Yesterday, a late Monday afternoon "clean-up time" session. Scrubbed and swept. Mopped the deck. Got everything squeaky-clean. We worked up a healthy sweat. It felt good. Cleared the cobwebs and dust-bunnies. The smell of Meyers peppermint cleaning elixir wafted thru the air.
The soundtrack album spinning on the box was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "The Last DJ" (2002), a recent score on my last visit to the used record store. I love rifling thru the used CDs section. It's sort of a ZEN activity, and you never know what you will come across. I do believe this is the "golden age" of the CD. $5 bucks got me a pristine copy of this recording.
It sounds so fresh, alive, magnificent. What a fabulous band. Mike Campbell is one of the great r&r guitarists. Tom is in fine form: sharp, incisive, r&r vocals and song-writing. The record almost sounds like a "concept" record. What's the concept? A talented music maker is really, really pissed off, and fired up, about the corrupt, corporate, greedy, unethical, music biz. Tom sings and plays with a fiery passion.
It comes across to me as a great companion piece to the Kink's superb, masterful, knockout record, "Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround" (1970). Tom Petty actually sounds quite a bit like Ray Davies, which is a good thing, yes, a really, very, good thing, indeed.
