Monday, November 24, 2008

Top 5 eBay Vinyl Record Sales

Week Ending 11/22/2008


1) 45 rpm - Don Drummond "Bellvue Special" / "No More" Caribou - $3,000.00 Start: $9.99 Bids: 13

2) LP - The Beatles "Please Please Me" Parlophone UK Stereo - $2,963.20 Start: $148.00 Bids: 18

3) 12" - Led Zeppelin "Road Box" - $2,296.48 Start: $74.00 Bids: 31

4) LP - Joki Freund Sextett " Yogi Jazz" CBS Germany - $2,080.55 - Start: $1,000.00 Bids: 6

5) 45 rpm - Innersouls "Just Take Your Time" / "Thoughts" Plemmons - $2.075.00 Start: $29.00 Bids: 19

A Ska 45 out of Jamacia tops the list this week. Ska originator Don Drummond's rarest 45 sells for exactly $3k. In the #2 spot, The Beatles appear again this week, and again its with an original Please Please Me LP. This one, a stereo edition, sells for over $2.9k.

And here's another recent visitor to the Top 5. A Led Zeppelin "Road Box" bids up past $2.2k.

Jazz saxophonist Joki Freund's "Yogi Jazz" LP goes to almost $2.1k for the #4 spot.

Last, a 70's funk 45 from Innersouls sells for over $2k.

As always, I want to thank Brian at http://ccdiscoveries.blogspot.com, for this great data. Stop by Counter Clock radio and hear some forgotten oldies!

Music News & Notes

Vatican Likes Beatles-Forgives Lennon

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano wrote in its Saturday edition that the Beatles music is better than today's "standardized, stereotypical" sounds. The comment was in reference to the 40th anniversary of the group's White Album.

They also wrote off John Lennon's comment that the group was more popular than Jesus, calling it the bragging of a young man in the middle of unusual success. Sure wait until almost 30 years after his death, it may have meant something if he was still alive. The papal jury's still mum about forgiving Yoko.

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Whip It!

Devo is working on their first album of new material since 1990's Smooth Noodle Maps.

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Old Onions

Booker T. Jones is also assembling his first solo album in twenty years with the help of the Drive-By Truckers and Neil Young.

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Ye- Haw!

Ricky Skaggs went into the studio recently with the Raconteurs and Ashley Monroe to record a new version of the groups song Old Enough. It will premier on music.yahoo.com on December 2.

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My Order is to Go

Tito Jackson has evidently quit Taco Bell (yes, David Letterman reference) and is moving to England where he plans on starting a solo career at the age of 55. His last recording was 1989's 2300 Jackson Street.

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No Doubt Plans Reunion Tour, Album

So much for Gwen Stefani's crummy career as a solo artist: She's getting back together with No Doubt to record a new album.

The band made the announcement through a pseudo online chat box posted on its website this weekend. Although no details were given, No Doubt indicated it'd return to the road to fire up some inspiration before it heads into the studio to work on a new album.

No Doubt hasn't recorded an album since 2001's Rock Steady.

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Freebie From Bruce!

Bruce Springsteen's new single can be downloaded free of charge — for one day.

Springsteen is offering free downloads of "Working on a Dream" on iTunes and his official Web site. The track will have a fee attached on iTunes from Tuesday through December 9.

It's the first offering from Springsteen's upcoming album, also titled "Working on a Dream," which will be released January 27, five days before the rock star and the E Street Band perform at the Super Bowl halftime show in Tampa, Florida.

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Unhappy Togther

The people who own the rights to the Turtles' Happy Together are suing Ford over the use of the song in commercials for the Brazil and Argentina market. They are seeking $200,000 in damages.

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60's Relived Again

Marianne Faithfull has released a new song, a very different take on the Smokey Robinson classic Ooh Baby, Baby. With the title shortened to OO Baby and help from Antony Hegerty, the single moves from subdued R&B to a rocked out ending over a long eight minutes.

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Not Too Old To Rock & Roll

AC/DC have appeared for the first time on Billboard's Dance Music chart as "Rock N Roll Train" premiered at number 48.

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Divorce for Madonna/Ritchie

Madonna and Guy Richie were granted a preliminary divorce today in a London court. Neither attended the hearing. A final divorce decree can be made in six weeks and one day.

The papers showed that Madonna had filed for the divorce, citing Ritchie's "unreasonable behavior" and that no family law need be applied as they had worked out division of assets and custody. I guess Madonna wasn't cited for "unreasonable behavior," as she has always been a saint.

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Annie Lennox to Release Postponed Collection

Annie Lennox will release a 14-song solo career retrospective on February 10 via Arista. The Annie Lennox Collection collects twelve older recording from over the artist's 15 year solo career along with two new tracks. The album was originally scheduled for August 6 but was postponed when, two weeks later, Lennox had spinal surgery.

Over those years, Lennox has recorded four albums (Diva, Medium, Bare and Songs of Mass Destruction) which have earned her four Grammys and, along with her work with Dave Stewart in the Eurythmics, has made her the most successful female British artist of the last fifty years with sales of 78 million albums.

"It seems like the time has come to release the Collection this year," Lennox says of her first best-of set. "I'm very proud of these songs. They are timeless and have become 'classics' in their own right."

Of the new songs, Pattern of My Life was written by Tom Chaplin of Keene and Shining Light was recorded by Ash in 2001.

Lennox will receive a special award of merit at this Sunday's American Music Awards and will perform live for the first time since her spinal surgery.

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Converge Writing New Album

Converge is getting ready to destroy your ears once more.

The hardcore act revealed it started writing tunes for the follow-up to No Heroes (review) (Epitaph), and hopes to place the still-untitled album into stores next year from Epitaph. No further details about the set were given.

Top Ten TV Theme Songs

Let's continue our look at Paste Magazine's list of the Top TV Songs, this time #5 on their list:

5. All in the Family - "Those Were the Days" by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse

Few intros are as simple or as memorable as Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton at the spinnet piano live in front of a studio audience every week. This was the first song I (and many others) learned on the piano, as it used only the black keys. But only now have I learned that the closing lyrics are "Gee, our old LaSalle ran great." Or that a LaSalle was a GM automobile that went out of production in 1940.



All in the Family is an American situation comedy that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971 to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, the show was revamped, and given a new title, Archie Bunker's Place. This version of the sitcom lasted another four years, ending its run in 1983.

Produced by Norman Lear and based on the British television series Till Death Us Do Part, the show broke ground in its depiction of issues previously considered unsuitable for U.S. network television comedy, such as racism, homosexuality, women's liberation, rape, miscarriage, breast cancer, menopause and impotence.

In a warning to viewers, CBS ran a disclaimer before airing the first episode (which disappeared from the screen with the sound of a toilet flushing):

"The program you are about to see is All in the Family. It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices, and concerns. By making them a source of laughter we hope to show, in a mature fashion, just how absurd they are."

All in the Family was notorious for featuring language and epithets previously absent from television, such as "fag" for homosexual, "hebe" for Jews, "spic" for Hispanics, "mick" for Irish, "dago" and "wop" for Italians, "chink" for Chinese, "Jap" for Japanese, "gook" for southeast Asian, "spade" for blacks, and phrases such as "God damn it." It was also famous for being the first major television show to feature the sound of a flushing toilet; it became a running gag on the show.

The show ranked #1 in the yearly Nielsen ratings from 1971 to 1976. As of 2008, The Cosby Show has been the only other show to top the ratings for at least five consecutive seasons. The series finale brought in 40.2 million viewers. TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time ranked All in the Family as #4. Bravo also named the show's protagonist, Archie Bunker, TV's greatest character of all time.

interesting tidbits:

Archie and Edith's chairs are now in the Smithsonian Institution.[17] Originally purchased by the show's set designer for a few dollars at a local Goodwill thrift store, the originals were given to the Smithsonian (for an exhibit on American television history) in 1978. It cost producers thousands of dollars to create replicas to replace the originals.

Part of the Bunker kitchen set was used more than 25 years after the show's debut for another CBS sitcom, "Everybody Loves Raymond".

Popular T-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers showing O'Connor's image and farcically promoting "Archie Bunker for President" appeared around the time of the 1972 presidential election. A number of voters were said to have voted for the fictional TV character as a write-in candidate.

I still love the show, it ranks in my top ten of all time. Everybody, black, white, mixed- whatever- has some of Archie Bunker in them (although some would never admit it).

Vinyl of the show goes for around $10-20 for an LP

Classic Rock Videos

Janis Joplin - Piece of my heart

Album Cover Art

Let's continue our look at the Gigwise.com list of the top 50 dirtiest and sexiest album covers (as compiled by their staff- Gigwise comments in quotes):


29. Catherine Wheel: ‘Adam & Eve’ - "With their 1997 album, Great Yarmouth’s Catherine Wheel transferred art into reality when they took the naked models of the cover art and welcomed them on stage during their live shows to promote the record. The type of people you often find in the Green Fields of Glastonbury, then."

This from Rolling Stone:

Catherine Wheel began, in the early '90s, as a moody, distortion-heavy "shoe gazer" band, but the English group's attention and ambition have since shifted to the stars. With its fourth LP, Adam and Eve, it eschews the guitar-heavy haze of previous efforts for appealing melodies and a sense of drama and musical sweep rarely found in '90s guitar rock. "Here Comes the Fat Controller" offers a beautiful melody filtered through a fuzz-toned fog; "Delicious" adds textured guitars and psychedelic sounds to power-pop energy; and "Future Boy" conveys naked emotion on a scale so grand that it would make Billy Corgan proud. Steering clear of art-rock excess, on Adam and Eve, Catherine Wheel deliver beautifully embellished pop with a sonic scope rarely seen since Pink Floyd's prime. (RS 771) ROBERT LEVINE