Having taken the time to rummage through 1,000 previous posts as I did last week, one thing has become apparent: I've COMPLETELY lost the plot to this whole endeavor.
But found a different one I didn't anticipate.
At the outset, the pipe dream was pretty standard—your one stop for vinyl news and reviews coupled with some personal anecdotes. Y’ know, the obvious bullshit. And I guess it could have been great if say, there weren’t a zillion of those sites out there doing just fine, thank you.
So it veered off somehow—less emphasis on the regular stuff and more toward the personal which seems to have struck a chord and resonated somehow. MY bullshit was more interesting than the regular bullshit. Who knew?
But as TVD’s grown in readership and expanded, I’ve sensed a disconnect—the general and personal are at odds and often clash here in tone and substance. The source material’s more the EXPERIENCE rather than the literalness of the vinyl medium for example, and mining that resource is finite. AND one note. (Mine.)
So, I’ll reiterate a plea to all of you reading this in your office cubicle today—share YOURS. Write here. Yes, this spot – (here.) Because I’m frequently told that it’s not the stuff we give away daily, the Mp3’s or the tickets or vinyl that keep some coming back, it’s the personal bent on what could have easily been distant and merely informative in substance and in subject that has ultimately resonated beyond what I assumed at the outset.
It’s a niche which I easily didn’t expect, but welcome nonetheless.
I’ll keep ticking away here daily, but know there’s a forum for you to upchuck whatever’s burning in there.
...that said, back to Lake Me.
My parents' dog Pete has come to live with us in TVD HQ. You’d be surprised at how much of the day unfolds before you among four walks daily. It’s grand indeed, the prattling of the brain and music recalled while you’re scooping poop.
We should take a walk.
The Blue Nile - A Walk Across The Rooftops (Mp3)Queen - Funny How Love Is (Mp3)The Plimsouls - Lost Time (Mp3)Wilco - Impossibly Germany (Mp3)Post Post - Sober (Mp3)
...the one thousand post mark (...AND some serious symptoms of carpel tunnel. Ow.)
To celebrate this slightly auspicious milestone, we’ve got six of DC’s hottest bands who’ll be up in NYC next week, gigging and partying at CMJ.
We corralled them the same way the folks at CMJ did— through their Sonicbids accounts—and all were pleased as punch to send us the low down on where they’re buying their own records from in the District o’ Columbia:
True WomanhoodWe are big fans of Crooked Beat in Adams Morgan. From the extensive show fliers and bulletin boards by the door to the prime placement of local artists in their record racks, Crooked Beat makes it clear that they are invested in the DC music scene.True Womanhood - Magic Child (Mp3)True Womanhood - Dignitas (Mp3)(The brand new, as in released yesterday, digital EP.)
Title TracksMy favorite record store in the D.C.-area is Joe's Record Paradise out in Rockville. It's the largest vinyl selection by far and the prices are generally low. It's a very rare occasion for me to leave there disappointed. It's inevitable that I wind up having to put records back 'cause I've pulled so many and I'm going to wind up spending way too much if I don't rein it. A big part of what I like about the store is the variety that is found along with their depth. I've found gems in every section (rock, jazz, soul, easy listening, soundtracks, country, folk, etc.)
Middle Distance RunnerRed Onion in Adams Morgan is a favorite of ours. It's a little walk-in basement place with a lot of cool, obscure stuff but also a good selection of affordable vinyl. The staff is friendly and helpful, and they let you leave out your own free CDs to promote shows, which a lot of record stores won't let you do.Middle Distance Runner - The Fury (Mp3)
U.S. RoyaltyWe love Som Records on 14th St in DC. Neal Becton has some choice selections and it's got a cool vibe there. The owner also does a Brazilian night at the bar next door and his music taste is impeccable.
These United StatesSadly now closed, my favorite record store in the DC area was Orpheus Records in Arlington - not the coolest place nor the place to find the record to impress your hip friends. Just a massive amount of pristine classic jazz and rock records and an equally knowledgeable staff. When I first moved to DC and started buying records, it was one of the few places I never left empty handed.
BellflurOur first is Joe's Record Paradise in Rockville, MD. We love it because of the number of years that its been in business (approximately 30) and it remains this hidden gem of dusty vinyls and incredible rare finds. Also, its really close to the warehouse where we rehearse and record and develop the visual aspects and samples for our show. Old vinyl is just an inspirational medium in its own right.
However, since Joe's is up in Rockville, our go to place in the District is Crooked Beat. I discovered this shop shortly after I moved back to dc in 2001, and I immediately liked its aesthetic in comparison to the neighborhood in which it resides. Adam's Morgan is lively and diverse, sure... but I like that this viable, but overlooked medium is right under the noses of masses of people who couldn't be bothered with a music format if it's not quickly accessible and downloadable. The selection is great. The atmosphere is cozy. And the staff is always on top of their game.Bellflur - Gray Sparkle Finnish Pigs (Mp3)---------
Now, you’d think after traipsing through the TVD archives this week, something OTHER than vinyl, or music even, is at work here daily. Well, not so.
From the core, it all goes back to:Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (Mp3)Mott The Hoople - The Golden Age Of Rock N' Roll (Mp3)David Essex - Rock On (Mp3)Death - Rock 'n Roll Victim (Mp3)Thin Lizzy - The Rocker (Mp3)The Vaselines - I Didn't Know I Loved You ('Til I Saw You Rock 'n' Roll) (Live) (Mp3)Paul Collins' Beat - Rock 'n Roll Girl (Mp3)The Kinks - A Rock 'n Roll Fantasy (Mp3)Nick Gilder - Rockaway (Mp3)The Replacements - Rock 'n Roll Ghost (Mp3)
From the 'Hey, I thought this blog was about VINYL?!' file comes this last retrospective look back at previous posts as we approach 1,000 posts. (Which happens uh, later today...)(First posted Tuesday, August 11, 2009.)Throughout her life, my mom has been a wonderful pianist. Entirely self taught and without the ability to read music, she could listen to most pieces and in moments play it back for you almost verbatim. It’s a skill she seemingly had to pick up as her father, a violinist and concert organizer, forestalled my mother’s desire to study and participate in the classical ensembles he’d put together each weekend in the family’s home in Newark, New Jersey.
And my mother never got over it. I think she’d say her father’s grand ego and perhaps chauvinism on some level was the mitigating factor, so mom set out on her own and in the 1940’s and ‘50’s joined various USO groups and began writing music for live, staged performances to welcome soldiers home from the war and those who’d later shuffle on off to further conflicts.
I of course didn’t know my mom in this guise—her musical endeavors having been set aside to raise two kids later on. But oh, the house was full of music daily and her weekend piano performances quite literally could be heard through the neighborhood. And it seems, even up until recently at 84, she was serenading the aides who’d come in three times daily to tend to her and make her meals. I’d hear quite often, “Jon – your mother is SUCH a wonderful piano player...” I’d nod and agree as I’ve heard this all of my life. Self taught, never read music.
In her absence last week, I sat at her baby grand which has followed her throughout her entire life. It’s been well maintained and the innards have been rebuilt many times over and it still rings pitch-perfect.
There was a notebook on top of the piano that I started to flip through and the header on the very first page took me back a bit. In my mother’s oddly singular longhand, she had begun the page with “Memory Lapses.” What followed was an enumeration of things she’d forgotten—some were merely actor’s names or songwriters of popular standards or movie titles. This list grew longer and longer as it became clear she was adding to it over time.
Most surprising however was that, with exacting detail amidst cross-outs and erasures, she’d begun to transcribe all the songs she knew by memory into basic scales and keys with the accompanying lyrics. Page after page, each one marginally less focused than the last until nothing was left but empty white lined pages in her notebook.
Responsibilities we understand, the body fitfully performs.The Kinks - Catch Me Now I'm Falling (Mp3)The Bolshoi - Happy Boy (Mp3)The Vapors - News At Ten (Mp3)The Blow Monkeys - The Bullet Train (Mp3)The Monkees - Pleasant Valley Sunday (Mp3)
The rummage through our back pages continues this morning with a rummage...outdoors:(First Posted on Monday, February 9, 2009.)This past December, under the guise of a little experiment here at TVD, I wrote that I, you, we spend an inordinate amount of time by ourselves in our daily lives performing those basic, mundane tasks that are the essence of being human--showering, brushing one's teeth, taking out the garbage...the list goes on.
In my teen years which are normally the most social of times, it seemed I'd go out of my way to retire to solitude after school and most oddly on the weekends. I wasn't a loner by any real stretch of the imagination...just sorta' kept to myself with the outlets being drawing and reading, for example. The major outlet however was: music.
I was reminded recently about "Things from England," Scott "The Professor" Muni's Friday afternoon 4-6PM radio show on New York City's WNEW-FM. I'd tape the entire show and later, on walks outside by myself or with the family dog, boom-box in tow, would listen to the program back as Scottso's voice boomed off homes braced for winter weather, buttressed by tall snow drifts that I never seem to experience any longer.
There's a quiet solitude within this winter weather I recall quite fondly when I'd head outdoors into the snow for a long walk around the block or up the hill where we'd sleigh-ride ...but long after everyone had gone home. Bathed in purple/orange streetlight--that was the place for me. And "The "Professor."
This week we're gonna go on some of those walks again with some of the music that, for good or for bad, became the soundtrack...The Fixx - Stand Or Fall (Mp3)The Fixx - Red Skies (Mp3)The Fixx - Cameras In Paris (Mp3)The Fixx - I Live (Mp3)The Fixx - The Strain (Mp3)
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."
(First posted on Friday, July 25, 2008.)In the summer of '84, my Aunt Gerry and her husband, my Uncle "Turk", came to stay with us for two weeks...which JUST so happened to coincide with a new found fondness for slipping out the door and around the house for a puff or twelve.
My folks were a known commodity...I was in sync with their schedules, knew their patterns, and 99% of the time no one was the wiser. Gerry, bless her with her white zinc'd nose and terrycloth beach hat, was another story. Her patterns were erratic--one moment she's sunning herself out on the deck, another moment she's mixing whiskey sours. What to make of this? I was forced to wait it out til things settled down. And wait. And wait...
I count some of my finest moments on earth to be those when finally the lights went out and I snuck out into the simmering summer. Alone with the crickets and the fireflies in the purple light...y'know--thinking things over for the first time. I'd have played all these songs waiting for this moment and when slipping back in and returning to the same playlist, they sounded all that much better.
Gerry and Turk are both gone now and yet I think of that summer as the Last Great Summer when I had nothing but time to just...wait...things...out.Echo & the Bunnymen - The Killing Moon (Mp3)The Lotus Eaters - The First Picture Of You (Mp3)Seona Dancing - More To Lose (Mp3)Tears For Fears - Watch Me Bleed (Mp3)Style Council - You're The Best Thing (Mp3)
Vulture tears:(First posted Friday, November 2, 2007.)I'm sitting behind a drum kit that's littered with hay in the upstairs of a huge open air barn. To the left of me, the rolling hills of Virginia are blanketed in orange. We've just had a blistering rehearsal. I mean, it's really beginning to gel after all the months of practice. The new rhythm guitarist is fitting in perfectly and hell, with a practice space like this he could be just awful and I'd have him in. 
Then ye olde bomb drops -- the front man and songwriter is moving to Finland to be with his girlfriend. "I'm getting too f'n old for this, man" I guessed, breaking down my gear. "Sci Fi Lullabies" was the soundtrack for that drive through the quiet, tense countryside back home to DC -- Fall, 1997.
And actually, he's still in Finland.Suede - My Dark Star (Mp3)Suede - The Living Dead (Mp3)Suede - Where The Pigs Don't Fly (Mp3)Suede - Killing Of A Flash Boy (Mp3)Suede - Every Monday Morning Comes (Mp3)
If the saying is true that the ‘unexamined life is not worth living,’ then it certainly can be said that the unexamined blog’s not worth reading. Or something like that, right?
I was pleasantly surprised last week upon taking note of the fact that TVD’s closing in on 1,000 posts.
ONE THOUSAND. (That’s a whole lotta red wine.)
But seriously, it’s an odd achievement in hindsight. Where did all of this come from? How was all of this cobbled together?
I mean, I KNOW...I was there and wrote the stuff alongside contributors from time to time...yet I’m still shaking my head. And to think I complained often before TVD that I had no free time...
This week: a retrospective stroll through the TVD back pages—for myself and perhaps you as a new or recent reader—as we inch ever closer to that 1,000 post mark.
Up first, babysteps: (First posted Monday, September 17, 2007.)Here it is folks, the first LP I ever purchased.
Sometime back at the start of this blog, I wrote about this Beatles reissue LP which also happened to be the first record I ever bought, way back in '76. It seems that once The Beatles contract with E.M.I. expired on February 6th 1976, E.M.I. had the rights to release any of The Beatles previously released recordings. This double set was the first album release where E.M.I. exerted that total control.
Researching this release over the weekend, I came across this commentary, "As with the "Red" and "Blue" albums, the presentation of this package was once again diabolical. The artwork was awful, no "special" tracks, no lyrics, no coloured bags, nothing. In fact, John had actually written to E.M.I. offering a design, and was not at all impressed with E.M.I.'s refusal and the finished product. The art direction was by Roy Kohara, and the amateurish drawings were by Ignacio Gomez."
Man, I couldn't disagree more. Perhaps it's just dewy-eyed nostalgia, but I think the art is quite wonderful and well rendered. The front cover likenesses are spot on (ok, Ringo looks a little dodgy) but otherwise a great package. I dig the hands holding the record too -- a design nuance that has lingered in my brain for all this time.
Most of all though, I vividly recall going to the aforementioned Two Guys in Neptune, New Jersey with my dad to buy this record. "Got to Get You into My Life" was the "new" single from this collection and I was enthralled -- I had mowed the lawn just enough to save the cash, and with the requisite hole burned clear through my pocket, we headed out to buy this thing. What a day. I literally can even recall what the new vinyl and the printed cover smelled like when the outer plastic was removed.
Seems some things you just never forget.
Which is why I had been recalling this trip to the Two Guys in 1976 over the past weekend. Dad passed away one year ago today. I find myself typing at the same desk where this day last year my cell rang to let me know dad had lost the month-long battle with pneumonia. Talk about going numb. The sensation was ten gazillion alarms going off in your head...a paralyzing disorientation. And loss.
Those alarms over the past year have seemingly popped off one by one. Time they say, at 33, 45 or 78 RPMs is a healer, and it's true. You move back into the routine, you're cracking jokes again and meeting the boys at the bar for drinks. But there's a deeper undercurrent to the memories that ultimately comprise just who the hell you are. Music, the old records on the shelf are imbued with a notch in the psyche, a clear bookmark of a place and time.
Which is frankly, why I thought to start this blog -- to recall mine and perhaps ignite those recollections for whoever cares to read and recall their own. And to give dad a shout-out for encouraging his kid to just be himself and follow his interests. He'd say, "Hey kid, it's your money" or when I cut my own hair in a Bono-like mullet, he said "It's your hair, kid. You wanna look that way, fine."
Forgive me if I think he was just the best dad a kid could have. For these things and so, so much more.H. P. M.21 March 1930—18 September 2006The Beatles - Got To Get You Into My Life (Mp3)The Beatles - Hey Bulldog (Mp3)The Beatles - Twist and Shout (Mp3)
Jeff from AM, Then FM delves into his stack of 70's LPs, all Rocktober-like:Heard it’s Rocktober here at TVD. Figured I’d dig through the ‘70s vinyl to find something that rocks. Or once rocked.
Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s first album, “Bachman-Turner Overdrive,” was released on May 17, 1973. Most of the tunes on this record are familiar, but only two were released as singles. The modest success of this record – it went gold in 1974 – was driven by album cuts played on free-form FM radio and the huge success of the singles that followed from later albums.
I’ve come to accept C.F. Turner’s rugged bellowing on most BTO vocals, as well as Robbie Bachman’s stomping drumming. It’s always been about the guitars anyway. On this record, it’s Randy Bachman on lead, Tim Bachman on rhythm and Turner on bass.
The best part of “Hold Back The Water” comes at 2:25, when a long guitar instrumental bridge kicks in. There’s a variety of styles, including some nice wah-wah guitar at 3:40. This was the flip side to BTO’s fine first single, “Blue Collar,” in 1973.
“Little Gandy Dancer” is a nice roadhouse rocker written and sung by Randy Bachman. It’s one of those tunes about a woman who’s too much woman. There’s a little bit of Chuck Berry in this one – a little guitar being played like ringing a bell. This was the flip side to the “Gimme Your Money Please” single later in 1973.
“Down And Out Man” is a bit of a rarity, co-written and sung by Tim Bachman. It sounds a little bit like something the Stones might have done. Depending on which story you believe, in 1974 Tim Bachman either quit the band or was thrown out because he just wasn’t good enough to be in BTO.Bachman-Turner Overdrive - Hold Back The Water (Mp3)Bachman-Turner Overdrive - Little Gandy Dancer (Mp3)Bachman-Turner Overdrive - Down and Out Man (Mp3)
Washington, DC’s own The Kora Records recently wrote us in regard to their new signing, London’s Stricken City who personally ensnared me right away with name checks such as The Slits and Life Without Buildings. (I mean, THAT’S refreshing.)
The notoriously fickle UK press has been gushing one better:"If this was the early 80s, Stricken City would be label-mates of Orange Juice, as this mini-album features eight of the the prettiest, shambling C86 style pop nuggets since the Postcard era. Intentionally angular and amateurish, Pull The House Down, Five Metres Apart and Killing Time offer skittish, playful guitar lines, fidgety bass and one finger keyboards, all deliciously cut with Rebekah Raa's striking, spectral chirrup, which is more than a little reminiscent of Sugacubes-era Bjork. With gawky, naive charm in abundance, this will be an album to make many a student sigh dreamily as they lovingly scrawl 'I HEART STRICKEN CITY' onto their pencil cases in Tippex."
—NME (8/10)
"In those innocent days before Pro Tools, click tracks and laptop recordings, the eighties produced a generation of studenty bands with a simple DIY ethic and only rudimentary musical skills who strummed away on effect-free jangly guitars and a simple hi-hat and snare rhythm. Stricken City are a splendid throwback to more innocent times where enthusiasm and the joy of being in a band counted for everything. Thankfully they also have some jolly tunes to back it up. Formed in the Midlands and now based in London, the quartet is fronted by the jittery, just-got-out-of-bed-haired goddess Rebekah Raa."
—Q MagazineThe band’s collaborated on tales of their collective history for TVD:"The SC have been through 3 drummers, 4 bassists and 2 keyboard players. It took us 3 years to get our act together and put our first record out and longer to actually settle on a band line up that worked. Now we are Rebekah, Iain, Mike and Kit and we're pretty happy this way. It's 13 months since someone left the band which I think is a record.
We're finally getting round to be productive, we have our first long player out now and plan to put out a cassette at Christmas, another EP early next year and another album in the Spring. We have songs and plans.When we first started people said we sounded a bit like The Slits and Life Without Buildings. We'd never properly listened to those bands so we did and they were good and we took it as a compliment. People also said we were like Siouxsie and The Banshees, we've still not really listened to them but I heard 'Hong Kong Garden' on the radio and it was pretty good.
'Pull the House Down' is the newest song on the new record and probably our favorite, we wrote it in one practice and recorded it a week later. 'Five Metres Apart' is the oldest song on the record, it's over 4 years old. This goes back to the bit I wrote early about starting to be productive. It's a big deal for us.Our newest song is called 'Animal Festival' and it might be our best, but all bands say there new song is the best so take that how you want to." Stricken City - Pull The House Down (Mp3)Stricken City will be playing four shows in NYC at CMJ between October 20-24. Check the festival guide for venues and times.
Having taken the time to rummage through 1,000 previous posts as I did last week, one thing has become apparent: I've COMPLETELY lost the plot to this whole endeavor.
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