Bad Company - Good Lovin' Gone Bad
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Bird & Animal Names In Rock And Roll History- part thirteen
Let’s continue our ongoing series about “bird” and “animal” names in rock and roll history, this time delving into some water-based names:
Amid many personnel changes and band names, the group Blue Oyster Cult finally figured out both and after a couple of albums that were recorded with the record label, Elektra (that were never released), the band signed on with Columbia Records. The group’s self-titled release in 1972 that provided listeners’ with what some say, was the precursor to heavy metal (although pale in comparison to today’s standards) but, nonetheless was filled with expressive lyrics, melodic aggressive rock, overlaid guitars and lead guitarist Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser’s high-decibel power chords. The band toured extensively and was shock rocker Alice Cooper’s opening act. Their live shows featured lasers, flash pots and Roeser’s powerful guitar solos and the band’s logo, the ancient symbol of Cronos, who was the Titan God who ate his son, the grim reaper.
But, it was the group’s fifth album release, called “Agents of Fortune” that caught the ear of FM radio, especially the infectious mid-tempo Top 40 hit “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” (which was later featured in the classic John Carpenter horror movie Halloween). The cut is a staple for any classic rock radio station and is a mainstay on radio stations around the world.
Their next release did not have a song on it the caliber of “Reaper,” but introduced audiences to the inane hit single “Godzilla” and the raunchy-rocker “R.U.Ready 2 Rock.” After several album releases (including the band’s second “live” LP “Some Enchanted Evening”-1978), the band released “Fire Of Unknown Origin in 1981 that included an eclectic mixture of metal, rock and pop and included the Top 40 hit “Burnin’ For You.”
Subsequent Blue Oyster Cult albums did not have the “swagger” or successful hit singles, but still cemented the group as a pioneering rock force (they disbanded around 1989).
Toad the Wet Sprocket was a R.E.M. derived guitar-pop band from Santa Barbara, California. Their first two albums, 1989's “Bread & Circus” and 1990's album called “Pale” were kind of exploratory sounding efforts, filled with eclectic, graceful folk rock.
But as the band matured and refined their sound, it was the 1991 album called “Fear” that thrust the group into the national spotlight. The single “All I Want” hit the Billboard Hot 100 (peaking at number twenty) and another single from the release, the catchy tune called “Walk On the Ocean” also hit the top twenty and was aided by heavy video exposure. These hits and the musical greatness of the LP helped the album soar to platinum status.
Their popularity increased when the Toad the Wet Sprocket (the name of the group is taken from a Monty Python skit called “Rock Notes”) song “Brother,” was included in the Mike Meyers film “So I Married An Axe Murderer” in 1993. In 1994, after years of constant touring, the band released the album “Dulcinea” and that album produced a number one U.S. Modern Rock chart hit with the single “Fall Down” and a number five Mainstream Rock chart hit with the cut “Something’s Always Wrong.” Like its predecessor, the album was certified platinum by the RIAA.
In 1995, the band released a compilation album of B-sides entitled “In Light Syrup.” It includes the singles “Brother” as well as the single “Good Intentions,” which was featured on the hit television show for NBC “Friends.” The band cut what would be their last full studio album entitled “Coil” in 1997. The album is a well-crafted mix of melodic acoustic pop and featured the single “Crazy Life.” But, despite the success of these singles, the album failed to reach prominent sales figures and ultimately the group formally broke up in July of 1998, citing creative differences.
But, the band has temporarily reunited for special occasions including playing a benefit for the Rape Crisis Center in Santa Barbara as well as opening a few shows for the Counting Crows. In 2004, the group released a live album from a show from 1992 and in the summer of 2006 the band reformed for a thirty-four date national tour. One can only guess if the band will record again, but all the band members are still active in the music business. Glen Phillips started his solo career immediately after the break up and tours constantly and has released three solo efforts “Abulum in 2000,"”Winter Pays For Summer in 2005,”and “Mr. Lemons” in 2006 as well as performing with Nickel Creek.
One of the more interesting characters in rock/soul music is a man named Jerry Williams, better known as Swamp Dog. This eccentric, wear-your-emotions-on-your-sleeve rhythm and blues, rock musician has had an entertaining and brilliant career.
The fact that Williams has created his own legend (he claims he had no proper education and woke up one day to find himself a musical genius) only adds to this Virginia native’s mystique. Outspoken, controversial, yet somehow mesmerizing, this eclectic soul singer and song writer released his debut album “Total Destruction to Your Mind” in 1970. The album is full of rock and funk masterpieces as he cleverly mixes his Zappa-like lyrics about commercialism and capitalism, his bent views of women and his shout-out political views with infectious music and a dash of humor.
And, yes, his albums are obscure (he never went “mainstream” and that may be the alluring attribute that people are attracted to) and he has continued to make records, albeit infrequently, since 1969. His records are hard to come by, but if you are lucky enough to find one you will be lucky enough to hear one of the quirky and seminal musical minds perfect his craft.
Blue Oyster Cult Tidbits:
Due to their unique sound and diversity, Blue Öyster Cult have been very influential to many modern bands that span many genres, and are often viewed as important pioneers of several different styles of rock music that came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s. Many heavy metal bands have cited them as a major influence, and bands such as Metallica, HIM, and Iced Earth have covered their songs on studio recordings and during live performances. The song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" has also been covered by many diverse artists, notably The Goo Goo Dolls, The Beautiful South, Wilco, and Big Country. The legendary rockers have sold over 14 million albums worldwide.
In 1983, BOC released the LP "The Revölution by Night." The album's highest-charting single was "Shooting Shark," which was co-written by Patti Smith (it reached #83 on the charts). "Shooting Shark" also featured Randy Jackson, of Earth Wind and Fire, and later American Idol fame, on bass.
The name "Blue Öyster Cult" came from a 1960s poem written by manager Sandy Pearlman. It was part of his "Imaginos" poetry, later used more extensively in their 1988 album Imaginos.
Buy Blue Oyster Cult Music
Toad the Wet Sprocket Tidbits:
Although Toad the Wet Sprocket formally broke up in July 1998 (citing creative differences) they have gotten together many times. Here is a look at some of the concerts:
During the summer of 2007 they played several shows with lead singer Glen Phillips serving as their opening act.
On January 16, 2008, the band reunited once again to play two shows - one in St. Petersburg Florida then the next night at the House of Blues Orlando prior to joining The Rock Boat VIII.
On June 11 & 12, 2008, they played in Philadelphia and New Jersey at the Trocadero and Starland Ballroom respectively.
On June 14, 2008, they played at the 27th Annual Alexandria Red Cross Waterfront Festival.
On June 15, 2008, the band performed at The Norva in Norfolk, VA. One of the show's highlights was the band performing Glen Phillip's solo hit "Everything But You".
On December 19, 2008, the band performed on The Adam Carolla show at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, CA.
In May of 2009 they played a four show mini-tour including two nights at the intimate 400 seat venue The Ark in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Buy Toad the Wet Sprocket Music
Swamp Dog Tidbits:
The cover of his 1971 album, Rat On! featuring Williams on the back of an oversized white rat, was ranked as one of the worst album covers of all time.
Williams is also a noted songwriter and record producer. Artists he has worked with include Doris Duke, Irma Thomas, Z. Z. Hill, Dee Dee Warwick and Arthur Conley.
Amid many personnel changes and band names, the group Blue Oyster Cult finally figured out both and after a couple of albums that were recorded with the record label, Elektra (that were never released), the band signed on with Columbia Records. The group’s self-titled release in 1972 that provided listeners’ with what some say, was the precursor to heavy metal (although pale in comparison to today’s standards) but, nonetheless was filled with expressive lyrics, melodic aggressive rock, overlaid guitars and lead guitarist Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser’s high-decibel power chords. The band toured extensively and was shock rocker Alice Cooper’s opening act. Their live shows featured lasers, flash pots and Roeser’s powerful guitar solos and the band’s logo, the ancient symbol of Cronos, who was the Titan God who ate his son, the grim reaper.
But, it was the group’s fifth album release, called “Agents of Fortune” that caught the ear of FM radio, especially the infectious mid-tempo Top 40 hit “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” (which was later featured in the classic John Carpenter horror movie Halloween). The cut is a staple for any classic rock radio station and is a mainstay on radio stations around the world.
Their next release did not have a song on it the caliber of “Reaper,” but introduced audiences to the inane hit single “Godzilla” and the raunchy-rocker “R.U.Ready 2 Rock.” After several album releases (including the band’s second “live” LP “Some Enchanted Evening”-1978), the band released “Fire Of Unknown Origin in 1981 that included an eclectic mixture of metal, rock and pop and included the Top 40 hit “Burnin’ For You.”
Subsequent Blue Oyster Cult albums did not have the “swagger” or successful hit singles, but still cemented the group as a pioneering rock force (they disbanded around 1989).
Toad the Wet Sprocket was a R.E.M. derived guitar-pop band from Santa Barbara, California. Their first two albums, 1989's “Bread & Circus” and 1990's album called “Pale” were kind of exploratory sounding efforts, filled with eclectic, graceful folk rock.
But as the band matured and refined their sound, it was the 1991 album called “Fear” that thrust the group into the national spotlight. The single “All I Want” hit the Billboard Hot 100 (peaking at number twenty) and another single from the release, the catchy tune called “Walk On the Ocean” also hit the top twenty and was aided by heavy video exposure. These hits and the musical greatness of the LP helped the album soar to platinum status.
Their popularity increased when the Toad the Wet Sprocket (the name of the group is taken from a Monty Python skit called “Rock Notes”) song “Brother,” was included in the Mike Meyers film “So I Married An Axe Murderer” in 1993. In 1994, after years of constant touring, the band released the album “Dulcinea” and that album produced a number one U.S. Modern Rock chart hit with the single “Fall Down” and a number five Mainstream Rock chart hit with the cut “Something’s Always Wrong.” Like its predecessor, the album was certified platinum by the RIAA.
In 1995, the band released a compilation album of B-sides entitled “In Light Syrup.” It includes the singles “Brother” as well as the single “Good Intentions,” which was featured on the hit television show for NBC “Friends.” The band cut what would be their last full studio album entitled “Coil” in 1997. The album is a well-crafted mix of melodic acoustic pop and featured the single “Crazy Life.” But, despite the success of these singles, the album failed to reach prominent sales figures and ultimately the group formally broke up in July of 1998, citing creative differences.
But, the band has temporarily reunited for special occasions including playing a benefit for the Rape Crisis Center in Santa Barbara as well as opening a few shows for the Counting Crows. In 2004, the group released a live album from a show from 1992 and in the summer of 2006 the band reformed for a thirty-four date national tour. One can only guess if the band will record again, but all the band members are still active in the music business. Glen Phillips started his solo career immediately after the break up and tours constantly and has released three solo efforts “Abulum in 2000,"”Winter Pays For Summer in 2005,”and “Mr. Lemons” in 2006 as well as performing with Nickel Creek.
One of the more interesting characters in rock/soul music is a man named Jerry Williams, better known as Swamp Dog. This eccentric, wear-your-emotions-on-your-sleeve rhythm and blues, rock musician has had an entertaining and brilliant career.
The fact that Williams has created his own legend (he claims he had no proper education and woke up one day to find himself a musical genius) only adds to this Virginia native’s mystique. Outspoken, controversial, yet somehow mesmerizing, this eclectic soul singer and song writer released his debut album “Total Destruction to Your Mind” in 1970. The album is full of rock and funk masterpieces as he cleverly mixes his Zappa-like lyrics about commercialism and capitalism, his bent views of women and his shout-out political views with infectious music and a dash of humor.
And, yes, his albums are obscure (he never went “mainstream” and that may be the alluring attribute that people are attracted to) and he has continued to make records, albeit infrequently, since 1969. His records are hard to come by, but if you are lucky enough to find one you will be lucky enough to hear one of the quirky and seminal musical minds perfect his craft.
Blue Oyster Cult Tidbits:
Due to their unique sound and diversity, Blue Öyster Cult have been very influential to many modern bands that span many genres, and are often viewed as important pioneers of several different styles of rock music that came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s. Many heavy metal bands have cited them as a major influence, and bands such as Metallica, HIM, and Iced Earth have covered their songs on studio recordings and during live performances. The song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" has also been covered by many diverse artists, notably The Goo Goo Dolls, The Beautiful South, Wilco, and Big Country. The legendary rockers have sold over 14 million albums worldwide.
In 1983, BOC released the LP "The Revölution by Night." The album's highest-charting single was "Shooting Shark," which was co-written by Patti Smith (it reached #83 on the charts). "Shooting Shark" also featured Randy Jackson, of Earth Wind and Fire, and later American Idol fame, on bass.
The name "Blue Öyster Cult" came from a 1960s poem written by manager Sandy Pearlman. It was part of his "Imaginos" poetry, later used more extensively in their 1988 album Imaginos.
Buy Blue Oyster Cult Music
Toad the Wet Sprocket Tidbits:
Although Toad the Wet Sprocket formally broke up in July 1998 (citing creative differences) they have gotten together many times. Here is a look at some of the concerts:
During the summer of 2007 they played several shows with lead singer Glen Phillips serving as their opening act.
On January 16, 2008, the band reunited once again to play two shows - one in St. Petersburg Florida then the next night at the House of Blues Orlando prior to joining The Rock Boat VIII.
On June 11 & 12, 2008, they played in Philadelphia and New Jersey at the Trocadero and Starland Ballroom respectively.
On June 14, 2008, they played at the 27th Annual Alexandria Red Cross Waterfront Festival.
On June 15, 2008, the band performed at The Norva in Norfolk, VA. One of the show's highlights was the band performing Glen Phillip's solo hit "Everything But You".
On December 19, 2008, the band performed on The Adam Carolla show at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, CA.
In May of 2009 they played a four show mini-tour including two nights at the intimate 400 seat venue The Ark in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Buy Toad the Wet Sprocket Music
Swamp Dog Tidbits:
The cover of his 1971 album, Rat On! featuring Williams on the back of an oversized white rat, was ranked as one of the worst album covers of all time.
Williams is also a noted songwriter and record producer. Artists he has worked with include Doris Duke, Irma Thomas, Z. Z. Hill, Dee Dee Warwick and Arthur Conley.
This Date In Music History-May 16
Birthdays:
Billy Cobham - jazz drummer (1946)
Robert Fripp – King Crimson (1946)
Nirvana bassist Chris Novoselic was born in 1965.
Janet Jackson (1966)
Simon Katz – Jamiroquai (1971)
Ralph Tresvant - New Edition (1968)
Jonathan Richman - Modern Lovers (1951)
Barbara Lee - The Chiffons (1947)
Isaac "Red" Holt of Young-Holt Unlimited and the Ramsey Lewis Trio is 77.
They Are Missed:
Born on this day in 1919 Wladziu Valentinon Liberace. He died on 4th February 1997.
US soul singer Marv Johnson died of a stroke in 1993. He had the US Top 10 single “I Love The Way You Love” and his recording of Berry Gordy's song “Come To Me” became Motown Records first ever-single (released in May 1959).
Born on this day in 1947, Darrell Sweet – Nazareth. He died on April 30, 1999 after suffering a fatal heart attack before a show in New Albany, Indiana.
The late Corinthian "Kripp" Johnson of the Dell-Vikings (sang lead on "Whispering Bells") was born in 1935.
Sammy Davis, Jr. ("Candy Man") died of throat cancer in 1990.
Jim Henson (the voice of the Muppets' Ernie on "Rubber Duckie" and Kermit on "Rainbow Connection") died of pneumonia in 1990.
Ernie Freeman ("Raunchy" and the piano player on B. Bumble & the Stingers' "Bumble Boogie") died of a heart attack in 1981.
History:
Randy Bachman left the Guess Who in 1970.
In 1980, Dr. George C. Nichopoulous was indicted in Memphis on 14 counts of overprescribing drugs to Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and nine other patients.
Mary Wells started a two week run at #1 in 1964 with “My Guy.”
Pete Townshend spent the night in a jail in 1969 for assaulting a man during a Who gig at The Fillmore East. What Townshend didn't know was the man who jumped onto the stage was a plainclothes policeman trying to warn the audience that a fire had broken out. The Who guitarist was later fined $30 for the offense.
U2 started a three week run at #1 in 1987 with the cut “With Or Without You.”
Former New Christy Minstrels member Kim Carnes started a nine week run at #1 on the singles chart with “Bette Davis Eyes.”
Former Buggles members Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes joined Yes in 1980, replacing Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson.
Motown Records was formed in 1960.
In 1965, driving away from a gig at the Civic Hall, Long Beach, California, the limo taking the Rolling Stones back to their hotel was besieged by fans who caved in the roof by standing on it. The band attempted to hold the roof up while their chauffeur drove off with bodies falling onto the road.
The Beach Boys released their "Pet Sounds" album in 1966. The album is now regarded as the masterpiece of composer-producer Brian Wilson, and is often hailed as one of the best and most influential albums in popular music.
Tony Joe White recorded "Polk Salad Annie" in 1968.
The television special "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever" aired in 1983. It was a taping of the first time that Michael Jackson performed the moonwalk for a live audience.
The Britney Spears album "Oops!..I Did It Again" was released in 2000.
Crosby Stills Nash & Young went to #1 on the US album chart in 1970 with “Déjà vu.”
Thanks to Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation, in 1990 the former Chess Records Office and Studio at 2120 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago was officially recognized as a protected Chicago Landmark.
Buddy Holly signed with Coral Records in 1957.
Billy Cobham - jazz drummer (1946)
Robert Fripp – King Crimson (1946)
Nirvana bassist Chris Novoselic was born in 1965.
Janet Jackson (1966)
Simon Katz – Jamiroquai (1971)
Ralph Tresvant - New Edition (1968)
Jonathan Richman - Modern Lovers (1951)
Barbara Lee - The Chiffons (1947)
Isaac "Red" Holt of Young-Holt Unlimited and the Ramsey Lewis Trio is 77.
They Are Missed:
Born on this day in 1919 Wladziu Valentinon Liberace. He died on 4th February 1997.
US soul singer Marv Johnson died of a stroke in 1993. He had the US Top 10 single “I Love The Way You Love” and his recording of Berry Gordy's song “Come To Me” became Motown Records first ever-single (released in May 1959).
Born on this day in 1947, Darrell Sweet – Nazareth. He died on April 30, 1999 after suffering a fatal heart attack before a show in New Albany, Indiana.
The late Corinthian "Kripp" Johnson of the Dell-Vikings (sang lead on "Whispering Bells") was born in 1935.
Sammy Davis, Jr. ("Candy Man") died of throat cancer in 1990.
Jim Henson (the voice of the Muppets' Ernie on "Rubber Duckie" and Kermit on "Rainbow Connection") died of pneumonia in 1990.
Ernie Freeman ("Raunchy" and the piano player on B. Bumble & the Stingers' "Bumble Boogie") died of a heart attack in 1981.
History:
Randy Bachman left the Guess Who in 1970.
In 1980, Dr. George C. Nichopoulous was indicted in Memphis on 14 counts of overprescribing drugs to Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and nine other patients.
Mary Wells started a two week run at #1 in 1964 with “My Guy.”
Pete Townshend spent the night in a jail in 1969 for assaulting a man during a Who gig at The Fillmore East. What Townshend didn't know was the man who jumped onto the stage was a plainclothes policeman trying to warn the audience that a fire had broken out. The Who guitarist was later fined $30 for the offense.
U2 started a three week run at #1 in 1987 with the cut “With Or Without You.”
Former New Christy Minstrels member Kim Carnes started a nine week run at #1 on the singles chart with “Bette Davis Eyes.”
Former Buggles members Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes joined Yes in 1980, replacing Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson.
Motown Records was formed in 1960.
In 1965, driving away from a gig at the Civic Hall, Long Beach, California, the limo taking the Rolling Stones back to their hotel was besieged by fans who caved in the roof by standing on it. The band attempted to hold the roof up while their chauffeur drove off with bodies falling onto the road.
The Beach Boys released their "Pet Sounds" album in 1966. The album is now regarded as the masterpiece of composer-producer Brian Wilson, and is often hailed as one of the best and most influential albums in popular music.
Tony Joe White recorded "Polk Salad Annie" in 1968.
The television special "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever" aired in 1983. It was a taping of the first time that Michael Jackson performed the moonwalk for a live audience.
The Britney Spears album "Oops!..I Did It Again" was released in 2000.
Crosby Stills Nash & Young went to #1 on the US album chart in 1970 with “Déjà vu.”
Thanks to Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation, in 1990 the former Chess Records Office and Studio at 2120 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago was officially recognized as a protected Chicago Landmark.
Buddy Holly signed with Coral Records in 1957.
Vinyl Collective News
Vinyl Collective has some awesome restocks available- stop by and get yours today
Vinyl Collective Restocks
APPLESEED CAST ìMare Vitalisî dbl LP lt blue/white/black/gold vinyl
APPLESEED CAST ìPeregrineî LP
DREAMEND “The Long Forgotten Friend” dbl LP
THE BLOOD BROTHERS “Rumor Laid Waste” 10″
CANCER KIDS “The Possible Dream” LP
DEFIANCE OHIO/ ENVIRONMENTAL YOUTH CRUNCH split 7″
FAILURES “S/T” LP
FUCKED UP “Let Likes Be Cured By Likes” LP blue/ black vinyl
FUCKED UP “Litany” 7″
GAUZE “Binbou Yusuri No Rizumu Ni Notte” LP
HIS HERO IS GONE “Fifteen” LP
HIS HERO IS GONE “Plot Sickens” LP
IRON LUNG “Sexless/No Sex” LP
KYLESA “S/T” LP
KYLESA “To Walk a Middle” LP
PHOBIA “Means of Existence” LP picture disc
PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES “Sad Girls Por Vida”7″
SIEGE “Drop Dead” LP
THE BLOOD BROTHERS “This Adultery Is Ripe” LP
TRAGEDY “Nerve Damage” LP gatefold vinyl
TRAGEDY “Vengence” LP
V/A “The Right To Assemble: Vol 2″ LP
Vinyl Collective Restocks
APPLESEED CAST ìMare Vitalisî dbl LP lt blue/white/black/gold vinyl
APPLESEED CAST ìPeregrineî LP
DREAMEND “The Long Forgotten Friend” dbl LP
THE BLOOD BROTHERS “Rumor Laid Waste” 10″
CANCER KIDS “The Possible Dream” LP
DEFIANCE OHIO/ ENVIRONMENTAL YOUTH CRUNCH split 7″
FAILURES “S/T” LP
FUCKED UP “Let Likes Be Cured By Likes” LP blue/ black vinyl
FUCKED UP “Litany” 7″
GAUZE “Binbou Yusuri No Rizumu Ni Notte” LP
HIS HERO IS GONE “Fifteen” LP
HIS HERO IS GONE “Plot Sickens” LP
IRON LUNG “Sexless/No Sex” LP
KYLESA “S/T” LP
KYLESA “To Walk a Middle” LP
PHOBIA “Means of Existence” LP picture disc
PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES “Sad Girls Por Vida”7″
SIEGE “Drop Dead” LP
THE BLOOD BROTHERS “This Adultery Is Ripe” LP
TRAGEDY “Nerve Damage” LP gatefold vinyl
TRAGEDY “Vengence” LP
V/A “The Right To Assemble: Vol 2″ LP
Music News & Notes
YACHT Release Limited-Edition 7” Vinyl Single, Tour UK With Patrick Wolf
YACHT is putting out their latest album See Mystery Lights (DFA Records) on July 28th, but as an added treat the duo is releasing a limited-edition 7” vinyl single called DON’T PUT OUT (Marriage Records) on June 16th. YACHT is also pleased to announce a new ten-date tour of the United Kingdom with Patrick Wolf, kicking off May 15th.
DON’T PUT OUT is a small homage to the film Ladies And Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains, a 1981 film by Lou Adler about a fictional all-girl punk band called The Stains. The message of the film, and YACHT’s single: “Don’t be an old man in a young girls’ world.”
The two tracks on the single, “Waste Of Time” and “Professionals” (which features Suzi Corpso) are songs originally performed by The Stains. On DON’T PUT OUT, “Waste Of Time” is re-imagined as an apathetic bubblegum disco track, and “Professionals,” sung by Suzi Corpso with three-chord guitar backing by YACHT’s Claire L. Evans, as the sludgy protest song it was perhaps always meant to be.
Suzi Corpso is longtime YACHT collaborator, the artist Rebecca Carlisle-Healy, sometimes known as RGB by RCH. Carlisle-Healy has recently finished Arrive Maris En Ronde, a beautiful science fiction film which stars Evans as a robot from the future named LITH.
There will be 1,000 copies of DON’T PUT OUT pressed worldwide, and the tracks will be available digitally as well. A dub version of “Waste of Time” and a remix by Hedford Vachal will be featured on the next YACHT 12″ single on DFA Records.
===========================================
White Rabbits Ready "It's Frightening" For Release
White Rabbits are back with their sophmore album, "It's Frightening." The album was produced by Britt Daniel of Spoon. White Rabbits are set to tour the United States following the May 19th release of "It’s Frightening" via TBD Records. You can also head over to the band's MySpace page now and hear the record in it's entirety.
After spending the better part of two years on the road (including festival stops at Lollapallooza, Glastonbury (UK), Sasquatch, Monolith and tours with The Walkmen, Spoon, Richard Swift, The Cribs, White Denim and Tokyo Police Club) White Rabbits hunkered down in their Brooklyn practice space to set about re-envisioning the dark pop of their debut "Fort Nightly," while adding new sounds and influences to achieve an original work. The result is "It’s Frightening," their second full-length album.
===========================================
Beach Boys Coming May 19th
The Beach Boys are set to release "Summer Love Songs" on May 19th. This collection features "Fallin' In Love," a song written and recorded by Dennis Wilson during the Beach Boys' Sunflower album sessions in 1970. The track has never before been released in the US and has long been out-of-print in the UK (where it was released as "Lady"). This track has also been mixed in stereo for the first time.
===========================================
Mellencamp Busy
John Mellencamp has recently released information on his website about two upcoming projects.
The first, "Life, Death, LIVE Freedom" contains eight songs from last year's Life, Death, Love & Freedom album performed in concert. Mellencamp emphasizes that this album is "completely live, by the way, with no studio enhancements."
The track list:
If I Die Sudden
My Sweet Love
Jena
A Ride Back Home
Young Without Lovers
Don't Need This Body
Longest Days
Troubled Land
Look for it June 23.
His other big music project is a 4-CD/72-track box set called "On the Rural Route 7609," which is a career retrospective of his music from 1976 to 2009 (thus, the 7609). Included will be alternate takes of classic songs.
"Some of them show me actually in the process of writing them," says John, "so there's a lot of stopping and starting up again-a lot of head-scratching. It's turned into quite a project."
===========================================
YACHT is putting out their latest album See Mystery Lights (DFA Records) on July 28th, but as an added treat the duo is releasing a limited-edition 7” vinyl single called DON’T PUT OUT (Marriage Records) on June 16th. YACHT is also pleased to announce a new ten-date tour of the United Kingdom with Patrick Wolf, kicking off May 15th.
DON’T PUT OUT is a small homage to the film Ladies And Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains, a 1981 film by Lou Adler about a fictional all-girl punk band called The Stains. The message of the film, and YACHT’s single: “Don’t be an old man in a young girls’ world.”
The two tracks on the single, “Waste Of Time” and “Professionals” (which features Suzi Corpso) are songs originally performed by The Stains. On DON’T PUT OUT, “Waste Of Time” is re-imagined as an apathetic bubblegum disco track, and “Professionals,” sung by Suzi Corpso with three-chord guitar backing by YACHT’s Claire L. Evans, as the sludgy protest song it was perhaps always meant to be.
Suzi Corpso is longtime YACHT collaborator, the artist Rebecca Carlisle-Healy, sometimes known as RGB by RCH. Carlisle-Healy has recently finished Arrive Maris En Ronde, a beautiful science fiction film which stars Evans as a robot from the future named LITH.
There will be 1,000 copies of DON’T PUT OUT pressed worldwide, and the tracks will be available digitally as well. A dub version of “Waste of Time” and a remix by Hedford Vachal will be featured on the next YACHT 12″ single on DFA Records.
===========================================
White Rabbits Ready "It's Frightening" For Release
White Rabbits are back with their sophmore album, "It's Frightening." The album was produced by Britt Daniel of Spoon. White Rabbits are set to tour the United States following the May 19th release of "It’s Frightening" via TBD Records. You can also head over to the band's MySpace page now and hear the record in it's entirety.
After spending the better part of two years on the road (including festival stops at Lollapallooza, Glastonbury (UK), Sasquatch, Monolith and tours with The Walkmen, Spoon, Richard Swift, The Cribs, White Denim and Tokyo Police Club) White Rabbits hunkered down in their Brooklyn practice space to set about re-envisioning the dark pop of their debut "Fort Nightly," while adding new sounds and influences to achieve an original work. The result is "It’s Frightening," their second full-length album.
===========================================
Beach Boys Coming May 19th
The Beach Boys are set to release "Summer Love Songs" on May 19th. This collection features "Fallin' In Love," a song written and recorded by Dennis Wilson during the Beach Boys' Sunflower album sessions in 1970. The track has never before been released in the US and has long been out-of-print in the UK (where it was released as "Lady"). This track has also been mixed in stereo for the first time.
===========================================
Mellencamp Busy
John Mellencamp has recently released information on his website about two upcoming projects.
The first, "Life, Death, LIVE Freedom" contains eight songs from last year's Life, Death, Love & Freedom album performed in concert. Mellencamp emphasizes that this album is "completely live, by the way, with no studio enhancements."
The track list:
If I Die Sudden
My Sweet Love
Jena
A Ride Back Home
Young Without Lovers
Don't Need This Body
Longest Days
Troubled Land
Look for it June 23.
His other big music project is a 4-CD/72-track box set called "On the Rural Route 7609," which is a career retrospective of his music from 1976 to 2009 (thus, the 7609). Included will be alternate takes of classic songs.
"Some of them show me actually in the process of writing them," says John, "so there's a lot of stopping and starting up again-a lot of head-scratching. It's turned into quite a project."
===========================================
Friday, May 15, 2009
Michael Fremer Review
I am very proud to continue our new feature (look for this every Friday), music reviews that are written by the senior contributing editor of Stereophile magazine- Michael Fremer. It has been a pleasure to speak with Michael and learn more about audio sound and equipment. In fact, his new DVD, "It's A Vinyl World, After All" has hit the shelves and is selling out very quickly. This is a must have for anybody who loves vinyl, it is a true masterpiece.
Additionally, make sure to stop by his site, www.musicangle.com and bookmark it for further exploration. I certainly want to thank Michael for the exclusive rights to reprint his fantastic material.
ALBUM REVIEW:
Miles Davis (reissue)
In A Silent Way
Columbia/Legacy 88697404151 180g LP
Produced by: Teo Macero
Engineered by: Stan Tonkel
Mixed by: Russ Payne
Mastered by: Ray Janos at Sterling Sound
Digital Mastering: Mark Wilder
Review by: Michael Fremer
2009-05-01
Maybe the soundtrack to your life didn’t exist in 1969, or if you’re fortyish, was filtered through an amniotic sack.
1969 was an unsettling year. The fall was post-Woodstock and spelled the end of the ‘60s, though what we now think of as “the ‘60’s” arguably didn’t happen until the ‘70s.
Vietnam and the draft were in full-swing. Nixon was president. Nixon! I’d moved to Boston to attend B.U. law school. Law school? Yes. Boston was a town in the midst of decay. The WWII generation had reached middle-age and moved to the suburbs leaving the frail, the elderly and the college kids.
I moved into a basement apartment in a private home in Brookline on the street where John F. Kennedy was born. There was a commemorative plaque. He’d been dead but six years and the trauma was still fresh. I relived the event every day passing the house.
I was in high school gym class when I heard. Mr. Rhodes announced “The President and the Vice-President have been shot…” “Hypothetical,” was my first thought," and they want to see our reaction, but why in gym class?” “So get dressed and go home.”
The woman who owned the home on that Brookline street needed the extra income to take care of her husband who was bedridden with emphysema and needed an oxygen tank to breath. A pair of eccentric elderly spinsters out of a Hitchcock movie lived directly above and whenever I played the music too loud, which was always, they’d bang on the floor with a cane.
It was a weird, unsettling time. The veneer of wealth in Boston was spread thin. There was the old money of Beacon Hill and the new of the Prudential Center on Boylston Street, behind which was the Christian Science Center. But a block behind that was a literal desolation row—block upon block of abandoned, haunted housing—a sprawling ghost of a neighborhood that looked as if an entire population simply up and left en masse, which is pretty close to what had happened when the suburbs grew after WWII.
On the other side of town where Storrow Drive wound by the Hatch Shell and elbowed its way on ugly green girders towards the once vibrant waterfront, slicing it in half (since remedied by "The Big Dig"), another such abandoned neighborhood had been replaced via “urban renewal” with some godawful looking apartment buildings. “If you lived in Charles River Park” the sign beckoned the newly suburbanized commuters, “you’d be home already.” Yecch! I wondered which was worse: these ugly slabs or the abandoned neighborhood behind the Christian Science Center?
I got through my first year of law school and almost made law review. I fed my vinyl habit working at Minuteman Records in Harvard Square and attended as many concerts as I could at The Boston Tea Party on Lansdowne Street. I saw The Kinks, The Who and I can’t remember who else along with a few hundred others into the “underground” rock scene. The Kinks were never big and The Who didn’t break big until Tommy, which had been released the year before and took some time to catch on.
That first Boston summer after school had let out, I picked up a kid hitchhiking on Commonwealth Avenue. Hitching was commonplace back then and I actually made some good friends that way. I also got kidnapped and forced to drive some heroin addicts to Maine, but that’s another story!
Anyway, this kid put out a big green Styrofoam thumb and I stopped. He ended up being my roommate the next year along with an old college buddy.
We got an apartment on Commonwealth Avenue just in time for the MTA to begin replacing the antiquated, bulbous-looking orange and tan trolley system that more closely resembled “The Toonerville Trolley” than something you’d expect to see in a modern city. But then again, Boston 1969 was anything but modern.
Replacing the trains required replacing the tracks so for an entire year, the soundtrack to my life was constant jackhammers and In A Silent Way introduced to this rocker by my hitchhiker roommate. A summer with this cat introduced me to a whole lot more than this Miles album. By fall I found myself taking a semester's leave of absence from law school.
In fairness to my friend who shall remain nameless (he’s now a world renowned Go-Kart racer, believe it or not), by then I’d also begun producing and voicing radio commercials for the record store in which I worked and the funny spots quickly became popular in Boston and I’d become a minor “cult” item both on the underground station WBCN and among listeners at the Top 40 station WRKO.
This was a train I was happy to latch onto as an excuse to get the hell away from law school. So, for the entire year in that apartment, we listened to, among other albums, In A Silent Way, Miles’s mysterious, dazzling descent into electronic cool. Yes there were other albums, mostly rock and many of them great too, but the one that defined the rapidly shifting period of time wasIn A Silent Way.
While the 19 minute first side is called “Shhh/Peaceful,” that year was anything but, either politically or personally. I never found the music peaceful either. To me it’s mysterious, unsettling and creepy, with a decidedly neon vibe.
If Kind of Blue was the cool, modal music for the “now” hipsters of the late 1950’s —the album that liberated adventurous listeners from a reliance upon chord changes—, led by the electronic keyboards of Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock and John McLaughlin's spider-webby guitar, In a Silent Way, was the shimmering, serpentine opening to a dangerous musical world. It was the soft sell that made possible the beautiful grotesqueness of Bitches Brew.
For me In a Silent Way was the insistent temptress that led me from middle class conventionality to life experiences unimagined just a few short years earlier. Led is the wrong word. Perhaps “enabled” would be better. The music was more of a lubricant than anything and with its often insistent rhythmic drive, the album became a favorite of an adventurous Rock generation, much as Miles himself had been influenced by the pop scene unfolding all around him.
In A Silent Way is all about atmospherics. Despite the high level of hiss, the murkiness and the less than stellar dynamics, I’ve always regarded this as a great recording because of its appropriateness to the subject matter.
Aesthetically, it’s perfection. Never mind that Tony Williams’s distant drums are shunted off to the right channel or that Dave Holland’s bass lacks extension and ultimate definition. All has been miked and placed for appropriate impact, with the ghostly keyboard apparitions dancing between and around Miles’ spotlit trumpet and John McLaughlin's warm guitar lines gliding along the left channel.
This 180g reissue marks a packaging improvement for Sony/BMG, compared to the flimsy, cheap jackets found on the label’s first series of vinyl reissues. Rainbo’s pressing quality continues to improve, though these are commercial, not audiophile quality pressings. Overall though, I have no complaints about noise or the physical fit’n’finish of this release. In fact, it’s much better than what Columbia was doing in the late ‘60s in terms of vinyl quality.
The sonics are something else though. Lacquer cutting was by Ray Janos at Sterling and I doubt an analog tape was the source, though I know that a recently installed preview head now allows Sterling to cut AAA. Nor was a high resolution digital file used. The first giveaway is the slightly dark timbre of the cymbals. More significant though, are the flatness of the drums, the lack of "woodiness" to the rim shots, the lack of air around Miles’s trumpet and its lack of imaging precision compared to the original LP as well as the two-dimensionality of the soundstage and especially the truncation of decay.
Still, if you don’t have a "360 Sound" original and can’t find one, there’s nothing “digital” sounding about this reissue in the pejorative sense of the word, so chances are you’re not likely to know the difference. It’s neither bright nor hard. It’s just missing atmospherics and the musical flow is on the sluggish side.
I’m guessing the source but I’d be willing to make a stiff wager it’s from a “redbook” CD file sourced from Mark Wilder’s excellent CD mastering for The Complete In A Silent Way Sessions.
Given that there is an analog tape that’s probably not all that difficult to grab from Iron Mountain, there’s something less than honest (actually cynical) about reissuing a classic album like this from a CD resolution file, if in fact, that’s what was used.
This isn’t bad, but Sony/BMG can do much better. Please, Sony/BMG, this isn’t an analog “game.” Vinyl buyers are serious: they want an all analog product, not analog veneer.
As for the music, forty years later it's all substance, no veneer and definitely worth owning and playing often.
SOURCE: http://www.musicangle.com Reprinted By Permission
----------------------------------------------------------
Pick up Michael's DVD's Here:
Copyright © 2008 MusicAngle.com & Michael Fremer - All rights reserved
Additionally, make sure to stop by his site, www.musicangle.com and bookmark it for further exploration. I certainly want to thank Michael for the exclusive rights to reprint his fantastic material.
ALBUM REVIEW:
Miles Davis (reissue)
In A Silent Way
Columbia/Legacy 88697404151 180g LP
Produced by: Teo Macero
Engineered by: Stan Tonkel
Mixed by: Russ Payne
Mastered by: Ray Janos at Sterling Sound
Digital Mastering: Mark Wilder
Review by: Michael Fremer
2009-05-01
Maybe the soundtrack to your life didn’t exist in 1969, or if you’re fortyish, was filtered through an amniotic sack.
1969 was an unsettling year. The fall was post-Woodstock and spelled the end of the ‘60s, though what we now think of as “the ‘60’s” arguably didn’t happen until the ‘70s.
Vietnam and the draft were in full-swing. Nixon was president. Nixon! I’d moved to Boston to attend B.U. law school. Law school? Yes. Boston was a town in the midst of decay. The WWII generation had reached middle-age and moved to the suburbs leaving the frail, the elderly and the college kids.
I moved into a basement apartment in a private home in Brookline on the street where John F. Kennedy was born. There was a commemorative plaque. He’d been dead but six years and the trauma was still fresh. I relived the event every day passing the house.
I was in high school gym class when I heard. Mr. Rhodes announced “The President and the Vice-President have been shot…” “Hypothetical,” was my first thought," and they want to see our reaction, but why in gym class?” “So get dressed and go home.”
The woman who owned the home on that Brookline street needed the extra income to take care of her husband who was bedridden with emphysema and needed an oxygen tank to breath. A pair of eccentric elderly spinsters out of a Hitchcock movie lived directly above and whenever I played the music too loud, which was always, they’d bang on the floor with a cane.
It was a weird, unsettling time. The veneer of wealth in Boston was spread thin. There was the old money of Beacon Hill and the new of the Prudential Center on Boylston Street, behind which was the Christian Science Center. But a block behind that was a literal desolation row—block upon block of abandoned, haunted housing—a sprawling ghost of a neighborhood that looked as if an entire population simply up and left en masse, which is pretty close to what had happened when the suburbs grew after WWII.
On the other side of town where Storrow Drive wound by the Hatch Shell and elbowed its way on ugly green girders towards the once vibrant waterfront, slicing it in half (since remedied by "The Big Dig"), another such abandoned neighborhood had been replaced via “urban renewal” with some godawful looking apartment buildings. “If you lived in Charles River Park” the sign beckoned the newly suburbanized commuters, “you’d be home already.” Yecch! I wondered which was worse: these ugly slabs or the abandoned neighborhood behind the Christian Science Center?
I got through my first year of law school and almost made law review. I fed my vinyl habit working at Minuteman Records in Harvard Square and attended as many concerts as I could at The Boston Tea Party on Lansdowne Street. I saw The Kinks, The Who and I can’t remember who else along with a few hundred others into the “underground” rock scene. The Kinks were never big and The Who didn’t break big until Tommy, which had been released the year before and took some time to catch on.
That first Boston summer after school had let out, I picked up a kid hitchhiking on Commonwealth Avenue. Hitching was commonplace back then and I actually made some good friends that way. I also got kidnapped and forced to drive some heroin addicts to Maine, but that’s another story!
Anyway, this kid put out a big green Styrofoam thumb and I stopped. He ended up being my roommate the next year along with an old college buddy.
We got an apartment on Commonwealth Avenue just in time for the MTA to begin replacing the antiquated, bulbous-looking orange and tan trolley system that more closely resembled “The Toonerville Trolley” than something you’d expect to see in a modern city. But then again, Boston 1969 was anything but modern.
Replacing the trains required replacing the tracks so for an entire year, the soundtrack to my life was constant jackhammers and In A Silent Way introduced to this rocker by my hitchhiker roommate. A summer with this cat introduced me to a whole lot more than this Miles album. By fall I found myself taking a semester's leave of absence from law school.
In fairness to my friend who shall remain nameless (he’s now a world renowned Go-Kart racer, believe it or not), by then I’d also begun producing and voicing radio commercials for the record store in which I worked and the funny spots quickly became popular in Boston and I’d become a minor “cult” item both on the underground station WBCN and among listeners at the Top 40 station WRKO.
This was a train I was happy to latch onto as an excuse to get the hell away from law school. So, for the entire year in that apartment, we listened to, among other albums, In A Silent Way, Miles’s mysterious, dazzling descent into electronic cool. Yes there were other albums, mostly rock and many of them great too, but the one that defined the rapidly shifting period of time wasIn A Silent Way.
While the 19 minute first side is called “Shhh/Peaceful,” that year was anything but, either politically or personally. I never found the music peaceful either. To me it’s mysterious, unsettling and creepy, with a decidedly neon vibe.
If Kind of Blue was the cool, modal music for the “now” hipsters of the late 1950’s —the album that liberated adventurous listeners from a reliance upon chord changes—, led by the electronic keyboards of Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock and John McLaughlin's spider-webby guitar, In a Silent Way, was the shimmering, serpentine opening to a dangerous musical world. It was the soft sell that made possible the beautiful grotesqueness of Bitches Brew.
For me In a Silent Way was the insistent temptress that led me from middle class conventionality to life experiences unimagined just a few short years earlier. Led is the wrong word. Perhaps “enabled” would be better. The music was more of a lubricant than anything and with its often insistent rhythmic drive, the album became a favorite of an adventurous Rock generation, much as Miles himself had been influenced by the pop scene unfolding all around him.
In A Silent Way is all about atmospherics. Despite the high level of hiss, the murkiness and the less than stellar dynamics, I’ve always regarded this as a great recording because of its appropriateness to the subject matter.
Aesthetically, it’s perfection. Never mind that Tony Williams’s distant drums are shunted off to the right channel or that Dave Holland’s bass lacks extension and ultimate definition. All has been miked and placed for appropriate impact, with the ghostly keyboard apparitions dancing between and around Miles’ spotlit trumpet and John McLaughlin's warm guitar lines gliding along the left channel.
This 180g reissue marks a packaging improvement for Sony/BMG, compared to the flimsy, cheap jackets found on the label’s first series of vinyl reissues. Rainbo’s pressing quality continues to improve, though these are commercial, not audiophile quality pressings. Overall though, I have no complaints about noise or the physical fit’n’finish of this release. In fact, it’s much better than what Columbia was doing in the late ‘60s in terms of vinyl quality.
The sonics are something else though. Lacquer cutting was by Ray Janos at Sterling and I doubt an analog tape was the source, though I know that a recently installed preview head now allows Sterling to cut AAA. Nor was a high resolution digital file used. The first giveaway is the slightly dark timbre of the cymbals. More significant though, are the flatness of the drums, the lack of "woodiness" to the rim shots, the lack of air around Miles’s trumpet and its lack of imaging precision compared to the original LP as well as the two-dimensionality of the soundstage and especially the truncation of decay.
Still, if you don’t have a "360 Sound" original and can’t find one, there’s nothing “digital” sounding about this reissue in the pejorative sense of the word, so chances are you’re not likely to know the difference. It’s neither bright nor hard. It’s just missing atmospherics and the musical flow is on the sluggish side.
I’m guessing the source but I’d be willing to make a stiff wager it’s from a “redbook” CD file sourced from Mark Wilder’s excellent CD mastering for The Complete In A Silent Way Sessions.
Given that there is an analog tape that’s probably not all that difficult to grab from Iron Mountain, there’s something less than honest (actually cynical) about reissuing a classic album like this from a CD resolution file, if in fact, that’s what was used.
This isn’t bad, but Sony/BMG can do much better. Please, Sony/BMG, this isn’t an analog “game.” Vinyl buyers are serious: they want an all analog product, not analog veneer.
As for the music, forty years later it's all substance, no veneer and definitely worth owning and playing often.
SOURCE: http://www.musicangle.com Reprinted By Permission
----------------------------------------------------------
Pick up Michael's DVD's Here:
Copyright © 2008 MusicAngle.com & Michael Fremer - All rights reserved
Music News & Notes
No New Poison
Bret Michaels has left Poison fans without a lot of hope for a new album anytime soon. He told Rolling Stone:
"I’d love to say yes (a new album is on the cards), but I’m probably lying. I don’t know if our four heads are all in the right place to make a new album. I would love to make one, I just want it to be a pleasurable experience. My brain is too creative and I don’t want to go in there and fight with these guys at this point. I’d love to do it and if the time is right and everyone’s head is in it, that would be great. We just aren’t there now."
============================
Website Busy Signal
Coldplay’s Website has been temporarily paralyzed by fans flooding the address to pick up the free live album LeftRightLeftRightLeft. Chris Martin and Co. promised a copy of the nine-song collection to every fan who buys a ticket for their summer tour, as well.
============================
Minus The Bear Enter Studio For New Album
Seattle-based quintet Minus the Bear are currently hard at work on their highly anticipated fourth studio album, still untitled. Excited to expand on their inimitable brand of rock n roll songwriting and explore their existing love of audio ingenuity, the band teamed up with Grammy Award winning producer Joe Chicarelli (My Morning Jacket, The White Stripes) to lend a helping hand.
Minus the Bear will take the opportunity to self finance their new album, giving them full control in an evolving industry. The band plans on releasing their new album on a yet to be announced record label.
The band recently released a seven track EP, "Acoustics," which was available exclusively online and on their recent headlining tour which included sold out dates at New York's Webster Hall, Chicago's The Vic and The Gothic Theatre in Denver.
Minus The Bear will release their new album this fall.
============================
Cover Art Causes A Stir In The UK
Supermarkets cover up Manics CD
The new Manic Street Preachers album is being shipped to supermarkets in a plain slipcase because its artwork has been deemed "inappropriate".
Concerns have been raised that the cover for Journal For Plague Lovers, a portrait by artist Jenny Saville, looks like it is splattered with blood.
Singer James Dean Bradfield called the situation "utterly bizarre".
"We just thought it was a beautiful painting. We were all in total agreement," he told BBC 6 Music.
The frontman disagreed that Saatchi favourite Saville, who also painted the cover for the band's 1994 album The Holy Bible, had intended to depict a bloody face.
"It is her brushwork," he said.
"If you're familiar with her work, there's a lot of ochres and browns and reds and browns and perhaps people are looking for us to be more provocative than we are being.
"We just saw a much more modern version of Lucian Freud-esque brushstrokes. That's all we saw."
Bradfield added that the band were frustrated by supermarkets' attitudes.
"You can have lovely shiny buttocks and guns everywhere in the supermarket on covers of magazines and CDs, but you show a piece of art and people just freak out," he said.
============================
YOB completes new album
Official press release:
Reunited "cosmic doom metal" band YOB has completed work on its new full-length album, titled "The Great Cessation." The record will see a July 14, 2009 release date via Profound Lore Records.
Long respected as one of doom metal's finest and most potent bands, YOB creates mastodonic, mind-bending music. "The Great Cessation" was recorded in the band's hometown of Eugene, Oregon with fast-rising producer Sanford Parker (The Gates of Slumber) and is unquestionably the trio's finest hour. Clocking in at just over an hour, the album features 5 epic-length songs that showcase YOB's relentless stomp, brontosaurus pound and holy mountain of gargantuan riffs. Led by the nuclear-strength peristaltic chug of the twenty minute title track, "The Great Cessation" is a recording that threatens to raise the bar for doom metal achievement with a deliberate, maddening momentum.
"The album will be called 'The Great Cessation,' states YOB vocalist/guitarist Mike Scheidt when asked for comment. "It has 5 tracks clocking in at 60 minutes. We are incredibly happy with how the tracking turned out. This album has some of our heaviest riffs, ever. We are very much looking forward to sharing these tunes with our friends worldwide."
Bret Michaels has left Poison fans without a lot of hope for a new album anytime soon. He told Rolling Stone:
"I’d love to say yes (a new album is on the cards), but I’m probably lying. I don’t know if our four heads are all in the right place to make a new album. I would love to make one, I just want it to be a pleasurable experience. My brain is too creative and I don’t want to go in there and fight with these guys at this point. I’d love to do it and if the time is right and everyone’s head is in it, that would be great. We just aren’t there now."
============================
Website Busy Signal
Coldplay’s Website has been temporarily paralyzed by fans flooding the address to pick up the free live album LeftRightLeftRightLeft. Chris Martin and Co. promised a copy of the nine-song collection to every fan who buys a ticket for their summer tour, as well.
============================
Minus The Bear Enter Studio For New Album
Seattle-based quintet Minus the Bear are currently hard at work on their highly anticipated fourth studio album, still untitled. Excited to expand on their inimitable brand of rock n roll songwriting and explore their existing love of audio ingenuity, the band teamed up with Grammy Award winning producer Joe Chicarelli (My Morning Jacket, The White Stripes) to lend a helping hand.
Minus the Bear will take the opportunity to self finance their new album, giving them full control in an evolving industry. The band plans on releasing their new album on a yet to be announced record label.
The band recently released a seven track EP, "Acoustics," which was available exclusively online and on their recent headlining tour which included sold out dates at New York's Webster Hall, Chicago's The Vic and The Gothic Theatre in Denver.
Minus The Bear will release their new album this fall.
============================
Cover Art Causes A Stir In The UK
Supermarkets cover up Manics CD
The new Manic Street Preachers album is being shipped to supermarkets in a plain slipcase because its artwork has been deemed "inappropriate".
Concerns have been raised that the cover for Journal For Plague Lovers, a portrait by artist Jenny Saville, looks like it is splattered with blood.
Singer James Dean Bradfield called the situation "utterly bizarre".
"We just thought it was a beautiful painting. We were all in total agreement," he told BBC 6 Music.
The frontman disagreed that Saatchi favourite Saville, who also painted the cover for the band's 1994 album The Holy Bible, had intended to depict a bloody face.
"It is her brushwork," he said.
"If you're familiar with her work, there's a lot of ochres and browns and reds and browns and perhaps people are looking for us to be more provocative than we are being.
"We just saw a much more modern version of Lucian Freud-esque brushstrokes. That's all we saw."
Bradfield added that the band were frustrated by supermarkets' attitudes.
"You can have lovely shiny buttocks and guns everywhere in the supermarket on covers of magazines and CDs, but you show a piece of art and people just freak out," he said.
============================
YOB completes new album
Official press release:
Reunited "cosmic doom metal" band YOB has completed work on its new full-length album, titled "The Great Cessation." The record will see a July 14, 2009 release date via Profound Lore Records.
Long respected as one of doom metal's finest and most potent bands, YOB creates mastodonic, mind-bending music. "The Great Cessation" was recorded in the band's hometown of Eugene, Oregon with fast-rising producer Sanford Parker (The Gates of Slumber) and is unquestionably the trio's finest hour. Clocking in at just over an hour, the album features 5 epic-length songs that showcase YOB's relentless stomp, brontosaurus pound and holy mountain of gargantuan riffs. Led by the nuclear-strength peristaltic chug of the twenty minute title track, "The Great Cessation" is a recording that threatens to raise the bar for doom metal achievement with a deliberate, maddening momentum.
"The album will be called 'The Great Cessation,' states YOB vocalist/guitarist Mike Scheidt when asked for comment. "It has 5 tracks clocking in at 60 minutes. We are incredibly happy with how the tracking turned out. This album has some of our heaviest riffs, ever. We are very much looking forward to sharing these tunes with our friends worldwide."
Thursday, May 14, 2009
We Love Record Stores!
Regular readers know that I like to bring attention to the record staores that help keep vinyl alive, here is a gem:
Resurgence in vinyl helps record store in recession
by Jordan Melnick
It’s lunchtime on a typical weekday and Reckless Records downtown is packed. Dave Richardson, a 26-year-old legal clerk, has stopped in on his break to shop for LPs, those 12-inch, non-biodegradable vinyl discs that have been made obsolete many times over, most recently by MP3s.
Why would anybody pay for vinyl when there’s so much free digital music on the Internet? Why opt for a format that hardly fits in a backpack when the iPod can put up to 20,000 songs in a back pocket?
“I like the idea of owning a piece of physical media,” Richardson said.
He isn’t alone. Despite the MP3 takeover of the music industry, more and more audiophiles are turning to vinyl for an old-fashioned listening experience. And after 19 years in business in Chicago, British-owned Reckless Records of London Inc. is reaping the benefits.
The company’s three locations—Lakeview, Wicker Park and the Loop—sold 136,000 LPs in 2008, up about 38,000 from the year before. Despite declining CD revenue, Reckless’s total sales climbed to $4.2 million last year from $3.8 million in 2007. The uptick will allow the company to move its Lakeview store to a bigger location at the end of May.
To Reckless general manager Bryan Smith, vinyl’s resurgence comes down to consumer desire for a hands-on listening experience.
“People are rediscovering the artifact of music, being able to hold the physical product,” Smith said. “They like the mobility of the MP3, [but] it doesn’t give you a physical relationship with bands.”
Reckless’s increased vinyl sales mirror a national trend. There were 1.9 million new LPs sold in the U.S. last year, an 89 percent increase from 2007, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales. CD sales fell 19.7 percent in the same period.
In Nielsen’s East/North Central Region—which includes Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana—LP sales were up 119 percent last year and rose 56 percent through the end of April.
The rise in LP sales is an anomaly in a suffering music industry, which saw 3,000 record stores close nationwide between 2003 and last year, according to the Almighty Institute of Music Retail, a market research firm. In Chicago, 38 stores closed in that time.
A typical LP at Reckless costs between $7 and $25, though some rarities can sell for more than $100. With so much music free for the taking on the Internet, consumers’ willingness to fork over cash for LPs might seem extravagant. But Kip McCabe, store manager at Reckless’s Lakeview location, sees vinyl’s comeback as a reaction to the digital-music revolution epitomized by the iPod.
“I feel like [listening to MP3s] takes out a decent percentage of what the experience was meant to be to begin with,” McCabe said. “I think the first thing you lose is the artists’ intention of how they wanted their art to be received.”
Sales are down this year at Reckless’s three locations, but the upswing in vinyl consumption has helped Reckless weather the recession as consumers take comfort in concrete assets like LPs during hard times, Dylan Posa, manager at the Loop location, said.
“When times get tough you like to have what you own around you,” Posa said. “It’s sort of hard to touch an MP3 and say that you own it.”
Reckless’s trade-in business is another aspect of the company cash-strapped music collectors find attractive.
“People right now need money and that’s something we hand out,” McCabe said. “We hand out cash for product.”
LP lovers espouse everything from cover art to sound quality to the smell of vinyl itself. And with affordable turntables now on the market, some with USB ports that enable LP-to-MP3 conversion, the hands-on music experience and the portable one have converged.
Michelle Ishikawa, 22, a Columbia College Chicago student, used words like “real,” “authentic” and “tangible” when explaining her attachment to vinyl at Reckless’s Lakeview store.
Stephen Koza, 26, from Brooklyn, N.Y., described an aversion to buffet-style music consumption.
“You can download all you can eat, but [listening to LPs] takes a little more devotion,” Koza said. “It’s so easy on the Internet to consume music like a whale.”
The return of vinyl is not just a youth movement. Sixty-year-old Henrik Lang, a native Finlander who now lives in Chicago, said he switched back to vinyl six years ago for the better sound quality.
“It was an Ornette Coleman CD that brought me back,” Lang said, while scouring the jazz section at the Lakeview Reckless. “Transferring something that was made in ’63 didn’t work out well. I thought, ‘Well, if I find something on vinyl, then I’ll buy it.’”
Lang owns about 2,000 LPs. Collectors like him are a big part of the reason vinyl is on the rise. Reckless general manager Smith said he knows people with more than 10,000 LPs.
For Keenan Kelly—also known as DJ Kesa—collecting has become a problem.
“I can’t even keep some of them in my place,” Kelly said of his 3,000-LP collection. “I need to slow down. I’m an addict.”
Other vinyl faithful describe their devotion less as addiction and more as romance.
“Sometimes you just want to go home, put on a record and have a glass of wine,” said Tim Wagner, 26, who works at Andy's Jazz Club & Restaurant in the Gold Coast. “You just don’t have that feeling with an iPod.”
Whether based on addiction or love, increased LP sales are helping Reckless capitalize on the recession. The company is taking advantage of low real estate prices by moving its original Lakeview location down the block to a bigger, 5,000-square-foot space at the end of May.
McCabe is confident that customers will follow Reckless to its new location.
“We have a built-in, very intense constituency,” McCabe said. “Record collectors are … always on the hunt. That audience stays loyal.”
SOURCE: http://news.medill.northwestern.edu
Resurgence in vinyl helps record store in recession
by Jordan Melnick
It’s lunchtime on a typical weekday and Reckless Records downtown is packed. Dave Richardson, a 26-year-old legal clerk, has stopped in on his break to shop for LPs, those 12-inch, non-biodegradable vinyl discs that have been made obsolete many times over, most recently by MP3s.
Why would anybody pay for vinyl when there’s so much free digital music on the Internet? Why opt for a format that hardly fits in a backpack when the iPod can put up to 20,000 songs in a back pocket?
“I like the idea of owning a piece of physical media,” Richardson said.
He isn’t alone. Despite the MP3 takeover of the music industry, more and more audiophiles are turning to vinyl for an old-fashioned listening experience. And after 19 years in business in Chicago, British-owned Reckless Records of London Inc. is reaping the benefits.
The company’s three locations—Lakeview, Wicker Park and the Loop—sold 136,000 LPs in 2008, up about 38,000 from the year before. Despite declining CD revenue, Reckless’s total sales climbed to $4.2 million last year from $3.8 million in 2007. The uptick will allow the company to move its Lakeview store to a bigger location at the end of May.
To Reckless general manager Bryan Smith, vinyl’s resurgence comes down to consumer desire for a hands-on listening experience.
“People are rediscovering the artifact of music, being able to hold the physical product,” Smith said. “They like the mobility of the MP3, [but] it doesn’t give you a physical relationship with bands.”
Reckless’s increased vinyl sales mirror a national trend. There were 1.9 million new LPs sold in the U.S. last year, an 89 percent increase from 2007, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales. CD sales fell 19.7 percent in the same period.
In Nielsen’s East/North Central Region—which includes Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana—LP sales were up 119 percent last year and rose 56 percent through the end of April.
The rise in LP sales is an anomaly in a suffering music industry, which saw 3,000 record stores close nationwide between 2003 and last year, according to the Almighty Institute of Music Retail, a market research firm. In Chicago, 38 stores closed in that time.
A typical LP at Reckless costs between $7 and $25, though some rarities can sell for more than $100. With so much music free for the taking on the Internet, consumers’ willingness to fork over cash for LPs might seem extravagant. But Kip McCabe, store manager at Reckless’s Lakeview location, sees vinyl’s comeback as a reaction to the digital-music revolution epitomized by the iPod.
“I feel like [listening to MP3s] takes out a decent percentage of what the experience was meant to be to begin with,” McCabe said. “I think the first thing you lose is the artists’ intention of how they wanted their art to be received.”
Sales are down this year at Reckless’s three locations, but the upswing in vinyl consumption has helped Reckless weather the recession as consumers take comfort in concrete assets like LPs during hard times, Dylan Posa, manager at the Loop location, said.
“When times get tough you like to have what you own around you,” Posa said. “It’s sort of hard to touch an MP3 and say that you own it.”
Reckless’s trade-in business is another aspect of the company cash-strapped music collectors find attractive.
“People right now need money and that’s something we hand out,” McCabe said. “We hand out cash for product.”
LP lovers espouse everything from cover art to sound quality to the smell of vinyl itself. And with affordable turntables now on the market, some with USB ports that enable LP-to-MP3 conversion, the hands-on music experience and the portable one have converged.
Michelle Ishikawa, 22, a Columbia College Chicago student, used words like “real,” “authentic” and “tangible” when explaining her attachment to vinyl at Reckless’s Lakeview store.
Stephen Koza, 26, from Brooklyn, N.Y., described an aversion to buffet-style music consumption.
“You can download all you can eat, but [listening to LPs] takes a little more devotion,” Koza said. “It’s so easy on the Internet to consume music like a whale.”
The return of vinyl is not just a youth movement. Sixty-year-old Henrik Lang, a native Finlander who now lives in Chicago, said he switched back to vinyl six years ago for the better sound quality.
“It was an Ornette Coleman CD that brought me back,” Lang said, while scouring the jazz section at the Lakeview Reckless. “Transferring something that was made in ’63 didn’t work out well. I thought, ‘Well, if I find something on vinyl, then I’ll buy it.’”
Lang owns about 2,000 LPs. Collectors like him are a big part of the reason vinyl is on the rise. Reckless general manager Smith said he knows people with more than 10,000 LPs.
For Keenan Kelly—also known as DJ Kesa—collecting has become a problem.
“I can’t even keep some of them in my place,” Kelly said of his 3,000-LP collection. “I need to slow down. I’m an addict.”
Other vinyl faithful describe their devotion less as addiction and more as romance.
“Sometimes you just want to go home, put on a record and have a glass of wine,” said Tim Wagner, 26, who works at Andy's Jazz Club & Restaurant in the Gold Coast. “You just don’t have that feeling with an iPod.”
Whether based on addiction or love, increased LP sales are helping Reckless capitalize on the recession. The company is taking advantage of low real estate prices by moving its original Lakeview location down the block to a bigger, 5,000-square-foot space at the end of May.
McCabe is confident that customers will follow Reckless to its new location.
“We have a built-in, very intense constituency,” McCabe said. “Record collectors are … always on the hunt. That audience stays loyal.”
SOURCE: http://news.medill.northwestern.edu
Music News & Notes
Dylan Sales Drop A Bit
Bob Dylan's Together Through Life drops from #1 to #5 on this week's Billboard Album chart in its second week of release with sales of 51,000. The chart is topped by Chrisette Michelle who sold 83,000 copies of her second album. This has nothing to do with veteran artists, but is notable because that is the lowest amount sold by an album premiering at number one in the 18 years that Soundscan has been tracking music sales. The previous title holder belonged to Johnny Cash whose Americana V: A Hundred Highways premiered at number one in 2006 with 88,000 sales.
Cat Stevens' Roadsinger debuts at 41.
============================
New R.E.M. Music
R.E.M. is back in the studio to start work on their next album. They are currently working on demos of possible songs.
Paste magazine received the following from David Bell:
This past week, Peter Buck and Mike Mills of R.E.M. spent a few days with producer Jacknife Lee in Portland's Jackpot Recording Studio. It is early, early demo days for the next record, which is still a ways away. Also involved last week were longtime confederates Bill Rieflin and Scott McCaughey, as well as noted engineer/producer Tucker Martine.
==============================
ALICE COOPER Performs At ASU Commencement Ceremonies In Phoenix
Legendary rocker Alice Cooper appeared yesterday (Wednesday, May 13) before a crowd of 70,000, including 9,000 Arizona State University graduates, at ASU commencement ceremonies at Sun Devil Stadium in Phoenix. Alice performed the perennial start-of-summer anthem "School's Out", backed by RUNAWAY PHOENIX, the band of which his son Dash Cooper (ASU Class of '10) is part. Also appearing on the program was "top-billed" President Barack Obama who delivered ASU's 2009 commencement address.
Watch fan-filmed video footage of Alice's performance below. (Note: Alice wore his varsity letter sweater [Cortez High, Class of '66] when he performed the classic ode to the start of summer.)
"Of all the people I've ever shared a stage with, Obama is the biggest rock star," said Alice.
"School's Out" always seems to take on a life of its own just about every May and this year is no different. Last week, the song was featured as an "American Idol" group performance with guitar great Slash joining in. The song, which first came to light at the end of the 1972 school year, will be heard in the film "I Love You Beth Cooper" (no relation) directed by Chris Columbus and starring Hayden Panettier with companion soundtrack album to be released by ABKCO Records next month.
Aside from his ongoing role as the de facto harbinger of summer, Alice Cooper hosts, "Nights with Alice Cooper", heard over a network of more than one hundred affiliated stations for which Alice anchors 30 hours per week of original classic rock programming. Produced and distributed by the United Stations Radio Networks, "Nights with Alice Cooper" has 110 affiliates broadcasting a combination of weeknight and weekend programming. Alice's time slot reaches 1.1 million listeners (12+) each week, and his affiliates have a weekly reach of over 6 millions listeners.
Mr. Cooper- you still rock!
==============================
Depeche Mode Cancel Four More Concerts Due to Gahan Illness
David Gahan’s severe bout of gastroenteritis has forced Depeche Mode to cancel four more concerts on their Sounds of the Universe tour, the band announced in a statement. Gahan was rushed to the hospital earlier this week shortly before Depeche Mode were scheduled to perform a show in Athens, Greece. Yesterday’s concert in Istanbul was also canceled. “Dave is currently undergoing further tests,” the band said in the statement. “Depeche Mode apologizes to all their fans for this inconvenience and wish Dave a speedy recovery.”
The nixed shows affect Bucharest, Romania; Sofia, Bulgaria; Belgrade, Serbia; and Zagreb, Croatia and mean the tour is shut down until at least May 21st. Ticket holders for all the shows are advised to hold on to their tickets as announcements regarding rescheduled dates or cancellations will be made shortly.
==============================
Kings Of Leon To Play MTV Movie Awards
Setting the stage for some of this summer's most talked about performances, MTV has announced that rock icons Kings of Leon will perform at the "2009 MTV Movie Awards." The band will perform their rock anthem "Use Somebody" from their hit album "Only By The Night." Hosted by Andy Samberg, the "2009 MTV Movie Awards" will air on Sunday, May 31st at 9PM (Live ET/Tape Delayed PT). The show will also feature a musical performance by Eminem who will perform music from his anticipated new album "Relapse."
Kings of Leon have thrived as one of the most popular artists to hit the music scene in recent years and their latest album "Only By The Night," has sold almost four-million units world-wide. Their infectious single, "Sex On Fire," topped the Modern Rock chart at number one for eight weeks straight and "Use Somebody," the album's second single, stayed at number one on the chart for three weeks straight. "Sex On Fire" also broke the record for biggest selling digital album and digital single of all time in the UK. Just completing their first-ever arena tour of America, following the MTV Movie Awards, Kings of Leon will be playing festivals worldwide all summer long and into the fall, including headlining slots at Lollapalooza and the Austin Limits City Festival.
Bob Dylan's Together Through Life drops from #1 to #5 on this week's Billboard Album chart in its second week of release with sales of 51,000. The chart is topped by Chrisette Michelle who sold 83,000 copies of her second album. This has nothing to do with veteran artists, but is notable because that is the lowest amount sold by an album premiering at number one in the 18 years that Soundscan has been tracking music sales. The previous title holder belonged to Johnny Cash whose Americana V: A Hundred Highways premiered at number one in 2006 with 88,000 sales.
Cat Stevens' Roadsinger debuts at 41.
============================
New R.E.M. Music
R.E.M. is back in the studio to start work on their next album. They are currently working on demos of possible songs.
Paste magazine received the following from David Bell:
This past week, Peter Buck and Mike Mills of R.E.M. spent a few days with producer Jacknife Lee in Portland's Jackpot Recording Studio. It is early, early demo days for the next record, which is still a ways away. Also involved last week were longtime confederates Bill Rieflin and Scott McCaughey, as well as noted engineer/producer Tucker Martine.
==============================
ALICE COOPER Performs At ASU Commencement Ceremonies In Phoenix
Legendary rocker Alice Cooper appeared yesterday (Wednesday, May 13) before a crowd of 70,000, including 9,000 Arizona State University graduates, at ASU commencement ceremonies at Sun Devil Stadium in Phoenix. Alice performed the perennial start-of-summer anthem "School's Out", backed by RUNAWAY PHOENIX, the band of which his son Dash Cooper (ASU Class of '10) is part. Also appearing on the program was "top-billed" President Barack Obama who delivered ASU's 2009 commencement address.
Watch fan-filmed video footage of Alice's performance below. (Note: Alice wore his varsity letter sweater [Cortez High, Class of '66] when he performed the classic ode to the start of summer.)
"Of all the people I've ever shared a stage with, Obama is the biggest rock star," said Alice.
"School's Out" always seems to take on a life of its own just about every May and this year is no different. Last week, the song was featured as an "American Idol" group performance with guitar great Slash joining in. The song, which first came to light at the end of the 1972 school year, will be heard in the film "I Love You Beth Cooper" (no relation) directed by Chris Columbus and starring Hayden Panettier with companion soundtrack album to be released by ABKCO Records next month.
Aside from his ongoing role as the de facto harbinger of summer, Alice Cooper hosts, "Nights with Alice Cooper", heard over a network of more than one hundred affiliated stations for which Alice anchors 30 hours per week of original classic rock programming. Produced and distributed by the United Stations Radio Networks, "Nights with Alice Cooper" has 110 affiliates broadcasting a combination of weeknight and weekend programming. Alice's time slot reaches 1.1 million listeners (12+) each week, and his affiliates have a weekly reach of over 6 millions listeners.
Mr. Cooper- you still rock!
==============================
Depeche Mode Cancel Four More Concerts Due to Gahan Illness
David Gahan’s severe bout of gastroenteritis has forced Depeche Mode to cancel four more concerts on their Sounds of the Universe tour, the band announced in a statement. Gahan was rushed to the hospital earlier this week shortly before Depeche Mode were scheduled to perform a show in Athens, Greece. Yesterday’s concert in Istanbul was also canceled. “Dave is currently undergoing further tests,” the band said in the statement. “Depeche Mode apologizes to all their fans for this inconvenience and wish Dave a speedy recovery.”
The nixed shows affect Bucharest, Romania; Sofia, Bulgaria; Belgrade, Serbia; and Zagreb, Croatia and mean the tour is shut down until at least May 21st. Ticket holders for all the shows are advised to hold on to their tickets as announcements regarding rescheduled dates or cancellations will be made shortly.
==============================
Kings Of Leon To Play MTV Movie Awards
Setting the stage for some of this summer's most talked about performances, MTV has announced that rock icons Kings of Leon will perform at the "2009 MTV Movie Awards." The band will perform their rock anthem "Use Somebody" from their hit album "Only By The Night." Hosted by Andy Samberg, the "2009 MTV Movie Awards" will air on Sunday, May 31st at 9PM (Live ET/Tape Delayed PT). The show will also feature a musical performance by Eminem who will perform music from his anticipated new album "Relapse."
Kings of Leon have thrived as one of the most popular artists to hit the music scene in recent years and their latest album "Only By The Night," has sold almost four-million units world-wide. Their infectious single, "Sex On Fire," topped the Modern Rock chart at number one for eight weeks straight and "Use Somebody," the album's second single, stayed at number one on the chart for three weeks straight. "Sex On Fire" also broke the record for biggest selling digital album and digital single of all time in the UK. Just completing their first-ever arena tour of America, following the MTV Movie Awards, Kings of Leon will be playing festivals worldwide all summer long and into the fall, including headlining slots at Lollapalooza and the Austin Limits City Festival.
Vinyl Collective News
Sell your Used Records in Vinyl Collective’s store
If Amazon and Half.com can do it, why shouldn’t we? At least that is what I have been thinking for a while now. I have been wanting to offer used records in the Vinyl Collective store but I wasn’t sure how to make this happen. Should I have people with Used records send them to us for sale? Nah, that could potentially damage a box of records. Should we put up ads that we buy records and sell those records to all of you? That could work, but only selling used records from folks in Colorado could be limiting. After much thought, I have come up with what I think is the best solution. I already know that many of you sell on Ebay and I know that some of you have had lots of success selling there and may have no interest in what we are about to offer. What I offer is a new section within the Vinyl Collective store for Used Records searchable by seller. There will be no listing fees, you set the price you want to sell it at, and you only see a “fee” when your record(s) are sold. We accept and process the payment, pay all merchant fees, and all you do is ship the record to the buyer. You benefit from the traffic to the Vinyl Collective store. We set you up with a seller account and people will be able to search for just your titles.
We will take a 15 percent commission when your record is sold(this includes all merchant processing fees), pay you once a month for your sales, and you can keep your records listed for as long as you like.
Any volunteers? We want to test this out and are looking for 10 people interested in helping us make this work. We want to work out the kinks before we launch it worldwide. Email me if you are interested. Only U.S. sellers for now please. Thanks.
If Amazon and Half.com can do it, why shouldn’t we? At least that is what I have been thinking for a while now. I have been wanting to offer used records in the Vinyl Collective store but I wasn’t sure how to make this happen. Should I have people with Used records send them to us for sale? Nah, that could potentially damage a box of records. Should we put up ads that we buy records and sell those records to all of you? That could work, but only selling used records from folks in Colorado could be limiting. After much thought, I have come up with what I think is the best solution. I already know that many of you sell on Ebay and I know that some of you have had lots of success selling there and may have no interest in what we are about to offer. What I offer is a new section within the Vinyl Collective store for Used Records searchable by seller. There will be no listing fees, you set the price you want to sell it at, and you only see a “fee” when your record(s) are sold. We accept and process the payment, pay all merchant fees, and all you do is ship the record to the buyer. You benefit from the traffic to the Vinyl Collective store. We set you up with a seller account and people will be able to search for just your titles.
We will take a 15 percent commission when your record is sold(this includes all merchant processing fees), pay you once a month for your sales, and you can keep your records listed for as long as you like.
Any volunteers? We want to test this out and are looking for 10 people interested in helping us make this work. We want to work out the kinks before we launch it worldwide. Email me if you are interested. Only U.S. sellers for now please. Thanks.
This Date In Music History-May 14
Birthdays:
Derek Leckenby - Herman's Hermits (1943)
Gener Cornish - The Young Rascals (1945)
David Byrne - Talking Heads (1952)
Ian Astbury – Cult (1962)
C.C. DeVille – Poison (1962)
Mike Inez - Alice in Chains (1966)
Fabrice Morvan - Milli Vanilli (1966)
Steve Hogarth – Marillion (1956)
Jack Bruce – Cream (1943)
Shanice (1973)
Danny Wood - New Kids On The Block (1971)
They Are Missed:
Frank Sinatra died of a heart attack in 1998.
Former Yardbirds guitarist Keith Relf was electrocuted by his guitar and died in 1976.
In 2005, bluegrass singer Jimmy Martin died in Nashville aged 77. Inspired by Bill Monroe, he sang with both the Blue Grass Boys and his own Sunny Mountain Boys combo.
In 1969, a car crash took the lives of Fairport Convention drummer Martin Lamble and Jeanne "Genie the Taylor" Franklin. Franklin was a clothes designer for, among others, Jefferson Airplane, Donovan, and Jimi Hendrix.
The late Bobby Darin was born in 1936 (died on December 20, 1973)
History:
In 1955, "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & the Comets first entered the Top 40. It would become the first #1 record of the rock era.
Bo Diddley’s “Bo Diddley” backed with “I’m A Man” landed on the R&B charts in 1955. Both songs were later covered in the '60s by British groups.
In 1957, Elvis Presley swallowed a porcelain cap from one of his teeth during the filming of Jailhouse Rock and was rushed to the hospital. The cap was lodged in a lung and Presley had to stay overnight to get it removed.
The Strawbs formed in 1967.
Leo Sayer went to #1 on the US singles chart in 1977 with “When I Need You,” the singer’s second US #1 (also #1 in the UK).
In 1956, Buddy Holly's optometrist gave him contact lenses for his 20/800 eyesight, but he couldn’t get used to them, so the trademark glasses stayed.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon appeared on NBC-TV's "Tonight Show" in 1968 with guest-host Joe Garagiola.
In 1970, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released "Ohio,” ten days after the shooting of four students at Kent State University that inspired the classic song.
Jan & Dean began recording "Little Old Lady (From Pasadena)" in 1964.
The Rascals recorded "People Got To Be Free" in 1968.
In 1966, one of the best compilation records ever released, “Big Hits (High Tides And Green Grass),” collected the best Rolling Stones songs to date. The album sold over two-million copies.
"The Platters" was released in 1956. It was the group's first album.
Atlantic Records celebrated its 40th anniversary at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 1988. Yes, Genesis, Foreigner and Crosby, Stills & Nash performed. A re-united Led Zeppelin hit the stage with Jason Bonham filling in for his late father John. Zeppelin played “Stairway To Heaven” and “Whole Lotta Love.” Also, the Iron Butterfly appeared and yes, they played "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" in its entirety.
The album "Revenge" was released by KISS in 1992. The album featured a new drummer, Eric Singer.
In 2007, Capitol/EMI announced that Paul McCartney's post-Beatles catalog will be sold digitally. "For the very first time, McCartney and Wings albums will be made available across all digital platforms," read the EMI/Capitol statement.
Also in 2007, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor spoke out against records labels marking up album prices to compensate for declining sales. He says he discovered that NIN's "Year Zero" had a list price of more than $29 in Australia. "No wonder people steal music," he says. Has anything changed?
Derek Leckenby - Herman's Hermits (1943)
Gener Cornish - The Young Rascals (1945)
David Byrne - Talking Heads (1952)
Ian Astbury – Cult (1962)
C.C. DeVille – Poison (1962)
Mike Inez - Alice in Chains (1966)
Fabrice Morvan - Milli Vanilli (1966)
Steve Hogarth – Marillion (1956)
Jack Bruce – Cream (1943)
Shanice (1973)
Danny Wood - New Kids On The Block (1971)
They Are Missed:
Frank Sinatra died of a heart attack in 1998.
Former Yardbirds guitarist Keith Relf was electrocuted by his guitar and died in 1976.
In 2005, bluegrass singer Jimmy Martin died in Nashville aged 77. Inspired by Bill Monroe, he sang with both the Blue Grass Boys and his own Sunny Mountain Boys combo.
In 1969, a car crash took the lives of Fairport Convention drummer Martin Lamble and Jeanne "Genie the Taylor" Franklin. Franklin was a clothes designer for, among others, Jefferson Airplane, Donovan, and Jimi Hendrix.
The late Bobby Darin was born in 1936 (died on December 20, 1973)
History:
In 1955, "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & the Comets first entered the Top 40. It would become the first #1 record of the rock era.
Bo Diddley’s “Bo Diddley” backed with “I’m A Man” landed on the R&B charts in 1955. Both songs were later covered in the '60s by British groups.
In 1957, Elvis Presley swallowed a porcelain cap from one of his teeth during the filming of Jailhouse Rock and was rushed to the hospital. The cap was lodged in a lung and Presley had to stay overnight to get it removed.
The Strawbs formed in 1967.
Leo Sayer went to #1 on the US singles chart in 1977 with “When I Need You,” the singer’s second US #1 (also #1 in the UK).
In 1956, Buddy Holly's optometrist gave him contact lenses for his 20/800 eyesight, but he couldn’t get used to them, so the trademark glasses stayed.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon appeared on NBC-TV's "Tonight Show" in 1968 with guest-host Joe Garagiola.
In 1970, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released "Ohio,” ten days after the shooting of four students at Kent State University that inspired the classic song.
Jan & Dean began recording "Little Old Lady (From Pasadena)" in 1964.
The Rascals recorded "People Got To Be Free" in 1968.
In 1966, one of the best compilation records ever released, “Big Hits (High Tides And Green Grass),” collected the best Rolling Stones songs to date. The album sold over two-million copies.
"The Platters" was released in 1956. It was the group's first album.
Atlantic Records celebrated its 40th anniversary at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 1988. Yes, Genesis, Foreigner and Crosby, Stills & Nash performed. A re-united Led Zeppelin hit the stage with Jason Bonham filling in for his late father John. Zeppelin played “Stairway To Heaven” and “Whole Lotta Love.” Also, the Iron Butterfly appeared and yes, they played "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" in its entirety.
The album "Revenge" was released by KISS in 1992. The album featured a new drummer, Eric Singer.
In 2007, Capitol/EMI announced that Paul McCartney's post-Beatles catalog will be sold digitally. "For the very first time, McCartney and Wings albums will be made available across all digital platforms," read the EMI/Capitol statement.
Also in 2007, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor spoke out against records labels marking up album prices to compensate for declining sales. He says he discovered that NIN's "Year Zero" had a list price of more than $29 in Australia. "No wonder people steal music," he says. Has anything changed?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Mr. Music
I am continuing our new feature: Ask "Mr. Music." Now in its 23rd year of syndication (1986-2008), Jerry Osborne's weekly Q&A feature will be a regular post every Wednesday from now on. Be sure to stop by Jerry's site (www.jerryosborne.com) for more Mr. Music archives, record price guides, anything Elvis, buy & sell collectibles, record appraisals and much more. I thank Jerry for allowing the reprints.
FOR THE WEEK OF MAY 4, 2009
DEAR JERRY: While in Connecticut in the mid-'90s, I clipped and saved a column you wrote about what at the time seemed to be some very early stereo recordings.
One example cited is “Charlie Parker — The Legendary Rockland Palace Concert, Vol. 1” (Jazz Classics JZCL-6010). From a September of 1952 concert, you confirmed some of the music is true stereo.
In more recent years, we have seen many CDs with “astonishing newly discovered stereo” from as far back as the 1930s.
I have not purchased any of these as I am not completely sold on the authenticity of the stereo, even though I am not a hard core audiophile.
Also, any idea what the first honest-to-goodness stereo album might be?
—Philip Marlow, Madison, Wisc.
DEAR PHILIP: But are you a hard core audiophile? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Nearly all “newly discovered stereo” music is the result of various remastering techniques, the best of which involve using the original multi-track elements to fabricate all-new selections.
As for the stereo itself, the channel separation varies depending on the number of pick-ups (microphones) originally used, especially with the vocals.
Most desirable is with lead vocals in the center of the audio field and background singers and orchestration balanced across the “stage,” as one would hear if positioned in the middle of a concert hall.
Many audiophiles praise the results of the latest remastering techniques, favoring the recently recast versions of those venerable classics.
Generally disliked by stereo lovers is the extreme separation often found on early and mid-'60s albums, where one channel is devoted to vocals, with little or no music, and the other for the instruments, with little or no vocals. EMI used this approach on some early Beatles LPs. True stereo it is, but a bit too true.
None of this remastering should be confused with the fake stereo so common in the 1960s, in which monaural masters are refiltered, rephased, rehashed, reverberated, and usually ruined.
The respectable labels identified their phony stereo releases as being “electronically reprocessed,” “electronically enhanced,” or with a similar disclaimer.
Depending on who you ask, or whose research you read, the first true stereo LP is either Columbia's Original Broadway Cast Recording of “West Side Story,” or an Audio Fidelity double LP combining the “Dukes of Dixieland” and “Railroad Sound Effects.” “West Side Story” opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre, September 26, 1957.
Knowing the show was a smash, they wasted no time getting over to Columbia's 30th Street Studio where the recording session took place September 29th.
Columbia rush-released the Original Broadway Cast LP. The company shows this to be an October '57 issue, and commercially available in three formats: a boxed set of five extended play 45 rpm singles (A-5230); monaural long-play (OL-5230); and their first stereo album (OS-2001).
“West Side Story” lyricist, Stephen Sondheim also confirms these 1957 releases, yet no one can say with certainty whether the stereo edition came out exactly at the same time as the mono, or a short time later — such as in November.
We also know Audio Fidelity, an independent New York label, issued their “Dukes of Dixieland (You Have to Hear It to Believe It!)” (AFSD-5823) & “Railroad Sound Effects: Sounds of a Vanishing Era” LP (AFSD-5843), a demonstration of stereo aimed at the recording industry, in November 1957.
Not sold in stores, this album was only available by mail directly from Audio Fidelity, and only to those requesting a free copy using company letterhead.
Which came first? Without the aid of instant replay, this race is still too close to call.
IZ ZAT SO? Audio Fidelity's selection of the Dukes of Dixieland and sound effects for their first stereo issue was prophetic, as recordings — stereo in particular — of these two divergent choices became the backbone of the company.
Ultimately they released about 15 LPs by the Dukes and 30 with nothing but sound effects.
Unlike music and vocals, the novelty of authentic railroad sounds is hearing the train gradually approach in just one channel, then rumble through the center of the audio field (equally from both speakers) only to chug off into the distance from the other channel.
These sounds are from old-time cannonballs (i.e., steam locomotives) rather than diesels, thus the “Sounds of a Vanishing Era” reference.
Copyright 2009 Osbourne Enterprises- Reprinted By Permission
====================================================
Toll-Free: (800) 246-3255
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Jerry Osborne's "Rockin' Records" has long been the most popular record guide. Now with 1,104 pages, it is by far the biggest record guide we've ever made. It is regarded throughout the industry as the best available guide, and it is the one accepted by all the major insurance companies.
Call today with the code "CVR" to receive your discount!
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FOR THE WEEK OF MAY 4, 2009
DEAR JERRY: While in Connecticut in the mid-'90s, I clipped and saved a column you wrote about what at the time seemed to be some very early stereo recordings.
One example cited is “Charlie Parker — The Legendary Rockland Palace Concert, Vol. 1” (Jazz Classics JZCL-6010). From a September of 1952 concert, you confirmed some of the music is true stereo.
In more recent years, we have seen many CDs with “astonishing newly discovered stereo” from as far back as the 1930s.
I have not purchased any of these as I am not completely sold on the authenticity of the stereo, even though I am not a hard core audiophile.
Also, any idea what the first honest-to-goodness stereo album might be?
—Philip Marlow, Madison, Wisc.
DEAR PHILIP: But are you a hard core audiophile? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Nearly all “newly discovered stereo” music is the result of various remastering techniques, the best of which involve using the original multi-track elements to fabricate all-new selections.
As for the stereo itself, the channel separation varies depending on the number of pick-ups (microphones) originally used, especially with the vocals.
Most desirable is with lead vocals in the center of the audio field and background singers and orchestration balanced across the “stage,” as one would hear if positioned in the middle of a concert hall.
Many audiophiles praise the results of the latest remastering techniques, favoring the recently recast versions of those venerable classics.
Generally disliked by stereo lovers is the extreme separation often found on early and mid-'60s albums, where one channel is devoted to vocals, with little or no music, and the other for the instruments, with little or no vocals. EMI used this approach on some early Beatles LPs. True stereo it is, but a bit too true.
None of this remastering should be confused with the fake stereo so common in the 1960s, in which monaural masters are refiltered, rephased, rehashed, reverberated, and usually ruined.
The respectable labels identified their phony stereo releases as being “electronically reprocessed,” “electronically enhanced,” or with a similar disclaimer.
Depending on who you ask, or whose research you read, the first true stereo LP is either Columbia's Original Broadway Cast Recording of “West Side Story,” or an Audio Fidelity double LP combining the “Dukes of Dixieland” and “Railroad Sound Effects.” “West Side Story” opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre, September 26, 1957.
Knowing the show was a smash, they wasted no time getting over to Columbia's 30th Street Studio where the recording session took place September 29th.
Columbia rush-released the Original Broadway Cast LP. The company shows this to be an October '57 issue, and commercially available in three formats: a boxed set of five extended play 45 rpm singles (A-5230); monaural long-play (OL-5230); and their first stereo album (OS-2001).
“West Side Story” lyricist, Stephen Sondheim also confirms these 1957 releases, yet no one can say with certainty whether the stereo edition came out exactly at the same time as the mono, or a short time later — such as in November.
We also know Audio Fidelity, an independent New York label, issued their “Dukes of Dixieland (You Have to Hear It to Believe It!)” (AFSD-5823) & “Railroad Sound Effects: Sounds of a Vanishing Era” LP (AFSD-5843), a demonstration of stereo aimed at the recording industry, in November 1957.
Not sold in stores, this album was only available by mail directly from Audio Fidelity, and only to those requesting a free copy using company letterhead.
Which came first? Without the aid of instant replay, this race is still too close to call.
IZ ZAT SO? Audio Fidelity's selection of the Dukes of Dixieland and sound effects for their first stereo issue was prophetic, as recordings — stereo in particular — of these two divergent choices became the backbone of the company.
Ultimately they released about 15 LPs by the Dukes and 30 with nothing but sound effects.
Unlike music and vocals, the novelty of authentic railroad sounds is hearing the train gradually approach in just one channel, then rumble through the center of the audio field (equally from both speakers) only to chug off into the distance from the other channel.
These sounds are from old-time cannonballs (i.e., steam locomotives) rather than diesels, thus the “Sounds of a Vanishing Era” reference.
Copyright 2009 Osbourne Enterprises- Reprinted By Permission
====================================================
Toll-Free: (800) 246-3255
"Rockin Records" is now on sale- call with the code "CVR" and receive $6 off your purchase
http://www.jerryosborne.com/
Jerry Osborne's "Rockin' Records" has long been the most popular record guide. Now with 1,104 pages, it is by far the biggest record guide we've ever made. It is regarded throughout the industry as the best available guide, and it is the one accepted by all the major insurance companies.
Call today with the code "CVR" to receive your discount!
Also check out - CYBERGUIDES
The Up-To-Date Record Price Guide
https://protected.ehost.com/jerryosb/cyberguides.htm
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