As I was about to say Derek, glad you're digging Chico Hamilton's "Dealer". I like the groovy big beat aspect of it, the tenor man (Arnie Lawrence I think) is very good - I'll have to look for him again. Larry Coryell's work on guitar is generally very interesting, but I would have preferred a little less of him overall. It's really his record.

I bought a few disks the other day, so in the spirit of Blog-dom I thought I'd throw them out for consideration: Ben Kweller's latest, which I generally like quite a bit (it's not interesting, it's just good). He has a great indy voice and three or four very solid songs; Archer Prewiit's Gerroa Songs, which is highly atmopsheric eight-track acoustic stuff. Very nice, if at times a little in love with its navel. I want to buy his next (2002) release "three", but don't see myself getting to Soundscapes until after my exam in 4 weeks. If either of you guys is there and can pick it up for me that'd be great. I might even pay you back. It's in the "labels" section near the door; John Cunningham's record (called Happy Go Unlucky) which I think I'm going to like a lot. Sort of from the Elliot Smith school. Last, and, I suspect, least (for me) was Franz Ferdinand. I'm getting tired of people re-creating eighties' sounds (which are generally execrable to my ears) and thinking it's cool. Not all of the songs on this disk fall into that trap, but about half do, and they're lyrically pretty banal too. Mind you, there are a few pretty thrilling numbers - the first track "Jacqueline" makes my blood race. A few more listens will seal its fate one way or the other.