Buy My Stuff! And More!

Who wants a TEAC 80-8 8-track reel-to-reel recorder? I sold this for $500 a while back, but the guy brought it back and said it was broken, so I took it to a repair shop. They fixed it up nice, rebuilt the motor, replaced all the springs and stuff, good as new. It comes with a noise-reduction unit, a test tape, and a factory calibration card. It cost me about $275 to fix, so I can't take less than $600 for it. If you're interested, contact me. So far, I'm getting no bites from Craigslist or Recycler.

My review of A Scanner Darkly is up at The Fake Life.

I guess I should say something about the death of Syd Barrett, an important figure in my life. It's a weird situation, since nobody's really heard anything from him in over 30 years. Reading the obituaries around the web, it seems that most people seem to feel his life was entirely tragic. I'm not so sure. 30 years is a long time to come to peace with something like that. Maybe he was happy just being a dreamer/hermit, living in a little house in the country, tending to his garden, writing songs nobody would hear, royalties from his one Pink Floyd album paying for his simple life, all the time with the satisfaction that he had accomplished something signifigant with Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and no longer felt any need to prove himself or pursue the spotlight. Maybe that's a naive view. But I never hoped, as apparantly many fans did, that he would someday get it together and make a big, splashy comeback. I kinda liked it just the way it was. Anyway, if you're not familiar with Syd, now's a good time to check out some of his music (and even though it's not him, The Television Personalities' "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives" is a great song).

Currently checked out from various librarys:

The Ramones - Rocket to Russia
Madvillain - Madvillainy
Jimi Hendrix Experience - Live at Woodstock
James Brown - Live at the Apollo
North Mississippi All Stars - 51 Phantom
The 101'ers - Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited
Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home
Led Zeppelin - Coda
John Coltrane - Live at the Village Vanguard Again
Rage Against the Machine (s/t)
Talib Kweli - Reflection Eternal
The Very Best of Toots and the Maytals
Lee "Scratch" Perry - The Singles Collection
v/a - Rough Guide to Dub
Duran Duran - Rio
Duran Duran - Arena
Duran Duran - Seven and the Ragged Tiger
The Cure - Standing on the Beach
v/a - The Rebirth of Cool, Vol. 4

Yes, I take full advantage of the public library system.