Classic Rock Videos

Alice Cooper - I'm Eighteen

New Releases- June 16, 2009

311: Uplifter
Acid Mothers Temple: Are We Experimental
Alice Cooper: School's Out (remastered vinyl)
Amadou & Mariam: Welcome To Mali (2-LP vinyl with CD)
Antenna Shoes: Generous Gambler
Baaba Maal: Television
Beck: One Foot in the Grave (2-LP remastered vinyl) Buy It Here
Blind Pilot: 3 Rounds and a Sound
Boris Skalsky: First Songs EP
Brasstronaut: Old World Lies EP
Brokencyde – I’m Not a Fan But the Kids Like It
Bruce Springsteen: Greatest Hits Buy Bruce Springsteen Music
Captain Beefheart: Jukebox
Cass McCombs: Catacombs
Catherine MacLellan: Water in the Ground
Cocteau Twins: Garlands (remastered vinyl)
Crosby Stills & Nash: Demos
Dave Matthews Band: Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King (2-CD & DVD box set) (2-LP vinyl) Buy Dave Matthews Band
Deastro: Moondagger
Diane Birch: Bible Belt
The Doors: The Soft Parade (remastered)
EELS: Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire
Elvis Costello: Secret, Profane and Sugarcane
Emery: ... In Shallow Seas We Sail
Faces: A Nod Is as Good as a Wink...to a Blind Horse (vinyl reissue)
Franz Ferdinand: Blood (vinyl)
George Harrison – Let It Roll: The Songs of George Harrison
Girl in a Coma: Trio B.C. (vinyl)
Great White: Great Zeppelin: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin (vinyl reissue)
Green Day - vinyl reissues (LP)
Hank Williams Jr. – 127 Rose Avenue
Hoots and Hellmouth: The Holy Open Secret
Iggy Pop: Preliminaires
Incubus – Monuments and Melodies
J-Dilla: Jay $tay Paid
Jeff Buckley: Grace - Around the World (CD & DVD) (CD & 2-DVDs)
Jonas Brothers – Lines, Vines and Trying Times
Juicy J – Hustle Till I Die
Linkin Park – New Divide [Single]
Lydia Lunch: Queen of Siam
Marshall Crenshaw: Jaggedland
Michael Buble – Michael Buble Meets Madison Square Garden
Miles Davis: Milestones (vinyl reissue)
Neil Young: Neil Young Archives, Vol. 1: 1963-1972 (8-CD box set) (10-disc DVD box set) (10-disc Blu-ray box set) Buy Neil Young
New Riders Of The Purple Sage: Where I Come From
New York Dolls: 'Cause I Sez So (vinyl)
Noisettes: Noisettes
Oasis: And It's a Good Night from Him (dvd)
Paolo Nutini: Sunny Side Up
Patrick Watson: Wooden Arms (vinyl)
Patrick Wolf: The Bachelor
Patti Smith: Classic Interviews
Pet Shop Boys: Did You See Me Coming? Pt.1
Pet Shop Boys: Did You See Me Coming? Pt.2
Pink Floyd: A Momentary Lapse of Reason (reissue)
Pink Martini: Discover the World: Live in Concert (dvd)
Prefuse 73: Forest of Oversensitivity
Rancid: Let the Dominoes Fall (3-disc box set)
Ray Charles: Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Vol. 1 & 2 (remastered)
Red Hot Chili Peppers - vinyl reissues (LP)
Rodney Crowell: The Rodney Crowell Collection (reissue)
Ryan Bingham: Roadhouse Sun
Scott Matthew: Scott Matthew (vinyl)
Simple Minds: Graffiti Soul
So Many Dynamos: Loud Wars

Spinal Tap — Back From the Dead
The Sounds: Crossing the Rubicon (vinyl)
Steven Wright: I Have a Pony (CD & DVD)
Taking Back Sunday: New Again (CD & DVD)
Thea Gilmore: Recorded Delivery
Umphrey's McGee: Soundstage Presents (dvd)
Various Artists: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More: Woodstock (remastered)
Various Artists: Theme Time Radio Hour: With Your Host Bob Dylan
Various Artists: Woodstock Two (remastered)
Wallflowers - Collection
The Who: The Who Sell Out (Deluxe Edition) (remastered with bonus tracks)
Willy Porter: How to Rob a Bank
Zeus: Sounds Like Zeus

Audio News

Audiophile Audition ReviewI want to thank John over at http://www.audaud.com/index.php for the exclusive rights to reprint this great review!



AUDIOPHILE AUDITION focuses on recordings of interest to audiophiles and collectors, with an accent on surround sound for music, and on all hi-res disc formats. Over 100SACD, DVD Video/Audio and standard CD reviews are published during each month, and our archives go back to January 2001.


Audio News for June 9, 2009

Napster’s Impact on Music Distribution; Studio Tips on Improving Quality of Data-Reduced Audio Files; Neil Young Blu-ray Package Gets Thumbs Down; Acurus and Aragon Lines Are Back


Napster’s Impact on Music Distribution - Ten years ago Napster was first released and had sweeping effects on the entire music industry. It came at exactly the right time, when people were beginning to switch from snail-paced dialup to broadband connections, which allowed them to download music in a short period of time. Of course the program and the peer-to-peer revolution it started infringed on copyright and licensing laws - which is how it was reduced down to its present shell of itself. In a way, Napster led the way to iTunes, which is really a legal version without the peer-to-peer sharing. And iTunes has certainly made digital music downloading a success, at least in the pop music area. The whole system of how music is distributed has radically changed. Napster also made MP3 files catch on with the general public, and launched the preference for convenience (and often free or lower cost) in spite of compromised sound over standard CD quality, let alone hi-res formats. Now, however, lossless codecs such as FLAC are becoming more popular, and download sites such as HDtracks are offering hi-res downloads that surpass 44.1K CDs, though so far hi-res surround has not made much headway.


Studio Tips on Improving Quality of Data-Reduced Audio Files - Nashville studio engineers advise recording artists and producers to boost the quality of their recordings by mixing two separate masters - one for hi-res and CD and another for MP3 and other such codecs. Data compression typically throws out more than 90% of the original music information, yet has become the standard for digital music distribution. Some of the suggestions are to encode at the highest possible resolution. For example, a 320 kbps file still has over 22% of the original audio data, while the popular 128 kbps files have less than 8%. The best-sounding algorithm should be used after testing the material with different ones. It is even suggested that mono MP3 files are often a solution since they have twice as much musical data as the stereo files and therefore can sound better. The other major destroyer of pop digital music today is compression and peak-limiting of dynamic levels. it is suggested to apply the digital encoding prior to peak limiting to maximize as much of the dynamic details as possible.


Neil Young Blu-ray Package Gets Thumbs Down - Singer Neil Young is quite an audiophile and promoted his new Neil Young Archives, Vol. 1 1963-1972 Blu-ray box (SRP: $349) as the last word in remastered hi-res sonics of his old recordings. It comes with a specially-bound embossed “leather” book and 11 discs, of which only one is of previously unreleased material and only one is in surround. There is a VHS-quality film “Journey Thru the Past,” and the rest of the two-channel Blu-rays - which show visually only an LP spinning on a turntable or tape reels revolving - are 192K/24bit. Even if your components can pass that hi-res signal, they don’t sound any better than the DVDs and CDs released before, and the Blu-ray navigation is frustrating according to reviews.


Acurus and Aragon Lines Are Back - After four years of inactivity two well-regarded lines of high end audio electronics are back in the marketplace. Klipsch had owned Aragon and Acurus amps, preamps and processors since 2001 and has now sold them to two Klipsch electronics engineers, Rick Santiago and Ted Moore, since deciding to concentrate their efforts entirely on their loudspeaker lines. The new owners intend to announce a new line of products in early 2010. Their amps will feature the use of class A at lower signal levels and a gradual shift to class A-B at higher levels, with ratings between 125 watts per channel and 400wpc. Acurus will be the entry-level line and Aragon the higher-priced series. The lines were originally founded by Tony Federici and Paul Rosenberg, with Mondial as the parent company.


Copyright 2003-2009 Audiophile Audition
Reprinted By Permission

Vinyl In The News

After the success of Record Store Day in April, local record stores will now feature “Vinyl Saturdays” once a month. It's described as a “new monthly unveiling of limited special vinyl pieces, [and] an irresistible lure to your local indie record store, where treasures of all sorts are glittering on the shelves.”

The first Vinyl Saturday kicks off this Saturday, June 20, and features new releases (available exclusively on vinyl for now) from several major artists. Available this week is a batch of 7-inch vinyl singles: Wilco’s “You Never Know” and “Unlikely Japan;” Green Day’s “Know Your Enemy” and “Hearts Collide;” Scarlett Johansson and Pete Yorn’s “Relator” and “I Don’t Know What To Do;” and Modest Mouse’s “Autumn Beds” and “Whale Song.”

This is great news for the world of vinyl, the musician's support to this and other vinyl related promotions have been an overwhelming success. Hail Vinyl!

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Music Reports

The National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) has released a report in association with Nielsen SoundScan on the current state of the recording industry.

Highlights from the report:

•Digital music is now 40% of the total music purchases compared to just 8% in 2005. It is projected that it will hit 50% by the end of 2010.

•Purchases are being made less at mass and chain/electronic stores and more at value oriented outlets (dollar, mass merchandisers, clubs) and on-line. Between 2001 and 2009, chains like Best Buy's share of the market has gone from 54% to 32%, independent music stores from 14% to 7%, mass merchandisers like Wal-Mart from 28% to 33% and non-traditional sources such as iTunes, Amazon and Starbucks from 3% to 29%.

•In 2008, the biggest percentage jump in sales was for vinyl albums, which were up 89% over 2007. The biggest drop was in current CD albums (compared to catalog) whic was down 23%.

•Since 2004, CD sales are down 45% while digital sales are up 490% and video game sales up 115%.

•Between 2006 and 2008, rap music had the biggest drop in album sales, dropping 44% with country down 36% and R&B down 34%. On the other end of the scale, rock and hard rock are only down 18%.

•Digital music buying was done most by fans of rock music, with 41% of all purchases coming from an on-line source. That's compared to only 6% of sales for country albums.

•New physical formats are not doing well. Slot Music sales are averaging 1,500 albums per week while digital album cards are only moving 590 albums. Both formats are seriously declining.

•Through the first five months of this year, rock and alternative vinyl album sales have led the way, growing between 60% and 70% from last year. The real genre gains, percentage wise, has been in country and gospel where sales are up 200% from a year ago.




Vinyl Top Sellers for 2008

During 2008 there were just under 13,000 different LP's that sold at least one unit

There were nearly 400 LP's that sold 1,000 or more copies and this accounted for 50% of all vinyl sales in 2008

The top 10 artists based on LP sales sold 225,000 vinyl albums in 2008- 13% of all LP sales for the year

Vinyl Top Sellers - 2008

Radiohead - 61,200
Metallica - 39,500
Beatles - 20,400
Elliott Smith - 17,800
Bob Dylan - 15,200
Portishead - 15,100
Ryan Adams - 14,000
Coldplay - 13,900
Guns N Roses - 13,600
Neutral Milk Hotel - 13,200

Keyboardist Kooper Almost A Rolling Stone

Al Kooper told the British magazine Word that he had a little voice inside his head not to join the Rolling Stones. He was offered Mick Taylor's spot back in 1974 by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards but he turned it down over fear of the band's reputation.

"I had this flash that said, 'Don't do it, you'll never get on with Mick and Keith musically because you're heading in a different direction'. There's the thing. There's the crossroads. If I'd turned left I'd have been a multi-millionaire Rolling Stone...and dead."

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Supergrass members form band with Radiohead producer

Supergrass' Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey have joined forces with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich for a new side-project.

The trio are working on a covers album and record under the moniker The Hot Rats. They are working on songs by The Kinks, Gang Of Four, Syd Barrett, Roxy Music and the Sex Pistols.

The Hot Rats plan to release their debut album in the autumn.

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Bloc Party to release all-new single in August

'One More Chance' doesn't appear on any previous albums

Bloc Party are set to release a new single unavailable on any formats before on August 10.

Non-album track 'One More Chance' was recorded with producer Jacknife Lee, who produced the band's latest album, 2008's 'Intimacy', alongside Paul Epworth, and was mixed by Phillipe Zdar of Cassius.

=======================

Charlatans ponder special debut album gig

Tim Burgess wants to play 'Some Friendly' in its entirety

The Charlatans have revealed that they're considering playing a special gig to mark the 20th anniversary of their 1990 debut album 'Some Friendly'.

The band are hoping to play the album in its entirety providing singer Tim Burgess can persuade his bandmates.

He told Absolute Radio: "We are thinking about that [playing the album live]. It's kind of up in the air at the moment.

"Not everyone in the band wants to do it, it's very rarely that we all agree on everything."

The band are also lining up a special 20th anniversary edition of their debut - although they are yet to announce release details.

=======================

Santigold starts work on new album with Pharrell Williams

Singer hits the studio for new effort

Santigold has started work on the follow-up to her 2008 self-titled debut album with producer Pharrell Williams.

The singer told NYLON that she had enlisted Williams as well as Diplo and Switch, who worked on her debut, and rap/dance outfit Spank Rock on production duties on the album.

Classic Rock Videos

Alice Cooper - School's Out

Music News & Notes

Alice Cooper's Film Collection Found, But He Loses a Friend and Assistant

Alice Cooper has recovered his bag containing a 300+ collection of rare horror movies was turned in to the lost-and-found at London's Heathrow Airport.

Unfortunately, his archivist and personal assistant, Brian "Renfield" Nelson, has passed away suddenly. Nelson had been with Cooper since the early-80's and had been a collector of memorabilia since 1972. A statement on Cooper's website said:

It is with extreme sadness that we need to inform the community of Alice Cooper fans of the passing of Brian "Renfield" Nelson, Alice's long-time archivist and personal assistant. It was a sudden, completely unexpected, and untimely passing. We would appreciate it if you would keep him in your thoughts, appreciate his many contributions to Alice's life and career over the years, and respect Brian's privacy and the privacy of Alice and his extended family (at home and on tour) at this time.

Alice is currently on tour in Russia, because the show must go on, which is as Brian would have wanted it.

====================

New Zeppelin Book

A new book is scheduled for release in August that chronicles Led Zeppelin's final performances in the U.K. back in 1979. Then As It Was: Led Zeppelin At Knebworth 1979: 30 Years Gone has previously unpublished photos along with fan recollections of the August 4 and 11 shows. Look for it August 8.

====================

Pixies Put On A Show

The seminal band the Pixies took the stage at the Isle of Wight festivalon Sunday night, marking their first gig since wrapping up their 2004 reunion tour and its subsequent festival gigs in 2007.

Frank Black, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago and David Lovering treated the crowd to a nearly hour-and-a-half greatest-hits set that kicked off with “U-Mass” and featured “Debaser,” “Gouge Away” and “Gigantic” along with their cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Head On” and their version of Neil Young’s “Winterlong."

According to the NME, the show went off without a hitch, save for a moment when Black and Deal laughed off a mistake that ended “In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)” early. After Deal told Black he was supposed to scream on the track, he replied, “I haven’t screamed since about 1989″ and the band cracked up. The set ended with an aptly named song: B side “Into the White.”

In other news, all of the Pixies‘ studio records are being reissued in Limited Edition and Deluxe Edition box sets titled "Minotaur" that are scehduled for release on today. The sets — include the Come on Pilgrim EP (1987), Surfer Rosa (1988), Doolittle (1989), Bossanova (1990) and Trompe Le Monde (1991) — are being repackaged with the assistance of the two men responsible for art directing and shooting the photographs for the original albums, from Surfer Rosa’s iconic flamenco dancer to Trompe’s popping eyeballs: Vaughan Oliver and Simon Larbalestier.

For $175, the Deluxe Edition gives fans the five albums on a 24k layered CD and a Blu-ray for a total of five discs, plus a DVD of the band’s 1991 Brixton Academy gig (a year before their split) that also includes all their videos. The Deluxe Edition features additional artwork by Oliver and a 54-page book. The Limited Edition costs $450 and includes the entire Deluxe Edition plus all five albums on 180 gram vinyl, a Giclée print of Oliver’s artwork and a 72-page hardcover book. The Limited Edition comes with a slipcase, the Deluxe in a custom clamshell.

====================

Monsters Of Folk Release Debut September 22nd

Monsters of Folk - comprised of Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis, My Morning Jacket's Jim James and singer/songwriter M.Ward - will be releasing their first collaborative album on September 22nd. The self-titled effort was recorded in Malibu, CA, and Omaha, NE, and produced by Mike Mogis. Although these critically acclaimed artists have shared the stage before, this album marks their first recorded output as a band. The record will be released in North America on Shangri-La Music, and internationally on Rough Trade (UK/Europe), Spunk Records (Australia/New Zealand) and P-Vine Records (Japan).

This Date In Music History-June 15

Birthdays:

Billy Martin - Good Charlotte (1981)

Gary Lightbody - Snow Patrol (1976)

Dryden Vera Mitchell - Alien Ant Farm (1976)

Michael Britt – Lonestar (1966)

Steve Walsh – Kansas (1951)

Russell Hitchcock - Air Supply (1949)

Noddy Holder – Slade (1946)

Scott Rockenfield - Queensryche (1963)

Born on this day in 1943, Johnny Halliday, 'the French Elvis', major star in Europe. Jimmy Page, Peter Frampton and Foreigner's Mick Jones have played on his records.

Muff Winwood - Spencer Davis Group (1943) Became a producer and A&R man for Sony Records.

Nigel Pickering - Spanky And Our Gang (1929)

Ice Cube (1969)


They Are Missed:

Born today in 1941, Harry Nilsson, good friend of John Lennon. The Monkees, Three Dog Night & Ronettes all covered his songs. He died on January 15, 1994.

Jazz master Erroll Garner was born in 1921.

Born on this day in 1933, Country rebel Waylon Jennings. Jennings died on February 13, 2002.

In 1996, iconic jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald died in Beverly Hills, California at age 79. Winner of 13 Grammy Awards, the 1956 “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook” was the first of eight "Songbook" sets. Appeared in the TV commercial for Memorex, where she sang a note that shattered a glass while being recorded on a Memorex cassette tape. The tape was played back and the recording also broke the glass, asking "Is it live, or is it Memorex?"


History:

It was on this day in 1956 that John Lennon first met Paul McCartney at a church dinner in Liverpool, England. He invited McCartney to join his group the Quarrymen, and pop music was never the same again.

In 1966, the Beatles released their album Yesterday & Today, featuring the band wearing butcher's aprons on the front cover surrounded by decapitated baby dolls. Capitol Records quickly withdrew the sleeve, making it one of the most prized Beatles collectibles.

In 1963, Kyu Sakamoto started a three week run at #1 on the US singles chart with “Sukiyaki,” the first-ever Japanese song to do so.

In 1965, Bob Dylan recorded what would be his first ‘electric' hit, “Like A Rolling Stone” which peaked at #2 in the US and #4 in the UK.

In 1970, Jimi Hendrix spent his first day recording at Electric Ladyland in New York. Named after his 1968 album, the studio was designed according to his exact specifications.

Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods started a two week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1974 with the insipid “Billy Don't Be A Hero.” The song was a UK #1 for Paper Lace.

Hawkwind fired bassist Lemmy Kilmister in 1975 after he was mistakenly arrested for drug possession at the US/Canada border. Lemmy returned to the UK and formed Motorhead.

In 1976, the Sex Pistols recorded their first demos in Clapham's Majestic studios followed by a gig that night at The 100 club, London.

Dire Straits started a nine-week run at #1 on the US album chart in 1985 with “Brothers In Arms.”

Nirvana's debut album “Bleach” was released in 1989. The title for the album came from a poster 'Bleach Your Works' urging drug users to bleach their needles.

In 1987, Hipgnosis designer Storm Thorgerson photographed the cover of Pink Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason in Saunton Sands, England. He had 30 helpers move 800 rented beds onto the beach to shoot the album cover.

In 2002, a rare autographed copy of The Beatles’ album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band sold at auction for $57,800, more than five times the estimated price.

GEORGE HARRISON - Let It Roll

GEORGE HARRISON was the youngest Beatle, the gentle one, the most handsome.

As a songwriter, he was the "Dark Horse", living in the shadow of the towering Lennon-McCartney axis.

But the Fab Four guitarist spent the Sixties quietly honing writing skills which were to blossom spectacularly.

Three Beatles songs written by George during the latter stages of the band's career, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Something" and "Here Comes The Sun" are all-time classics.

And when they split, it was George who returned with probably the greatest solo album by an ex-Beatle - the sublime triple-vinyl LP All Things Must Pass.

Now, eight years after he died of cancer aged 58, the first retrospective collection spanning George's entire solo career is being released, right up to 2002's posthumous Brainwashed.

Read the rest of this review and interview here....fascinating stuff:
George Harrison

=========================================

Springsteen Blows Away Crowd At Bonnaroo

The Saturday night headliner at the Tennessee music festival, Bruce Springsteen, astonished the Bonnaroo crowd with a passionate three-hour performance set, offering sweat and rock 'n' roll to inspire, he said, in "hard times." It was a rare festival performance for Springsteen, who said it was only the second for him and the E Street Band.

His inexperience didn't show. After all, headlining Bonnaroo is only the third biggest concert Springsteen has played this year after the Super Bowl halftime show and President Barack Obama's inauguration.

Other acts Saturday included the Decemberists, Nine Inch Nails, the Mars Volta, Of Montreal, Raphael Saadiq, Booker T, Bon Iver, Robyn Hitchcock and Allen Toussaint, but it was "The Boss" that people were talking about.

Classic Rock Videos

Deep Purple - Hush!

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.






ALBUM REVIEW:
Miles Davis (reissue)
'Round About Midnight

Columbia/Speakers Corner CL 949 180g mono LP



Produced by: George Avakian
Engineered by: Frank Laico
Mixed by: Frank Laico
Mastered by: Maarten de Boer at UMG Berliner





Review by: Michael Fremer
2009-06-01


Miles Davis’s major label debut, recorded with his quintet in the fall of 1955 and late summer of 1956 while he was still under Prestige contract and released early in 1957, was not particularly well-received at the time, though it has grown considerably in stature since then.

Davis, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and “Philly Joe” Jones has been together as a group for over a year at this time, working both in the studio and in live performance. Miles had played the title track at Newport in 1955, rebounding from what the liner notes call a “health” problem, but which was an addiction to heroin that he kicked in 1953 or 1954.

The version of the gorgeous, bluesy Monk tune that opens and highlights the album both reprises the pensive, post-Bop sound of the earlier Birth of the Cool and was a harbinger of Miles to come. The opening bars, with Coltrane’s warm tenor wrapped around Davis’s jagged muted trumpet set a sublime tone for the tune and the album.

Though the 30th street studio recording is mono, great depth is produced, with Davis up front and the others cleanly layered behind. The second tune, Charlie Parker’s “Ah-Leu-Cha” is more standard uptempo hard-bop and the side closes with a stately version of the cool Cole Porter standard “All of You” that would be equally at home in a supper club as a jazz joint.

Side two opens with a pleasing, smoothly flowing but hardly memorable take on the standard “Bye, Bye Blackbird,” with Coltrane hinting at future harmonic and rhythmic strategies in his long, productive solo. Whatever Rudy Van Gelder’s legend, capturing a clean piano sound wasn’t among his strong suits, especially early on in his long career, so here, Red Garland’s piano, recorded by Frank Laico attains a welcome, woody clarity lacking on most of the Prestige Van Gelder sessions.

Compare Garland’s coherent, non-boxy sound on the suave, jumpy cover of Tadd Dameron’s “Tadd’s Delight” to any of the Prestige recordings.

The album ends with a swinging, unusual rendering of a Swedish folk song “Dear Old Stockholm,” featuring a nimble, driving Paul Chambers bass solo that’s also well recorded, particularly given the year, though otherwise there are hints of overload on a few peaks. Coltrane takes a long squiggly solo and Miles takes the melody back with an uncharacteristically complex muted trumpet solo and conclusion.

The reissue does an excellent job of capturing the original’s warm aura, particularly getting right the spacious echo behind Philly Joe’s brush work on “Bye Bye Blackbird.” The reissue is actually cleaner and more extended than the original and represents more of a clarification of it rather than a revision. Coltrane’s sax doesn’t quite have the body found on the original but you can’t have everything. And you can bet the reissue is quieter than most originals you might find. A nicely done AAA reissue.


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.

SOURCE: http://www.musicangle.com Reprinted By Permission


Pick up Michael's DVD's Here:

Vinyl Records Come In All Shapes & Sizes

Records come in all colors and various shapes and sizes. My love is the picture disc, some sound good, others not so much. However, some of these were manufactured to look at and to be collected. Let's look at some great looking vinyl shapes:






Talk Talk’s 1986 single Living In Another World features on their successful third album, The Colour of Spring. Despite being later celebrated for pioneering post-rock, the band were initially compared to Duran Duran. The Colour of Spring saw Talk Talk take a more experimental direction. This shaped single was strictly limited edition, available only in the UK.












Grace Jones's Party Girl, released in 1987 on Manhattan Records, is from the album Inside Story, the eighth by the Jamaican visionary. The single only reached No 82 in the UK charts, but was massive in the US dance scene.





















The rare glow-in-the-dark edition of Kraftwerk’s 1981 single Pocket Calculator came in a polythene picture cover that was issued in several different language editions – including the German version, Taschenrechner, and the French version, Mini Calculateur. It only reached No 39 in the UK charts, but the album it featured on, Computer World, charted at No 15















Marc Almond’s A Lover Spurned, released in 1990, only reached No 29 in the UK charts. But the artwork on this limited-edition single by notorious French artists Pierre et Gilles – most famous for their heavily stylized photography with Kylie and Madonna – makes it highly collectable. The song was a cover, originally sung by Gloria Jones in 1964

















Judy is a Punk was the first Ramones single to be released on saw-blade, the vinyl cut unique to German label, Musical Tragedies (MT). Other artists who’ve released things in saw-blade format include Mudhoney, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, Motörhead, Frank Zappa, Suicide and Can, among others. This split single, released in 2001, was shared with New York Dolls’ Human Being















Toto named themselves after the Latin phrase "in toto", meaning "completely" or "totally". Toto had huge success – releasing 19 albums and selling over 30m records worldwide. This shaped pressing of their 1982 single Africa was a UK limited edition, released by CBS Records

This Date In Music History-June 13

Birthdays:

James Carr - Country/soul star (1942)

Paul deLisle - Smash Mouth (1963)

Rivers Cuomo - Weezer (1970)

David Gray - UK singer, songwriter (1968)

Robbie Merrill – Godsmack (1963)

Rolf Brendel – Nena (1957)

Howard Lees – Heart (1951)

Dennis Locorriere - Dr Hook (1949)

Bobby Freeman (1940)


They Are Missed:


"King of Swing" Benny Goodman died from a heart attack in New York City in 1986 at the age of 77.




Born on this day in 1934, Uriel Jones, session drummer for Motown Records' in-house studio band, the Funk Brothers, during the 1960s and early 1970s. Died on March 24, 2009.

Clyde McPhatter, original lead vocalist with The Drifters, died of a heart attack in New York in 1972. Joined Billy Ward & the Dominoes in 1950, formed The Drifters in 1953, had several solo hits including 1962 “Lover Please,” was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.


History:

In 1924, Vernon Dalhart recorded "The Wreck of the Old '97," country music's first million-seller.

Louis Armstrong started a six week run at #1 on the US album chart in 1964 with “Hello Dolly!”

In 1995, Alanis Morissette released “Jagged Little Pill.” The album went on to sell over 30 million copies world-wide making Morissette the first female Canadian to score a US #1 album.

The Arctic Monkeys made their live debut in 2003 at The Grapes pub in Sheffield, England.

In 1970, Grand Funk Railroad, supported by Steel Mill, (featuring Bruce Springsteen) appeared at the Ocean Ice Palace in Bricktown, New Jersey, tickets $5.00.

The Beatles started a two week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1970 with “The Long And Winding Road,” the groups 20th US #1. The album “Let It Be” started a four-week run at #1 the US album chart on the same day.

John Lennon made his last ever TV appearance in 1975 we he appeared on “Salute To Sir Lew Grade,” performing “Slippin And Slidin,” and “Imagine.”

In 2005, Michael Jackson was cleared of all charges of child abuse by a jury of eight women and four men at the end of a 16-week hearing in Santa Maria, California. Jackson was found not guilty of all 10 charges including abusing a 13-year-old boy, conspiracy to kidnap and supplying alcohol to a minor to assist with a felony.

In 2008, a Chicago jury acquitted R Kelly of all 14 charges of child pornography against him. The US singer was found not guilty of making an explicit sex video that prosecutors had said showed him having sex with a girl as young as 13. Both Kelly and the alleged victim, now 23, denied they were the people shown on the tape, which the jury saw. The defense argued that the man in the tape did not have a large mole on his back as does Mr. Kelly, and that the tape could have been doctored.

In 1983, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble release their debut album, Texas Flood. By the end of the year, Vaughan wins Guitar Player magazine's awards for Best New Talent, Best Electric Blues Guitar Player, and Best Guitar Album - the first person to win all three awards since Jeff Beck in 1976.

Barry and Greenwich's "Chapel of Love," recorded by the Dixie Cups, and "Leader of the Pack," recorded by the Shangri-Las, reached #1 in 1964.

Metallica’s “St. Anger” debuts at #1 in 2003. The album’s release date was moved up to thwart bootleggers.

In 2006, Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and Mike Love, Beach Boys founders and survivors, appear together publically for the first time in 10 years to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the classic “Pet Sounds” album.

Classic Rock Videos

Deep Purple - Smoke on the water

Bird & Animal Names In Rock And Roll History- part seventeen

As we continue our series about “bird” and “animal” group names and people in rock and roll history, let’s explore some more ‘bird’ names.


Born in Wembley, a suburb of London, England in 1952, singer extraordinaire Maxine Nightingale is best known for her charted hits in the mid 70's. But Nightingale was just sixteen years old when she began singing in her school band and obviously enjoyed the spotlight. She quickly made the transition to a professional singer, even signing on with Pye Records, where she recorded four singles including, “Spinning Wheel,”“Don’t Push Me Baby” and 1971's “Love On Borrowed Time.”

But her big break came in the early 70's productions of “Jesus Christ Superstar,”“Hair” and “Godspell” as well as the critically acclaimed London play called “Savages.” After these highly successful gigs, she was paired with the song writing duo of J. Vincent Edwards and Pierre Tubbs in 1975.

She subsequently recorded the album called “Right back Where We Started From,” in 1976 which yielded a Top Ten Billboard hit with the title song (the song peaked at number eight on the UK Singles Chart). Other Top 40 Billboard hits ensued, including the song “Love Hits Me” (number eleven in the UK in 1977) and a soulful rendition of the Delfonic’s hit entitled “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time),” which was a staple at the dance clubs in the UK.

In 1979, Nightingale released the album “Lead Me On” and the title track provided the singer with another Billboard Top Ten hit (number five in May of 1979 and the cut was on the charts for an impressive twenty-three weeks). The song also spent seven weeks at the top position on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary Charts. She had one other charted single, 1979's song called “(Bringing Out) The Girl In Me.”

Nightingale released one album a year (1975-1980) until she decided to retire from recording, although while compiling a greatest hits album in 1982, she teamed up with Jimmy Ruffin to produce a Top 40 Billboard R&B hit entitled “Turn To Me.” The eclectic singer continues to perform her music worldwide and has recently recorded a jazz CD, appeared in the PBS music special called “My Music” and has shared the stage with the likes of Santana, the Commodores, Lionel Richie and many more prominent musicians.

The eclectic pop songs of a band called Babybird first surfaced in 1995 when prolific singer/songwriter Steven Jones assembled more than twenty songs from his plethora of home recordings and released an album entitled “I Was Born A Man” in October of 1995.

Being urged on by friends and family, Jones sent out the homemade tapes of Babybird to record companies, but the music was rejected. However, Chrysalis Music offered a publishing deal that Jones accepted, applying the earnings toward the financing of a series of independent, limited-edition collections.

The first release (the previously mentioned “I Was Born A Man”), was quickly followed by the albums “Bad Shave” (October 1995), “Fatherhood” (January 1996), and “Happiest Man Alive” in March of 1996. Sounding a bit like Echo & the Bunnymen, U2 and Robyn Hitchcock, Babybird was able to secure a small, but loyal fan base. Even with his primitive “home recordings,” Jones’ demo tapes were full of genuine, expertly crafted pop songs as he adeptly mixed rich-textured guitars with psychedelia and Dylanesque lyrics.

Following the success of these releases, Jones assembled a band (1995) in order to tour and promote his work. The band was subsequently signed to Echo Records (a division of the Chrysalis Group) and in 1996 the band released the album called “Ugly Beautiful.” The release included a full-band recording of the cut “Goodnight” (which had originally appeared on the album “Fatherhood” as well as the single “You’re Gorgeous” (which peaked at number three in the U.K. and is the song Babybird is most associated with). Other significant cuts were “Candy Girl” and “Cornershop.”

The band released “There’s Something Going On” in 1998, which produced minor hits with the songs “If You’ll Be Mine” and “Back Together.” In 2000, Babybird released the album entitled “Bugged,” that although was well-received critically, sales of the release were poor. The singles “The F-Word” and “Out Of Sight” failed to make an impact on the charts. Babybird was then dropped by their record label and the band split up.

Steven Jones went on to write fiction and continued to release solo efforts. In 2005, a post on the official Babybird website announced that the band had reformed and a new album called “Between My Ears There Is Nothing But Music” was released in 2006.

Besides being the name of Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band, there was another band that called themselves the Hawks. In 1979, a singer named Frank Wiewel had recorded some tracks and it was his wife that insisted that these songs were good enough to be sent out to major record labels. Columbia Records A&R man Paul Atkinson (a former member of the 60's group the Zombies) heard one of Wiewel’s covers called “Tell Her No;” which had been a major hit for his former group and he quickly fell in love with the version and expedited the demo to Greg Geller, head of A&R at Columbia records.

Coincidently, around the same time, Capitol Records A&R man Bobby Colomby (a former drummer for Blood, Sweat & Tears) also expressed interest in Wiewel. But, both major record companies wanted to see the band perform live. Trouble was there was no band, just a collection of Wiewel’s studio recordings. The band, the Hawks, was formed with the acronym formed by the first letters of the last names of the members in the band. The band was Dave Hearn, Larry Adams, Frank Wiewel, Kirk Kaufman and Dave Steen.

The quickly formulated band then played live for both Columbia and capitol Records, ultimately signing a contract with Columbia Records in 1980. With producer Tom Werman (who also produced Cheap Trick, Ted Nugent, Molly Hatchet among others) at the helm, the Hawks self-titles debut album was released in 1981. Two singles from the album charted including the cut “Right Away” (which reached number sixty-three on the Billboard Hot 100) and the cut “It’s All Right, It’s OK,” which secured the number thirty-two position on the Billboard mainstream Rock charts.

The band released two more albums, 1982's “30 Seconds Over Ortho” and the album entitled “Perfect World Radio” in 2003 which is a 16 song collection of songs that, mostly, represent their unreleased 3rd album and a handful of demos of some of their classic songs. As is the case for many of the great lost '80s albums, promotion of the group’s sound was nonexistent and they failed to sell records. When none of the band’s albums set the charts on fire, Columbia let the band go and they split up. However, most of the members of the band have been active in the music business since their disbandment. (see Tidbits below).

We will continue with our series next week!

Maxine Nightingale Tidbits:

Continuing to perform live, Nightingale's focus shifted through the 1980s and 1990s from disco and pop to sultry, smoky jazz.

She appears in the PBS music special My Music, alongside Patti LaBelle, the Commodores, Heatwave and many more. Her song, "Right Back Where We Started From", has appeared in numerous films including Slap Shot; Yours, Mine and Ours; Starsky and Hutch, The Family Stone and when couples reunite during Wife Swap.

As of February 2008, Nightingale was touring all parts of Australia to perform her 1970s hits.


Babybird Tidbits

In the years that followed, Jones returned to where he had started - releasing albums of demos (under his own name) to a small but appreciative audience. This time he also produced two albums of instrumental music designed to help him develop a career in film music. "Stephen Jones 1985-2001" was released in 2001, and "Plastic Tablets" came out in 2003. Stephen also created the soundtrack for the film Blessed in 2004.

Jones also released a new solo project entitled "Death of the Neighbourhood," which was released on November 10, 2008 on ATIC Records. The album features "Cokeholes,” which was released as a three track single on October 27, 2008.

Stephen Jones has produced two works of fiction, “The Bad Book” in 2000 and “Harry and Ida Swop Teeth” (also the title of a Babybird b-side) in 2003. He’s also collaborated with DED Associates, who have designed many of his CD covers, on a 2000 art book Travel Sickness.


Hawks Tidbits:

Dave Steen is a successful songwriter. His songs have been recorded by Ringo Starr, Maria Muldaur, Coco Montoya, Soloman Burke, James Cotton, Junior Wells, Son Seals and many other blues/R&B artists. He lives in Lincoln, Neb.

Kirk Kaufman is owner and chief engineer/producer at Junior’s Motel Recording Studio (formerly West Minist’r Sound).

Frank Wiewel is founder of People Against Cancer, an international non-profit public interest group to help people with cancer find the best cancer treatment worldwide.

Dave Hearn is owner of Silhouette Multimedia, a company that delivers his services as a performer, composer, arranger and produce of music for film and video.

Larry Adams is a drummer and contractor in Leander, Texas.