Living with Lewy Body Dementia
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease
I just finished my vinyl countdown. And I’m alive. Do those two things correlate? Not obviously, but probably. Five years ago, after receiving the diagnosis of Lewy body dementia, an incurable degenerative disease that has similar traits to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, I vowed to review my 678 vinyl records in a blog before I died. …
Continue reading “How to fight a fatal brain disease with vinyl records (slight return)”
ALBUM: Tres Hombres (1973) MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$$ Well, if you had to guess what would be the last album on MyVinylCountdown list of vinyl records, as organized alphabetically, this would be a good guess. It’s pretty hard not to be at the bottom of an alphabetical list when your name begins with not only the …
Continue reading “ZZ Top — 1 (Last One of 678 Listed in reverse alphabetical order)”
I would not have guessed how the end of MyVinylCountdown would affect me. Is something supposed to happen? I find myself slowing down, on MVC and in real life. The technical side of this thing is getting harder. When I was subsumed with hallucinations in 2020 I lost some of my know-how. Passwords, photos, videos, …
My wife was in the backyard gardening when she heard a plop. A bird had fallen from the sky. It landed just outside of our fence in the paved alley way and lay there, twitching now and again. Let’s just say, it didn’t stick the landing. Catherine heard the thud, and went to take a …
ALBUM: Scoop (1983) MVC Rating: 2.5/$$$$$ Scoop is a two-record grab bag from Who guitarist Pete Townshend. It’s not good. There’s no there there. I’ve just listened to two records (four album sides) of demos, outtakes, studio tomfoolery, and alternate versions. It’s one of those recordings meant for the trash heap, or at least kept …
ALBUMS: Their Greatest Hits (1974); Live at the Forum (1969); Seven Separate Fools (1972). MVC Rating: Greatest, 4.0/$$$; Live, 3.5/$$; Fools, 3.5/$$. A guilty pleasure. That’s because it was kind of uncool to like Three Dog Night in my teen years. ‘Too commercial’ and ‘they don’t write their own songs’ were among the comments. But …
ALBUMS: R&L ‘Shoot Out the Lights (1982); Richard Thompson ‘Hand of Kindness’ (Solo album 1983) MVC Rating: R&L 5.0 $$$$$; Richard 4.0/$$$$$ Oh man, this is a good one, I had going in this was a 4.5. In other words a high quality, almost perfect album. But then I dropped the needle after about 25 …
So, I’m at an historic mile-marker in my quest to review the 678 vinyl records that I bought or were given over the past 50 years. I’m down to 100. I’m doing this to raise awareness of Lewy body dementia. My goal is to finish before I die of that degenerative brain disease. Starting with …
Continue reading “100 more records and MyVinylCountdown will be done”
ALBUM: Bush Doctor (1978) MVC Rating: 4.0/ $$$$ Fine reggae music. Tosh’s smooth as syrup baritone provided a nice contrast to Mick Jagger’s usual, well you know, Jagger-voice. A Jagger-Tosh duet,(You) Got to Walk and Don’t Look Back was a hit single for them or ‘dem’ as we use the Jamaican vernacular — as in …
ALBUMS: Infected (1986); Soul Mining (1984) MVC Ratings: Infected 3.5/$$$$$; Soul Mining 4.0/ $$$$$ I know it looks like a typo: ‘The the’, but that is the group’s name. I guess your could pronounce it Thee The or The Thee but I’m sticking with Thuh thuh. This British techno group was the vehicle for Matt …