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Dunk brings it home for Lewy body fight

The game was knotted at 18. It had been getting a little intense, some might even say ‘chippy.’

The next bucket would win.

Every  shot was fiercely contested. Most shots brought shouts of ‘Foul,’ and the ensuing usual arguments. 
“You’re holding.” “He traveled.” That’s to be expected when the two best teams in a field of 17 are duking it out.

It was the finals Saturday morning, Aug. 20, for the 2022 MikeMadness’ basketball fundraising event. Lives were on the line.

Say what? MikeMadness raised a Madness record, about $16,000 for research and awareness of Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disease that is always fatal.

I have the disease. So they were playing for me and the other 1.4 million affected by the disease in the U.S.


Jim Bakken/UAB

The event brought 100’s of family members, friends, and curious spectators and thousands of dollars (we are still awaiting official tallies.)

So it all came to down to this, 18-18. Nineteen wins it.

Jim Bakken, chief communications officer at UAB, had the ball in his hands at the top of the key.

“You have no idea how much I look forward to Mike Madness,” Bakken said later. ” Getting to play in it this year with my son and showing him why the day is so special was really meaningful to me.”

His son, Jack Bakken, a 16-year-old hoopster at Mount Brook High School, was on dad’s team. And he was a chip off the old block: long and lanky, only a few inches shorter than his 6′ -foot-6-inch father.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham and the UAB Student Rec Center have hosted Mike Madness for four of the last six years since 2017. COVID thwarted attempts in 2020 and 2021.

MikeMadness has raised a total of more than $55,000 with the the four tournaments.

“So much of what UAB is about – like health and wellness, research and serving the greater good – is embodied in the tournament, and we are honored to join Mike in his fight.” 

Jim Bakken splits the double-team at MikeMadness, a fundraiser to find a cure for Lewy Body dementia. The3X3 basketball event at UAB Rec Center was all tied up and at game point when Bakken drove the lane and slammed down a vicious dunk. (Photo: Trisha Powell Crain)

But what about the game? The UAB team and the Power Ballers have met before in Mike Madness finals. They are usually hard fought games, and this was no exception as it came down to the wire.

”It is a bit of a blur,” Bakken remembers.”I was actually planning to pass to a younger teammate but saw an opening to go left and create some separation. I decided to drive hard and see what happened. As a 44-year-old weekend warrior, my athleticism and ability to drive hard can be pretty inconsistent, but luckily I caught a little burst of adrenaline. ”Without that, I’m pretty sure it would have been a boring but fundamentally sound left handed lay-up.”

Instead it was a slam dunk amid three defenders. The crowd went wild.

NOTE: Early post of this story had the wrong date for the tournament. Correct date was Aug. 20, 2022. Also corrected to say 17 teams participated. For more information see www.myvinylcountdown.com and the Lewy body dementia association LBDA.org.

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Put it on ice, willya?

I got nothing against ice.

I like ice cubes floating around in my iced tea on a hot summer day. Ice was among our first inhabitants when the world was being formed.

I raise this issue because I heard on the news a story about News Jersey pro surfer (Yes, they surf in Jersey.) This Ocean City man, Rob Kelly, has vowed to take an ice bath or swim in the ocean every day this year — part of a New Years resolution.

When the blizzard or so-called ‘bomb cyclone’ hit a couple of weeks ago, he could be seen trudging through snow covered beach, stripping down to his surf shorts and hitting the waves, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Rodrigo Torrejón.

I would rather have the eye fluid in my head drained with a hypodermic needle, with no anesthesia, than jump in 35-degree water.

I was a promising swimmer as a precocious 7-year-old living in St. Paul, Minn., We had moved North in the late 1960s from Alabama where I swam in lakes, rivers, creeks and community pools.

In Minnesota, I became part of the Red Cross training program. It had levels like Beginners, Advanced Beginners, Intermediate and so on. I breezed through the levels. All the time. I was aiming to get a Lifeguard certification, which was the highest level. But, alas, I was too young and too small to drag the weights from the bottom of the pool. And frankly I was too young to tell people two or three times my age to stop dunking the other kids or pushing them in the pool.

Now I can’t remember exactly what happened, but for some reason I began practicing my swimming technique in a Minnesota lake with a whole bunch of other kids, many Norwegian, who had a natural immunity to cold it seemed.

Now Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 lakes and woodchucks are abundant: “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a wood chuck would chuck wood.’

I’d go into the water with my faded Alabama tan and come out as blue as a B.B. King song. I spent the rest of the day shivering.

This is a long way of telling you that I avoided swimming as a sport when I moved back to the South. Football, baseball, basketball yes. But full immersion in water colder than a warm bath, I’ve sworn it off.

Soaking in ice is considered therapeutic. It’s a trend among athletes seeking quicker recovery from sore and injured muscles.

Not me, you go jump in the tub of cubes. You’ll find me in a 180-degree sauna sipping a cold ice tea.

Which brings me to one last thing that may explain my cold aversion. I tip the scale the other way. Bring me the heat.

I can sit in a tub with water hot enough to boil shrimp. I can take a shower that melts the curtain.

It still makes me smile, slightly sadistically, when I hear my wife, Catherine, walk into the shower. I hear the water come on followed by what sounds like the yelp of a scalded dog.

After 40 years of marriage she still forgets one of life’s important credos: Never stand under shower head when you first turn on the water.

P.S. I did do the Ice Bucket Challenge a few years ago to raise money for ALS by signing up to have a large bucket of ice water (it took two people to lift the bucket) dumped on my head.

In that moment when the water (with cubes) drenched my body, my breathing ceased, and memories of Minnesota flashed before my eyes, one thought made its way to my head: Next time I’m going for the elective eye surgery.

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How to fight a fatal brain disease with vinyl records (slight return)

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.

With my post today of ‘Tres Hombres’ by ZZ Top, I have fulfilled my vow. The blog is www.myvinylcountdown.com. This blog version (slight return) is slightly different than the AL.com version.

Three ways the blog helped me slow my progression:

1. Hand-eye coordination. Finger acuity. Using my fingers everyday to type helps my memory, finding the right keys and spelling the words right.

2. Finding music. Intellectual acuity. Hearing songs you had forgotten about or rarely played. Busting out albums still in the shrink wrap. Again a memory challenge as the past comes rushing in. Finding some hidden gems worth $$$. Listen to Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk.

3. Organizational acuity. Do you want to organize by alphabet, or genre? Abba to Zappa, or bluegrass to Northern soul?

Thinking back to the day I started this blog (Sept., 16, 2017), I can say I really never thought I’d make it. I wondered about starting an office pool instead — but that would be just wrong.

This is more than an assessment and accounting of my records. This is about using blogging or any hobby as mental exercise and posting publicly to bring awareness to this little known, but not rare, disease.

At the time I made this pledge I didn’t know how long I had before dying — and still don’t.

The numbers on average lifespan after diagnosis are different depending on which source is used, but I was working off of 4 to 8 years. The Lewy Body Dementia Association rightfully points out that every person’s experience is different and some die 2 years after diagnosis and others keep on keeping on for 2 decades.

So I’m at 4 years three months with the blog and about 5 years with my diagnosis. I’m thankful for each new day.

I’ve been through some tough times when hallucinations consumed me. There was a period of time, weeks, months in 2020 when I couldn’t post anything, and I didn’t think I would crawl out of it.

It seemed as if I was living in another dimension or universe.

In my hallucinations, my house was not my house. Depending on the day, it was a counseling center or physical therapy operation where amputees would work out. Then at night it would turn into a research facility where I was the subject of their studies in a room with glass walls for observation and sometimes it was a nightclub.

I was talking to invisible people telepathically. (Wow! I never in a million years thought I’d write that sentence.)

I got to know the other people, or beings, and would engage them in these telepathic conversations. One time I asked Tom, — my son-in-law, — who is British but not an alien, I can assure you — to clear out what I thought was a party going on in the basement.

I went down and began talking to a being whom I could see right through. I asked who he was, where he was from and who all the others are. (It was kind of like the bar scene in ‘Star Wars).”

He said they, like him, were travelers made up of organized energy from the universe; he said something about radio waves and virtual reality. It made total sense when he told me. Now I can’t remember what seemed so real, and what I do remember, I don’t understand. But the general concept was that through virtual reality machines, people could leave their body at home and travel the universe. (Wasn’t this the plot of the Matrix?)

I wandered around the basement-turned-juke-joint full of floating apparitions. An incessant din of bells and bellows came from the elaborate video arcade games. The furniture was alive. I left the basement and came back after a while and it was cleared out. I thanked my puzzled looking son-in-law for shutting it down.

That’s just a few of the hallucinations that made up my days, full immersion hallucinations I call them. I’d also get less complex hallucinations such as a mouse running across the floor, or seeing people’s faces in tree trunks. Once I saw what I thought were people breaking into my car, I ran out, nothing there. But then I looked up and saw them laughing from across the street. It was a hallucination.

I started to learn, or think separately when hallucinating, which helped me control them in keeping my sanity, I would tell Red John, my nemesis in much of this, that he is nothing, that he was not real. It would drive him crazy.

On the medical side of things I started using a new type of medication called pimavancerin, or its commercial name NuPlazid. For me, it was nothing short of a miracle drug.

But that’s only one part of slowing down these rogue proteins that are attacking my brain.

Once the hallucinations stopped I could better figure this out, continue to exercise and eat sesame seeds (supposedly good for brain health.)

I give a big part of my success at keeping the demons at bay with the blog. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to fight myself just typing these words. The Parkinsonian symptoms of the disease make it feel like there are hidden force fields. Getting out of bed being suddenly stuck in the force field and can’t move until I bring my mind back around so its focusing on the task.

Lewy body dementia, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s with Dementia, involves the destruction of brain cells by a naturally occurring protein. The protein, called, alpha-synuclein, gets into places of the brain it doesn’t belong, leaving trails of dying brain cells.

But you have, by some accounts 100 billion brain cells, and many aren’t being used, brain researchers say. I’m working by just thinking about it. I imagine turning those brain cells into replacements or helpers to the ones I have left. Researchers suspect that’s what happened in the renowned Nun’s Study where they found extensive evidence of Alzheimer’s disease in several nuns, including Sister Mary, who showed no visible symptoms while alive. But Sister Mary’s brain was marked by lesions, a sign of Alzheimer’s severe enough that it should have affected her cognition. Yet Sister Mary continued her extensive reading, daily walks, knitting. She lived to be 100.

That’s what I want to do. (No not become a nun, but live to 100).

The symptoms of these diseases can be similar, making diagnosis more difficult. But in general, if your first and early symptoms include tremors, foot shuffling but no significant cognitive decline, you likely would receive a Parkinson’s diagnosis; if you are having hallucinations, night terrors, and significant memory loss you would likely get a Lewy body diagnosis. Another protein altogether is involved with Alzheimer’s disease, which also destroys the brain. I was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s before I got a Lewy body diagnosis.

What’s Next?

I’m going to keep the blog up indefinitely. I have a lot more to write about. I’m going to stay active raising awareness for Lewy, and maybe we’ll get past this COVID thing so we can continue our Mike Madness basketball tournament, which raised more than $30,000 in its three-year tenure before COVID shut it down. And my music? What to do with all these albums. I’m still working on that. Oh yes, and before I go I am reminded of a Blood Sweat and Tears song:

When I die and when I’m gone/ there’ll be one child born in this world to carry on, to carry on

I just found out, I’ll be a first-time grandfather in May.

My daughter, Hannah, and her husband, Tom, are expecting a baby boy.

How’s that for a reason to keep on keeping on.

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King Sunny Ade to ZZ Top

You are invited to peruse my 678 reviews plus about 100 other posts on a variety of topics. The countdown posts are somewhat arranged alphabetically from African musician, King Sunny Ade, to ZZ Top. The collection, heavy on the pre-CDs-era of the 60s, 70s, and late 80s covers a range of musicians and bands and genres from Led Zeppelin to Carole King, from George Strait to R.E.M. from Sting to the Scorpions.

Also there’s a button on my home page that reads: ‘His and Hurricanes.’ It’s my playful parody of what the world may be like in the year 2525 (if man is still alive, if woman can survive). I worked on it for about a year, dashing off silliness when I had time, until I stopped to figure out an ending. I haven’t resumed it yet so this may also be something to finish now that I’m done with the big ticket item.

Lastly, I’d like to give credit to AL.com data reporter Ramsey Archibald for the graphic that is my home page. He used albums from my collection to make that colorful collage of record covers.

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Frank Zappa– 9, 8, 7, 6, 5

ALBUMS: Freak Out (1966); Mothers of Invention Golden Archives Series (1970); Apostrophe/Over Nite Sensation (1973); Joe’s Garage (1979). Joe’s Garage Acts II and III (1979.)

MVC Ratings: Freak Out, 4.5/$$$$$; Mothers, 4.0/$$$$$; Apostrophe 4. 0/$$$$; Joe’s Garage 4.0/$$$$$; Joe’s Garage Acts II and III, 4.0/$$$$.

On the inner space of the gatefold is a quote from one who is only described as ‘A Noted LA Disc Jockey, who proclaims: No commercial potential.

This was after the release of the two-record, groundbreaking ‘Freak Out’ in 1966. True, in retrospect Zappa has had very few hits over the course of his 60-plus albums. (‘Valley Girl’ with his daughter Moon Unit, and Joe’s Garage are two that jump out.)

Zappa is hard to pigeonhole by genre — jazz, rock, classical, avant- garde, satire. He covers a lot of territory.

He is frequently ranked on best guitarists’ lists. He was an admirer of Edgar Varese, an experimental composer who once said: ‘What is music but organized noises?’

Joe’s Garage

Zappa’s first album with the Mothers of Invention, which included two members of the disbanded Turtles of ‘Happy Together’ fame, is considered a cornerstone of the psychedelic rock wave.

The influence was mind-altering substances. The psyche songs were typically longer with freak-out elements like fuzz and wah-wah guitar, distorted vocals, and unfathomable lyrics and long jams. While the ’66 album ‘Freak Out had most of these elements — Freak Out’s final album side was all one song ‘The Return of the Sun of the Monster Magnet.’

And while it truly was the kind of music that would freak you out (or laugh at the absurdity, it was also a colossal put-on or put-down by Zappa, who did not use recreational drugs and was roasting all things hippie. The biggest Psych-out here was that while listeners were freaking out at the music, the music was holding them up for ridicule.

One song, ‘Flower Punk’ on the Golden Archives best of Mothers’ was a parody of Hey Joe, the blues song made psychedelic by Jimi Hendrix.

Hey Punk, where you going with that flower in your hand/Well, I’m goin’ up to Frisco to join a psychedelic band.
I’m goin’ up to Frisco to join a psychedelic band.

“Help I’m a Rock’ is another song that skewers drug influenced music. Help I’m a Rock is repeated over steady percussion. Then the freak-out begins. ‘Who could imagine we’re going to freak out in Kansas (several voices join in singing Kansas, Kansas, doo doo doo doo.)

Joe’s Garage came out in 1979 when I was settling into Auburn University. I heard this on college radio and ran out to buy the album. (That’s the way it’s supposed to be; there was no streaming music that you pushed a button to get.)

I love the song chronicling the life cycle of a rock band. The album is thematic and uses several of Zappa’s trademark and puerile R-rated tunes such as ‘Wet T-Shirt Night’ and ‘Crew Slut.’ They were kind of funny to a Howard Stern audience, or 13-year-olds.

In the second album, two-record set called Joe’s Garage II and III, Zappa comes up with an excellent instrumental piece called ‘Watermelon in Easter Hay.’

Zappa got some exposure in the 1980s when he took on Tipper Gore and the PRMC.

Zappa obviously was a talent. (He died of cancer in 1993). I think some of his lyrics are sexist. Some were absurdist funny as in the song ‘Montana,’ he sings: ‘I’m moving to Montana soon to start a dental floss farm,’

And he has good advice: He offers this to those moving to Montana or anywhere there is lots of snow: ‘Watch out where the huskies go and don’t you eat that yellow snow.’

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Yardbirds — 21

ALBUM: Favorites (1977 comp.)

MVC Rating: 4.5

Here is the group that has led to all those noisy guitar licks in heavy metal and hard rock.

It was early 1960s and a handful of white British kids became immersed in American blues, singers and guitar pickers. They learned the songs, for which they applied amplification and voila: The amplified blues chords have been heard in songs from Black Sabbath to Deep Purple to Blue Oyster Cult (hey, I could have used Green Day.)

The Yardbirds is a group that at separate times had Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Actually there was a short time when Beck and Page were in the group together, according to the liner notes written by Ira Robbins the editor of Trouser Press magazine.

Writing in 1977, when this compilation was released, Robbins said: ‘It only takes a little applied listening to current R-n-R to discern how much of today’s rock traces back to things the Yardbirds did almost a decade ago.‘

Now that was 1977 and this album is culled from songs of the 1960s. Listening to it you can almost make that same case. The blues riffs ring out on much less sophisticated equipment, perhaps, but the song remains the same (if I may pull from a Led Zeppelin song with Jimmy Page on guitar.)

Page, Beck and Clapton are revered like few others and on many lists of top guitarists. I guess I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the original Yardbirds: Keith Relf, lead vocalist and harmonica; Jim McCarty, drums; Paul Samwell Smith, bass; Chris Dreja, rhythm guitar; and Top Topham, lead guitar. Topham’s departure after six months made way for Clapton.

Somewhat ironically, Clapton left the band about a year later saying they were going too commercial for his purist sensibilities. Evidence was the song ‘For Your Love,’ Clapton said.

Well, that’s one of my favorite Yardbird songs (not on this album for some reason) and it was a worldwide hit lifting the band from obscurity.

I say it’s ironic because Clapton starting in the late 1970s has put out more than his fair share of commercial shlock. Some of it was OK shlock but shlock nevertheless. (Shlock is a nicer word than dreck, I believe).

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Coming to an end

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, etc.

I used to take a photo of every album on the list and display it on my blog post, but for some reason I can’t upload photos onto the web page any more. But that’s OK; I just use links to video’s to give some extra element to each blog post.

As I inch toward the finish line –my 678 records reviewed — it gets more complicated. It’s like planning for retirement: It’s OK if you go past the target date if finances work out. But you don’t want to come up short.

With about 25 left to do, I’m trying to make sure I have enough of the good stuff.

I don’t want to be left at the end with a dozen albums that I really should have put on the list. The reverse is also true, I don’t want to come up 5 short and then fill the holes with those I had rejected for not meeting the criteria. The criteria being, that albums must have been obtained before the countdown started. (I have made some editorial decisions to allow some of these ‘unqualified’ albums on the list, however.) In a few cases I have made errors of omission by forgetting that the blog post contained two or more albums and incorrectly omitting the countdown number. See Led Zeppelin review. For now I’m just going to leave as is because there’s too much of a ripple effect by adding that second number. Heck, maybe I should end it with Mr. Zeppelin (insert smiley face Emoji here).

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Jackie Wilson — 26

ALBUM: The Story of Jackie Wilson

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

Jackie Wilson was a contemporary of the legendary Sam Cooke. They even sang together a few times and, as the story goes, they both tried to outdo the other.

They both were shot under mysterious, but different circumstances. Cooke died from his wounds, while Wilson survived and came back. But he was never the same.

I draw the comparison because they both are super talents that should be familiar to more people. Cooke actually made a good living before he was shot to death Dec. 11, 1964 at a hotel in Los Angeles.

Wilson never really achieved Sam Cooke level success during his lifetime.

While Wilson didn’t have quite the gospel roots as Cooke, he had a voice that could melt butter, a crooner who could hit all the notes.

When Elvis Presley was told Jackie Wilson was nicknamed the ‘Black Elvis,’ Elvis reportedly quipped: I guess that makes me the white Jackie Wilson.

Wilson got a nod from Van Morrison in the 1970s with the song, Jackie Wilson Said.

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Back from Fishing

No fish catching for the first time in my last three or four outings at Smith Lake. That’s all well and good. I forgot my gloves and pliers, and I was worried about having to barehand the fish while digging a deep set hook or lure out of its mouth.

I always felt kind of bad for throwing fish back after doing that to them. I mean, here I am, using trickery to rip a bass out of the water while it pursues its constitutional right to seek food smaller than itself.

The sudden change of environment must seem to the fish like it has entered a different dimension.

Upon throwing the fish back in, I imagine it would feel a lot like I did last week before the getaway to the lake. I went to the dentist and received two crowns and replaced a bridge. At times during the two-hour- tooth chiseling, it felt like a hook was in my mouth. (Props to my dentist, though, for a job well done.)

As I was saying, I didn’t catch anything so that was one less worry off my mind as my wife and I sank into vacation mode. Vacation mode is where you put things into perspective and push sad thoughts away.

We sat on the dock, fishing poles by our sides, and inhaled fresh air. The trees were fiery, oranges, yellows and reds. They seemed to have been painted by children using water colors.

On our first day, a beaver swam close to Catherine who was standing on the dock. She said, ‘Aren’t you a cute little otter?’

And that’s when the animal turned over and smacked his tail like a paddle in the water.

I was not an eyewitness.

But she made sure I would see the red moon.

On Friday, she woke me up around 2:30 a.m. to go stand outside and gaze at the moon, which by golly was red or reddish. I was in a daze. I was wearing shorts, a bathrobe with no shoes or slippers. It was freezing. My feet kept finding the sharpest rocks.

I said in my Chevy Chase at the Grand Canyon voice: ‘Beautiful, time to go now.’

But it’s the longest lunar eclipse to occur in nearly 600 years, she said, obviously thrilled with her job as tour guide of the night sky from somewhere near Arley, Alabama.

I wondered: How did I get so lucky to be in that small fraternity of people who get to stand on shards of granite and peer into the sky in 38 F weather, looking at something — now get this — named the Beaver Moon.

It was a good ‘vacay’ though. We built campfires, made S’mores, read books and watched much of the first season of ‘Bewitched’ on TV.

Oh. and just one tip to somehow tie all this into music: Don’t start thinking about the instrumental theme song of ‘Bewitched.’ It gets stuck in your head.

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XTC — 32, 31

ALBUMS: Skylarkin’ (1986); Waxworks — Some singles 1977-1982 and Beeswax — Some B-sides 1977-1982 (NOTE: B-sides album came with the purchase of Waxworks).

MVC Ratings: Skylarkin’ 4.5/$$$$; Waxworks/Beeswax 4.0/$$$$

XTC’s songs hold up well because of their songwriting craft. The band managed to inoculate themselves from the excesses of the synth pop vs. protopunk scene in 1970s and 1980s England.

A Rolling Stone critic called XTC alternative music for people who don’t like alternative music.

The Waxworks collection shows how their songwriting evolved to beat the stigmatization of being labeled ‘alternative music.’ By the time the band issued Skylarkin, it was being compared to the Kinks, the Who and the Beatles.

That’s heady company, and it wasn’t all happy times. The band was involved in a years-long contract dispute with its label due to an unfavorable contract signed in their youth which gave them no ownership of their music.

Though they didn’t ever really hit the big time, they did make the Top 40 chart a few times. The band also became hot on college radio stations following a song on Skylarkin’ called ‘Dear God,’ with provocative lyrics such as: I won’t believe in heaven or hell, no saints, no sinners, no devil as well, no pearly gates, no thorny crown, you’re always letting us humans down …. I don’t believe in you, dear God.

The song’s irony is that it’s framed as a prayer to God, invoking the phrase ‘Dear God’ throughout, something I would suppose required a certain level of belief. I think that was the writer, Andy Partridge’s intention.

The album produced byTodd Rundgren has a great sound and flow with Beatlesque sound production.

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Sun Ra on Halloween — 38

This may be too late since Halloween is over in about three hours. But the best Halloween album I can think of is Sun Ra’s ‘The Magic City. Yes that Magic City.

Sun Ra was a far-out jazz and blues figure from Birmingham. He even dressed up as one could or might for Halloween — in long robes and head dresses. Except he did it all the time, not just Oct. 31.

I bought ‘Sun Ra and His Solar Arkestra, a reissue of a 1965 recording, on a recent trip back to Athens, Ga., and WUXTRY Records.

I’m not including it on my Countdown list because I just bought it and am trying to keep my vinyl countdown to records I bought growing up. But I’m listening to this on a Halloween night and its free form avant garde jazz has prepared me nicely for any scares that are awaiting out in the blackness. Add flutes, saxophone, drums, etc. it makes a mighty psychedelic stew.

Oh what the heck, I’ll put this on my Countdown after all.