Thank you for not clearing your 'favorites' settings...

Sorry, there's no new material just yet. The Dylan covers and Nico discography projects will continue this year, but for the moment I wanted anyone still alive out there to know that a post on a humor blog I used to do has its first new post in a couple of years and it's music related. Just FYI.

I hope you like visual puns.

Happy Halloween

.....You may have guessed by now that I was one of hundreds of thousands if not millions to suffer from power outages in the northeast U.S. in the wake of a freak snow storm. This should not have had any impact on completing the long overdue Cramps compilation which, frankly, I should have posted in August. However, for the previous week I'd been doing some cooking and caretaking for a relative recovering from major surgery. I brought my notes to complete editing the final track selection to make sure it fits the time limitations of the various formats. During my stay the best I could manage was to edit and post a previously written "Checklist Of Shame" installment. Now that I'm back in a position to get to work I'm finding it physically impossible to type fast enough to get this out for Halloween.

.....By some small way of compensation, I could refer you to the series of Halloween music compilations I suggested last year for those who hadn't discovered the blog. There should be a Halloween label to click on in the list to the right. Also, all this month you could have been enjoying the daily posts on http://theroadsofautumndusk.blogspot.com/ as well as http://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/ for all variety of Halloween goodness (and badness), not just the musical end. Where I am trick or treating has been postponed for reasons of safety as much as convenience. Until all downed power lines have been reconnected it's best to give the kids one more day of anticipation. If I give up sleep, it might be all I need to finish the post. (And for readers in the U.S., don't forget to vote next week. You may not have any say in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, but you should have a say in your own fate.)

Blogger failure, May 11-13, 2011

.....Well, let's never do THAT again. No sooner do I shake the dust off and try to get back to the five-day-a-week schedule I originally shot for last year, a mere three days later the whole Blogger system has a seizure of some kind. The post for Wednesday began late and I save it, incomplete, as a draft. Late Wednesday night/Thursday morning I went to finish it and one for the comic book blog I do and I kept getting rerouted to error messages. Then I noticed that my on screen name (next to my icon) had been changed to my personal name. My name's not really a state secret or anything like that, but the few people who read and enjoy this and don't think to bookmark it have a much better chance of finding it again by Googling "pblfsda" than my own, much more common name.

.....Long story short: the draft I was working on was lost, but the draft of the comic book post was not, probably because that one was started earlier. I'm going to have to check my archives to see if anything was lost, so rewriting the post will have to wait until tomorrow or the next rainy day. If I can manage to post the comic blog weekly and the music blogs each twice a week, that'll give me two days 'off' to put the house and yard in order. Or maybe find a job. For anyone else in Blogger, I recommend reading Blogger Buzz (I know, I usually don't either but this is one of those times it fills a real need) for the few, vague sketchy details we're ever going to get about this system suspension. For anyone just reading, don't worry too much about it. Even during the worst of it you should have been able to read any post prior to May 11th. Well, let's see if this post works.

Rockabilly Interlude/Cramps

.....I haven't posted (except for the previous note) in about three weeks for several reasons. I've been trying to establish a backlog of material on the Christmas blog (350th anniversaries don't come along every day), the current incarnation of the Doom Patrol comic book will likely be cancelled in a few months, impacting my first blog, and finally I've been uilizing my often neglected Livejournal account to write a detailed annotated Cramps discography for the purposes of a renovated compilation. Longtime readers of this blog may be aware that it is all just an enormous set of liner notes for a set of mix tapes compiled in the 1990's. That set of tapes was both an answer to the often-asked question that makes up the title and a way for me to reconnect with the odd bits and pieces in my collection that didn't seem to have any place among the single artist/act compilations I more commonly made for myself at the time.

.....One cassette I put together then which I continued to routinely listen to was a 90-minute Cramps selection which I called "Highlights For Lowlifes", but which only covered their career up to 1991. They released new material slowly but regularly, about an album every three years, but still toured in between. I posted about them recently here and since then have been in touch with a personal friend who wanted to dig up whatever I might have available. That sounded to me like a good reason to renovate the compilation. The Livejournal entries are essentially my scratch pad for the project. I'll note every recorded I've ever learned about there, select the best and /or most representative tracks and plot workable cassette and CD configurations, which I may post here between the end of Volume 4 and the start of Volume 5, not unlike taking time out for Halloween last fall, but with more advance planning.

.....If you want to follow my notes, perhaps learning what holes there may be in your own collection, Google my screen name, pblfsda, and the name livejournal. It should be the top of the list, or thereabouts.

.....I hope to complete Volume four in March.

Technical difficulties, please stand by

.....And it was going so well. This blog was very nearly daily for a few months, and a labor of love I can assure you. Almost a month ago my hard drive blew and I've had trouble repairing/replacing it. At the moment I'm relying on the rationed access at our local library. If I can find transportation more frequently I may stop in for quick posts when possible. If that isn't an option then this brief note will at least let you know that I have not abandoned the project so early in its stages. I hope to post regularly (if not daily again) by the end of August.
.....Anybody stumbling across this blog recently can of course avail themselves of what backlog of entries I do have. If you specifically sought out the blog because you were looking for off-the-main-road listening suggestions then I could recommend the list of links on the right side of the screen. As I posted I would occassionally add to it, but for obvious reasons that is on hold for the moment as well. They should all still work though. If you find any problems with any of them, leave a comment with this entry and I will (eventually) make time to look into it. I use them occasionally myself, after all.