Five songs with five stars in my iTunes

I haven't rated all of the songs in my iTunes, but here's five songs that have five stars:

1. AC/DC - "Let's Get It Up"
   My favorite song from For Those About To Rock... We Salute You
2. Aerosmith - "Walk This Way"
   The original verison. I think the Run DMC/Aerosmith version has four stars...
3. Big Country - "Wonderland"
   This may be my favorite Big Country song.
4. Circle of Dust - "Chasm"
   Deadly chasm opened wide...
5. Rush - "The Spirit Of Radio"
   This song has one of my all-time favorite bass lines.

There's many more five star songs in my iTunes. That means I can probably milk a few more posts like this.

Five concerts worth remembering

Today's list of five is "Five concerts worth remembering."

1. Cheap Trick - Baltimore Civic Center - touring in support of All Shook Up
   Tom Petersson had just left the band and had been replaced by Pete Comita. The concert tee I bought was basically the album cover with Tom replaced by Pete. Ugh... Bun E. Carlos busted a bass drum head and the concert paused while they replaced it. The main reason this concert was memorable: On the floor of the Civic Center they had wooden risers which the chairs were on. As they kicked into "Gonna Raise Hell" the floor shook beneath me. Cheap Trick, the band that had made me want to become a guitar player, now made me want to be a bass player!
2. Big Country - University of Delaware - touring in support of The Crossing
   It was December of my freshman year of college. I hadn't been to a concert since summer. I had seen a couple of Big Country videos on "Friday Night Videos" and thought they were OK. I went to this concert mainly because I was desperate to go to a concert. I didn't care for the opening act. They stunk. Enough said. Big Country, however, blew me away. Though I only knew two songs of theirs, I was greatly impressed with the rest of their set. Their cover of "Tracks Of My Tears" sounded really good too. The next day, I rushed to the local record store and bought the album. (It probably should have made my previous list!)
3. The Alarm - University of Delaware - touring in support of Change
   The other end of my college experience. The Alarm booked a last minute show at UD because their gig of playing on Saturday Night Live had been cancelled because of a writers strike. The Alarm was a lot better in concert than I had expected them to be. I already had the CD, so I didn't need to rush out the next day to buy it.
4. Vigilantes of Love - Truro Church - touring in support of To The Roof Of The Sky
   This was the first time I saw VoL in concert. The most memorable moment of this concert was when Bill stepped away from his microphone to sing "Judas Skin." His unamplified voice filled the church. Sublime!
5. Sam Phillips - 930 Club - touring in support of Martinis and Bikinis
   Martinis and Bikinis ranks up there with The Turning as one of my favorite albums of all time. This was the third time I had seen her in concert. (The fourth if you count the one time while she was still singing CCM pop - although I wasn't really paying attention to that set.) On this tour, T-Bone Burnett was on guitar and Jerry Scheff was on bass. At this point in my life, I was mainly a bass player, and Jerry's work on Sam's CDs made him one of my favorites. I had direct line of sight to his bass amp and could hear every note he played. He did not disappoint. However, my favorite moment of the concert was when Sam came out by herself with an acoustic guitar and played "Answers Don't Come Easy."

O is for Ooops

"Oops!" That's what I thought to myself this morning shortly after arriving at the office. What did I do? Well, let me begin back in August...

Prior to my birthday, my wife had placed order through a certain online mega-retailer for Big Country's Greatest 12" hits CD. I had a number of Big Country 12" records back in my college days and really enjoyed the extended remixes of these songs. The CD was not released here in the US, but was being sold as an import. After a short while, my wife got an emailer from the aforementioned mega-retailer that they would ship the CD some time in October (my birthday was in September). OK, whatever... As October puttered on, my wife got another email stating that they hoped to ship the CD sometime in November. OK, I'm getting a little impatient here... I went online to the Big Country official web site went to the contact us page and posted an question of how fast I could get the CD if I ordered through them. After getting a reply, I placed an order through their online store and my wife cancelled the mega-retailer order. Well, yesterday, my CD arrived (still ahead of the latest mega-retailer estimate)! I was excited. We listened to it on the way to (and then home from) Costco. I ripped the CD and created a playlist so that I could put it on my iPod and listen to it at work today. I got to work and was ready to crank up the extended remixes only to find that I had neglected to sync the new playlist to my iPod. OOPS