Antiquing For Dummies By Ron Zoglin, Deborah Shouse

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Product Description

Is hunting for hidden treasures at garage sales, flea markets, estate sales, auctions, and antique shops your idea of a good time? If you love to poke around these places but don't know the difference between something that is just plain old or something that is a bona fide antique, then you might want to make Antiquing For Dummies your next purchase. Written in Dummies-style plain English, this book is not your average highfalutin, highbrow book on antique collecting. Instead of getting a lot of attitude, you get loads of down-to-earth advice about talking the talk with antique dealers, participating in auctions, and using win-win bargaining strategies.

Authors Ron Zoglin and Deborah Shouse can help you develop a plan of attack before you begin your hunt. Even if you are already a dedicated collector, Antiquing For Dummies has plenty of sound advice and information to help you brush up on your collecting skills and broaden your knowledge. And whether you enjoy collecting furniture, glass, ceramics, or silver, you find sections in the book dedicated to each collectible that tell you how and where to buy them. Plus, after you've found that beautiful antique, you find decorating ideas and suggestions for integrating it into your household. Antiquing For Dummies is guaranteed to show you the pleasure and art of antique collecting.

Paper Trails [Amazon MP3 Exclusive]

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Customer Reviews
Happy trails through BDP catalog
Please spend some time getting to know the Benjy Davis Project.
Long time mainstay of the college and festival circuit, this southern new country/rock outfit share a few tracks each from some of their recent recordings, Lost Souls Like Us (2010), Dust (2009), Angie House (2005) and More Than Local (2004) together with one new track, "Raining In Me." Davis songs groove along with catchy riffs and smart, memorable lyrics. Other reviewers have likened him to Jason Mraz and I find influences including Elvis Costello and John Mayer. These recordings are of high quality. He's touring through the summer of 2010 - check him out.

P.S. You also can get a free BDP track on the "Songs From Hotel Carolina 2010" Amazon compilation. The track is "Bite My Tongue", originally from Lost Souls Like Us.

Great Acoustic Rock
I haven't enjoyed a new album so much in a long time. The Benjy Davis Project does acoustic rock that is bright, a little edgy, and avoids the whining that so many contemporary performers feel is important. This is not an "unplugged" album, but it definitely features acoustic instrumentation. These guys can play a mean guitar. I downloaded this for free--which is a great deal, but now that I'm wearing down that portion of my hard drive that stores these tracks, I look forward to purchasing other Benjy Davis Project music.

Awesome AND free?!
What a great album. The songs are fresh with a nice balance of varied moods across tracks. I think I may have just found a new band to follow. Seriously, you would be a fool to not check out this dynamic duo- especially since it's FREE. I guarantee you that this is the only time you will get to hear their music at this price.

Dynamite

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Customer Reviews
Taio's summer tune!
Really good tune for summer 2010. It's one of them songs that you're not too sure about the first time you listen to it but after you've heard it a couple of times you will love it. Reminds me of summer and holidays, i think its gunna be a big tune in the clubs this summer, not sure if its one of his best but it's defo a nice, feel good tune which makes you wanna get up and dance!

ehh...
this wasn't what i expected from hearing the sample. the chorus was pretty catchy but other then that, i wasn't impressed. this song isn't as good as his first song, break your heart. its not one of my favorites but i don't hate it. definately not something i would keep replaying

Good Chorus
This song will probably be a huge hit this summer and possibly the rest of the year; it has a really good hook, and even though it sounds like a stereotypical pop song, which most songs do nowadays, it's still a good song that follows up well on Cruz's "Break Your Heart", which was amazing. Overall a good song, but if you don't like pop songs that much or you didn't enjoy Cruz's last song, you might want to keep away. I personally bought it, because I cannot stop listening to it.

2010 SideOneDummy Records Summer Sampler

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Customer Reviews
First Rate Sampler!
Grab this one, folks. This sampler is going to cost me some money because some of the artists are now necessary summer listening for me. I checked out all the bands and, by way of gratitude to Side One Dummy and Amazon, I'll pass it on:

1. "Requiem For A Dying Song" by Flogging Molly, the great Celtic punk rock band. This is from their "Live At The Greek Theatre" album released March 2010. A rollicking start for this great sampler.

2. "The Spirit Of Jazz" by folk-punk rockers The Gaslight Anthem from American Slang released June 2010. This month's Uncut Magazine gave this album 5 stars and declared it their album of the month. Big Cheese also gave it 5 stars.

3. "Lightning In A Bottle" by Audra Mae from her debut album "The Happiest Lamb" released May 2010. This folk rocker is the great-niece of Judy Garland and has definitely inherited the family's amazing chops. This album will be my first purchase from this sampler.

4. "Clap Your Hands" by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band", a rural blues band that calls Indiana home. This song is from "The Wages" released May 25, 2010 and immediately charting at #2 on Billboard's Blues Chart.

5. "Love It To Life" by Jesse Malin And The St. Mark's Social Disco Ghetto from "Love It To Life", their April 2010 Side One Dummy debut. Jesse Malin is a veteran punk rocker whose former bands were Heart Attack and D Generation. Seems he collaborates with Ryan Adams and has been compared to Bruce Springsteen.

6. "The Trench" by the exceptional indie rocker Chuck Ragan. This is from 2009's "Gold Country". Amazon has already gifted us with "Rotterdam" from that album. I love both songs and will purchase the album.

7. "Salt And Sand" from "White Rabbit", an independent project of Flogging Molly bassist Nathen Maxwell and The Original Bunny Gang. This folk rock song is melodic and beautiful.

8. "Heart BPM" by folk-punk rockers Fake Problems from "It's Great To Be Alive".

9. "The System" by The Black Pacific with vocalist/guitarist Jim Lindberg from the band's self-titled album to be released in September.

10. "We Are The One" by Anti-Flag from the punk-rock album "The People Or The Gun".

11. "We Are All We Have" by hardcore street punk-rockers The Casualties.

12. "Basement Royalty" by Broadway Calls on their punk-rock album "Good Views, Bad News".

13. "Describing The Sky" by Big D And The Kids Table, from this third wave ska band's "Fluent In Stroll" which is said to refer to the band's musical direction to ska, reggae, and soul.

Enjoy!



The Gateway Drug, if you're addicted to great music
Every once in a while, a record label comes along that transcends the sum of its parts. Curated by people with such passion for finding and promoting good music, you can make a safe bet on buying an album from a band for no other reason than they're on the label. The 2010 Side One Dummy sampler takes a proud place on my (virtual) mantle, alongside the all time greats: Sire's "Just Say..." series; Yep Rock's and Fat Wreck Chords' annual samplers and Hellcat's "Give Em' The Boot" series. A good sampler plays like a solid, cohesive album - but then whets your appetite for more. I highly suggest you pick this one up and discover some truly amazing artists - the styles are varied but the passion each artist puts into every delicious note remains the same.

Would love this but the usual music discrimination is in place!!
As usual I am being punished for not living in America! This is not available in the UK.

Nat Geo Amazon Sampler

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Customer Reviews
Good world music, even if it is from the US and Europe
This MP3 set brings together two songs each from five bands on the National Geographic label. If you didn't know National Geographic had a label, get in line. I'm sure there are plenty of us out there. But judging by this sampler, they are doing some good stuff -- except for the first track, which in my view is really pretty bad.

The main nit I would pick is that the label seems to be positioning itself in "world music", but the bands here are all strictly rich-world groups -- based in places like Paris, New York or Madrid. No Africa- or South America-based music here. That being said, the bands here are all good at bringing a fusion of "world music" sensibilities with US or European tastes and production values.

The first two songs are from Bibi Tanga and the Selenites, who are based in Paris, although Bibi Tanga is from Bangui in the Central African Republic. The band says of itself that it is attracted to "groove in all its shapes". But judging by the first track, some shapes might be better left alone. It sounded, to my admittedly old-fashioned tastes, like a bad disco nightmare, a bad Rick James knockoff, sung in a falsetto à la Eddie Murphy's "Roxanne" in "48 Hours". The second track is a great improvement -- the falsetto is still there, but it works much better.

The second two tracks are by DePedro, a Madrid-based band -- which you can hear in their in their Spanish accents when they sing. For my tastes, these are the best songs on the collection. The first, "Comanche" has great slide guitar riffs and a funky rhythm, while the second is good laid back track with xylophone and a banjo riff to kick off. The band's lyrics are really pretty good and add to the music.

Next up, Grupo Fantasma is a US-based Latin orchestra that gets good reviews for its tight arrangements and playing. The sound has a modernized Latin orchestral sound with strong guitars giving an American feel. A little like Tito Puente meets Santana. Nice stuff, but right now I'm not concentrating on Latin orchestral music. If you are, you should hear these guys.

Balkan Beat Box is a New York-based band that also has roots in Tel Aviv. It was founded by Tamir Muskat, formerly of Gogol Bordello, and Ori Kaplan, formerly of Firewater and bringing a background in klezmer clarinet. MC Tomer Yosef is also key to the sound. Their music is sometimes called gypsy punk, and there is a definite Balkan/gypsy feeling. But there are strong dance beats and rapping, as well as influences from around the Mediterranean. This is club music with a more inclusive and informed musical sensibility than a lot of the other stuff out there. Not my cup of tea, but for its genre it seems a cut above.

The set closes out with two tracks from Forro in the Dark, a group of Brazilians who got together to make music in New York. The music has a lot of Brazilian-inspired, but Americanized rhythms. I enjoyed the cuts here. David Byrne has recorded with them, so they have certainly reached a certain level of street cred. The first cut is a rocker, relatively speaking, and the second a rousing instrumental with a flute lead.

Overall this music is definitely worth a listen. I might even consider buying something by DePedro later on. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that a lot of people with different tastes and interests than mine are inspired to check out the other bands here. Good stuff!

California Gurls (feat. Snoop Dogg)

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Customer Reviews
Gurls Out
There is no question that there can sometimes be too much of an artist with the same sound. For Katy Perry, she just doesn't seem to showcase anything but being a "sex kitten" image. With her engagement to crude U.K. comic Russell Brand, and her personal life in a upswing, she just doesn't seem to showcase that in her sound though. Her latest single California Gurls, really just doesn't feel like she has a strong vibe here. It feels like a rehashing of her breakthrough when she came out with I Kissed A Girl a couple of years ago. Hopefully she will try and do a better sound for herself for her next single, and her next album. She really needs it, because she can't be too much of the same singer, all the same time.

Song: D+

Pure Undiluted Poison
Words cannot express how I feel about Katy Perry and this song in particular. Ever since she started getting radio play, I've wanted to jam a screwdriver in my ear. This latest song, which is easily the worst track of the year, cannot disappear fast enough. It's manufactured to where even if you hear a couple seconds of it, you're doomed to have its evil awfulness latched into your brain on an infinite torturous loop until you either kill yourself or find a way to erase your mind. Some are foolish enough to listen to this garbage on purpose, thinking that they actually like it, which many of us know is not the case. In reality, it's the result of a pact between the record company and what I can only imagine is Satan herself. Just like the Black Eyed Peas recent turn to the dark side, such songs are impossible to avoid right now, appearing literally everywhere, ready to ruin your day at every turn. They're infused with an artificial sense of sugary estrogen cheerfulness that masquerades as real, intending to come off as a happy girl singing her happy little songs. Makes me want to put a gun in my mouth. And wanting that is very much the opposite of joy.

Even more insidious, they throw Snoop Dogg in here as an effort to reel in proper music fans, and this fool goes with it just because it's a song about California (and it gives him enough money to buy the ganja tree). Snoop is able to just smoke a blunt and forget all about it, but many of us don't have that luxury. I weep for all the blonds out there with enough carbon monoxide in their heads to buy this god-awful abomination. You're driving the men around you crazy and we'll have none of it. And despite being all about sex and only sex, I can't think of anything that makes my popsicle want to melt and fall off more. This song makes my balls shrink. DO NOT WANT.

Great song
As an adult I love this song, it is very catchy and it seems like Katy Perry has some fun songs, but as a mom, not the greatest song for kids. I didn't realize some of the words that were in it, particularly "Sex on the Beach". This was the song my 11 year old asked for on her MP3. I know you can't keep things from them forever, but not quite the words I would like her to be singing all the time.

Jealous Again From Silver Arrow Records

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Customer Reviews
Reminiscent of early Stones
I have to admit that in my five decades of being an adult I have never been in a smoky bar in Detroit (and in fact, a long time since I have seen a smoky bar anywhere) but I believe The Truth was a bit harsh about this cut. I liked it; it reminded me of some early Rolling Stones, e.g. Beast of Burden (1978), laced with some Eric Clapton, e.g. Cocaine (1977), and one can't very well argue with those successes.

Oh to be 'Jealous Again'
While I don't know the backstory behind this version of The Crowes' seminal 1990 song, it's still an interesting and worthwhile reinterpretation of the original studio release from 20(!) years ago (has it REALLY been that long already?). I do agree to a point with the first reviewer; the audio quality of this recording is--put politely--challenged, lending a quality more in line with a bootleg...or studio demo. But that's not really the point; more that this version is a reinterpretation of the more well-known, two decades old version from 'Shake Your Money Maker'. Whether recorded recently or somewhere along the 'ride' between then and now, for the price of entry (free, at the time of this review) this slightly more laid back version extremely hard to knock. No this recording is perhaps not as polished as the original, but the acoustical guitar intro is a nice counter to the electric original, and Chris Robinson's voice has never been stronger.

The only letdown is the quality of the recording within this MP3 file. Even my aged and well-traveled ears could appreciate a cleaner cut. But if you listen beyond the recording issues you'll find a worthwhile add for any Crowes fan, and a solid introduction for anyone not previously familiar to this classic southern American rock n' roll band. I believe a British mag once labeled The Black Crowes "the most rock n' roll Rock n' Roll band on Earth" (or something like that), and frankly this little gem of a performance does absolutely nothing to diminish that. Rock on, people.

Black Eye for this Black Crow
If this is a preemptive to the rest of the album, then the whole album must suck. This was not a good song. It sounds like they are in the back corner of some smoky bar in Detroit, wrapping up a sleepy night. The nearly non existent crowd sit lazily in their bar chairs, waiting to finish their last drink.
Rhythms were bad, and no cohesiveness to the mixes and runs.

Honest Face From Yep Roc Records

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Customer Reviews
At least now I know how I got it...
Thanks to the reviewer who mentioned this was a free download when you install the amazon software... I was trying to figure out why I had purchased this since I have no recollection of doing so, or ever heard of the artist..

Very generic song, no redeeming qualities for me... Sounds like just about everything else out there...

Cool Song
I got this song for free but it is not really my style. But in general it is an ok song. I'm sure other people who enjoy these people would appreciate it a lot more.

Here comes junior
Wow, does Liam Finn ever sound like his dad. I wonder if that's how his voice comes out naturally or if he adopted it from hearing so much Crowded House while growing up.

Regardless, this is a not bad track. It is simplistic, but strong and over before you know it. It's inevitable to compare him to father Neil, so I'll just go ahead and do it: he doesn't quite have the John Lennon touch of dear old dad, but I say who cares. He's still pretty young, so there is room for improvement.

That said, I'm still curious to check out the EP from which this song comes. Let's hear it for free mp3s from Amazon