Vinyl Record News & Music Notes

want more info on some great vinyl releases coming next saturday?

Record Store Day 2011 – Comprehensive Release Guide Part 1

check it out at thevinyldistrict.com

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Emily's Army to release Don't Be A Dick

Jermy Leeuwis

Teenage pop-punk group Emily's Army is gearing up for the release of their full-length debut, Don’t Be A Dick, due June 14 on Adeline Records. Produced by Billie Joe Armstrong, the album features heartfelt teenage anthems dealing in cautionary tales, politics and the pressures of adolescence. The record will be available digitally as well as on vinyl.

The 14-song set was recorded and mixed in four days at Oakland’s Jingletown Recordings with the help of engineer Chris Dugan. Emily’s Army counts the rich East Bay music scene and Gilman Street amongst their influences, along with classic power pop, and garage rock.

Read more at musicremedy.com

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Duran Duran Limited Vinyl Release

The Vinyl Factory are proud to present a stunning collectors edition of Duran Duran's new album 'ALL YOU NEED IS NOW' - their critically acclaimed, return to roots tour-de-force, produced by Mark Ronson. Renowned for fusing pop music with art and fashion in groundbreaking ways, Duran Duran have always been at the forefront of the art scene, and this super limited pop art masterpiece sets a new bar even by their standards.

Enlisting the superb talents of British artist Clunie Reid (Saatchi Gallery, the Tate, New Museum NY), with art direction by UK fashion magazine POP’s creative team, under the steer of fast-rising art talent Rory McCartney, the band have individually signed and numbered each edition.

Limited to only 500 copies worldwide, and available to order exclusively from The Vinyl Factory, each collectors copy comprises:

• A hand-crafted, transparent black Perspex box with clear face on outer front, providing an artwork frame that can be individually curated by each owner

• Five heavyweight 180-gram clear vinyl records pressed on the classic EMI 1400, each mastered for vinyl, with the new album pressed across two records, plus an LP of bonus tracks and two 12" remixes including the much sought-after David Lynch reworking of Girl Panic !

• Five beautifully treated bespoke record sleeves, featuring remarkable exclusive artwork on both sides by Clunie Reid

• Exclusive 36-page book with lyrics silver foiled onto black pages, housed in a gorgeous silver mirrored paper cover, each hand signed and numbered by the members of Duran Duran

• Exclusive 36-page book showcasing Clunie Reid's album artwork, with a die-cut front cover of the band's instantly recognisable D logo.

Available to pre-order now, exclusively from The Vinyl Factory

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nj.com has a great story about a band no one has heard of (however, i love their music!)

Bern & The Brights to brighten Record Store Day with two Hoboken performances

By Jim Testa/For The Jersey Journal The Jersey Journal

Bern & The Brights, the delightful folk/country/chamber-pop quartet from Montclair, has a busy month ahead.

The group, fronted by singer/guitarists Bernadette Malavarca and Catherine McGowan, will celebrate Record Store Day - Saturday, April 16 – by releasing a vinyl single, with two Hoboken performances: An acoustic set at Tunes record store at 4 p.m. will be followed by an evening show at Maxwell’s. And a few weeks later, they’ll be back in the Mile Square City at the Hoboken Spring Arts & Music Festival on Sunday, May 1.

Bassist Shawn Fafara and drummer Jose Ulloa complete the lineup. The group came together in 2008 and quickly established itself as a local favorite, playing some 300 gigs since its inception and releasing two EP’s. Using social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, the band has skillfully won over a sizable and loyal fan base, who are called The Light Brigade. They should be turning out in force on May 1 when Bern & The Brights play the main stage at the Spring Arts & Music Festival, alongside headliner Ian Hunter and The Baseball Project, the new side project from REM’s Peter Buck.

Read more at nj.com




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Animals As Leaders Vinyl Debut

Animals As Leaders are issuing their self-titled debut album for the first time on vinyl in June. The 180-gram double-LP set, which includes the song "Wave of Babies" (previously an iTunes exclusive) as a bonus track, will feature a high-quality Stoughton gatefold jacket with enhanced album artwork that includes 3D imagery and custom AAL 3D glasses.

The set is available in three different color combinations and is limited to 1000 pieces total. There will also be a brand new, exclusive T-shirt available on its own or in a bundle with the LPs.

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The Groove’s Vinyl Best Sellers 3/28-4/03/2011

1. Radiohead – The King Of Limbs
2. Tallest Man On Earth – Sometimes The Blues Is Just A Passing Bird
3. Bibio – Mind Bokeh
4. The Strokes -Angles
5. Deltron 3030 – Deltron 3030
6. Those Darlins -Screws Get Loose
7. DeVotchka – 100 Lovers
8. Mike Watt – Hyphenated-Man
9. Obits – Moody, Standard & Poor
10. J Mascis – Several Shades Of Why
11. Pujol – Mayday 7”
12. Wagon Christ – Toomorrow
13. Nas – Illmatic
14. Sharon Van Etten – Epic
15. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
16. Mountain Goats – All Eternals Deck
17. Bad Brains – Black Dots
18. Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Belong
19. Matthew Dear – Black City
20. Toro Y Moi / Cloud Nothings – I Will Talk To You / For No Reason 7” split

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CONCORD MUSIC GROUP LAUNCHES STAX REMASTERS SERIES WITH REISSUES OF THREE RECORDINGS FROM THE LEGENDARY SOUL/R&B CATALOG BOOKER T. & THE MGs — 'McLEMORE AVENUE'; THE STAPLE SINGERS —' BE ALTITUDE: RESPECT YOURSELF'; JOHNNIE TAYLOR — 'TAYLORED IN SILK'

Inaugural titles to be released May 10, 2011

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — From the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, the Stax label dominated soul, R&B, gospel, and related genres with a stable of artists who have since become iconic figures in the history of American popular music. Now a part of the Concord Music Group, the Stax catalog is a treasure trove of some of the most visceral and influential recordings of the 20th century. On May 10, 2011, Concord reaches back into that deep catalog to launch Stax Remasters, a series of reissues that cast a new light on classic Stax recordings with the help of 24-bit remastering, rare bonus tracks, and new liner notes to frame the recordings in a historical context.

The first three reissues in the series are:

Booker T. & the MGs: McLemore Avenue (1970)
The Staple Singers: Be Altitude: Respect Yourself (1972)
Johnnie Taylor: Taylored in Silk (1973)

“Stax is a very important label, not only in the history of soul music, but in the history of music in general,” says Nick Phillips, Concord’s Vice President of Catalog A&R and co-producer of the series with Chris Clough, Concord’s Manager of Catalog Development. “We have a number of amazing recordings by Stax in the catalog. This is an opportunity to revisit some of the best of these classic recordings, upgrade the sound quality, and put them in the proper historical perspective that they deserve.”

Booker T. & the MGs: McLemore Avenue

Released in January 1970, McLemore Avenue is a tribute to Abbey Road, the landmark recording released by the Beatles the prior summer. McLemore Avenue sets up an interesting cause-and-effect loop by putting an R&B spin on songs by a profoundly innovative British pop-rock band that, ironically, emerged years earlier from the most basic elements of American R&B.

McLemore Avenue was inspired by “my pure fascination and admiration of the work that [the Beatles] had done,” says keyboardist Booker T. Jones in the reissue liner notes by music historian Ashley Kahn. “I didn’t know their inner workings. I found out later. I had a picture of those guys as a perfect unit. I didn’t know that they fought, had arguments, or that they needed referees. When you listen to that music, you think it comes from a perfect union, you know?”

The tribute album “represents a fascinating and musically compelling intersection,” says Phillips. “On one hand, you can look at the strength of the Beatles’ songs, and how they’re such strong songs that they can be successfully adapted — in the right hands — to soulful instrumental versions. At the same time, it is of course a testament to Booker T. & the MGs’ creativity and soulfulness and groove. It’s not only a very interesting musical intersection, but it’s also a very deep and at the same time a very fun listen.”

Clearly, Booker T. & the MGs had had plenty of their own opportunities to flex their creative muscles in the studio, having recorded with artists like Otis Redding and Sam & Dave. “But on a record like this,” says Clough, “where all the songs were already written and it was just a matter of interpretation, it wasn’t work for them. It was an opportunity to put their spin on the songs and just have some fun.”

The bonus tracks include seven additional Beatles covers, recorded in sessions separate from those for the McLemore Avenue album. “We figured it made good sense to expand this edition by adding other tracks that Booker T. & the MGs had recorded of Beatles songs over the years,” says Phillips. “So the Stax Remasters reissue is not only an expanded edition of McLemore Avenue, it’s also a de facto ‘Booker T. & the MGs Play the Beatles’ collection.”

The Staple Singers: Be Altitude: Respect Yourself

Originally released in 1972, Be Altitude: Respect Yourself captures the celebrated family vocal group in what was essentially the third act of their career, according to music historian Rob Bowman. The Staple Singers had initially established themselves as a gospel group in the 1950s, then merged with the folk music closely tied to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and ultimately veered away from protest songs and toward what Mavis Staples termed “message music” in the early and mid-1970s.

“Obviously, there was a lot going on in America — politically and socially — around that time, and the Staple Singers took up the cause,” says Clough. “Stax provided a huge platform for that cause, and it worked. It wasn’t insincere or disingenuous. It was the real deal. The Staples had taken up the banner at that point.”

Be Altitude found a comfortable middle ground between gospel music and secular music. “Some of the messages in their music have that gospel element running through it, but it’s a broader message than what you’d find in traditional gospel,” says Phillips. “The soul, the gospel, the grooves — all those things blended together — really make for a unique sound that is the Staple Singers.”

The two previously unreleased bonus tracks — “Walking in Water Over Our Head” and an alternate version of “Heavy Makes You Happy” — were both recorded at the Muscle Shoals Studios in Alabama in 1970 and 1972, respectively. “We felt that it was appropriate to add these bonus tracks, not only because any undiscovered material by a group as great as the Staple Singers is worthy of a listen,” says Phillips, “but also because they’re such great performances that they fit right in.”

Simply put, says Bowman, “the recording you hold in your hands represents the Staple Singers at the very peak of their career.”

Johnnie Taylor: Taylored in Silk

Released in 1973, Taylored in Silk is an ideal example of Taylor’s newly expanded and embellished sound, crafted with the help of producer Don Davis, who had united with Taylor a few years earlier, according to the liner notes by Bill Dahl. “As far as Davis was concerned, a fundamental change of sound was in order for Johnnie,” says Dahl. “Gone were the savory slow blues in favor of a hard-edged, uptempo attack that energized [Taylor’s] sound like never before.”

The issue could well have been regional marketing as much as musicality. “The story goes that Davis was brought in to forge a sound that would be sort of a combination between Northern and Southern soul, and capture the best of both Stax and Motown,” says Phillips. “He certainly hit a home run in his work with Johnnie Taylor, especially on this album.”

Taylored in Silk underwent “a lot of overdubbing,” Dahl notes, “but the end result was a splendidly conceived soul album boasting three major R&B hits within its eight selections…Blues wailer or soul philosopher, silky or gritty, Johnnie Taylor will always be revered as one of the greatest southern soul singers of ’em all.”

The six bonus tracks were previously released as singles in the early ’70s, “and they’re all outstanding performances,” says Phillips. “They certainly fit the vibe and the performance quality of the rest of the album.”

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in the philadelphia, vinyl is doing well!

Vinyl Revival Promising for Local Shop

Hideaway Music, on Germantown Avenue, shelves special finds for audiophiles.

By Anthony Scoles

Although they’ve only been open for ten years now, and at their current location for less than half that time, a stroll through Hideaway Records on Germantown Avenue feels like a trek through a bygone era.

It’s the kind of homey place you’d visit for music before the days of the iPod, back when teenagers flocked to the record shop on release day to pick up the newest Stones album or Hendrix LP instead of downloading it to their hard drive with a couple clicks of the mouse.

For Hideaway’s owner, Brian Reisman, and many of his customers, there’s still a lot to be said for the old ways.

“A lot of it is the experience,” said Reisman.

Read the rest at chestnuthill.patch.com

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and in music history for the day:

In 1964, the Supremes recorded "Where Did Our Love Go." The song was their first No. 1 single.

In 1966, the Righteous Brothers reach the top of the Billboard singles chart for the second and final time with "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration".

Neil Young's docu-autobiography, "Journey through the Past," premiered at the U.S. Film Festival in Dallas in 1973.

In 1975, Aerosmith released the LP 'Toys in the Attic,' featuring two of the band’s biggest hits, “Walk This Way” and “Sweet Emotion.”

In 1977, The Damned became the first British punk group to appear at New York’s CBGB.

In 1978, Eddie Money saw his first US hit, "Baby Hold On" enter the Billboard chart, where it would reach #11. He would go on to place nine more songs in the Top 40, including two Top 10 hits "Take Me Home Tonight" (#4 in 1986) and "Walk On Water" (#9 in 1988).

In 1985, American songwriter John Fred Coots, who co-wrote Pat Boone's US chart topper "Love Letters In The Sand", as well as the children's Christmas classic "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", died at the age of 87. In all, Coots wrote over 700 songs.

The Recording Industry Association of America announced in 1994 that Pink Floyd’s 1973 album, The Dark Side of the Moon, had become the fourth biggest-selling album in its history, passing the 13 million mark in U.S. sales. To date, the album has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide.

Also in 1994, An electrician hired to install a security system at Kurt Cobain's residence finds the body of the 27 year old Nirvana front man lying on the floor of a room above the garage with a shotgun on his chest and a suicide note nearby. Not everyone was convinced his death was a suicide.

birthdays today include Izzy Stradlin of Gun's 'N Roses (1962) and Steve Howe of Yes, Asia fame (1947)