Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Vinyl Record News & Music Notes

interesting read....



Why collect records? An extract from Kevin M. Moist’s “Record Collecting as Cultural Anthropology”











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Nonesuch Records to Release Three "Mermaid Avenue" Volumes on Vinyl for Black Friday


When American folk legend Woody Guthrie died in 1967, at the age of 55, among his stored belongings were thousands of complete song lyrics for which he had not written out music or made recordings.


Many of them had been written in the 1940s and ’50s, in the Guthrie family home on Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island, Brooklyn. The lyrics remained in boxes for decades, but once his daughter Nora found them in the 1990s, she knew they had to be shared. She approached English singer-songwriter and activist Billy Bragg to select some to set to music. The Chicago rock band Wilco came aboard soon after, with Jeff Tweedy writing music—along with his late bandmate Jay Bennett on some songs—and the band recording with both Tweedy and Bragg on vocals. Natalie Merchant joined the group to sing a duet with Bragg and two solo songs, and guitarist/singer Corey Harris, who wrote two songs and co-wrote one, performed on many tracks.

In 1998, the first batch of songs was released to critical acclaim as Mermaid Avenue, receiving a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Mermaid Avenue Vol. II followed in 2000, and, more than a decade later, for Record Store Day 2012, Nonesuch Records released Vol. III, comprising 17 previously unreleased recordings made during the original sessions, as part of a three-CD-plus-DVD set, Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions.

Now, to coincide with Record Store Day's Back to Black Friday, on November 29, 2013, the Friday after Thanksgiving, Nonesuch will reissue the first two Mermaid Avenue volumes on vinyl and release, for

the first time, the third volume on vinyl. Each volume is pressed on 2-LP, 180-gram vinyl at Pallas MFG in Diepholz, Germany. The albums are now available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store, where LP orders include downloads of the complete album available starting on release day.

In her liner note to the Complete Sessions set, Nora Guthrie describes her response to finding her father's lyrics, which were much more personal and journal-esque than the earlier works for which Woody was best known: “I had just discovered that my father had written more song lyrics than any of us could ever imagine. (Over 3,000 when I finally did the count.) I had just discovered that he had a bad crush on Ingrid Bergman and dreamed of getting her pregnant, that he felt sorry for Hans Eisler, that he was a proud lush and a comfortable luster, that he believed in flying saucers, that he was homesick for California, that he even knew who Joe DiMaggio was let alone wrote a song about him, or that he once made out with a girl in a tree hollow when, as a kid, he bragged, ‘There ain’t nobody that can sing like me.’”

The New York Times said of the first volume, “[Tweedy and Bragg] are the perfect pair to conclude that Guthrie, far from a predictable Popular Front totem, was a prophetic rock-and-roller with a whole lot to say. All he needed was a band and a little freedom … It says a great deal for [Bragg] that he recognized that his leftism only half-equipped him to bring it off. Woody Guthrie was as American as it gets, and [Chicago–based] Wilco provided that element as few other contemporaries could have. Wilco’s signature, a spacious stylistic sweep from blues to bluegrass, brings all this music to a life no … Brits or Nashville pros could have approached.”

Bragg told NPR in 1998, “The words are so powerful, they’re so evocative to many people…That’s the strength of Woody, it’s the simplicity.” Tweedy added, “I’d have a really good feeling about things if [the album] did lead a certain number of people back to discover Woody Guthrie.”

Pre-Order from Nonesuch

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Slayer Classic Albums Being Reissued On Vinyl

American Recordings is set to reissue 10 of Slayer's seminal albums on vinyl on December 10, 2013 in North America.  All ten albums will be available individually and were re-mastered from the original analog flat master tapes and pressed on the highest quality, 180-gram audiophile vinyl.  Albums include all nine of Slayer's studio recordings, 'Reign In Blood' (1986), 'South of Heaven' (1988), 'Seasons In The Abyss' (1990), 'Divine Intervention' (1994), 'Undisputed Attitude' (1996), 'Diabolus In Musica' (1998), 'God Hates Us All' (2001), 'Christ Illusion' (2006) and 'World Painted Blood' (2009), plus their live double-LP 'Decade of Aggression: Live' (1991).

Each title will feature the original album artwork including reproductions of the original 12X12 inner sleeves. For the first US pressing, 500 unmarked copies will be pressed on 180-gram, blood red, colored vinyl and randomly inserted.

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Breaking Bad soundtrack to get picture disc vinyl release






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Rock and Soul Legends Pay Tribute to Jack White on New Compilation











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north of our border, canadians love their records!

City Living: Vinyl vultures descend upon record fair






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if you are in the area...

A guide to Cleveland music shops specializing in sales of vinyl records






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UK's Best Selling Vinyl Records Of The Last 20 Years

1. Oasis - What's the Story, Morning Glory? (1995)
2. Oasis - Definitely Maybe (1994)
3. Portishead - Dummy (1994)
4. Travis - The Invisible Band (2001)
5. Radiohead - The King of Limbs (2011)
6. Leftfield - Leftism (1994)
7. The Beatles - Live at the BBC (1994)
8. Massive Attack vs. Mad Professor – Protection/No Protection (1995)
9. Queen - Made in Heaven (1995)
10. The Prodigy – Fat Of The Land (1997)
11. Paul Weller – Stanley Road (1995)
12. The Stone Roses – Second Coming (1994)
13. Blur – Parklife (1994)
14. Nirvana – MTV Unplugged In New York (1994)
15. The Prodigy – Music For The Jilted Generation (1994)
16. Neil Young – Harvest (1972)
17. Pulp – Different Class (1995)
18. Oasis – Be Here Now (1997)
19. DJ Shadow – Endtroducing (1999)
20. The Beatles – Anthology 1 (1995)    

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Amazon's Top Ten Best Sellers

1.  Arcade Fire - Reflektor
2. The Beatles - On Air - Live At The BBC Volume 2
3. Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks (2LP + CD)
4. Arctic Monkeys - AM
5. Lorde - Pure Heroine
6. Paul McCartney New [Vinyl]
7. Ghost B.C. - If You Have Ghost [Vinyl]
8. Saint Heron - Saint Heron  [Vinyl]
9. Brand New - Devil & God Are Raging Inside Me [Vinyl]
10. Grizzly Bear - Shields: B-Sides

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GRIMEY'S BEST SELLERS 11/04 - 11/10, 2013

Vinyl Top 25:
1. Mystery Twins - Ghost In The Ground
2. Arcade Fire - Reflektor
3. Soundtrack - Inside Llewyn Davis
4. Haim - Days Are Gone
5. Tristen - C A V E S
6. Chuck Mead - Upstairs At United
7. The Head & The Heart - Let's Be Still
8. The Avett Brothers - Magpie & The Dandelion
9. Jimi Hendrix - Miami Pop Festival
10. Bright Eyes - Christmas Album
11. Darkside - Psychic
12. Midlake - Antiphon
13. Janelle Monae - Electric Lady
14. Kings Of Leon - Mechanical Bull
15. Cass McCombs - Big Wheel & Others
16. Grateful Dead - Sunshine Daydream: Veneta OR 8/27/72
17. Lou Reed - Transformer
18. Arctic Monkeys - AM
19. Kurt Vile - Wakin On A Pretty Daze
20. The Shins - Live At Third Man
21. Lambchop - Mr. M
22. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
23. Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings And Food
24. Talking Heads - The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads
25. White Denim - Corsicana Lemonade