thisStrangeEngine.com

So this week I’m going up north for my week long vacation and possible pilgrimage. I’m still pulling together final details of the trip to make sure it goes smoothly, but I’m flying out this Friday to St. Louis to spend the week-end with Tom before doing a mini-roadtrip to Chicago – with a possible full day stop in between in my birthtown of Bloomington, IL (mainly as a curiosity). While in Chicago, I will try to effectively and somewhat affordably hang out for three days while I see Genesis three nights in a row, which is essentially the main reason for this trip in the first place.

So it is timely that a microsite has just gone up in promotion of the second of three Genesis boxsets of re-releases. Genesis 1983-1998 covers the bands most commercially successful albums which contains the hits most everyone knows. The set contains Genesis (1983), Invisible Touch (1986), We Can’t Dance (1991) and the less popular but in my opinion equally good post-Collins release Calling All Stations (1997). There is also an extra tracks disc with b-sides from those album sessions. Each album has been completely remixed and remastered in both surround sound and stereo and includes a DVD with extra video goodies. The box set will have the extra tracks disc a bound booklet reflecting on the time period. Each album will be available individually as well. The funny thing is, no dates have been confirmed for release, but it has generally been said that the UK will see them in October and the US perhaps shortly after.

For those who want a more concise collection, there are plenty of options. In 1999, a one-disc greatest hits style collections called “Turn It On Again – The Hits” was released, and a couple years back a anthology-styled three-disc “Platinum Collection” was made available. A happy medium between the two that include the remixed and remastered tracks was recently released in the form of the two-disc “Turn It On Again – The Hits: The Tour Edition” that supposedly will continue to be produced in favor of the other two compilations.

So I took the plunge and decided to set up my own little radio station on Live365. It’s what I call a vanity radio station…esentially it’s shameless mix of music I like. I actually ran a Live365 station many years ago when it first hit the scene and the basic service was still free. It was a station that played only Genesis-releated music (Genesis and member’s solo music) and it was kind of popular, but got shut down after a month because it didn’t follow DMCA guidelines for an internet radio station (same artist/artists played too often). Anyways, I’ve been looking for a way to economically and legally bring back having my own little station, especially as my collection and taste has become so varied, so I’ve done it again.

The (current) name of the station is (appropiately) thisStrangeRadio. Unfortunately, it’s ad-supported out the wazoo, but I hope you don’t mind too much.

It usually feels like I’m juggling a few thousand things at a time, but between trips, trip planning, work, and other personal incidents, there’s been about a hojillion things on my mind. So you just get another music update from me.

Bruce Hornsby releases a new album tomorrow which is actually a real jazz album with real jazz musicians Christian McBride and Jack DeJohnette. The album is called “Camp Meeting” and promises to be full of more Hornsby goodness, but in a completely undistilled jazz instrumental form. Between this and the bluegrass album he released with Ricky Skaggs earlier this year, Bruce has really seized the opportunity this year to achieve a couple of lofty dreams for a pianist normally associated with pop music.

Everyone’s favorite band of directly-related young East Texans, Eisley, is scheduled to finally release their second full album Combinations on August 14. The whole crew has really grown as people and musicians since the first album. The samples that have so far been released show that their songwriting has improved by leaps and bounds, and that both Sherri and Stacy have become stronger singers. It seems all the promise and potential that they hinted at in the past is being fulfilled. A “viral video” (they used to call them music videos, but whatever) for the first single “Invasion” has been out, and the song itself is available on iTunes, but just save yourself the trouble and buy the whole shebang when it comes out.

Oh yeah, Suzanne Vega‘s new album “Beauty & Crime” came out sometime ago, and it’s possibly her best work, despite being awfully short. Maybe I’ll talk about it more later.

Go out and get the new Crowded House album, “Time on Earth”.

I have to admit that I completely forgot that the Live Earth event was this past weekend. Whether or not you believe that the event really did anything to further the cause of global warming action awareness, at least we get a lot of live music out of it. If you missed it like me, you can watch streaming footage of a lot of the performances from the Live Earth site hosted by MSN. If you’re fan of any kind of music, you’re bound to find something there you would like as there were plenty of big names, new and old, at the various locations.

The highlights for me, of course, is Genesis opening up the London show and Crowded House closing out the concert in Sydney with a full hour set that is available for viewing! The latter is particularly fun to watch to see the kind of hold this band has on the crowd when they perform in their native Australia. Remember that the new Crowded House album comes out in America tomorrow. Also, for fun, make sure to check out the “Other” section of the videos for a performance from Nunatak, and band on Antarctica comprised of research scientists! The song they play is pretty good, too!

Not suprisingly, since the site is hosted by MSN, your best bet is to use IE, at least it was that way for me.