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Here’s an interesting read about the RIAA’s top selling records of all time.  Some of them I expected, some are slightly horrifying.

Here’s a quick one to get a couple of songs out that may well turn out to be simple guilty pleasures. I may not like them a year from now, but for right now, I listen to them a lot.

The song for Cover To Cover #4 is ‘The Wizard’ by Black Sabbath. This was on the first record the band released (Friday the 13th, 1970). I’m not an expert on the band, but though much credit is due to bands like Led Zeppelin for creating heavy metal, I tend to think that they laid the foundation for what Black Sabbath built. No one was doing what they did during that time. As the music starts, enjoy Ozzy playing harmonica (something I didn’t know he did until I started to research the song), and there hear a couple of folks move it to another (don’t read that as “better”) level.

I was inspired to choose The Wizard when I found a clip of it being done on Conan O’Brien by unlikely conspirators.

The new Busch Stadium went into action last week here in St. Louis, but my memories of it are more musical in nature. Hear about (and a song from one of) the gigs I saw at the old Busch Stadium here.

First, is Natalie Portman blastin’ gats (yo!) and takin’ names in an SNL skit where she raps. I got this link from a friend at work. It’s a riot! She gets into it.
The second is the trailer for Clerks II, and it’s pretty cool. There are also links there to a couple of other clips. It’s hard to imagine a sequel, or maybe follow up is a better term, but I’m looking forward to it.

This edition of Cover To Cover rectifies a horrible oversight in regards to a noteworthy anniversary in the life of Porter. His first trip to a record store.  Now Hear This is the place many many (entire) paychecks were spent during the 90′s.  I still get all my special order stuff from Tom.  Gotta support local business ya know?  In any case, the song featured is called Pablo Picasso.  The original is by someone you’ve probably seen, the cover is by someone you’ve heard.

Here are a few tunes that I’ve had laying around the hard drive for a short time but haven’t been able to squeeze into a podcasts. Enjoy!

1. Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade – The Awakening (May, 13, 2003 @ Bogart’s in Cincinnati). This is a short piece with just Claypool and Paulo Baldi on drums. When Alex and I saw Claypool back in October they ended the show with what I’m pretty sure was this song. Only, he was sick (and time has allowed me to accept that the show just plain sucked as a result), so by that point of the gig he could have played just about anything and we would have been bored. When they started jamming this out we got a little excited but, being a short song we didn’t get our full funky fill. In any case, this is super sweet and as it ends it keeps you wanting more.

2. Trey Anastasio – Push On ‘Til The Day (Live at 2004 Bonnaroo Music Festival, Manchester, TN). I dig Trey Anasatasio’s solo stuff more than Phish, easily. Phish was one of those bands that I didn’t really get, but at the same time understood a bit why a lot of folks did. Long jams, goofy lyrics, lots of creativity. His songwriting as a solo artist is a lot more focused and even the jams are tighter. This song will have you grooving in the first 10 seconds at it carries you through all the way to the end. There are a couple of slower bits while different instruments take their solo’s, but overall the tune is groovy groovy groovy. One of the sites I get bootlegs from posted this show and an ungodly number of people downloaded all 900 megs of it and half of them it seems posted how great the show was. So I checked it out, listened to it, liked it, and liked it so much that forked over the $15 to download the lossless files from phishlive.com. Worth every dang nickle of it too. It’s 3 disc, the first is Trey with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra, and the second is with a full band (‘full’ meaning “with horn section”). In addition to mostly Trey’s solo material covers by Led Zeppelin, Earth Wind & Fire, Bob Marley, Charlie Daniels, and Dire Straits are included. You should know by now what a tool I am for covers.

3. Sting – Jeremiah Blues (Live in Chicago, April 1991). This is one of my favourite bootlegs. I love it so much I can tell exactly when it was purchased and what else I did that day. I’ve probably copied it (to a Maxell or TDK blank tape) for almost all of my homies while they were in college and I keep a copy in my glove box just in case someone needs it, and let’s face it, you all need a copy. It’s got 2 sets on it, one from Soul Cages and one from Ten Summoner’s Tales, and each features Dominic Miller (guitar), David Sancious (piano), and Vinnie Colaiuta (mentioned in Note To Self #5) on drums. The sound on this is so crystal clear that I was pretty surprised to find out that this was recorded for a radio show in Chicago. At least that’s what a google turned up on it. I could go on and on but it wouldn’t make any sense after saying all that.