I WANT TO BELIEVE JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #248!

Ray Santilli – Alien Autopsy: Fact Or Fiction (FOX) :: No comment.

Discovery Networks International – Michael Jackson’s Autopsy: What Really Killed Michael Jackson (Discovery Channel) :: No comment.

Daryl Hall & John Oates – Live At The Troubadour (Shout! Factory) :: One day, when I’m old and I can’t stand listening to loud rock ’n’ roll anymore, I’m gonna sit myself right down in a wicker rocking chair and mellow my mind with this smooth sounding triple disc audio-visual combo that touches almost every career base from their early days to their mega-platinum hits. But not today.

Big Star - #1 Record & Radio City (Fantasy) :: A twofer blend of generic up-tempo pop rockers and geriatric snoozak ballads, the latter of which would’ve sounded a whole lot better had they been done by Todd.

Arthur Nasson – Echo Garden (self released) :: And speaking of the Runt, multi-instrumentalist Nasson unleashes a charmingly naïve Rundgrenish crash course in pop music styles that begins with Brian Wilson, ends with Rick Wakeman, and has more than a few ambient stops along the way to whet your whistle for much more.

Paul Langlois – Fix This Head (Ching) :: Wherein the Tragically Hip’s guitarist hunkers down to come up with one of the most moving debut albums I’ve heard since Johnny MacLeod redefined what it means to be a triple threat singin’ songwritin’ guitarist—and if you’ve ever heard any of Johnny’s albums, you’ll know that’s mightly impressive praise indeed!

Johnny & The G-Rays – “Trying To Chew My Head” (Attic) :: Exactly!

The Homemade Jamz Blues Band – I Got Blues For You (Northern Blues) :: When he reviewed Grand Funk’s On Time in Rolling Stone, Lester Bangs wrote that “the drumming is guaranteed to send you up the wall.” I’m a Don Brewer fan so I didn’t agree, but after hearing the brutal monotonous bashing on this album, I have to admit that I now know how he felt. I Got Bruise For You is more like it.

Arthur – Watch The Years Crawl By (Rock City Recording Company) :: I hate listening to whiny adenoidal singers but I gotta admit, after hearing this record, that if I had to listen to one whiny adenoidal singer as the years crawl by...I’d listen to Kurt Cobain.

SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Dave Koz – Hello Tomorrow (Concord) :: They may tag sax sessions like this as being “contemporary jazz” these days, but that sounds like some kinda condescending old fogey “Boots Randolph” label to me because where I hang out—on the corner of Coryell and Deodato—it smacks of nothing less than good old-fashioned “fusion” to me. Sure, the liner notes and track notations are strictly new age feel-good folderol, but that’s more than offset by having Herb Alpert on trumpet and Sheila E. on vocals. Bonus points for resisting the temptation to call his album Koz And Effect.

Robert Plant – Now And Zen (Atlantic) :: Sheesh.

Be seeing you!