Moridin's report on the Mahler 1 inspired me to punch up one of my own Mahler favorites, Karajan's No.5 . The Adagietto movement here is one of Mahler's sublime contemplative creations, and was for example played by Bernstein at Senator Kennedy's funeral.

Alice in Chains - Unplugged! Great recording btw.

Hey ya na naaaa...

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones:

I just picked up their latest "The Hidden Land". One of their best is the 2-disc "Live Art". I also like "Left of Cool".

"Live Art" is fantastic. Thanks for the reminder on their latest. Still need to pick that up.

I got the dual-disk from Amazon and am surprised that I had no problems ripping it to my work computer with WMP. This is because the back clearly stated that the audio CD side does not conform to redbook standards and may not play on all players.

The DVD side has some video, but I haven't seen it yet. And the album in "Enhanced Stereo" PCM.

Usually with a stereo dual-disk I sit and listen to the CD at 44.1 kHz, and then flip it to DVD and try to hear the difference with 48 kHz sampling. It's hard for me to hear the difference.

Thanks to JohnK, "Thanks JohnK"

I am sitting in front of the big screen and enjoying Rachmaninov "The Symphonies" Concertgebouw Orchestra by Vladimir Ashkenazy. I can see why this is John's favorite composer, it is just beautiful. A friend of mine at work who is a music major and sings opera said Rachmaninov's piano concerto's are just crazy, I may have to check them out next, huh John?

prior to that, it was

Gustav Holst The Planets, Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

Thanks John so much for this recommendation. I'm really into science fiction movies and this I really enjoyed. The other night I had the "Star Simulation" screen saver running on the big screen while listening to this stuff, it was pretty awesome. Felt like I was flying through space. Now I just need to find a good space screen saver to match with this music, something like flying through the solar system would be cool.

Thanks John, keep the ideas coming.

Very good, Randy. Yes, since you have the symphonies plus the three other orchestral works on that set you definitely have to complete(almost)your survey of Rachmaninoff with the concertos. Let Ashkenazy hand the baton to Previn and sit down at the piano with this set . Tower has possibly just for one day, July 1st, an extra $5 off for an order over $30, using code JULYFVE. So whip that credit card right out and add this Stravinsky collection which includes the Rite of Spring. When the Rite was first performed in Paris in 1913 the gentle French folk in attendance rioted(maybe they wanted a Mozart symphony?). Then also add Dvorak's delightful Slavonic Dances for a change of pace.

Right now it's Robin Trower, earlier I had R.L. Burnside on.