JINGONATION

“You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire.” ~ Peter Gabriel

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Throwback Thursday - Gunfight At The O.K. Corral

The shootout lasted 30 seconds, took 3 lives, and lives on 130 years later.  Click here for the rest of the story.

“Three men hurled into eternity in the duration of a moment.”

 Tombstone Epitaph of October 27, 1881.

Tombstone, AZ – Wednesday, October 26, 1881

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Old Is New Again

I remember being a young teenager and frequently visiting an electronics store called “Wall To Wall Sound” . I couldn’t afford anything in there, but listening and looking at all the Hi-Fi equipment was a great experience. I can still remember daydreaming about the perfect stereo system I’d have one day…and a black van…lol. I eventually saved enough to buy a complete “Sharp” stereo, mostly due to affordability and looks. I spent a lot of time blasting rock and roll records through that system and surprisingly, my parents were pretty tolerant about it. Eventually, life happens. Between moving about the country and audio industry format upgrades, I finally landed on listening to lossy MP3 files on an IPOD. I guess as the quality of the medium gradually declined I became used to sub-par audio experiences.

I’d resisted getting back into vinyl when interest started trending, thinking my hearing loss was so great I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway. I was wrong. Eventually, I decided to give vinyl a spin and bought a newer model turntable. Wow! The music sounded amazing, almost like listening to a different record in some cases. I could hear sounds and nuances I hadn’t before. This was especially true of music I’d only experienced on compressed MP3 files. I also liked that listening to music on a turntable was something that made you pay more attention to the music. Listening to music was the thing you were doing and not something that happened in the background while you did something else.

I’m not going to get into the science, because I’m not that smart, but I do understand that compressing something like music into MP3 format requires a loss of information…sound. It makes the music muddy and indistinct, while vinyl brings out every sound. They say vinyl is warmer, and while I can’t explain what the means, I think I can feel that too.

Eventually I began to build that system I dreamt about so long ago. Vintage high quality equipment is extremely affordable and in many cases equal to some of todays higher cost systems. Vintage equipment also looks cool.

So get on craigslist and pick up an amp, turntable, and speakers and use the web to learn more about that equipment.

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Explosions In The Sky - Glittering Blackness

The unmistakable sound of Fender Stratocasters (with an Ibanez Talman thrown in). Rock isn’t dead, they just stripped out vapid vocals. Check it out…

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Sigur Rós - Varúð

One of a collection of 16 short films made for the Valtari Film Experiment –

Translation for the Morse Code in the video:

“It doesn’t matter what I say” “The only thing that matters is how you feel” “Understanding that the words are irrelevant is of great importance” “What feelings do you have”

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Sigur Ros - Hoppipolla

I’d passed up this Icelandic band so many times in the past.  I had a narrow definition of Post-Rock, and anything with vocals was out.  Now, however, I realize that genres are fluid and that makes them pretty much meaningless except in the general sense.  Sigur Ros is considered “Post-Rock” because “Post-Rock” people listen to it. And that’s how I’ll approach it from now on.  Enjoy this track from the pride of Iceland.

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Terry Kath and Chicago

Terry Kath has to be one of the most underrated  guitarists in all of rock and roll history.  Even Jimi Hendrix said that Kath was better than him.  Watch and listen to him shred a Stratocaster.

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Feeling a little blue

This usually picks me up…

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Have you passed through this night?

This great evil, where’s it come from? How’d it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who’s doing this? Who’s killing us, robbing us of life and light, mocking us with the sight of what we might’ve known? Does our ruin benefit the earth, does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?

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Genesis - Anyway (The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway)

Anyway, they say she comes on a pale horse

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Godspeed You! Black Emperor - New Untitled Tracks

Here are two new tracks caught live from recent events. Titles are unknown at this point.

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Explosions In the Sky - Logic of a Dream

From EITS yet to be released album…

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Simon and Garfunkle - The Sound Of Silence

And the people bowed and prayed To the neon God they made And the sign flashed out it’s warning And the words that it was forming

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Throwback Thursday - Pierre-Auguste Renoir

25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919

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If These Trees Could Talk - Malabar Front

“Attention! Your attention, please! A newsflash has this moment arrived from the Malabar front. Our forces in South India have won a glorious victory. I am authorized to say that the action we are now reporting may well bring the war within measurable distance of its end. Here is the newsflash –”Bad news coming, thought Winston. And sure enough, following on a gory description of the annihilation of a Eurasian army, with stupendous figures of killed and prisoners”

1984 by George Orwell

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Wilco - Theologians

I’m going away Where you will look for me Where I’m going you cannot come

No one’s ever gonna take my life from me I lay it down A ghost is born

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Do Make Say Think

It seems that the best musicians are the most subtle.

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The Evpatoria Report - Taijin Kyofusho

Taijin Kyofusho is a Japanese term for extreme personal shame. It’s also the title given to this sad, emotional track from The Evpatoria Report. The track is an eerie homage to the last minutes leading up to the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster of 2003, when it broke apart over the western U.S. The music overshadows the event better than words ever could.