Monday, June 20, 2011

Vinyl Record News & Music Notes

this writer offers a caution to music buyers:

Only Rock 'n Roll

45 x 45s: Rolling Stones records for obsessive compulsives

by Mervyn Dendy

The Rolling Stones have just released another box set. Entitled The Singles 1971-2006, it consists of 45 CDs allegedly (I will explain at the end why I say “allegedly”) containing all the official singles released by the Stones in the UK and/or the US in 7-inch, 12-inch or CD format between 1971 and 2006. A producers’ note at the back of the small hardcover book accompanying the set announces that the aim of the collection is to gather the tracks which originally featured on those singles, and the booklet notes written by journalist and broadcaster Paul Sexton describe the box as a “loving recreation of the band’s singles output” starting from 1971. That, of course, was the year in which the Rolling Stones Records label was introduced, and in which the now famous lip and tongue logo was seen for the first time.

Each of the 45 singles comes in its own cardboard sleeve reproducing the original sleeve, while the artwork on the labels of the CDs themselves replicates the labels of the singles.

Read more at newstime.co.za

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very engaging article about digital and analog mediums, however, any way you spin it, it's all about the music:

Music in the Digital Age | Gear evolves, love of tunes still remains

Written by Jeffrey Lee Puckett

Conor Oberst can imagine a time when technology has advanced to the point where we leave the physical world behind, our consciousness uploaded and allowed to roam free. A desire for art will result in art.

“You just have to imagine a record, and it'll exist,” said the Bright Eyes musician, who has become deeply interested in the work of Ray Kurzweil, a technology philosopher who has written about an intelligence explosion that could redefine existence.

“He essentially says that a time will come when technology will eclipse human intelligence, and we'll be able to keep our consciousness going through uploading it into machines, and we won't have to eat anymore, we won't have to die anymore. He looks at it as just the next stage of human evolution, and I don't think it's that crazy.

“There is obviously a million steps between here and there, but in our lifetime, if you think about how we're only 15 years into the Internet, imagine how 20 years from now people will be interacting. It's definitely fascinating, but also a bit frightening as well.”

The seeds of the theory are all around us, and musicians such as Oberst are intimately involved. The human need for music has been at the heart of a decade's worth of technological advancements that have fundamentally changed the ways in which many people access, store and listen to their music.

Read the rest at courier-journal.com

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George Thorogood And The Destroyers To Release New Studio Album

On their 17th studio album, George Thorogood and The Destroyers pay tribute to their Chess Records heroes, including many of Thorogood’s legendary mentors who helped to launch his career in rock & roll.

Titled 2120 South Michigan Avenue, the 13-track album will be released by Capitol/EMI on July 12 on CD, vinyl LP, and digital download. "2120" features Thorogood’s raw, rocking turn on classics by a who’s-who of the blues, including Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter and other Chess greats, as well as new original songs written by Thorogood, the album’s producer, Tom Hambridge, and Richard Fleming.

Read more at ultimate-guitar.com

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very well written piece on an indie favorite

How Fleet Foxes are handling high expectations second time around

Huge success began a steep learning curve for the Seattle band. Bandleader Robin Pecknold explains how the second album put the band in a 'dark place' and how they came through it

by Laura Barton

It feels odd to be meeting Robin Pecknold here, in the plainest of rooms backstage at the Hammersmith Apollo; the walls are pale and bare, the tables empty, the sofa curiously shiny. It seems somehow the very antithesis of the rich, adorned, lived-in music Fleet Foxes create. So when Pecknold arrives, he brings a sudden warmth to the room – colours its blankness with the mild scruffiness of baggy coat and woolly hat, a mug of tea to nurse a burgeoning sore throat, and fills the echoey space with a pleasing inarticulacy – sentences that run aground, ideas that seem to beach themselves midway through.

We are here to discuss the band's second album Helplessness Blues, a record eagerly anticipated after the startling success of the band's 2008 self-titled debut, whose unusually pastoral vision and stunning vocal harmonies touched a chord with an unexpectedly large number of people. "It was hard toeing the line between making something that felt like a sequel and a new thing entirely," Pecknold says of the new record. "We didn't set out thinking, 'Let's make it more X or more Y.' It was just what felt intuitive. But I don't think I could have written these songs three years ago."

The three years that have passed have been a steep learning curve for Pecknold. In the beginning, Fleet Foxes had been just him and his best friend, Skyler Skjelset, writing songs influenced by their parents' record collections and, in time, playing them around their hometown of Seattle. They quickly garnered attention from audiences and local press and, by the end of 2007, word had spread sufficiently that the band accrued more than a quarter of a million plays over two months on their Myspace page. At the start of the following year they signed to Bella Union, swiftly followed by Sub Pop for the US, releasing the Sun Giant EP in the spring and their first album at the start of summer.

Read the rest of this revealing interview at guardian.co.uk



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Townshend's Quadrophenia Tour Guitar Brings Over $50,000 at Christie's Auction

Last Tuesday, Christie's in London held an auction of Rock and Pop Memorabilia that raised over $680,000.

Topping the bidding was a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe guitar owned and played by Pete Townshend during the Who's 1972/73 U.S. tour in support of the album Quadrophenia. The piece brought $51,250.

The majority of the balance of the big bids went to John Lennon and Beatles memorabilia including autographs, gold records, lyrics and even a gift given to Julian Lennon by John and Yoko.

The following are the lots that brought more than $10,000.

•Gibson Les Paul Deluxe guitar owned and used by Pete Townshend during the Who's U.S. Quadrophenia Tour in 1972 and 73 - $51,250

•John Lennon signed Final Fantasy album cover with Lennon drawn caricatures of himself and Yoko Ono - $38,950

•Gold record for the Beatles' White Album (The Beatles) - $22,550

•A handwritten letter by John Lennon from 1967 - $20,500

Read more at our friends at vintagevinylnews.com

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USA

Albums:
1. Adele :21
2. Lady Gaga :Born This Way
3. Original Broadway Cast Recording :The Book Of Mormon
4. Tech N9ne :All 6s and 7s
5. Ronnie Dunn :Ronnie Dunn
6. All Time Low :Dirty Work
7. Jason Aldean :My Kinda Party
8. Brad Paisley :The Is Country Music
9. Various :Now 38
10. Death Cab For Cutie :Codes and Keys


Singles:
1. Adele :Rolling In The Deep
2. Pitbull feat. Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer :Give Me Everything
3. LMFAO :Party Rock Anthem
4. Katy Perry feat. Kanye West :E.T.
5. Bruno Mars :The Lazy Song
6. Lady Gaga :The Edge Of Glory
7. Jennifer Lopez feat. Pitbull :On The Floor
8. Black Eyed Peas :Just Can't Get Enough
9. Jason Aldean :Dirt Road Anthem
10. Nicki Minaj :Super Bass


UK

Albums:
1. Take That :Progress
2. Lady Gaga :Born This Way
3. Adele :21
4. Arctic Monkeys :Suck It And See
5. Adele :19
6. Paul Simon :So Beautiful Or So What
7. Bad Meets Evil :Hell The Sequel
8. Seasick Steve :You Can't Teach An Old Dog New Tricks
9. Caro Emerald :Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor
10. Electric Light Orchestra :All Over The World


Singles:
1. Example :Changed The Way You Kiss Me
2. Calvin Harris :Bounce
3. Ed Sheeran :The A Team
4. Pitbull feat. Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer :Give Me Everything
5. Tinchy Stryder & Dappy :Spaceship
6. Nicole Scherzinger :Right There
7. Alexandra Stan :Mr Saxobeat
8. Aloe Blacc :I Need A Dollar
9. LMFAO :Party Rock Anthem
10. Jennifer Lopez :I'm Into You


Europe

Albums:
1. Take That :Progress
2. Rihanna :Loud
3. Bruce Springsteen :The Promise
4. Shakira :Sale El Sol
5. Pink :Greatest Hits ... So Far
6. Bon Jovi :Greatest Hits
7. James Blunt :Some Kind Of Trouble
8. Susan Boyle :The Gift
9. Kings Of Leon :Come Around Sundown
10. JLS :Outta This World


Singles:
1. Jennifer Lopez feat. Pitbull :On The Floor
2. Rihanna :S&M
3. Adele :Rolling In the Deep
4. Lady Gaga :Born This Way
5. Black Eyed Peas :Just Can't Get Enough
6. Jessie J. feat. B.o.B. :Price Tag
7. Katy Perry :E.T.
8. Snoop Dogg Vs. David Guetta :Sweat
9. LMFAO :Party Rock Anthem
10. Bruno Mars :Grenade

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and in music history for the day:

In 1948, Toast of the Town, which would later be called The Ed Sullivan Show, premiered on CBS-TV. The first show was produced on a budget of $1,375. Only $375 was allocated for talent, $200 of which was shared by two of the young stars that evening, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

In 1969, the first of a three-day music festival began in Newport, California. Featured artists included Ike and Tina Turner, Marvin Gaye, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Byrds, The Rascals, Steppenwolf, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, Eric Burdon and Love. A three-day ticket cost $15. Hendrix received $125,000 for his appearance, at the time the highest fee ever paid to a rock act for a single appearance.

Also in 1969, David Bowie signed with Philips Records and then entered Trident Studios in London to record "Space Oddity", a song he wrote after seeing the 1968 Stanley Kubrick movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The tune will top the UK chart in November, 1975 and reach #15 in America.

In 1972, The Tallahatchie Bridge, made famous in Bobbie Gentry's "Ode To Billie Joe", collapsed into the Yazoo River. Although an article which appeared in the November 1967 issue of Life magazine showed a picture of Bobbie walking across it, she later said that she didn't have any particular span in mind when she wrote the song. It's also worth noting that Chocktaw Ridge, which is also referred to in the song, is located a hundred miles away on the east side of the I-55, and not anywhere near the Tallahatchie River as it passes through Leflore County.

The Talking Heads performed their first show at CBGB in 1975.

Also in 1975, 'Tonight's the Night' by Neil Young & Crazy Horse was released.

In 1978 'Double Vision' by Foreigner was released.

At the top of the charts today in 1981 were Stars on 45 with Medley: Intro Venus / Sugar Sugar / No Reply / I'll Be Back / Drive My Car / Do You Want to Know a Secret / We Can Work It Out / I Should Have Known Better / Nowhere Man / You're Going to Lose That Girl .



In 1987, a concert at Radio City Music Hall celebrated the return of Dion to New York after 15 years. Also appearing were the Del-Satins, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Five Satins and Carlo of the Belmonts.

In 1992, Mariah Carey scored her sixth U.S. #1 single with “I'll Be There,” a song The Jackson Five first took to #1 in 1970.

In 1997, 59 year old Lawrence Payton of The Four Tops died of liver cancer at his home in Southfield, Michigan.

In 2000, the Ronettes were awarded $2.6 million in back royalties from Phil Spector.

In 2004, Paul McCartney played his 3,000th live show in Petersburg, Russia (2,535 with the Quarrymen/Beatles, 140 with Wings, 325 solo). Organizers for the gig hired three jets to spray dry ice into the clouds so it wouldn’t rain during his concert. they can do that?

In 2006, Claydes Charles Smith, a co-founder and lead guitarist of Kool and the Gang died after a long illness. He was 57.

birthdays today include Cyndi Lauper (58), John Taylor (Duran Duran) (51), Brian Wilson (69), Dolores "La La" Brooks (Crystals) (64) and Stone Gossard (Pearl Jam) (45) just to name a few.



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