Do you listen to music while you are playing?

Rolling Stone's 499th Greatest Album of All Time: Ask Rufus by Rufus, featuring Chaka Khan



Many of us older folks know Chaka Khan from her definitively 80's number: I Feel For You, written by Prince, and rapped over by Grandmaster Melle Mel, who name-checked Chaka no less than 22 times within that hugely popular 4 minute track.

I did not know that she had leant her beautiful voice and effortless range to a number of albums in the 70's with a funk and R&B band called Rufus.

I thought Rufus was a guy, until I looked them up in Wikipedia. In any case, Chaka Khan was a precursor to, and not just a contemporary of, vocal prodigies like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey.

I was impressed with Rufus as a funk band. They put a lot of good writing and instrumental talent behind Chaka's lyrics. They laid down a short instrumental track that caught my interest on the first listen, and it wasn't just because of the cheeky title: Slow Screw Against the Wall, which, as some of you may know, is 1 1/2 shots of vodka, 1/2 shot of Southern Comfort, 3 shots of orange juice, 1/2 slot of sloe gin, and 1/2 shot of Galliano, garnished with an orange slice.

I loved the song the first time I heard it. It came off as a classical piece, timeless and lovely. But one listen is not enough. For example, I did not enjoy Nothing's Shocking by Jane's Addiction the first time I heard it. It was a very different album than I was used to hearing in the late 80's, and I couldn't wrap my head around it the first time through. But since then, Nothing's Shocking has grown to become one of my all-time favorite albums.

So, two listens at the least.

Upon the second listen, SSATW revealed the other meaning to its name, that of an old late-night Cinemax softcore sex scene score...or at least I've been told that they sound like that. I would certainly never have...



In any case, the song is not representative of the album. We need to hear Chaka Khan and her marvelous singing. For that, I would go with Magic in Your Eyes.



Rolling Stone Says:

Fronted by Chaka Khan, one of soul music’s most combustible singers, Rufus built its mid-Seventies sound on heavy-footed, guitar-slathered funk. But after spending 16 months in the studio working on Ask Rufus, they came out with a record that gave their songs more room to breathe, anticipating the lithe, loose arrangements of Nineties neo-soul.

I gave a lot of the 90's neo-soul stuff a hard pass on the first time around, but I'll be covering it here if I get far enough through the list.

All in

No. Players occasionally give off actionable and valuable verbal tells, and I don't want to miss those. Also, tilting players can have a certain stress level in their voices, and it's not always the action on the table that puts them on tilt. It could be a side conversation, a phone call or a text that does it, so listening to people is important.

Yep. 8888 is a lucky number in some cultures.

On Monday, I continued with my losing streak. I played all right, but the cards didn't come through for me. On the slot front, I found a surprising number of plays; the young Asian woman who was grinding that shift seemed to have been slacking off on a few titles, but luck still wasn't with me, and those extra slot plays added up to naught.

I woke up on Tuesday around 9AM, ate a light breakfast, and promptly fell back asleep until 1PM. I woke up from that second sleep still feeling significantly less than 100%, so I took the day off. I'll be back at it today.

MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 8 hours
(-$192.00)

MGM Springfield Slots: 2hours
(-$2.47)

Running Poker Total: 381 hours, +$8696.00

Running Slot Total: 122 hours, +$3544.36

Grand Total: 503 hours, +$12240.36

Rolling Stone's 498th Greatest Album of All Time: Suicide by Suicide

I had never heard of the band Suicide before listening to their self-titled album, and I hope to never hear from them again.

I would classify Suicide as a late-70's glam/art band with some punk sensibilities, minus the crashing punk guitar work—similar to the Velvet Underground or the Violent Femmes, but not nearly as good as either.

To me, the most representative song on the album is Ghost Rider, because, like most of their other tracks, it starts out dialed in and interesting, with a great groove, but after a bit, while I'm waiting for the next cool section to drop, it just doesn't. Instead, the song goes nowhere. Then it just ends.



Something's missing—for me, at least. Other folks happen to love this album—but I can find neither theme nor variation on any of the 7 tracks, no verse chorus verse. It's like every song is missing a structure or an instrument that I can neither name nor recognize.

The worst of it is a long track called Frankie Teardrop, less of a song and more of a single-take ad-libbed story accompanied by a constant buzzing noise in the place of music, as if they'd set up in an apartment and played at great length in a deliberate bid to annoy their neighbors.

I mean it goes on for more than 10 ****ing minutes? That's 10 minutes too long. I only made it through 2 1/2 on the first listen. I have all the time in the world for this sort of thing, but I had very little time for that particular song.

Nevertheless, I gave Frankie Teardrop another try on my second album listen, and right after the spot where I'd given up on the first try, the lyrics took a turn for the truly vile, which at least relieved some of the annoying boredom, and I made it through the rest of it.

This album would probably be liked by the kind of listener who would claim to appreciate Andy Warhol's 5 1/2 hour movie of a person sleeping, if such an appreciator actually exists. As for me, I'm grateful to be on to the next one.

Rolling Stone Says:

These New York synth-punks evoke everything from the Velvet Underground to rockabilly. Martin Rev’s low-budget electronics are violent and hypnotic; Alan Vega screams as a rhythmic device. Late-night listening to “Frankie Teardrop,” a 10-minute-plus tale of a multiple murder, is not recommended.

I would scratch "late-night" from the last sentence.

I've had a bit of a mental game setback—similar to my Las Vegas days—in that I've been completely unmotivated to play for these last few days.

Let's talk about the carrot and the stick. The stick, in this case, is going busto, and having to take a shitty job that I hate in order to make ends meet. I want to avoid that repetition at all costs.

So I'd like to find a carrot; here I'm curious about the Friday late-night/early AM Springfield poker scene. I have my sights set on that.

Let's see if I can pull that off.

Or pulling a lonnnnggg af session if the WE goes well ; you got this friend

Thanks Dubnjoy000!

So, I haven't been back to the tables yet. Here are my thoughts:

I had quit my last job before I had a chance to take my two weeks of vacation, after having worked there for 10 months straight with no sick days and the minimum number of holidays—which are few and far between to begin with here in the USA.

After quitting that job, I took a few days off, and then I went back to work playing poker. Meanwhile, my bosses at my old workplace—being the good folks that they are—paid me for my two weeks of vacation.

In short, I don't feel that I took enough time off between jobs, and that may have contributed to a certain amount of retroactive burnout. So today here I am: pale, rested and ready to go back to work at the tables.

I'm shooting for tomorrow as my return date.

Rest an extra day. Go to a cathedral and pray.

You will need The Lord on your side.

lol @ USA#1 not automatically paying out any unused holiday pay.

Rolling Stone's 497th Greatest Album of All Time: The Indestructible Beat of Soweto by Various Artists

Here we have 12 tracks from 9 different South African bands, released in 1985. This material, I believe, fits the basis for the genre of World Music.

The sound is very eclectic, with music and instruments from everywhere. I thought I detected strains of sitar playing, bluegrass banjo picking, Caribbean steel percussion, rockabilly electric guitar, zydeco washboard strumming, blues harmonica, reggae snare backbeats, jazz fusion basslines, and some Irish fiddle work, but I could be wrong about some of those.

It took me most of the first listen to get used to this unfamiliar (to me) combination of instruments, but it started to come together for me on the second listen, and I enjoyed several of the songs.

However, here is the "me problem" that I had with the album. And I'll mention here that my reviews are all purely subjective, and that they come from a middle-aged, white, suburban, out of touch, untaught and inexperienced critic.

The problem I have with the album is that I don't understand the lyrics...at all. This is not normally a deal breaker for me. One of my all-time favorite bands sings mostly in Japanese. I have also enjoyed any number of songs sung in German, Spanish, French, and even in death metal gibberish.

The difference here is that I am at least familiar with the above languages: I know a few words and phrases from each, and I've heard them all spoken (or growled in the case of death metal) extensively; whereas, with the Soweto artists, I am at sea. I don't even know if the language is Zulu or Afrikaans or Sotho, or some other language that didn't show up during my two minute google search, or some mixture of those. I understand neither the rhythms nor the textures of the language or the languages on this album.

Consequently, I don't know if the songs are happy, or pissed off, or pensive, or nostalgic, or anything.

Shouldn't the music itself give me clues about the song? Well, let me draw your attention across the ocean for a few minutes to Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue.



The music in this song marks it (at least to me) as an upbeat, banging, early electronic dance track, designed to get party people out on the floor and shaking their booties. The lyrics, however, tell a different story: one of violence, poverty, oppression and systemic inequality.

Another example: imagine if you were unfamiliar with English, and listened—sans the video, of course—to this song:



The Soweto bands recorded their album in South Africa in the mid-1980s, at the height of that country's struggle with apartheid and a violent and oppressive regime, so it bothers me that I don't exactly know what the bands are singing about.

And that detracts from my enjoyment of the album. Again, this is a me problem all the way. And I have no doubt that with a few more listens, along with a minimal amount of research, I might be able to start picking up more lyrical details and enjoying the entire album even more. In any case, here's a cool instrumental from Udokotela Shange Namajaha.




Rolling Stone Says:

Full of funky, loping beats and gruff, Howling Wolf-style vocals (most prominently from “goat voiced” star Mahlathini). With a sweet track by Graceland collaborators Ladysmith Black Mambazo (“Nansi Imali”), its badass joy needed no translation.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that last point.

Have no idea if all companies do this but for my company whatever your vacation amount is you accrue x amount each week, 1/52 of whatever number of weeks you have. If you leave with a vacation balance it’s paid out on your last check. Now of course on the the flip say you quit on May 1st and you get three weeks a year. If you’ve already taken two weeks they’ll deduct a week from your last check.

USA#1

Hey SJ, if you liked that South African beat, look at this



Came across them when I was in Cape Town years ago, really dug their stuff.

That's good stuff, golddog!

It's interesting to think about the development of Afro-Caribbean music, starting in Africa hundreds of years ago, then brought—in a tragic manner—over to the New World, then developing along two different geographic tracks until the advent of World Music several centuries later, when musicians on the two continents started borrowing from each other and creating the distinctive merged sound that we enjoy today.

Yesterday I finally made it back to the casino...for another losing day.

I felt good, though. The session held many ups and downs, but I wasn't discouraged during the downswings. I also found a fair number of slot plays, but those turned out to be swingy as well, with the needle pointing down at the end of the day.

I'll be back at it again tomorrow.

MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 8 hours
(-$79.00)

MGM Springfield Slots: 2hours
(-$11.02)

Running Poker Total: 389 hours, +$8617.00

Running Slot Total: 124 hours, +$3533.34

Grand Total: 513 hours, +$12150.34

My friend Will is visiting tomorrow, and we're going to see Les Claypool (of Primus fame), so I took the day off to get my place cleaned up a bit.

In the meantime, here's some non-poker content to help balance the thread.

Rolling Stone's 496th Greatest Album of All Time: Dónde Están los Ladrones? by Shakira

Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, she of the purportedly trustworthy hips, was raised in Columbia by a Lebanese father and a Spanish mother. The artist has sold nearly 100 million albums so far in her long career, both in English and in Spanish. Dónde Están los Ladrones?, as you might suspect, is in the latter language. Using my 35-years-gone high school Spanish, I took a crack at the title—before googling it—and came up with Where Are the Boys? You know: ladrones; lads?

I was wrong. It's Where Are the Thieves? Ladrones are thieves.

I know a lot less about Shakira than I should, but I know a set of great pipes when I hear them, and Shakira has them in spades. Her singing style reminds me more than a bit of Madonna, which is a big compliment, as far as I'm concerned.



Ciega, Sordomuda is probably the most representative track on the album, with its Spanish guitar and its Mexican horns, its rolling percussion tempo, and Shakira's wild virtuoso swings through the octaves.

But for my money—and that's no money, so far, thanks to YouTube—I like the title track.



To me, this one plays out like a 21st Century hit country song, in Spanish by Shakira, with a band backing her that sounds a bit like Neil Young's Crazy Horse. It's short and sweet and it hits all the right beats.

Rolling Stone Says:

Shakira was a raven-haired guitar rocker who’d hit peak superstardom in the Spanish-speaking world with her 1995 LP, Pies Descalzos. To keep up the momentum, Shakira enlisted Emilio Estefan to help produce her next LP, this stellar globetrotting dance-rock set, which blends sounds from Colombia, Mexico, and her father’s native Lebanon.

They also made a "hips don't lie" quip, but I cut theirs in favor of mine.

This did make me crack up .

Funny tangent : in Argentina, like they often like to do, they have a ton of their proper expressions/words, and prefer to use chorro as opposed to ladron. Curiously enough, the first time I heard this regional word, was at the poker table, when the term was directed towards me in a live tournament (for repetitiously stealing the blinds). I had to ask the fellow what he meant, to which he translated to ladron ; I did get a good laugh out of it

[QUOTE=suitedjustice;58173495]My friend Will is visiting tomorrow, and we're going to see Les Claypool (of Primus fame)[/B]

My name is mud

Indeed your name is mud.

Indeed. We saw Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade at an outdoor venue, and the heavens poured down in fury, soaking us to the bone, before they cancelled the show after a few songs, due to the threat of lightning. The driving rain lasted just long enough for us to make it back to the car, and then it stopped, and the rest of the night was dry.

I could have brought rain gear to the show. At my apartment, before we left, I pointed out that it looked like rain. Then I said, "All right, let's go." and I didn't even bring a hoodie.

On the bright side, the band played for around 25 minutes, but the tickets were refunded in full. Sean Lennon was on guitar last night. He's very good, and he was very much attuned with Claypool's signature bass wizardry. Lennon speaks in an American accent, having been raised here. That makes perfect sense, but it was still a bit surprising, as he looks so much like his dad these days that my mind was waiting to hear from Liverpool when he spoke.

Earlier this week, I had a brief health scare after—to put it delicately—finding a small amount of blood outside of my body, whereas it quite obviously belongs on the inside. This condition appears to have cleared up, and I will be keeping an eye out for any more misplaced blood. I hope to return to the tables soon.

Meanwhile, here is

Rolling Stone's 495th Greatest Album of All Time: II by Boyz II Men



It can't be a surprising that someone in my demographic doesn't like boy bands. It's music for young people who reside in one of three states: (1) they are trying to get laid, (2) they are about to get laid, or (3) they are getting laid. And if there is any luck, with the help of this type of music on the stereo at home or in the car, they will pass successfully through all three of these states.

I never went in for the lovey dovey stuff, even when I was young. I loved Shakespeare's plays, but I skipped over his lovelorn sonnets. At their best, boy band lyrics come off as modern sonnets, enjoyed by many, but not by me.

Still, this is a review, of sorts, and I felt that I owed the album an attempt to listen to it without my preconceived notions.

Going back to the sound; these are very talented singers. There is no auto-tune in the mix that I can detect, these gentlemen can sing like the angels.

So what makes them worse than say: Chaka Khan, an R&B singer whose voice I praised in a previous review?

In a word: it's the music, man...the music. 70's Chaka Khan had the band Rufus backing her up, and they pulled off all kinds of nifty grooves. There is a distinctive lack of instrumental grooves on the Boyz II Men album, and this is in line with almost all the other '90s and '00s boy band acts. The music is perfunctory, it's there as a glorified metronome or an 80's Casio keyboard preset, there merely to keep time with the harmonizing of the singers.

Here's another example of what I love about the old acts; here are five male R&B singers harmonizing together.



Why aren't the Temptations considered to be a proto-boy band? Simple: it's their fantastic music. Nobody even opens their mouth for the first four minutes of this song. And then they sing, and it's a welcome and beautiful addition, and the lyrics cut much deeper than just hitting the dance floor, or getting laid, or losing the girl. And that's why we shouldn't consider the great R&B vocal acts of the 60's and 70's to be early boy bands.

The first track on Boyz II Men's II is Thank You, and it's probably the most representative song on an album that contains the smash hit I'll Make Love to You.

Okay, I lie. I'll Make Love to You is easily their most representative song, but I hate that damn song. At least Thank You is adequate; not great, but listenable.



They also do a better than okay a cappella version of Yesterday by the Beatles.



Rolling Stone Says:

With their innocent romanticism and meticulous vocal arrangements, Boyz II Men became the most commercially successful R&B vocal group of all time.

Insuring that we'd be listening to crap like this for at least another two generations.

I'm digging the reviews, keep 'em coming. But I also hope to see your next poker update soon.

I'm a sucker for sugary 90s R&B songs, but oddly enough I'm hardly familiar with Boyz II Men's work. I gave "I'll Make Love to You" a listen and enjoyed it (I've probably heard it before though). "Thank You" was okay-ish.

This is interesting. I agree with the contrast between the two Boyz II Men songs and the Temptations song you posted. But what do you think of 70s lovey-dovey R&B, such as this one?

Thanks, Sheep!

They've been fun to write, but it's also encouraging to know that people are reading them. Who knows, if I finish all 500, I might then be something of a fledgling rock critic.

I remember this modest hit from when I was very young. Given that it was sung in a falsetto, I always thought that it was a lady who sang it, but I was wrong.

The instrumental arrangement could use a few flourishes. If only someone with some savvy in that department covered the song...

Huh. Never knew Prince covered that song.

I live for this cheesy mid 60s to like mid 70’s R&B. Delfonics, Four Tops, Freda Payne, Supremes, all that cheesy stuff.

This classic Stylistics tune sounds like something from a 90s Tarantino film.