Hello! If you have already commented on some of my pages, or intend to do so, but haven't yet visited this page, now's the time to speak up! Remember, you are not obliged to contribute to this page, but keep in mind that this is necessary for the other readers of this site - a little personal information on you and your tastes will greatly aid them in understanding and evaluating your actual comments.

You can tell anything, as long as it's not five pages long and doesn't involve any intimate disclosures, reports on top secret government policies or adult site banners. However, this is the kind of information that would be particularly useful:

I. Personal data. Name, age, country and city of birth and residence, social status, etc.

II. Personal non-music related interests. How do you escape the misery of this life now and how are you planning to do so in the future?

III. Music-related questions (the most important part). Your musical tastes: favourite and most despised bands/artists/musical genres. Are you more of a branching-out eclecticist or a more restricted fan? What are, or would be, your criteria for rating music (if you have them at all, that is?) What's your attitude about music reviewing? Would you like to have a site of your own? Are you a musician? What instruments do you play or would like to play? Who's your favourite bass player? What colour are the socks of George W. Bush (oops, sorry, wrong program). You get my drift.

So, be the first one on your block to win the Certified Music Review Commentator tag! As for me, future plans involve putting up links from your previous (or future) comments to this page so that everybody could easily access this personal info from any of your comments. This will be a hassle, of course, but it might be worth the entire game. So enter the game!

Mail your personal info here

The following people have responded so far: Kevin Baker, Michael Battaglia, Jeff Blehar, Rich Bunnell, Richard C. Dickison, Nick Einhorn, Ben Greenstein, Nick Karn, Joel Larsson, David Lyons, Philip Maddox, John McFerrin, Thomas McKeown, Jeff Melchior, Dan Miller, Jon Morse, Ryan Mulligan, Derrick Stuart, Lyolya Svidrigajlova, Fredrik Tydal, Sergey Zhilkin. My deepest thanks to all of them.

I. Kevin Baker   
15
Texas!!!!!!!!

II. I greatly enjoy reading, and following Indecision 2000 has been very memorable.  School occupies much of my time though :-(

III. My favorite band changes quite often; one week the Beatles, one week the Stones, next week Led Zeppelin and so on.  I absolutely hate rap, but most else is fair game for me to listen to.  My taste is pretty eclectic, but I'm a bit prejudiced towards the Byrds, Three Doors Down (not that they'd ever appear on this site), and ZZ Top since I'm from Texas.  Generally speaking, my opinion of music is not so much centered on qualities of the songs or the band beyond how much I actually like the music.  Originality and uniqueness do sometimes play a part in my opinions, but I love a lot of not particularly groundbreaking music just because...wel, I dunno, I guess it just rubs me the right way.  I am learning to play guitar, I have my own site (www.oocities.org/andreea_n_byrdsfan/index.html), John Entwhistle was a fabulous bassist, and go Dubyah!!!!!!!!!  Sorry, it' that Texas instinct again.

13.12.2000

I. Name: Michael Battaglia
Age: 21
Country: USA
Birth/Residence: New Jersey
Social Status: Um, does pharmacy student still living at home count as an answer?

II. Non Music Stuff: Hm, I guess school is one of those things, as much as it drives me crazy half the time.  I read an awful lot and try to read as many things as I can in science-fiction or literature (no Russian authors yet alas, but I'm working on it . . . I figure I should try War and Peace at least once).  And even though they rot my brain, I read comics too.  To round out my meager life, especially since I don't want that much TV, I try my hand at being an amateur writer.  When all else fails, I work at a library, when I should be working in a pharmacy.  Oh well.

III: Music Stuff: Here's the fun part.  I really do try to listen to almost anything, I've got a general record collection of a few albums of just about every band you review, though I'm more slanted toward the late seventies and beyond.  My favorite band is probably REM, for the same reason you love the Beatles so, it was the band that got me into music and I know they're not perfect but as far as my subjective little head is concerned, they can do no wrong.  Other than that I'll give just about anything a try, I love Genesis and Bob Dylan and the Beatles and the Who and Elvis Costello but I listen to a lot of obscure 80's/90's bands like Neutral Milk Hotel, Pavement and Yo La Tengo.  For some reasons I can't really get into the blues or rap, it just all sounds the same to me.  The only genre I really find myself disliking is the whole "manufactured" boy/girl/thing band thing because to me it seems to be the total opposite of what music is about, though once in a while a song stands out as forgettably catchy.  I figure everyone's allowed at least one good song.  So I guess that makes me the "branching out eclecticist" type.   Go me.

My criteria for rating music and music reviewing are basically the same.  In my little world (and on the review page I tried to work on once before school got in the way) any album that contains a series of absolutely perfect songs, all of which are memorable and enjoyable, deserves a ten out of ten.  So I'm more the subjective type, I don't know enough about music to attempt to be objective, I can barely make out melody or chords or any of that stuff.  I'm more a lyrics guy, so they could be banging on pots for all I know, if the words are good, I'm sold.  So when I did attempt to write some reviews, I mostly just described why I like the song and I figure if the reasons why I like a song coincided with someone else's, then they might go out and try it.  One day I'll get my site up and running (I got about a hundred decent reviews right now) and . . . and you'll all see.  You'll all see how good I am.  Or not.

But as you probably figured I am not a musician, I barely know which way to hold a guitar and I wouldn't know two chords if they stood on either side of me and slapped me.  But I figure that shouldn't stop me from enjoying music and how it sounds, I may not know why I like a song, but the fun's in trying to explain.  For me at least, you might not be finding it as fun reading this.

06.12.2000

I. Personal Info:  

Name: Jeff Blehar
Age: 20
Country: USA
Birth/Residence: well it's kind of hard to hide since (see line below).
Social Status: Student at Johns Hopkins University

II. Non Music-Related Bunkum:

I'm an avid historian-in-training of totalitarian/authoritarian regimes (esp. the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany), and a voracious reader of pretentious literature.  Favorite authors: Thomas Pynchon (natch), Woolf, David Foster Wallace, and the great 19th-century Russians (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Pushkin, Chekhov), who I have a soft spot for.  Also a writer of sorts.  I enjoy public speaking, debating, and any sort of opportunity to deliver philosophical or political polemics (I love fighting over stuff which is so pointless).  I fear and distrust computers: I don't understand them, and even more inexcusably, they don't understand me.

In the future I see myself doing Lord-know-what.  College professor?  Eminence grise-like political advisor?  Music reviewer?  Rock star?  I've seriously considered each possibility, and I'm just vain enough to think I could pull any one of them off.  Hey, you gotta believe in your dreams.

III.  Music-Related Bunkum:

Egads.  I've made a long circuitous journey (okay, relatively long - since 1995) from 60's rock snob to musical eclecticist.  Pretty much every preconceived notion I've had about any genre of music or particular band has been tossed to the wayside as I learn to listen without prejudice and appreciate what's GOOD, not what's hip.  I've been wrong in my prejudices (Fleetwood Mac is shitty cocaine-fueled pop crap, Yes is despicable, Genesis is the scourge of all that is good, all music made after 1990 is worthless, etc.)  too often to have any these days - nothing is bad per se until I've heard it.  And I've heard a lot at this point.  I've got a LOT of CDs (at this count, something like 2000, plus 50+ boxed sets), since when other people buy drugs or clothes I just go and get used discs at the local mega-used CD store (never buy new!). 

My tastes reflect George's in many ways; perhaps that's why I like his site so much.  My collection is HEAVILY skewed towards 60's and 70's rock, with a shameful lack of material from the 1990's, though I'm working to correct these mistakes.  It runs the range from pop to rock to blues to hardcore punk to free jazz to trip-hop, art-rock, prog-rock, and soul/R&B.  The only genres I don't care for are rap and techno, though I won't dismiss them outright; it's just not for me.  I'd place The Beatles, Stones, Who and Dylan right up there in the pantheon of the greatest, although to be honest I can't get too excited about them anymore - my love for them has settled into a comfortable, lived-in appreciation.  I also adore David Bowie up until about 1983 or so, and Elvis Costello and The Clash get my highest Punk/New Wave recommendations, though I highly recommend Graham Parker to anyone who has never heard of him - fabulous stuff.  The music which I'm most excited about moves in shifts; while my critical estimation of groups stays more or less the same, the size of my collection requires me to listen to stuff in "rotation" so if you catch me at different times I'll be grooving to different people - right now I'm slapping myself for ever thinking Genesis were either a) an atrocious pop band or b) an atrocious prog band.  Turns out they were superlative examples of the best of each genre.  I think Led Zeppelin and The Doors are horribly overrated (especially The Doors; while I still enjoy listening to most of Zep's stuff, I can barely make it through a Doors album these days without gagging on the overweening pretentiousness and cheesy Manzarek keyboards, even though I once loved them and own all their LPs).   Randy Newman is criminally underrated, as are The Byrds, who nobody wants to talk about these days.  The only band I currently WORSHIP is Radiohead - although I'm not in a "they can do no wrong" mindset, I really think they're flat-out brilliant in all ways melodic, lyrical, production-wise, etc., and that their last three albums are required purchases for anyone with a passing interest in quality modern music.  I'm also impressed by Blur's (and to a lesser degree Pavement's) versatility and general ability to wring interesting SOUNDS out of their instruments, and R.E.M. are the outstanding American group of the 1980's. 

As an aside, I used to despise prog-rock as the epitome of everything that was unlikeable, smug, pretentious, and overreaching about western rock music, but I've since had to come around and admit that bands like Genesis, Yes, and King Crimson are actually pretty damn good, if not UNBELIEVABLY GREAT like some would say.  And Emerson, Lake & Palmer is still perhaps the worst major group of all time, despite my repeated attempts to assimilate their music.  Ugh.

Generally speaking, my predilections have tended towards art-rock: Bowie, Eno, Roxy Music, Peter Gabriel, VU, The Who's more ambitious work.  This would reflect my general bias towards atmosphere and intellectualized music.  Three things make a song good for me, in no order: melody, production/atmosphere, lyrics.  The first two can be interchangeable if done well enough, but I'm pretty permissive on lyrics.  I rarely listen to the lyrics of a song the first time through, and except in special cases like Dylan, Costello, and The Clash (where the lyrics are 3/4 of the appeal), I'm more than happy if a song has a great melody or feel even if its lyrics are banal.  Lyrics only become a problem when they're forehead-slappingly bad, i.e. when they prevent me from enjoying the song without feeling like a dip.  They can brilliantly enhance a song (and oftentimes do), but it takes a lot for them to detract.  If I may be allowed to contradict myself, I also sometimes like music that is intentionally quirky or difficult - I'd put much of Zappa and the art-rockers and even groups like Pavement and Radiohead into this category, at least partially - music that makes me engage it to understand it.  This is not the same as saying I like strangeness for strangeness' sake - there NEEDS to be something substantial underneath or else it's hopeless crap - but something about my musical head loves offbeat, crazy-sounding music.

Speaking more of music, I'm a musician.  And I'd like to be one professionally, even.  Primarily I'd say I'm a singer with a ridiculous range (I guess naturally my voice falls into that Bono/Thom Yorke archetype, but as far as I know I'm the only person I've met who can (shamefully) sing along to everything Jon Anderson has written in the correct octave without falsetto), but that's only because I trust my voice more than my piano skills (I've been playing since age 5, and I'm pretty good, though nowhere near as accomplished as I should be for that amount of time spent) and my guitar skills (just learning now).  I write and perform, and I have a relentless desire to make music that other people somewhere will get and appreciate - a drive to be famous.  Who knows?  Maybe it'll happen someday.  Probably not.  Either way, playing music is an absolutely crucial factor in my love of music - 9 times out of 10 I gravitate towards songs that I can sing (all part of my incessant tendency to personalize the music I listen to - it's about ME, you see, not about whoever wrote it). 

Best album ever?  Impossible to say, though I've settled on a compromise solution with The Who's Quadrophenia.  But trying to hold me to that would be like trying to nail jelly to a tree, so don't gimme any flack.

Alright then, that's the sweet & lowdown.

12.12.2000

I. At the moment I'm 17 years old, having been born on June 26, 1983. According to my birth certificate, I was born on June 26, 1982, because the morons at the records department were not sufficient in the use of a typewriter and MADE A TYPO ON MY BIRTHDATE. So they think I'm 18, which is good for getting smokes and porn (nah) but annoying with regard to Selective Services and verifying my age for my driver's license (which I should hopefully be getting finally within the month). I live in Milpitas, an annoyingly badly-structured city on the southern tip of California's SF Bay Area, which places me smack-dab in the Silicon Valley, near the strongholds of Ebay, Yahoo, and Intel, and with close to nil of hope of being able to buy a house following college. I'm single and lacking a girlfriend, in large part because of the fact that I attend a non-co-ed all-male school (insert gay jokes [here]) and also because I'm a fairly shy and restricted person around people I don't know.

II. I wouldn't really call life a "misery," just more of an "itch." Kind of annoying sometimes, but nothing to get worked up about. I'm a huuuuuge fan of The Simpsons, having watched it since it was a short on the Tracey Ullman show (keep in mind that I was FIVE at the time) and having been a dedicated fan ever since then. I'm also addicted to Saturday Night Live, hit-and-miss as it is these days (there has never been a show surrounded with so many interesting backing stories), Futurama, which is a hell of a lot funnier than Simpsons has been for the past three seasons, and most of the shows on Comedy Central, excluding South Park and a few other lame ones. Like Mr. Greenstein, I'm a huge fan of Kurt Vonnegut (it helps that I'm a teenager and thinks it's funny when an author draws a picture of an asshole in the intro to one of his books) and my favorite books of all time are "Catch-22" and "The Phantom Tollbooth"(the best children's novel ever). I used to be addicted to video games, but as high school set in I kind of grew out of them. I'm still indebted to the Mega Man series (the epic that never changes) and a few RPG's like Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy series (not 8). I used to play Sierra computer games, like George, before that company turned into absolute festering crap. The latest King's Quest game has a freaking lifebar, for Christ's sake! IT'S AN ADVENTURE SERIES, not an action game! -TANGENT OVER-

III. Music-wise, I like to consider myself an eclecticist but I'm simply not a fan of rap, reggae, or roots-rock (though I might be coming around on that last one). Unlike many people I know, I don't judge music based on my first listen-- the most annoying thing to me is when I play music like Bowie in my drawing class and my friends in the class dismiss nearly every song from merely the first 30 seconds. Whatever. Stylistically I've carved myself into a rut of post-punk new wave, progressive rock and '80s alternative, with some classic rock fit in. My favorite bands being XTC (DUUUUH), the Beatles, They Might Be Giants, The Who, Talking Heads, Bowie, the Police, R.E.M., Genesis, Yes, The Jam and Midnight Oil. Regardless of how George has pigeonholed me in the past, I am NOT a fan of synth-pop, as a good 95% of the genre is absolutely lame, but since I did review pages of Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys (two of the only good synthpop bands ever, even if the former has put out some really lame crap) I'm automatically an afficionado. Whatever. When I listen to music, I usually try to find its good points rather than approaching an album with an automatic bias; that's why my reader comments are on the average more positive than other commentators.

And that's all I have to say about that. Oh yeah, and despite what some people who don't like to have fun might tell you, "Weird Al" Yankovic is a god. So is Gumby, but that's another story.

13.12.2000

Name: Richard C. Dickison (AKA Randomkill)
Date Of Birth: Sept. 11th 1963
Location: Rio Nido, California USA
Job: Web Admin - Wells Fargo Bank

2. Just bought a house with 36 Redwood trees that needs allot of attention, the house that is.

I hang on allot of sites and mod on a Farscape (TV, Sci-fi oriented) discussion board www.ultimatefarscape.com

I have been overcome by the work George did on this board. It really is huge now and I remember when there were only three comments on the Pink Floyd area. I also am currently creating several sites for different reasons. It helps to see wonderful boards like this, well thought out and enjoyable, informative and just plain fun.

3. Favorite band would be hmmmmm. OK! I give, I like so many here. OK, Mid-Fleetwood Mac, Early-Elton John, add Mid-Jethro Tull, and sprinkle with Late-Beatles, Brian Eno, Clannad, David Bowie, and a dash of various 90's industrial and dance for texture.

07.12.2000

Name: Nick Einhorn
Birthdate: Oct. 22, 1984 (making me 16)
Residence: Connecticut
Status: High school student

Interests: I’m a heavy reader. My favorite authors are all of the Beat writers, as well as Kurt Vonnegut, Aldous Huxley, Lewis Carroll, and Arthur Rimbaud. I write a bit, too. I’m a musician myself; I play piano/keyboard and I sing (I’m a bass). Other interests include playing tennis, sleeping, and avoiding work.

Music: The first band I got into was (surprise, surprise) the Beatles, when I was in eighth grade. After that, I got into the Who, the Stones, and pretty much the rest of classic rock from there. I like to think of myself as an eclecticist: I like everything from folk (Woody Guthrie, Nick Drake) to punk (Clash, Stooges) to occasional rap (Beastie Boys, Public Enemy). But my main areas are British invasion rock and late sixties art/psychedelic music. You know, just to make it easier, here’s my personal favorites (in approximate order).

Top 10 bands/artists: Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, Procol Harum, Jefferson Airplane, The Clash, Traffic, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan

Top 10 albums: Animals (Pink Floyd), The Who Sell Out (The Who), Big Hits (Rolling Stones), Arthur (The Kinks), Shine On Brightly (Procol Harum), Ars Longa Vita Brevis (The Nice), Fifth Dimension (The Byrds), Magical Mystery Tour (The Beatles), All Things Must Pass (George Harrison), Live 1966 (Bob Dylan)

Top 7 guitarists: George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Tony Iommi, Joe Strummer, Keith Richards

Top 8 keyboardists: Ray Manzarek, Matthew Fischer, Rick Wright, Garth Hudson, Rick Davies, Al Kooper, Alan Price, Keith Emerson

Top 4 bassists: Jack Casady, John Paul Jones, John Entwistle, Chris Hillman

Top 4 drummers: Keith Moon, Mitch Mitchell, John Bonham, Ringo Starr

Top 5 vocalists: Grace Slick, Bob Dylan, Annie Haslam, Joe Strummer, David Crosby

Name: Ben Greenstein, but I'm sure you've figured that out by now.

AKA: Duke, Marc Bogaev

Age: 20

Country: USA!!!! USA!!!!!

City: None of your business, you gawdamn net stalker.

Social Status: Um... great? What are does that mean exactly?

Marital Status: None, I'm way too young to even be thinking about that (although that doesn't stop a lot of people my age!)

Personal Non-Music Related Interests: Uh, not many. I manage the misery of life with music, and my plans in the future involve music, so I don't have many non-music interests. I like film, both good and really tacky and bad. I read sometimes, but mostly Kurt Vonnegut and comic books. I'm not a nerd, I swear. I like to (and I know how teenage this sounds, but it's really not) "hang out with my friends" - although there's only about seven people I know who I can really relate to and whose company I fully enjoy. The rest are more or less just acquaintances. I write stories for my college newspaper - journalism is a definite career possibility if rock stardom doesn't work out.

Music Related Questions: I was really surprised to see that a lot of the people who have replied so far are into the same progressive rock stuff as I am. Maybe I'm not as unique as I thought - although I still think Pink Floyd are tremendously overrated. My favourite group of all time is XTC, and I guess my favourite genre is that kind of well-written pop also including the Beatles, 10cc, Elvis Costello and such. I hate lazy pop hooks, though - part of what I demand of music is that it takes you somewhere, and bands like Matchbox 20, with their predictable riffage and generic melodies just don't cut it. The New Radicals are a great group, though. I also really love progressive rock, like Genesis, King Crimson, Yes, Jethro Tull, all of that - although they, too, have their Van Der Graaf Generator to ensure that not ALL of the genre's bands are fantastic. Kansas, Styx, and Marillion are awful as well. Frank Zappa is also amazing - in terms of solo artists, his work is rivaled only by that of Peter Gabriel and Randy Newman. I like Bjork a lot, at least I did before she got a little too into the techno side of her work. I like a lot of obscure bands - The Billy Nayer Show, The Bogmen, Mike Keneally and Beer For Dolphins, Heavy Vegetable - but I don't like "underground" music in general, because it's often an excuse to make bad punk rock. I hate most punk rock (except for the Clash, who are very good), and I really dislike "goth-pop" (Cure, Smiths, Depeche Mode - not for me). I don't mind 80's style synthesizers as long as they're tastily used - not like Flock Of Seagulls or something. I really like a lot of jazz - especially jazz fusion, Mahavishnu Orchestra rocks harder than Hendrix, Weather Report is tighter than Yes, and Herbie Hancock is funkier than Parliament, of whom I'm also a huge fan. Funk is great, Curtis Mayfield is god, too. I don't mind rap as long as it's not the stuff that really borders on self-parody, and I don't mind classic country music - it's just that totally non-country Shania Twain stuff that sickens me. I don't mind electronic music, either - it's just that a lot of it is made out of a lack of ideas. I'm not much a fan of the "big" roots rock groups, although I do think that there is good roots rock out there. Hard rock was cool before it became heavy metal - Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin always had the coolest guitar and bass tones. Power pop like Cheap Trick and The Cars is pretty good. Novelty rock is great, mostly. Alternative rock is more or less a joke. Pink Floyd are tremendously overrated. I'm not as much a fan of the Lou Reed/Iggy Pop type stuff as I used to think I was, but I still really like some of those early REM records. Krautrock is okay, except for Kraftwerk, who are the WORST! "Hardcore" music is awful, although it's not right to say that until I've heard all of it. Haven't got too into classical yet - but I did hear some Mahler recently that really excited me. New age music encompasses a lot of different stuff, most of it awful. I don't mind disco at all - there are some really great disco songs. Any band that doesn't write it's own music doesn't have any respect for me. Avant-garde is good, but a lot of people use it as an excuse for not having very many musical ideas. In case you can't tell from my list, I consider myself to be in the eclecticism category.

I would have a music review site, but I would be too busy to devote too much time to it. Music reviewing is something I do in my spare time - sometimes, I just post a hotheaded comment or two to vent, sometimes I actually write about an album because I really care about it, sometimes it's just to pass time. I would definitely have a different criteria for reviews than you do - whereas Steely Dan would only be a two star artist in my book, their Royal Scam album would easily be a nine which rivals any nine for a King Crimson album. The only artists I would hold as "immortal" would be XTC, the Beatles, Genesis, and Frank Zappa.

Yep, I'm a musician - at one time, I was a sad Elvis Costello-wannabe who really sucked. I wrote the shittiest songs and thought they were these great confessionals. I've since decided that I don't want to take music so seriously. You can hear this in evidence on MP3.com, where I release recordings under the name "The Monkey Syndicate." I think that I'm getting better - some of the songs I've written for the unrecorded third album have got great melodies, in my opinion. If you're interested, check out the songs "Monster Bar Mitzvah" and "Do The Lobster." Oh, and I'm a self-taught multi-instrumentalist - I play guitar, keyboards, bass, accordion, percussion, harmonica and more on my last album, don't mean to brag. I think that it's good to know how to make good noise on a variety of instruments, because, as a songwriter, it gives you more of a palate to work with.

My favourite bass player is either Chris Squire, John Entwistle, or Jaco Pastorius. Maybe Tina Weymouth.

George W. Bush wears black socks with the words "I am retarded" embroidered on them (sorry, I know that was lame, but I just had to say something about how much of an idiot the guy is).

Well, that's it, I know it doesn't give too much of a picture of my life outside of music, but that's because I don't have one. No matter what I'm doing, music is always there. I take music classes in college, work in a music store, and listen to music no matter what I'm doing. To quote Frank Zappa - "music is the best." Oh, I also hate pretentious people - anyone who claims to be "deeper" than anyone else is an egomaniac waiting to happen. Poetry magazines make me sick, especially when they come with a warning like in "The Voice" where it says "if you don't like the views expressed in the voice, it is because of your own ignorance." And these are supposed to be open minded people. The worst thing you can do is think you know it all - or at least more than anyone else - in order to be truly strong, you've got to realize that you have weaknesses and admit what they are. I'm a very picky eater, for example, which impedes on my social ability to eat, and I have a hard time with self-control when it comes to flirting - I've ended up on many a date with women who are simply not a good match for me. But I've got to ADMIT to myself that I have these flaws, because that's what separates me from people like Jason Cox who view themselves as mini-dieties who are fully justified in taking advantage of others. God, it's sick - people who think they can't do any wrong. It's such a dumb attitude, especially for someone my age who is, by their very nature, naive and inexperienced in the world. To think you've got it all figured out is foolish, because you don't leave any room for growth.

Okay, that's all for now. I hope I DID'NT make a difference in anyone's life, because for me to do that would make me as pretentious as the people who I like to put down.

06.12.2000

I. Name: Nick Karn
Birthdate: September 24, 1979
Birthplace: Willingboro, NJ USA (now residing in Riverside)
Social status: As of December 2000, I'm almost finishing up the fall semester in my third year at a community college (and unsure of where I'll transfer afterwards). I'm currently unemployed, but have been known to do occasional janitorial and secreterial work, though that's just stuff on the side. I'm also the oldest of four and single as hell, also debating whether or not either of those things are good.

II. Probably my most common non-musical interest is sports (not playing them, though - I'm hardly athletic at all). I'm probably a certified baseball fanatic (or at least was at one time), and for years I even used to do scorekeeping for my brother's games, also knowing more about the game's history and other miscellaneous crap than most sane people probably would. I've also been known to engage heavily in football pools (American football, for all you foreigners who'd yell at me for dissing soccer), where I'm fairly decent at picking the games. Not as much into basketball, hockey, golf, or bowling or whatever, but they're fun sometimes. I also enjoy writing poetry a lot (mainly introspective stuff, sometimes nonsensical, sometimes awfully bleak and depressing, whatever fits my mood), and a creative writing class I've taken has only heightened my interest in this. It's excellent to be able to express your own personal thoughts on paper.

I also used to be heavily interested in computers and gaming, but now that interest has sort of faded out a lot, probably due to the fact that my machine is so behind the times (it's hard enough to surf the web at a sufficient enough speed anymore). I'm not as much into television shows and movies as a lot of people are, but I can't deny the sheer cartoonish genius of The Simpsons n particular. And as for movies I particularly enjoy mostly comedies and fantasy type things.

III. My most notable musical favorites are progressive and hard rock/metal. Combine the two (Dream Theater) and I'm in heaven. I can appreciate almost all forms of rock, though, and some of the classical, jazz and folk stuff I heard sounds promising enough. I've been awakened to much more classic rock than ever before (thanks in part to this site and a few others!) I can acknowledge The Beatles as the greatest band ever at this point (I'd put THREE of their albums in my top 10 as of now, and I haven't even heard Magical Mystery Tour or A Hard Day's Night yet), and the only reason I don't have all their albums right now is purely due to their expensive prices (it's the same thing with Pink Floyd). Hey, there are so much other bands I'm into and there's not nearly enough cash in my hands, so give me time. I'm still pretty big on 80's and early 90's alternative (R.E.M. was my first musical love and my favorite band for a long long time, though my bias for them has since faded just a little). Right now the completist in me is attempting to gather all the major works by the bands I've recently got into (though don't worry, George, I'll probably wait awhile on Calling All Stations). Heck, I've always been a completist to an extent, it's just that a lot of the bands I liked didn't have an overwhelmingly huge catalog ala The Rolling Stones, mainly cause they hadn't been around long enough. But I'm starting to get into a few bands with a lot more of an output.

I'm a lot more open-minded than I used to be (five years ago I would have absolutely ripped apart a lot of the music I like now, just because it sounded different than what I normally listened to at the time - I'm so ashamed). There's not a whole lot of kinds of music in particular I despise actually - most of the commercial teenybopper stuff that sounds obviously fake is probably number one, and a lot of rap seems pointless to me (though there are others I'm not terribly familiar with like Wu Tang Clan or The Beastie Boys that may be quite good). I have a lot less of a bias against country and blues music than I used to - those that don't sound so obviously rudimentary I can give more of a chance. These days albums I mostly dislike are the ones from bands that sound either obnoxious or all-important like 'we're the greatest band in the world' when they're a lot less talented than they think (cough KISS cough), from those that clearly are not even attempting to find any sort of unique bones in their body and don't even care, or albums who present me with 'ideas' and melodies that are either way too generic, boring, grating to the senses, or all three. Those are the ones that probably fit in my 5 or below rating range.

My criteria for rating music isn't all that different from the 1-10 reviewers out there. I'm probably subconsciously influenced by the 10 'best of artist' Prindle scale a little more than I should be, but that's probably so you could figure out more easily which bands and records are my favorites. And plus the criteria for a 10 record today is a lot different than what it was 20 years ago. The quality of one may be as great as a record from the past (Belle And Sebastian's The Boy With The Arab Strap, for instance), but for whatever reason (originality, listenability, or consistency), it just feels less vital. Nevertheless, those highly rated records are always ones I love. I just set up that 'all time favorite albums' section to show exactly what records I truly consider my favorites, since the scale can be a little hard to figure sometimes - I don't think there is a definite answer to what makes a 9 quality album so much different from an 8.

My attitude about music reviewing is that it's basically a way to share what impressions I get from any particular album, whether it be certain moments that stand out the most, what it seems the overall sound of it is, the vibes I get from individual songs, and sometimes where the band/artist was at that point in their career. I started a review site just because a lot of the impressions I read differed too strongly (and vaguely) from my own. I also wanted to incorporate the interactivity feature in, because it helps a lot to be able to have your own say on someone else's opinion of an album when in obvious disagreement. Plus the commentator can share information that the reviewer may have forgotten to incorporate.

As for instruments, I'm at least making an attempt to play keyboards (I'm not even gonna bother with the guitar anymore). While I'm far from very good at it, I'd like think I've at least gotten to the point where I can write and record my own amusing little songs and have them sound bearable, rather than just sounding like I'm banging away on the thing aimlessly. Other than that, I don't have any musical experience in terms of playing - I never took band in school for whatever reason that's now beyond my comprehension.

Well I think I've rambled long enough, so here is probably a good place to stop. This is a great idea, BTW. It's awesome you hold reader interests in such a high regard.

07.12.2000

Name: Erik Joel Larsson
Length: 179 centimetres
Weight: 81 kilos
Age: Born 27th of January1987, then I'm 13. Keep that in mind when you're reading my letters.
Lives: In Karlstad, Sweden
Job: studying in the 7th grade
Family: My mother Marie died when I was 5 years old, but my dad Dag married Anna a couple of years later, and now I have two brothers, Nils and Axel.

About my personality: Quite frankly, most people likes me. I'm a Christian, not a very serious one, and the only one in my family. The only reason that I became one is that if God and Jesus really exists, and if I'm not a Christian when I did, then I'll probably be put in Hell, and I don't want to live there. But if I'm a Christian when I die I'll live my afterlife in Eden, which might be much more nice.
Instruments I play: I play the contrabass, and study the classic guitar at home.
My plans for the future: I'll do some good music and I'll be very popular and I'll do my best to prevent the nature from being destroyed by cars exhausting the world. And then I'll make my own review site, which will be much bigger than your.

Groups I listened at a few years ago: I listened to Roxette when I was 5-7 years old or something. When I was about 8-11 I listened to the popular music, such as E-Type and Basic Element. And I hate both of them nowadays.
Groups I listen at right now: As I told you, I listened at Roxette when I was a very little boy, and I had a videogame called Rock'n'roll Racing at that time. On that game there were but four songs, of which I now have identified two: Steppenwolf's 'Born to be wild' and Deep Purple's 'Highway star'. And I also heard ZZ Top on an album I borrowed from the library. And finally I heard Aerosmith's Get a grip album which I still like a bit. But then I begun to listen to the very popular music, Absolut dance and so on. For about 2 years ago I suddenly begun to feel that blues-legends such as B B King and Howlin' Wolf were good, and my best friend Adam's mother have quite a lot of good music, so I asked her if she had something with Steppenwolf ( Dag knew one of the songs from Rock'n'roll racing was performed by Steppenwolf), and she had, but it wasn't 'Born to be wild', it was 'Magic carpet ride' she had. But after 'magic carpet ride' I identified the next song on the record as one of the Rock'n'roll racing songs. It was Purple's 'Highway star', and I thought 'this one is very good, especially the guitar solo' and I asked her if she had something more with Purple. She had a compilation called Deepest Purple where I for the first time heard 'Smoke on the water' and other more or less classic Purple songs. After Purple I have listened through her collection and I found Queen after a while. They became my favourites together with Purple and, hard to say, Aerosmith. My dad bought me a "rock lexicon", where I found a lot of another favourites, such as Led Zeppelin and King Crimson (which is the only group that I'm a real fan of, but not a die-hard fan, and I don't LIKE them more than, for instrance, Purple, but I listen to K C more than Purple or Led Zep of any reason).
That rock lexicon have I read through many times, and it is there I've got all my musical knowledge. I'm proud of my knowledge, too. I can beat up any old music lover that I know if I want to. Even my old aunt Elisabeth, and my uncle Magnus.
Well, the groups/artists I like (I'll try to write down all of'em, but they are so many so I often forget some of them) is:

Prog/art rock: King Crimson, Yes, Camel, Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull, Nationalteatern, Pink Floyd,
While I'm 13, I of course like HM: Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Motörhead, Judas Priest, Twisted Sister, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Metallica, Uriah Heep (hah hah!) Ted Nugent, Tommy Bolin, Gary Moore, Thin Lizzy, Blue Öyster Cult,
Some pop/rock: Beatles, Eddie Meduza, Aerosmith, Eagles, Marillion, Boston, Doobie Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, Humble Pie, Rolling Stones, Klaatu (ever heard them? You should like it anyway, I think), Slade, Status Quo, Steely Dan, Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Steppenwolf,
Blues/sometimes bluesy ones: BB King, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, ZZ Top, Free, Wishbone Ash,
Jazz/jazzrock: Chicago, Mills Brothers, Steely Dan, Donald Fagen, Quincy Jones, Al Jarreau
Old rock'n'roll/r&b: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Johnny Kidd & the Pirates,
Some kinds of folk music: Lindisfarne, Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Simon, Dr. John,
That's all, I think. As you perhaps noticed, I didn't add Genesis, Who, Bob Dylan, Nice, Jefferson Airplane or lots of others. But that's just because I don't have enough money to buy any albums with that groups.

This is one of the longest mails I've written in my life, and definitely the longest one in English instead of Swedish. If you find any grammatical problems in this mail, then please remember that the time I've been studying English in school is just 3 years.

1) Personal Info

Bloke, kind of a giveaway in the name. Recently had the misfortune to become 29 years old, but was fortunate enough to attain said status in Manchester, England (as immortalised in the musical 'Hair' for non-brits, as immortalised by guns, drugs, The Stone Roses, The Happy Mondays and Freddie And The Dreamers for brits and obsessively musically minded non-brits. Oh, and some gits called Oasis, apparently). Social status? That would be 'adequate', I guess.

2) Non Music Related Personal Interests.

Being a know-all clever clogs show-off. And an unbearable git. A personal mission of mine is to know just enough about everything to best most people, but never enough about anything to be of any use. Naturally enough, this includes reading anything vaguely 'profound' or 'worthy', but not for the worthwhile reasons of others.

3) Music-related Questions

An eclecticist of the highest order. If there was an award for the World's Greatest Who Fan, I'd enter (against some stiff competition, having perused the site thoroughly). Yet one of my favourite ever albums is Surf's Up by The Beach Boys. I am anally knowledgeable about late eighties/early nineties 'indie' music, yet at the same time feverishly collected hip-hop records for a number of my teen years. I adore Pink Floyd (sorry, but patented dentistry just seems to affect me somehow), yet have met and interviewed Prince Buster and Isaac Hayes. You get the idea (if you don't, let me add that reading the original fold out 'newspaper sleeve' of Thick As A Brick by Jethro Tull is one my of odder pastimes). I have a penchant for genuine sixties psychedelia (most easily accessible via the 'Nuggets' collections, to save an exhaustive listing of bands),especially Love and even including The Doors, for all their pomposity, cheesiness and seeming self importance (but they do have a sense of humour- the soft parade actually makes me laugh heartily and wince at the hokey symbolic imagery in equal measures). I am devoted to The Who (as every healthy person should be) and am moderately attached The Small Faces (despite the clash of allegiances that it raises - Ian McLagan, get your hands off Keith's wife, hehe). One thing I have noticed, is that my musical tastes goes in cycles, and big ones at that. For instance, I adored The Doors with neither question nor reason as a mere callow youth. Then, as my later teens progressed into my early twenties, I realised that they weren't half as clever as they thought, and that there was a certain cheesy whiff to some of the tunes. So I started my own personal Doors backlash, some two decades after they'd effectively ceased to be. Then, as I voyaged through my moderately roaring twenties towards the endless expanse of all-too impending middle age, I thought sod it, I like cheesy hammond organs and to hell with the consequences.

Given my stated eclecticism, this section could expand into unmanageable proportions, so I'll stick to a brief round-up of notable and more importantly, applicable, others (no sense wasting space and time wittering on about the relative merits of the superlative Pulp given the stated aim of the site). Mudhoney (trap-rattling non pareil from good ol' dan peters - nirvanas loss was my own personal gain), The Beach Boys (I know I mentioned them earlier, but they deserve the plug. And no, I don't mean the first four hundred and eighteen surf albums in the first nine months (although I have a soft spot for them), nor do I mean Pet Sounds - I mean those scant, cherished years between Brian's mental collapse and their rebirth as 'America's Favourite Band'. Ugh, Kokomo). Most things Stax and all things Solomon Burke. Jeff Buckley and his Dad, both global treasures (Jeff would have edged it over Tim due to his untimely-demise-based quality control if his relatives hadn't insisted on doing a 2pac and releasing every bit of half-arsed music he'd ever looked at). I could go on, but I'll bring the paragraph to a merciful end.

Musical instruments? I have misconceptions over my drumming and piano abilities (which, in an ideal world, I'd restrict to merely appreciating others skills - but no, I persist in endeavouring). Other than that, I was prohibited from practising the recorder as a child, on account of my parents concern over their ears and mental wellbeing.

Finally, my own personal musical ethos is only like it if its any good. Simplistic, but it works for me.

Hi, everybody! Philip Maddox here, music lover extrordinaire. My love of music has been around as long as I can remember. When I was as young as 1 or 2 years old, my sister would play me old Moody Blues records, my dad would play me lots of John Prine, Bob Dylan, and Weavers albums, my mom always played the Doors and Neil Young, and my brother cranked up punk rock records by the likes of the Sex Pistols and the Dead Kennedys. According to my folks, as soon as I could walk and operate a turntable, I'd get up, play a record over and over, and groove around our entire house in my trusty Kermit the Frog slippers. This explains quite a few things, actually - first of all, it explains why I never held any feelings towards any particular band or style of music as the best due to it getting me into music, because I've had so much music coming at me for so long that I honestly have no idea what came first for me. Secondly, it explains why I love so many different forms of music - when you grow up hearing Bob Dylan on one shelf and the Dead Kennedys on the next and hear them both constantly, you like a lot of stuff.

Well, here's a little bit about me - I was born on February 17, 1983 in Culpeper County, Virginia in the United States of America, where i still live as of today and will live until I go off to college. I was always a really shy kind of person and never made any friends until I was about 13 years old, partially because of my lax attitude to personal hygene (which I've corrected by now, of course), my interest in stuff that nobody else cared about (what 12 year old child in the nineties wants to talk about the Moody Blues?), and the fact that I weighed about 300 pounds (which I've pared down to about 200 by now). Around 7th grade, I started to lose weight and meet a few people as weird as I was. I was always a hypergeek, so, naturally, I fit right in with the weirder guys in the school. You see, where I'm from, most people don't like much besides wrestling, hunting, and football, so finding people with more unique interests was a bit of a problem. I started to fit in more and more as I found people who actually shared some of my interests (more on those later). Though I did snap for a while back when I was in ninth grade, I've recovered somewhat and remain a perfectly happy person. Sure, I'm not winning any popularity or beauty contest, and it goes without saying that no girls really want much to do with me, but I'm not concerned. I have fun (and all of it legal! No drug culture for me, thank you, though I know a few too many people that got involved in it) and do pretty good in school at the same time (almost straight A's! Yes, I'm that much of a dork, even though I'm not too concerned about how I do - it's just always come naturally to me).

My interests? Glad you asked! I'm a bit of a science and math kind of guy. I like learning what makes things tick and trying to learn why things are the way they are and how things got to be the way they are. I play the saxophone, though I';m not particularly good at it (I was second chair in the high school band out of 9 people, but that doesn't say as much as you'd think). I quit the band eventually because the teacher had some issues with rage and would flat out threaten his students, and he dang near gave me an ulcer as a result. I still play a little on my own, though. Of course, like any person with an interest in rock music, I want to play guitar, and fully intend to learn how, and soon. I read quite a bit (though not quite as much as I used to - I need to read more), mostly good old Tolkien styled fantasy books. And, of course, Mad Magazine, though the humor contained therein lately has been a bit too bathroom oriented for me - I like 'em better whan they're clever. I've always loved artwork and cartoon drawings, though my actual ability to draw is nil (which is one of the things I really need to correct - when you like art stuff as much as I do, it sucks to not be able to draw). Comic strip collections, old Looney Tunes, the better of Disney's films (especially the 2 Fantasia movies, which were absolutely beautiful), and even a few Japanese anime films (though I'm nowhere near a hardcore fan - sometimes it just gets stupid, some of the animation looks pretty damn sorry, and the style can get repetitive. Princess Mononoke is one of the best movies I've ever seen though!). I like goofy comedies both in films and on television. Guys like Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd crack me up. Love the Simpsons, of course, for its inspired blend of social satire and physical humor. Ditto for Matt Groening's other show, Futurama. As far as television shows go, however, my favorite is the extremely clever Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you don't know, the show is basically a guy and his 2 robots (well, puppets, actually, but the show is very low budget) making fun of really cheap sci fi movies. They're smart, literate, and very, very funny. Great show. I tape it and all. If there is any single show that I am close to being fanatical about, that's the one. Too bad they had to go and cancel it...

Now for the most important thing for people reading this page - my musical tastes! Like I said, it ranges pretty far. Right now in my CD changer, I'm listening to a Beastie Boys album, which rests next to Neil Young's Mirror Ball, Sgt. Pepper, and a black metal compilation CD called Beauty In Darkness. Pretty far reaching. The only styles of music I really can't stomach are country music of the Hank Williams Jr. variety, most rap music (though I do like the Beasties quite a bit), extremely pointless death metal of the Cannibal Corpse variety, modern, bland rock of the Matchbox 20/Creed variety, most disco music, and dumb 70s AOR rock like Foreigner. I prettyy much spend all of my money on CDs, so I've literally got hundreds and I buy more all the time, so my list of styles of music in my collection grows pretty rapidly. Though I do listen to a lot of different music, I guess you could say that either psychadelic or progressive rock are my favorite styles, though anything that strikes me as really creative might hit me as being unbelievably excellent and the style of the day. Roots rock, folk, and, well, everything else is OK by me, and I love a lot of it. I've been interested in music review sites like this one for quite a while, as it helped me find a lot of mew music to listen to (without this site, I'd have never gotten into Genesis, Zappa, or a lot of other stuff). Even when I disagree with the reviewers, it's usually an entertaining read. I had my own record review site for a while (and still do, I guess, though I haven't updated it in a while, but I may in the future if I ever feel like it), but I eventually decided to just jump aboard at the Music Junkies Anonymous site, seeing as how it asked nicely. My system for rating records is pretty much similar to how everybody else does it - 1-10 scale typically, 1 being horrible, 10 being nearly perfect, 7 being your typically "good" album.

Well, that's it. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. If you didn't, I can say anything I want to about you right now, and you'd never know it! Heh heh heh... ah well, I guess I'll be nice. For now.

05.12.2000

I.

Name: John Philip McFerrin
Birthday: June 3, 1980
Birthplace: Hinsdale, IL USA
As of today, December 5, 2000, I am a junior in finance and mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

II.

My life isn't that exciting, but not horridly boring either. I have a review page of my own (visit it if you haven't already!) that takes up some time but doesn't suck up my whole life. I spend a good deal of time with each of my two clumps of friends. One clump is people with whom I attended the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, IL, and the other chunk is a bunch of people my age that go to church with me.
I like to waste time listening to music (duh) and playing computer games. I'm currently preoccupied with Homeworld, the fabulous creation of Sierra from last year. I gave it up for a while because I had more or less made it impossible for myself to win, but I started from the beginning recently and have slowly-but-surely been making my way through. I also greatly enjoy sports computer games - NHL 2000 is my favorite, currently.
Eventually, after getting a masters in finance, I want to hook up with an investment company and be one of the guys sitting at a computer all day analyzing stock data and pulling companies in and out of our fund's portfolio. Then, after I have my second or third ulcer (and given the stress of such a position, I'm counting on them) and have made a good nest egg, I'd like to go teach high school mathematics and try to convince people that knowing how to derive the fundamental theorem of calculus kicks ass.

III.

First, a bit of background about myself and my musical development. I grew up in a household where music was very important. My mother was a piano major, and hence it couldn't really be any other way. In elementary school, I took piano lessons from my mother. I actually became quite good for my age, but my mother overestimated my ability and threw me into more difficult pieces before I was ready for them. Out of frustration of being unable to play them, I gave up (and don't think that I don't kick myself to this day for doing that).
I also played clarinet for about five years. There, too, I was quite good for my age. Unfortunately, my lack of lung-power (asthma) and inability to always keep a tight seal with my lips on the ligature (sp?) ultimately doomed me. I had wonderful technique, but was unable to really use it. So, ultimately, I gave that up too.
Still, both of these did one great thing for me - I know a decent amount of music theory. Not a _ton_ (ie if you asked me to sit down and write fugue with counterpoint, I'd just stare at you), but enough to tell a pizzacatto from a stacatto, allegro from presto, an accidental from just a random change in key signature, and so forth.
I never really bothered to listen to popular music when I was younger. It wasn't until my sophomore year at IMSA that I even _heard_ 'Stairway to Heaven'. My roomate from the second semester of that year had about 50 tapes of seventies music, however, and so I began to receive a heavy dose of classic rock.
Eventually, I began to go through my first fanatical period. The band? The Moody Blues. For the last year and a half of my stay at IMSA, I was a militant Moody Blues fetishest.
Then I went after Pink Floyd in earnest. I liked their stuff a lot, though it may surprise many to know that the album of theirs that I listened to most was the Ummagumma live album. Heh.
Then I discovered Yes, and my musical tastes began to form in earnest.
What do I like in music? Well, I'm basically a junky of classic rock and art rock. I'm much more eclectic than I used to be - I once figured that the Rolling Stones were overrated junk, but now I have no problem chasing Tarkus with a nice glass of Exile on Main Street. Mmm.
What do I _not_ like in music? It can be summed up in one word - _genericism_. I HATE albums that, when I listen to them, make me think, "I probably could have grabbed any one of 50 albums that would sound exactly like this, and they might have done it better." In that way, I somewhat fall into your (George's) ideology of "original is better." After all, an album can't imitate if it comes first, right?
That being said, I'm fairly lenient about what can be called a "differentiating" characteristic. I enjoy Open Your Eyes by Yes, even though it's certainly based in 90's pop, because (a) I have NEVER heard pop that has such a strange mix, and (b) the vocal harmonies are spectacular. Yeah, they probably didn't require quite as much work as the harmonies on TYA, but I really don't care - they sound fabulous. But I'm getting off track.
I like catchiness. I don't think that catchiness by itself can save a song, but it can certainly try. I also think that a catchy song can take all shapes and forms. It can be a two-minute pop song, and it can just as easily be a side-long track. Makes little difference to me. And it annoys me when people try to judge the quality of a song on the basis of long/short or complex/simple when they should be going on good/bad. But again, I digress.
I guess that's a simple start. But now it's dinner time, and I'm starving.

05.12.2000

Name: Thomas McKeown
Born: 12th March 1984
From: Norwich, England
Social Status: I suppose I'm middle class, not that that means anything.

So, what am I actually like? Well, I suppose I'm your average White Middle Class English Heterosexual Male With Glasses. My main interests are listening to music, hiking, reading, lounging about, history, loafing, watching and performing theatre, inane chatter with friends and Not Doing Anything - oh, and of course, music review sites! I'm have a mildly split personality - one for Theatre Studies, the other the rest of the time. When I am not doing theatre related stuff, I am just an all-round Decent Guy, who gets on well with most people he meets and has a reasonable sized group of friends, but who unnacountably never gets invited down the pub or to parties; in other words, an alright guy, but not very interesting. In Theatre, all my usual reservations vanish and I just say what I want to say, as soon as it enters my head, and not bothering to pass it buy Mr. Brain. This has led to me gaining a reputation as a bit of a wierdo; an exciting, vibrant, unpredictable character who, unnacountably, never gets invited down the pub or to parties. Oh well!
I first started getting into this web reviewing thing about a year and a half ago, when I stumbled upon Bryan's Reviews whilst looking for information on Pink Floyd. From there I found my way to Prindle's site, and also Creative Noise. I steared clear from this particular site and from Wilson and Alroy's because they both sounded too snobby (I know you're not snobby, but dealing exclusively with 'Classic Rock' put me off a bit). I only visited the Wilson and Alroy site a few times, and after seeing this site, and Prindle's, and Brian Burke's, I couldn't really see what the fuss was about. Just for references (you might find it useful in your commentator database thing), here are my ratings for the various reviewing sites I am familiar with, presented in no particular order.
Reviews of Classic Rock - I didn't visit your site and till it had reached maturity, and was very impressed by what I saw; to my mind (this isn't just flattery) you seem to be the most intelligent of the web reviewing guys out there; you don't write anything sensational without backing it up, and you have a very persuasive style of writing; having said that, I have to say I much prefer your essays and band introductions to your actual reviews; I don't know why, but the things that make the former exciting and absorbing make the reviews seem a little dry: 9 out of 10.
Mark Prindle's Record Review Site - the main things here are the diversity of the bands covered and Mark's own infectious brand of humour; plus it's where you find reviews of those two venerable old seers, Ben Greenstein and Rich Bunnel ( I know that they are not very old, but I like to imagine them as venerable!). 9 out of 10.
Creative Noise - like no other reviewer on the web, Brian Burke's can really get my dander up - by this I mean he REALLY PISSES ME OFF! I don't know why, but I just find his reviewing style highly offensive.None the less, this is apretty good reviewing site: 8 out of 10.
Those three sites are my personal favourites; I used to enjoy Bryan's Reviews when the site was fully active, but The World's Unluckiest Web Reviewer was hit by so many problems that I kind of gave up on the site, though salvaging the reviews from it and putting them up on this site was a very heartwarming action, George; Bryan's reviews were the first I ever read, and so I have a special place in my heart for them; when the site was in it's prime, I would have given it an 8 out of 10. I also like Music Junkies Annonymous, although I find the style of writing a bit hard-going sometimes. Wilson and Alroy I don't like at all; they're not funny, they don't write interesting reviews and don't write essays, they are not nearly as intelligent or as eclectric as they think they are, and the site isn't even interactive. 5 out of 10. So there.

And now, my own very own musical tastes. I'd say I'm pretty eclectric by most people's standards; I listen to a wide range of styles from a wide range of periods, although they tend to fall into the Pop-Rock spectrum. At the moment I'd say my favourite bands and artists would be Super Furry Animals, the Beatles, the Stone Roses, Crowded House, Bob Dylan, Roy Harper, Paul Simon, Blur, U2, the Waterboys, Radiohead and Massive Attack; however, because I don't listen to any of that crappy nu-metal stuff, people keep telling me to "expand my musical horizons". I am also a casual listener to various other musical styles; dance music, which I think to many people diss just because of the dominance of the beat and never attempt to get to the heart, the actual substance of the music (it does have one you know); hip-hop or rap or whatever, which I have to say I admire more than actually like ( though, as I'm a bit of a lyric's man myself, I can forgive practically anything of the music if the words capture my imagination); and classical, which, because I come at it from a pop lover's view-point, I tend to regard as vaguelly interesting muzak, wallpaper, the precursor to ambient. I would be hard pressed to name my favourite band of all time, but for the moment I think I'll go with the flow and say the Beatles, simply because the next best contenders (in my mind, anyway), the Stone Roses, only released two albums.

15.12.2000

Before I get into what goes on in my furry little head, I have to go into a slightly sexist rant here. Where are the women on this site? I'm afraid it only confirms my strongly-held belief - from lengthy and sad experience - that women, in general, have very poor taste in music - younger ones and older ones (honestly, how many guys are buying all those Matchbox 20 and N'Sync CDs, unless they're pansiasses who should be required to turn their penises into the proper authorities post haste?). At least none of my girlfriends ever have, but I digress.

Anyhoo, my name is Jeff Melchior. I'm 27 years old and live in Canada, where I work as the editor of a weekly newspaper in a town I'm embarrassed to mention in a province I just won't mention. Socially, I span the range between party animal and extreme introvert - a point I'm actually lingering around right now (oh, and believe this or not, George, your site helps heal the soul - I discovered your site after a recent shattering break-up and it's helped me while away many lonely hours).

As far as stuff that I do that doesn't involve listening to my favorite bands, it's surprising to note that I do a lot of - believe it or not - dancing to crappy music I don't like . It's nasty work and it's a sellout thing, but it gets the girls. I'm not at all ashamed of what I really like, but very few people would mistake me for the classic rock/prog rock/hard rock fan that I am, especially to the extent that I am, which is considerable.

My own musical tastes have never been on the horrendous side. There's still a lot of stuff I listened to as a kid (ie. The Police, Bruce Springsteen, U2) that I'm not ashamed to listen to now. I probably would have been a fan of REAL music earlier had I been exposed to it sooner. The rare times I heard a classic rock song on the radio I knew it had something that the overprocessed crud of the '80s didn't have.

I was 16 when - out of massive curiosity - I got one of the hipper guys in school to make me a tape of Pink Floyd songs. Although I consider Floyd pretty mainstream now, it was the strangest thing I had heard up to that point (ironically, most of it was from The Wall, which is probably their least "strange" album, but to ears used to Roxette, well...). At any rate, it was the start of a domino effect that soon got me into the Stones, Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Doors and as my tastes became even more refined, Yes, early Genesis, King Crimson, Kansas (even though everybody else hates them) and the much-vilified ELP, who - believe it or not - came pretty close to being my favorite band at one point.

George won't like to hear this, but I do hold a soft spot for metal, as long as it's not the hair-band variety (and sometimes even that's a guilty pleasure). Sabbath, Ozzy, Maiden, Priest, Rainbow, Van Halen, EARLY Scorpions, Dio, Thin Lizzy. I've been discovering the perennially-underrated '70s metal band Budgie lately via MP3 (the ONLY way I've been able to get ahold of anything by them despite much effort). In fact, discovering them through Metallica is the ONLY thing I thank Metallica for anymore - sellout losers (I bought a lot of crappy '90s albums of theirs before I finally came to that conclusion - the whole Napster lawsuit pushed me over the edge).

On to more savoury subjects: right now, my favorite band is - hands down - The Who. I've always liked them, but it's only been recently that I've truly come to appreciate Pete Townshend's compositional and lyrical genius. I don't think there's ever been a more passionate album than Who's Next - Quadrophenia's a close second. I still think the guy may have a masterpiece in him yet, and I don't say that about any of his contemporaries. After all, he's never given up on Lighthouse and today the ahead-of-its-time concept would actually make sense to a mass audience.

I've went through some nasty musical phases. Trendy bastard that I am, I soaked up the whole alternative thing for years before I realized how much of it was crap. That's not to say there wasn't some good music that came out of it - when Kurt Cobain was actually singing rather than shrieking there were some melodic sensibilities at work - nothing close to almost any of the bands on this page, mind you.

I think the '80s had a lot of good stuff - you just never heard it on the radio. I can see myself getting into bands like The Replacements or Husker Du in the near future. I really like The Church, for my money one of the most underrated bands of all time.

I've probably used enough space here, but I just want to warn all you youngsters out there: as you get older your tastes WILL mellow out somewhat, no matter how heavy the stuff you listen to now is. Thankfully, my "mellowing out" hasn't been too lame: I've come to appreciate Fleetwood Mac (who I always liked, although I was somewhat embarrassed about it), EARLY Elton John (none of his stuff past 1978, thanks anyway) and Steely Dan, who marry some of the mellowest arrangements to some of the most hilariously caustic lyrics ever recorded. That alone earns my admiration. Katy Lied would probably be slapped with a Parental Advisory sticker if released today if anybody got past the MOR arrangements and got to the lyrics.

Dan Miller, 32
Orange County, California (60 miles southeast of Los Angles)
Married, no children
Two pitbulls

I currently work as a public relations manager for a leading managed care organization. That's how I pay the bills. I love my wife, my pits, my house and my Acura Legend. I love to write, and keep up the talents with some creative works that I have been sustaining for years. When I'm not working, writing or listening to music, I'm either fixing up the house or watching TV, especially "The Practice," "Law & Order," "That `70s Show," "Titus," "Spin City," "The Drew Carey Show" and "ER." The Lakers are the best damn NBA team in the world. Don't mess with the Shaq!

I was a music major through most of college, taken classes in theory and practice, I play the french horn and bass guitar (just like John Entwistle!), sing in the church choir (it's a second job - I get paid by the church. HA HA!), have written and arranged choral music and conducted. So, needless to say, I have a broad musical background. My favorite artists ever (spanning mostly progressive rock, heavy metal and classical - go figure): Genesis, King Crimson, Moody Blues, Yes, ELP, Dream Theater, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Slayer, Tool, Alice in Chains, Iridian, Shostakovich, Bruckner and Beethoven. My favorite songs are: "Starless" by King Crimson, "Cinema Show" by Genesis and "The Gates of Delirium" by Yes. My favorite albums are Genesis Selling England by the Pound and King Crimson Red. John Entwistle is, of course, my favorite bassist; Steve Hackett my favorite guitarist, Bill Bruford my favorite drummer, Keith Emerson my favorite keyboardist and Rob Halford, my favorite singer. I also enjoy many dance/house, Latin rock, Tejano and new wave artists.

I hate teeny-bop crap (you know who), stupid whitebread pop-rock like Matchbox 20 and Goo Goo Dolls, second-rate grunge that probably no one remembers anymore anyway (and Pearl Jam, too - they blow), and I loathe all these stuck-up rock-stars-turned-political P.C. sacred cows like Stink, Boner and Neil Dung.

As for playing rock critic, I feel my tastes are too eclectic to be valid or objective, but I try. I try to base my views on the music theory I learned in college, so chances are I will like a band if they possess at least some musicality and intelligence, but utter stupidity or brain-numbing three-chord fodder certainly can be enjoyable, especially if it's Twisted Sister. I only have opinions, as does everyone else. George's statements about Tony Banks make me cringe, but I am delighted by his appreciation (or acceptance) of Love Beach. Most people can't stomach my love for Slayer, and REM and U2 certainly have wonderful moments, but I'm not really much of a fan.

Oh well, it's all relative, ain't it???

I: I'm a UNIX System Administrator for a Very Large Company outside Washington, DC.  I was born in 1966 in southwest Missouri, and grew up in the Kansas City area in the 70s and 80s, more on which later.

II: When I'm not staring blankly at the ceiling listening to whatever, I'm usually staring blankly at some sporting event on the tube, staring blankly at the pages of some fantasy or science-fiction novel, or staring blankly at my computer monitor while playing some form of multi-player computer game (which I'm taking a break from as I write this).  That, of course, assumes I'm at home; I have a tendency to hop in the car on days off and road-trip to strange places, during which time I'm staring blankly at the road listening to whatever, rather than at the ceiling.  ;)

III: Mmm, music.  It's tempting to consider myself an eclectic, except that most things which are commonly referred to AS "eclectic" bore me to tears.  Perhaps the history is in order...

I grew up in a household where my mother worshipped at the altar of Patsy Cline and Elvis Presley, and my father insisted that the Beatles were the only act worth listening to.  Unlike the normal sort of American youth, rather than growing up to despise what my parents listened to, I actually tend to appreciate it -- well, the Beatles and Elvis, at least.  Pure country music makes me ill (sorry, Patsy, wherever your soul is).  By the late 70s, I had discovered formula stadium rock, which has left me in the uncomfortable position of having to defend to people why I don't think Styx, Kansas, Foreigner, REO Speedwagon, Boston, and Journey suck.  Well, not all their stuff, anyway.  At the same time, I was also introduced to Rush, Yes, and Genesis.  Ironically, with the exception of Marillion, I've never been able to stomach any derivatives of the latter two (not for lack of trying, either).

It wasn't until after this period - around 1980 or so - that I was finally introduced to the bulk of the late-60s/early 70s classic acts.  I never got into the Stones at all for some reason, though they have their moments.  Experience with a local culture which seemed to think that every party was an excuse to play the first 5 Led Zeppelin albums, then play them again, pretty much burnt me out on the entire metal/blues conglomeration, including Clapton, Free, et al.  I can appreciate them for what they are, but to this day I still can't voluntarily listen to the genre.  (Notably excepted, however, are the last two Zeppelin stuido offerings, which I actually can still enjoy.)  This was also a time when I listened to a lot of Brit-invasion metal, much of which I'm embarrassed to have spent money on concert tickets for, except for Sabbath and Iron Maiden... (Did I really go see the Scorpions TWICE?)

Around the time that Yes and Genesis decided to actively try and sell records via pandering, New Wave was in full swing, and while I didn't care for much of what was current, I fell in with someone who'd been on the boat early and as a result discovered Japan, Roxy Music, and discovered that Gary Numan actually had recorded something other than "Cars."  From this point until the mid-90s, I was mostly on the Modern Rock bandwagon, but it was a rocky ride, mostly resulting in me becoming bored with upcoming acts before they even caught their first real break.  Call it elitism, or possibly call it a realization that they weren't so much "good" as they were "Not Being Played on the Same Station as Don Henley and Michael Jackson," which was always a benefit.

Around 1993, Dream Theater turned up, and not only did I drift back into listening to more progressive metal, but I was again drawn back toward progressive rock in general.  Since then, I've kept myself in the alternative pool as well.  I still can't really abide any blues/rock, I never really appreciated pure punk, and I don't even consider the blight of rap/hip-hop to be "rock," but every other rock genre is pretty much open game.  I'm not really a "fan" of anything, per se; if I tend to like a band's output, I'll go completist on the album level.  Probably the only real exception would be Dream Theater, but that takes flight in a slightly different manner; as the members of that band continually get involved with all sorts of interesting artists in side projects, I tend to check them all out just to see what they're doing.

And then there's the guilty pleasures... I confess to actually enjoying Madonna.  Shoot me.

My attitude toward reviewing is very simple:  bad reviewing is when you have no backdrop to compare against, while good reviewing is when you have one.  For instance, while I disagree with nearly every word Dave Marsh writes, he's a good reviewer.  He lets you know why he dislikes something, and generally that lets you know if you WILL like it.  Subjective review which is inconsistent -- for instance, praising five different acts which all sound alike, yet panning a sixth which isn't any different -- is useless.  Objective reviewing, on the other hand, I'm just getting used to... and I wouldn't ever dream of trying to review records myself.  What I like, I like, and what I don't, I don't, and I can't begin to explain it.  (There's no REASON why I dislike the Rolling Stones; how can I then express my feelings regarding Sticky Fingers in a useful manner?)

My own musical background was brief and uneventful, having played bass and keyboards, and sung, in a few bands in the 80s.  We're mostly talking garage here, though a couple of efforts actually resulted in money.  It being the 80s, we weren't talking about any great stretch of musical expression... the best gig for the wallet, but most frustrating ethically, involved doing covers of Ratt and Bon Jovi tripe.

Favorite individual musicians... leaving vocalists out of it, I'll give props to Squire, Claypool, Dream Theater's John Myung, and Japan's Mick Karn on bass, and Copeland, Peart, and DT's Mike Portnoy on drums.  Guitar's a different matter entirely, as while I don't like listening to them, the Clapton-Beck-Page axis ranks up there in appreciation value.  And, of course, Steve Howe...

15.12.2000

Name: Ryan Mulligan
Age: Born 5/15/82
Occupation: College Student
Residence: New Jersey (No, I don't like Bruce Springsteen)

I enjoy watching wrestling and collecting wrestling tapes...does that hurt my credibility? I also like that show ER. College is at the top of my list of least favorite things right now. Music is pretty cool too.

My musical tastes rule. My favorite bands/artists are Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead and REM. I admire Dylan for his lyrics(nobody's even close here, if you ask me). I love the pop melodies of The Beatles(though I wouldn't give most of their albums ratings as high as George does). Led Zeppelin rocks. Yeah, they might have stolen some stuff, but let me know when something sounds better. Radiohead's my new obsession, though they've only released 2 amazing albums, 1 ok one, and one that's very hard to get into, but still good. REM's good, but I don't feel like explaining why. My collection includes over 30 Dylan albums, most REM, everything The Beatles, Zep and Radiohead released, and a bunch of odds and sodds.
I'll listen to anything else that's good(some Doors, Pink Floyd, The Who, Cream, solo Beatles, etc.). I despise Kiss, Billy Joel, Nirvana, today's popular music and more! The best bassist is John Paul Jones(Entwhistle's close). Even though you didn't ask, Jimmy Page is the best guitarist.
My comments on this page haven't been very insightful so far. I plan to change that. I also plan on making my very own album review site soon. I also plan to increase the amount of parentheses I use. I "play" guitar...ok I know the basics and can play "Day Tripper". The best album ever is Blonde on Blonde (Highway 61 Revisited comes close). Goodbye!

14.12.2000

My name is Derrick Stuart. I am from Suffolk, Virginia, USA and I was born on November 3, 1986, that makes me 14. I go to a horrid middle school where I have the arrogance to proclaim I'm mostly the deepest person there. I'm quite tall and thin with long blonde hair, so obvious to say, I look quite different. I am interested in the arts but music is my favourite thing of all. I write poetry and a few of those lucky ones have made it into songs. For a while I thought I had found my kindred spirit in a girl from Texas but our relationship had deteriorated to a mere friendship. I play some keyboard but I have a long way to go. I would like to have a site like this someday but I'm probably too lazy to maintain it. My favourite artists are The Beatles, Todd Rundgren, King Crimson, Genesis, Yes, ELP, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Jethro Tull, The Talking Heads, U2. I like some folk, some new-wave, some pop, jazz, classical, avant-garde, eastern, mostly prog, experimental, etc. I want to someday create a musical revoltuion with the shabby 25 songs I'm working on, ah, foolish naivette! My personal hero is John Lennon but my favourite overall musician is Todd Rundgren. I hate the music the "music" scene of today. My favourite bass player is John Entwistle. I love you review site. In the future, I want to be a musician, poet, film director, music producer, artist, and author.

05.12.2000

Okay, if anybody needs that... Fun to tell about oneself!
Name: Lyolya Svidrigajlova (the name is real, the surname is fake; who cares?)
Date of birth: 25.09.78, age 22 (yuick, I'm already as old! joke :)))
Country: Russia (ah, that's pretty obvious!)
Town: that's an unnecessary information. Well, that's near Moscow, and that's all...
Status: student of MSU (linguistic department of phylological faculty. Hell! a damned nunnery...)

Non music-related interests: Dostoyevsky (pretty obvious), Sologub, Leonid Andreev, Gogol...; on the other hand, Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury. I adore children... well, actually, that's not a point to talk about. Psychology although I'm not good at it (that's something to aspire to...) Life itself. No, I'm serious. Oops...

Music-related interests: First - Russian rock. I'm not going to mention many names, they will hardly tell you much. Okay, that's me, I grew up listening to Bashlachev and Vysotsky... That means - I prefer "wordy" songs. I mean, as for me, good lyrics save poor music, poor vocals, poor guitar playing and so on. Not that I don't listen to the other kind of songs. See below. As for foreign music... my first bands were some garage "punks" of 50s-60s and... Dire Straits. Okay, any could argue, but there's NO ONE like Mark Knopfler! Well, actually, there is no one like Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimmi Hendrix, etc... one might continue... catch my drift? That's the stuff. To be completely honest... yes, I DO like Fogerty brothers (of course, John especially) and Slade (I mean, I don't see a really big difference between them. Actually, I don't understand why one should classify music by styles). Yeeah... I know it's just dumb, stupid, non-thought-provoking pop crap but... I'm just a woman. Nothing else.

I play guitar a little, write songs just for fun. Well, not actually for fun, but this will never be my only occupation... that's just a hobby. Well... I ENVY multi-instrumentalists... gee... how patient they should be! I don't have any criteria in rating music. I either like it or don't like it. That means I either feel like living and breathing after listening to the songs or don't. That's my point of view.
Boom! I hate: female vocals (although I'm a woman myself... gee!), uninspired "well-built" songs (there was a lot of articles in "undergroung" journals about "How to make a 100% pop-hit" or "How to write a good romance for women"... when you take a scheme and just put in chords, notes, words... and here goes a hit... really, this sells but bullshits people's brains)... I think, that's all.
I don't have a reviews page. Actually, I wouldn't really have a lot to say on it. So, let's comment upon others' reviews! That's much simpler! It's so funny to read other people's reviews and completely disagree!!!!

P.S. 1. I didn't know (well, I had to check it before mailing any comments) that you rate artists from 1 to 5, thought it was 1 to 10 at least. Unless, I would never give John Fogerty a 5.
2. Yeah, too many emotions! Never expressed them if my wonderful young daughter didn't scream all the time: "You should visit EVERY music site and tell them <...> John Fogerty is great!!!!!" Those are more HER comments. And she's 3 years old and doesn't have "scientific" approach to the music. In fact, me too... for this particular moment...
3. Sorry for my bad English. In fact, I have a complicated story of learning this language (though I can't say I have learned it up to some decent level). And I always write "somebody is AS old" instead of "THAT old". And I notice that only after mailing the letter.
4. The main thing. As for me, there are two "keys" to my heart for a song, especially not in Russian: Sincerity and Emotion. That's the deal.

I. Personal info

Name: Fredrik Tydal
Year of birth: 1981
Country: Sweden
Occupation: Currently studying English at university

II. Non-music interests

Besides listening to music, I enjoy watching American TV series such as "The Sopranos" (great use of classic rock music), "The West Wing", "The Practice" and "NYPD Blue". I also loved "Hill Street Blues" and "St. Elsewhere". I also enjoy a good film once in a while. I read some too, of course. Lately, it's been many classics in connection with my English studying. Otherwise it's mostly music related literature; I recently finished Noel Redding's auto-biography. Then there's socialising too, of course...

III. Music

My first band was the Beatles, of course. I can be a bit toucy there; I don't like people minimising their importance or skills without any constructive arguments. My second band, however, was a rather unpredictable one - The Byrds. I had always loved their "Mr. Tambourine Man" and was rather intrigued by "Eight Miles High". Picking the Byrds as my second band was a crucial choice, I think. If I had chosen, say, the Velvet Underground instead, my music taste would probably have been completely different today. The Byrds ultimately led me to the Jefferson Airplane, which was my third band. From then on it was CSN/Y, the Doors, the Who, the Rolling Stones and so - it just blew open. Now, my first three bands I'm perhaps a bit over-protective against, but that's just natural.

I'm deeply rooted in Sixties/Seventies music, of course. I won't get into that discussion, but I really don't see why should listen to inferior copies when you can go back to the originals.

I've never really got into progressive rock. I guess it's just because of the label - I could certainly enjoy some early Jethro Tull or something of the kind. To label music is bad, I think. If I had known that the Airplane had "hippie band" stamped all over them, I don't think I would have listened to them back then. I just knew that they did that catchy "Somebody To Love", had a good(-looking) female singer and a weird but distinctive name. By the way, I really don't like the label "hippie music" - just what exactly does it mean? Music from San Francisco? Music made by hippies? Music listened to by hippies? Left-wing music? Psychedelic music? Any music from the Sixties or Seventies? I don't know. Was Jorma Kaukonen a hippie? Didn't the Airplane make pretty dark music and joke around with the hippie movement? I'm ranting; I just think it's strange to label music after a life-style, that's all.

I think it's the same with prog, a label also despised by many. And that's why I have difficulty picking up Thick As A Brick or Close To The Edge, I think. I've actually listened to The Wall once, I thought it was... ok. But it just felt like a rehash of superior efforts by the Who. Early Pink Floyd I kind of like, however. I could certainly pick up Dark Side of The Moon any day now.

I don't particulary care for the glam rock scene, though. T-Rex, Mott, Sweet and Slade... Sorry. Even if their not really glam, the hope that I was someday going to pick up a Roxy Music album was firmly crushed when I heard their awful cover of "Eight Miles High". David Bowie had a few good songs going there, after finally achieving fame he so craved after years of struggling with music styles, but I can't help but feeling he is slightly overrated. And a quick glance at either George's page or at Martin Teller's will give an idea of what my feelings towards the Velvet Underground are.

However, I love roots music; blues, folk, country - the whole deal. So, it's perhaps no surprise that both the Grateful Dead's American Beauty and Crosby, Stills & Nash's debut are among my twenty favourite albums of all time. I also like psychedelic music and have a particular interest in the San Francisco scene. I do like Led Zeppelin; in spite of its weaknesses, the fourth one is an impressive accomplishment. Deep Purple is ok - don't care much for Black Sabbath, though.

My favourite bass player is John Entwistle, but Jack Casady is a very strong runner-up. Keith Moon is my batteur prefèré, with Mitchell, Baker and Bonham following - the order depends on my mood. Jimi Hendrix is my guitarist of choice, followed by Clapton and Mr. Keith Richard. Of course, Nicky Hopkins is my favourite session musician and, according to myself, the three greatest Nicky moments are 1) his impressive playing through-out the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy For The Devil", 2) His embellishments in the New Riders Of The Purple Sage's "California Day" and 3) His piano solo in Quicksilver Messenger Service's "Fresh Air" - the latter actually a rare case where Hopkins actually was a full-fledged member of a group.

Lately, I've been digging up these obscure Sixties/Seventies albums, like the United States Of America's self-titled album, Skip Spence's Oar, the previously mentioned country rock out-fit the New Riders Of The Purple Sage's Powerglide and Kantner, Slick & Freiberg's Baron Von Tollbooth And The Chrome Nun. They are all recommended and certainly better than semi-obscure overrated stuff like Love's Forever Changes.

I've thought about starting a review site of my own, but I've usually come to my senses again. I don't have the time, the self-discipline and probably not the knowledge to do it. I'm content being an observer and occasional commentator.

08.12.2000

Name: Sergey
Surname (or second name if you want so): Zhilkin or Jilkin.
Country: Russia
Date of birth: 28/05/1985
Age: 15
Residence: Moscow
Status: the last form of school, actually.

I'd like to remark one thing about my second name. Actually, it's Jilkin (that's what my parents insist on) but when I've been registering on damned mail system www.mail.ru (never, I repeat, never use this system - it's having breakdowns every hour) machine translated my surname from Russian to English as Zhilkin (if you really want to know it's transcription, try to pronounce the first letter in name 'Jaine' (pronounce it as David Bowie in this song) ). That's how George write my name near my comments. Then the same situation goes with my first name. Try to pronounce 'Sir gay' to get 'Sergey' (actually, the most hurting joke on my name). That's enough about my names and callsings, I think.

Now some facts about my life. As I've already said, I'm in the last form of school. Well, I don't get tired of it and find it very enjoyable (in my opinion, every person MUST find something good in every situation). My main avocation is reading Russian greatest writers, such as Dostoevskiy, Chehov, Blok, Gogol' and Ahmatova. But six months ago I've started listening to Paul McCartney and liked him very much (oh, I should mention my previous music idols - The Beatles (I've been listening to their music since 13) and Russian group Bravo (pity that they became pop-group now)). I've asked my parents for the whole Paul's catalog for my birthday and then (two months later) begged my parents to buy me Harrison's Cloud nine because of song called 'Got my mind set on you' which I heard many times on radio. Check George Harrison's page on this site to see how I was influenced by him... Then I bought all albums of Ringo (in mp3 format this time - I couldn't afford 7 discs (yeah, yeah, our famous bootlegers managed to put all Ringo's catalog (without throwing out any songs) on seven audio discs) that's why I bought two mp3-discs for about 6 dollars) which I enjoyed but, surely, wasn't influenced by. About a month ago I've started my collection of David Bowie. Now I have almost all albums which are reviewed by George on this great site. Ah, I forgot to mention Queen whose albums I've collected. Actaually, I'm really sorry for this cause I could get all Queen's catalog on one mp3-disc and buy Eric Clapton instead. I don't like Queen, really. Few weeks ago I tried to listen to Janis Joplin but I got a shock instead of pleasure. Though, I'll surely give another listen to her. Maybe then? That's all about my CD's I suppose... Oh, I've just remembered that my brother (Dmitry Jilkin(Zhilkin)) gave me as a gift (actually, he didn't need these discs) four albums of Pink Floyd which I don't like. Whew... That's all I think.

Now about my musical skills. I think that I'm zero-talent here. I know how to play some chords on guitar but my vocal is awful (well, my friendes didn't tell me this one but I was smart enough to realise it by myself...). Pity... Once I tried to compose my own song but this was rather bad attempt (the melody was okay and even my voice wasn't hoarsy but the lyrics were awful...). I gave it to listen to only one person (my friend Tanya, actually). She didn't say it was bad or somethimg like that. Thanks God she's clever enough not to hurt my feelings but still by her reaction I understood that I'm nothing in the music. But does it mean that I can't comment the music of the gods? NO! That's why I'm here...

And to end this letter, I'd like to give my HO (humble opinion) about these gods.

Best vocal: John Lennon or George Harrison (don't laugh, please. PLEASE, I said).
Best bass guitarist: Paul McCartney.
Best drummer: Charlie Watts.
Best flute player: Ian Anderson (Oh, I forgot to mention my Jethro Tull's collection).
Best actor: David Bowie.
The most original vocal: Bob Dylan (I don't have much from his catalog, actually, but I've heard him on The concert for Bangla Desh and on radio, too) or David Bowie.
The best album ever produced: All things must pass or The Beatles.