Don Dorsey: Bachbusters
    Bach as it was meant to be: played on a 20th century synthesizer. The mathematical precision of the playing and compositions is hypnotizing but beautiful. The disc ends in a tremendous finale of the greatest version of "Tocatta & Fugue in D minor" followed by the perfect fadeout song: "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desire". I consider this disc to be a must-own for everybody's collection. Incredible.

    Grateful Dead: Workingman's Dead
    Grateful Dead: American Beauty
    Although I'm not particularly enamored of their live/jamming style, these two albums capture them at their most listenable. Fresh off the excesses of the psychedelic 60's but prior to the self-indulgent 70's, these albums feature all of their best songs: "Uncle John's Band", "Casey Jones" and my favorite, "Ripple." Slap these two on a 100-minute tape and fill it with the "Terrapin Suite" and you'll have one of the best tapes in my collection.

    Peter, Paul and Mary
    Their debut album catches them before their slavish following of Bobby D. My older brothers had a copy of this and I listened to it from when I was very, very young. I'm not sure which are the hits here because I know every one of these songs by heart. Highlights include: "Lemon Tree," "If I Had A Hammer," "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and "Autumn to May." Tremendous! Too bad it's so painful to see them now as they charge a king's ransom for admission. Evidently capitalism wasn't as bad as they thought.

    Matthew Sweet: Altered Beast
    For most fans of his prior effort, Girlfriend, this album was a big disappointment. I find it not as cohesive as that concept album, but it certainly has it's moments. "Someone to Pull the Trigger" feels like it could have been on Girlfriend but was found to be too gruesome. "Devil with the Green Eyes" has the trademark Sweet vocal overdubs but most of these rock a little harder than the previous album. Altogether a fine, if minorly disappointing, effort.

    Neil Young & Crazy Horse: At The Gorge 1996
    A bootleg tape of the concert I attended in George, Washington last fall. I was lucky enough to get a copy that included Patti Smith's tremendous opening set. I watched her entire performance with chin on the ground. She certainly commands attention.

    Neil, of course, was awesome. It rained steadily from the moment he took the stage with a roaring "Hey Hey My My" followed by an electric "Pocahontas." The rain didn't stop him from putting on a tour de force lasting over 2 hours. If you thought it was cool when he pulled out the huge electric fans during "Like A Hurricane" in the 70's, imagine what it was like when he and the Horse played it for 20 minutes in the wind and rain! He capped it off by breaking all the strings on Old Black and thrashing them against the pickups as Billy kicked his bass across the stage. In a final act of consecration, Neil picked up one of the huge candles from the edge of the stage and poured the wax right onto the pickups. Larry Cragg came racing out to save Old Black, but he was too late. The band then departed.

    After a few minutes of screaming and yelling they returned for a 40 minute encore that started with "Welfare Mothers" and ended with an incendiary "Rockin' in the Free World". The latter featured Neil doing a tribute to Hendrix' "Star Spangled Banner" which I completely missed during the concert. Despite that, this was one of the greatest concert experiences of my life and I love reliving it on tape.