooks, the choruses are all gone - crapola.

Then there is the matter of the solo album - - yrs. ago I acquired some medium end equipment and can record a medium ended album - go here for some recordings done a couple yrs. ago - I wrote 3, 4, and 6 and sang on them as well as track 1 -

but the band is having a bit of an inertia rut lately, and quite frankly, I want my own record anyways - nothing worse then doing a solo gig and having 5 people ask if you have a CD and you say no...

but I keep kicking it around - should it be like Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska/Matthew Ryan's Concussion? - acoustic, dark, stark, - or should I be trying to do band arrangements of all that crap.

In the end, I think I'll go with the first - save band arrangements for later and just make music to slit your wrists to - LOL - and I wanna do a cover of Townes Van Zandt's "Lungs" - but no singing right now - no good with a cold.

Ok, lamo baby ass pizza is cool enough to eat...3 hrs. till my weekend starts - 4 days off, baby.

RB