Here at THE VINYL DISTRICTwe're good consumers. All Mp3's are posted to promote and give exposure to the music and are linked for a limited time. Please download to preview, then head promptly to your local vinyl vendor (or - OK, CD store too) and fork over your hard earned cash. You'll appreciate the piece of mind.
Got something you think we should be listening to or reading? thevinyldistrict (at) gmail.com
Remember 'Hurricane' with Denzel Washington? Well, there was this whole concept of "sometimes the book finds you." I feel like the angel of fate placed its hands on some 45s and sent them my way. Sometimes you get the feeling, and although you may know nothing, and all you gotta do is reach down, pick it up, take it home and baby it's you. These all came from a junk/western wear store in Corydon, Indiana.
Arthur Lee - "Everybody's Gotta Live" | Love is one of my favorite bands, but I've never really gone beyond "Forever Changes." This is from an Arthur solo album "Vindicator" released in '72. Arthur's screams kill me every time I put this one on. Was he reading Janov at the time? Do you think Lennon was jealous?
Jive Five - "Rain" | I really dig songs about rain. I really dig falsetto and heavy call back harmonies. You can really nail this one in the shower. In the 80's Nickelodeon hired the re-formed Jive Five to do some jingle work. "Nic Nic Nic Na Nic Nic Nic.... Nickaaaalooddeeaaawn!"
The Castells - "Echoes" | Love songs. This one's a little on the lite side, but sometimes you do need something to play for the grandparents.
The Casuals - "Hello, Love" | Sounds a lot like the Everlys. And I'm okay with that.
The Sopwith Camel - "Postcard from Jamaica" | The Sopwith Camel, was originally a World War I fighter plane that shot down more enemy aircraft than any other British planes. The band was the first from the San Fran scene to have a top 40 hit. Unfortunately they didn't make it past 67. Surrealistic Pillow may have sold more, but at least the Camel didn't try to convince the world they were the ones who built the city on rock and roll.
Nilsson - "I'll Be Home" | Nilsson singing Newman. I put this on when I want people to shut up. But in a good way.
Jets Overhead frontwoman, Antonia Freybe-Smith counts us off in 3's:
"I feel like I can describe my love affair with vinyl in 3 parts...
Part 1: Young girl of 12 discovers her parents abandoned LP collection in the strange-smelling cupboard of the rarely-used den of her parents strange house. Nana Mouskouri. The Mammas and the Papas. Simon and Garfunkel. West Side Story soundtrack. etc. Young girl is intrigued and digs out her Mickey Mouse record player so she can listen to the LP's in the privacy of her own room. The Mickey Mouse player is small (meant for playing bright blue Disney 45's) so her parents giant black LP's hang over the edge but still play fine. The young girl finds this set-up funny and charming and listens to the records over and over, then forgets about it when she gets her first Sony Sport Walkman, the red one, for Christmas.
Part 2: Young woman of 18 is spending a lazy Sunday with her awesome roommates perusing all the Victoria garage sales while they should be back a their cozy old house studying away. They find a record player, 2 decent speakers and 3 large boxes of LP's sitting off in a corner at a sweet garage sale on Moss Street. They snatch up the whole kit n' caboodle, and are quite tickled by some of the many gems they find in the 3 boxes (Bruce Springsteen Live Boxset 1975-85!!!!!). They enjoy a hip phase of record playing at their cozy house...but unfortunately abandon the player and the LP collection to other roommates when they graduate and scatter off to the wind in search of adventure and purpose (as one tends to do after spending a shitload on a University degree and then feeling rather lost afterwards).
Part 3: Slightly older young woman of 29 is recording the overdubs for her band's new record in downtown Victoria at an old brick building recently vacated by a local radio station. A relaxed, unhurried employee of the station is clearing out the last of the radio gear as we start our overdubs in a small studio in the building. The unhurried employee encourages us to take whatever we want when we inquire after all the leftover stuff. The slightly older young woman and her handsome husband/bandmate, Adam, proceed to unscrew a record player from one of the old booths, and remove a bunch of the hanging speakers. It isn't until the end of the overdub sessions that the slightly older young girl and her cool-as-a-cucumber producer, Neil Osborne, discover a small, windowless roomed crammed with LP's. Floor to ceiling shelves full of vinyl, organized alphabetically and in perfect condition (except for Dj notes next to the song listings - ie. written in pen next to the song Hotel California: "single?"). The slightly older young woman and cool as a cucumber producer go crazy like two kids in a candy store and walk out each night of those last days of overdubs with their arms ladened with sweet records. Beach Boys. Sergio Mendes. Dire Straits. Shirley Horne. The Glenn Miller Orchestra. Sinatra. CSNY. Pink Floyd. Bob Marley. Bach. A Nat King Cole record that the slightly older young girl ends up listening to over and over and over as if she's in a trance. So the slightly older young girl and her handsome husband/bandmate fall back in love with vinyl. They start buying new records on vinyl. They have big grins on their faces when their band's own record is pressed on vinyl. Slightly older young girl presents her band's LP to her parents who congratulate her proudly and then proceed to place it carefully in a strange-smelling cupboard in the rarely-used den of their strange house." —Antonia Freybe-Smith
One thing's for certain, around these parts if there's a 'blog takeover' we've got some stuff to give away—and the Darlins have indeed hooked us up. I'm going to quote a bit here from the press release first:
Those Darlins return from the wilds of Middle Tennessee with the brand new “Night Jogger/Funstix Party” 7” which offers just a taste of the gritty, rock 'n' roll direction these three mouthy ladies—plus one smirking drummer—are taking. Fans are hungry for more music after the band’s critically acclaimed debut, and Those Darlins will be supporting this 7” with an extensive headlining tour w/The Strange Boys, Gentleman Jesse & His Men, Turbo Fruits, The Soft Pack and Black Lips, including a performance at ACL Fest.
This southern garage rock band set out in 2006 to get folks off with their rowdy, cheerfully sarcastic, booze-fueled show. Where classic pop meets garage rock, with a telltale country drawl, Those Darlins' curious mix makes them one of a kind, eliciting queer comparisons like, "The Carter Family meets The Black Lips."
In 2009, the girls toured feverishly around their critically acclaimed debut, playing 140 shows and sharing the stage with the likes of King Khan & BBQ Show, Dan Auerbach (of The Black Keys), Deer Tick, Wanda Jackson, and MAN MAN. They made huge waves not sucking at SXSW, Bonnaroo, and Garage Fest. 2010 has already been full, with a Eastern headlining tour selling out many cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, St. Louis, Louisville, Birmingham, Nashville, and more.
We've got a pair of tickets for Wednesday night's Darlins show at the Black Cat (with Strange Boys and Gentleman Jesse & His Men) and the “Night Jogger/Funstix Party” 7” for one winner who suitably convinces us in the comments to this post that he or she should be the rightful owner of both the tickets and the 7." We'll choose one winner at 3 PM this Wednesday, the afternoon before the show. Get a move on and remember to leave us a contact email address!
Yes, we know you like to say that, but where did you grow up?
Question: Ok, sure we get it, you spend a lot of time on youtube, but are there other relevant websites you troll? What do they teach you about your life, career choices, financial future? Answer.
Question: "Jump Back Jake" is both your name as a person on Earth but also refers to the 4-piece band that records together and plays "gigs." Are you the leader? How does the band make decisions? When you make "final calls" that will make/break the future of the band, how do you find solutions to the "tough problems?" Answer.
Question: A lot of your recent material like "King of Romance" and "Call Me Your Man" deals with love and relationships. Do you find that people hear these bleak songs about your life and feel they need to "give you advice" about how to be happy in your life and find a suitable mate that will make you feel complete for your whole life? Who's advice do you take? Answer.
Question: We noticed that all of the answers to the previous questions were links to Amazon.com order forms. Why did you (if inadvertently) endorse them as the #1 retailer of digital music when itunes is clearly lapping them? Answer.
Question: This whole "only answering questions with links thing is a little cute and maybe a little antagonistic/condescending considering we are buying you lunch (do you always order a double scotch with your vegan burrito at 1pm?) and that you are sitting at the same table with us. But we understand that speaking only through an Apple designed interface is "forward thinking" and equally as effective as a conversation. That said is there anything you can tell us about your new EP, "Call Me Your Man" before we pick up the tab and exchange awkward goodbyes? Answer.
It's a wish list to the Big Man from Those Darlin's Linwood Regensburg... —Ed.
Dear Santa, Please bring me these 45's whenever you find the time. Luv, Linwood
The Caravelles - "Hey Momma You've Been On My Mind" | Girl group magic from Britain. 'New York' is the B-side.
Television - "Little Johnny Jewel" | Out on Ork Records, TV's first release. Best guitar tone ever on this one.
Houston - "Solar Light" | Sounds like it coulda been on "I hear a new world."
Ronny Kae - "Swinging Drums" | Kae did some time with Sinatra and Tony Bennett before knocking out a few amazing instrumental sides.
The Stratfords - "Never Leave Me" | This song is one of those "shoulda been a super hit" songs. It did though make Baltimore's top 40 charts in 1964. James Kelly, who wrote it, runs powerful karaoke empire in the greater Baltimore area these days.
Shadow Casters - "Going to the Moon" | The B side for "It'll Be Too Late" single. These guys broke up before they got out of high school.
Ervin Litkei - "Music to Play E-S-P BY" | Perfect to put on if you're interested in staring and thinking of absolutely nothing. Litkei who died in 2000, also wrote presidential marches for every president since FDR.
The Ultra Mates - "Pitter Patter" | This disc is pretty impossible to find. Help.
Today is #musicmonday, but there are two music-related trending topics right now besting that time-honored hashtag. One is #letshaveatoast, which, according to What the Trend, “originates from the song Kanye West sang at the VMAs 2010.” The other is #bornthisway, which is the newly announced name of Lady Gaga’s forthcoming album. I swear on my cat that I will not write about Kanye. This leaves Gaga.
(Bad argument alert! I just made it sound like the only alternative to writing about Kanye was to write about the Ga, but that’s mistaking a set for a universe. There are loads of other things to write about. I considered trying my hand at insight and analysis to say something about how #musicmonday is a pretty measly hashtag compared to the trending topics buzzing around superstars like Justin Bieber and superstar-studded events like the VMAs. I thought I might look into whether those bigger events had any bearing on what does trend in #musicmonday. But I’d just end up wondering, again, why there’s so much awful ‘90s nu-metal on Twitter, plus I was sort of hired to write snark, if you define “hired” looser than the jitterbug and also dig very deep into the conversations surrounding the birth of this column to find out what “hired to” might mean.)
So! Gaga! I have a heady sarcasm-n-worship cocktail to send her way. It’s like a martini and includes a plastic cup full of olives on the side. I’ll try to go heavy on the former, because worship, or at least respectful bewilderment, are cheap and sweet and I prefer my cocktails expensive and dry.
Worship first, because otherwise I’ll wind up doing a Seinfield imitation. “The meat dress! What is the deal with the meat dress?” (Full disclosure and revealing my age, if you hadn’t guessed from the fact that I’m writing a column about effing Twitter: I was a bit young for Seinfeld and base the previous sentence on other comedians’ imitations of Seinfeld.) While I agree with Gaga’s detractors that her provocative style borrows generously from Grace Jones and Madonna and the like, I think she’s filling an important AND AWESOME cultural function by bringing avant-garde art and fashion to a population that doesn’t live in a high-concept-saturated environment. Like, the burbs. Not that the burbs are devoid of art or fashion, because I would not touch that conversation on the internet with a pole, but as someone who grew up in the exurbs and now lives within a 5 block radius of no-kidding half a dozen galleries, there’s a level of effort required to see certain perspectives in certain places when those perspectives are impossible to avoid in other places. Um duh, hedging, let’s sum up: Dance Music + Crazy + Smart = Happy Allyson. Ok so really though: What is the deal with the meat?
First of all, we didn’t really need it twice. She already appeared on the cover of Vogue Hommes Japan dripping in raw red meat. And it’s not like no one saw that cover, even though it’s two adjectives removed from being Vogue Vogue—the Internet ate it up, so to steak. I mean speak. Besides, it had already been done ages ago on America’s Next Top Model. Specifically, Cycle 10, Episode 4, titled “Where’s the Beef?” Please do not ask me how long it took me to a) remember that photo shoot, or b) find the pertinent nitty gritty on it. The point is: ANTM has some awesome photo shoot concepts, but Gaga revels in making obscure references and Tyra Banks is whatever the opposite of obscure is. Second, the messaging is almost…obvious? Like, duh, meat is just a step removed from fur, or leather, I get it G, can you get drunk at a Yankees game again now ‘cuz that was fun.
Third: Baiting the PETA people is practically cheating. These are the same people who want you to drink beer instead of milk. Sort of. It’s complicated. But really, someone as completely bonkers as Lady Gaga should be able to find a more challenging target. Like, let’s try to outrage the people who choose the typeface for subtitles in foreign films or something next time. (“Slab serif? What is she trying to suggest???”)
Fourth: Wouldn’t prosciutto have been a bit more supple? Or any other thin-sliced deli meat, really.
Fifth: Did you know if you Google Image Search “Lady Gaga Meat Dress” it auto-corrects “meat” to “metal”? Now you know.
Sixth (sixth sixth): I worry that Lady Gaga is veering uncomfortably away from Madonna and toward Marilyn Manson. (666? Get it? Huh huh?) Even when Madonna was at her shockingest best, she was always fun to watch. (I know, I know, I already outed myself as being too young to have seen Seinfeld. A friend had a VHS tape of classic Madonna videos and I watched it obsessively in middle school.) Manson (who was hitting his stride when I was rewinding “Express Yourself” a million times) wasn’t trying to do much more than make people vomit, from what I remember. Gaga has proved that she can provoke without resorting to gross-out tactics, so a gory awards-show dress is a potentially Mansony new direction. And nothing says “meteoric rise followed by obscurity and irrelevance” like Marilyn Manson.
Finally, and about time: Where can she possibly go from here? Translucent deli meat might be a good next step, because it keeps the gore but adds some nudity. Maybe she’ll start dressing like a monk and riding a skateboard, although I have a friend who did that for a large chunk of college so that’d be weirdly derivative but also psychic. My educated guess is heavier body modification, but that gets us back to point the sixth: Shock for shock’s sake and the plummet to obscurity. Mainstream America isn’t ready for horn implants, I’m, like, 99.9% sure.
My #musicmonday pick: The opposite of shocking—I’m really digging indie/hip-hop/funk/soul darling Janelle Monae right now. Cold War and Tightrope are my oh-so-obvious picks.
It’s a crowded morning at TVD HQ, let me tell you...
As mentioned earlier today, Autumn isn’t merely for falling leaves, but dropping LPs—and one we and our friends at Ardent Music would like to put on your radar is the new EP from Jump Back Jake, ‘Call Me Your Man’ which hits your local record store shelves tomorrow, 9/14.
Jump Back Jake, aka Jake Rabinbach (who also plays lead guitar in Francis and the Lights) formed JBJ back in 2006 after jumping from Brooklyn to Memphis. The new EP is in fond memory of James Luther Dickinson, Willie Mitchell, Jay Lindsay, and Alex Chilton who all in some manner inform the recording.
As such, we’ve brought in guest reviewer Benjamin Popper for a proper review of ‘Call Me Your Man’ in advance of spending the week with Mr. Rabinbach (in addition to Those Darlins!)
TVD: we’re all sorts of taken over this week... —Ed.
The hard driving drums that open Jump Back Jake’s new EP, Call Me Your Man, don’t try to do too much. When the rest of the band jumps in a few bars later, the contours of a small recording studio emerge from the sound. It’s tight, focused, full of momentum. Jump Back starts singing, but the cadence is more relaxed then his older material. I think immediately of Kris Kristofferson when he gets to that line, “I’m sleeping in the next room doll / And all my shirts smell like you”. It’s understatement with an undercurrent, simmering on top of some rock and roll.
Where have all the horns gone? I remember Jake proudly rounding up aging Memphis brass, dragging them out of their retirement kicking and screaming, charming them with grand marnier and an unabashed love for the obscure records they played on decades ago. But the well curated soul sound that powered his first record, Brooklyn Hustle / Memphis Muscle, is over. And frankly I don’t miss it.
That Jake can still be found. The murderous metal riffs on Rose Colored Coffin (track 4) fall right into “I got a Loooovveee,” sung with the tone and melisma of a juke joint regular. But instead of trying to produce a modern soul record, Jump Back is putting those tools to work on compositions that defy easy categorization. There is something of Tom Waits in this track, a spooky gypsy, collecting the odds and ends of American music and stitching them up into an ill fitting suit that scares the women as much as it turns them on.
Records inform one another, and Jake’s new single, King of Romance, makes this new album make a lot of sense. “I remember when we first met,” he sings on that track, over a beat that could have been borrowed from Clipse. “And I took you down to Mississippi/ To see the cotton and the old cities/ Where it still looks like th 50s.” The cadence here is so startling, delivered half speaking with a rhyme scheme reminiscent of Craig Finn. And because of that, that distance from Memphis, from Stax, from soul arrangements and the rest, Jump Back’s love for the south comes across even stronger.
This music has excised the ghosts of influence. What makes the new record so exciting is not how good the musicians are, or Jake’s voice, those have always been good. It’s that he’s doing something novel, something that points forward more than back. It must be all that touring, the constant motion, the distance that makes the heart grow fonder, the pen sharper and the guitar sing.
Benjamin Popper is a journalist living in Brooklyn, NY. He has written for Rolling Stone, Vice, Men's Vogue, the Daily Beast, New York Observer, and the Memphis Flyer.
It’s often said that Spring is the time of renewal, yet Autumn brings with it its own share of rejuvenations, not the least of which are vinyl releases and tour schedules.
For Those Darlins, a band we’ve championed since way back when, Autumn – and specifically this pre-Fall week – brings both the release of their new 7” ‘Night Jogger’ to store shelves and the band to town on Wednesday night at the Black Cat.
With such an auspicious convergence of events, we thought we’d invite the Darlins over to ol’ TVD HQ and rummage through what the band listens to at home and on the road, courtesy of freshly minted and full-fledged new Darlin, Linwood Regensburg. (He’s the one easily identified in the photo up there.)
Later on today we’ll give you an opportunity to win the 7” and some tickets to Wednesday night’s show with Strange Boys and Gentleman Jessie & His Men, but for now we’re turning over the reigns to Linwood—all week it’s Those Darlins Vinyl District. —Ed.
When was the last time you called your friend and said, "Hey bring your laptop over and lets have beers and listen to some MP3's?"
Believe me, I'm not the kind who's totally denying the now, but I can't help but continually steep in the old. I don't have an ipod, and my computer rarely works, making vinyl the main means for turning on. Unless of course, you're interested in making me a mixtape?
LUVS From the Modern World.......list of new shit I like.
Sonny and the Sunsets - Tomorrow Is Alright | I got this record for my birthday, and thank god for birthdays. "Too Young too Burn" knocked me out the first time I put that on.
Strange Boys - Be Brave | We're on tour with these guys as we speak. I hope it never ends.
Magic Kids - Hey Boy b/w Good To Be (7") | The Kids just released their full length "Memphis" a few weeks ago. If you can get your hands on their debut single put out by Goner, dooo it. The primera versions of "Hey Boy" and "Good to Be" blow me away. Total wall of lo fi magic recorded by the Magic Kids themselves.
The Soft Pack - The Soft Pack | Some people still can't get over the fact that they changed their name from the Muslims to the Soft Pack. Who cares. Their drummer, Brian, is one of my favorites. Now he plays standing up.
It's our weekly Music Monday recap of the tracks from last week that the folks in the press offices and PR firms want you to be hearing. We post—you decide.
I’ve always thought of myself as a punk rocker with a hippie’s heart. I’m not sure why? Did someone else say that? It sounds so “right on!” The fact is the word hippie probably means something slightly different to each of us. For me, I guess it means to be old and still a “hipster” of sorts?
I’ve always turned to 60’s music as summer turns to fall, particularly songs from the California bands. I totally love The Doors. I remember getting their live at The Matrix on cassette from a “bootlegger,” something about that version of “Summer’s Almost Gone” has always stuck with me.
In some ways summer never ends for a hippie. Our “flowers” are always in bloom.
In this week’s playlist we salute those old hippie friends we dig. Zappa, Morison, Beefheart, Jerry, and Jorma. In the mix, the new breed, Anton Newcombe, Alex Ebert, Black Angeles and Tame Impala keep the freak flags flying in 2010
Last week I was introduced to Brad San Martin who runs the tiny record label, Casa Nueva. Our introduction was in advance of next Wednesday's in-store appearance by Kevin Dunn at Crooked Beat Records. Casa Nueva's just released "No Great Lost: Songs, 1979-1985" a retrospective of Kevin's underappreciated (if you ask me) studio recordings.
Brad and I got to talking: "I grew up in Atlanta, and have always been fascinated by the Athens/Atlanta new wave renaissance. One of the unsung pioneers of that scene was Kevin Dunn. Kevin co-founded the first art-rock/new-wave band in the southeast, The Fans, who paved the way for much of what was to come. While the Fans were famously unlucky and broke up with little to show for their efforts , Kevin went on to play in important role in nurturing the scene: he co-produced the B-52s legendary "Rock Lobster" 45 and the first 45 and LP by the incredibly influential Pylon (the album was recently reissued by DFA to widespread acclaim). He also released a series of singles, EPs, and albums of his own brilliantly skewed art-pop that was widely heralded at the time...
When I started my little Casa Nueva label, one of the first things I wanted to do was reissue Kevin's classic one-man solo debut "The Judgement of Paris," which had never been on CD. I tracked Kevin down, and we spent the past year getting to know and trust each other, and carefully restoring "Judgement" from the original 16-track tapes, as the stereo master tapes had been destroyed in a fire. The result is "No Great Lost: Songs, 1979-1985," an anthology of Kevin's solo work containing all of "The Judgement of Paris" (including one UK-only track), both sides of his legendary "Nadine" 45, choice cuts from the EP and LP that followed "Judgement," and the a-side of the Fans' "Cars and Explosions" 45."
Fitting, it seems, that Kevin's appearance in DC is at Crooked Beat, as he has quite the affinity for vinyl indeed.
My Plastic Madeleine: Vinyl Considered by Kevin McFoy Dunn
A declaration contrary (certainly in the instant milieu): many are the reasons for me to covet and to collect vinyl, but — as does witness, empirically and to my entire satisfaction, what I deem the robust testimony of my own œuvre's vicissitudes — sound does not number among them, in my considered and representably subjective opinion. We can leave it at that.
Much crowds in on me when I set to the recollection of vinyl’s role in my life, the greater part of it pretty random, a congeries of idiosyncratic personal associations and miscellaneous rosters of objects. My copy of Cream’s Goodbye, into which I stapled my ticket stub from their farewell-tour performance at the amphitheatre in Atlanta’s Chastain Park on 27 October 1968. The Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request and its terminally kool lo-tech 3-D thingie on the cover’s exterior recto. And, indeed, any cover sheathing music that I liked (and, in a few cases, I confess, that I didn’t, exactly) that also served to herald through obliquity of iconography or recondity of design or both what I was, or wished to be perceived as, as a consumer of the thornily æsthetic (one in this category towards which I feel especial warmth for sound and look marvelously allied: Fred Frith’s Guitar Solos). It at length dawned on me as I was raking through the mental midden that, were I to do this something like right, I would be obliged to aim the instruments of recall back a half-century and more to Merivale Road in Jacksonville, Florida. So here goes.
The recorded music in my childhood house was always my music. Early adopters of the big-time teevee lifestyle of the first third of the Fifties, my parents (father sentimental and unmusical; mother repressedly gifted at certain aspects of jazz pianism but without access to a piano) got their tune exposure mostly from Your Hit Parade (I remember Snooky fucking Lanson, for God’s sake) and its ilk, to an appreciably lesser degree from radio, and not really at all from records — unsurprising, as the only platter-spinning device or devices ever gracing our happy home (it was happy, until I was 9 or 10, anyway) would always be, basically, mine.
And it seems as if I was always in possession of a record player. The first — could I have been as young as three years old? — I eideticize as a flattish brownish box, a piece of necessarily mono junk with a three-inch paper-cone speaker blatting in magnetic sympathy with the jittering graven japa of fond memory (arguably too fond), the memorious furrow tracked by an Iron Age stylus the size of a sewing-machine needle (I have this faint, nagging sense that my father may once have actually tried using one whose blunt end he’d modified with a file) inserted occultly into the business end of a blocky tone arm of dark-beige metal, its weird, child-brain-flummoxing finish halfway between hammered and flaking, its dimensions those of a fat three-month-old’s forearm.
My Ur-records themselves (a cache of which I stumbled across while finally steeling myself to clear out the storage space that housed for a decade and change the pitiful, fraught complement of my deceased mother’s worldly goods) were primitive affairs that may have spun at 78 rpm, punched as they were with small holes. (I say “may have” because no indication of playback speed appears on their labels, and I have no turntable with which to check them out.) To judge from the surviving trove, the collection would have consisted chiefly of, of course, rugrat fare, the oldest exemplars (included software for the unit, I suspect, as their aspect is quite generic) bearing a copyright date of 1953. Christmas material was prominent, as was Disney product (one disc sports tunes from Lady and the Tramp, “Bella Notte” the presumptive A-side) and Terrytoons stuff, those two latter on the Golden Records marque; all of that component of the excavated stash was pressed on avant-le-lettre-’80s-hip colored vinyl (red grapefruit and lemon yellow). I may have had some Melanesian-backcountry-guy sort of intimation about the principle behind the zoetrope, I having drawn in pencil on a Heckle-and-Jeckle-themed production (groove-destroyingly vigorously, natch) stick figures of the chatty magpies menaced at a remove of about 90º by what I take to be a bulbous and, I think, peeved Cartoon Dog of Willendorf. Did I perhaps imagine that spinning them would activate latent animation?
All of these epiphenomena of hearing music don’t sum to hearing music itself; of that ineffability my impressions barely attain to the diaphanous. Some tableaux are retrievable, with lacunæ and shadows. For instance, I remember sitting with Mom and Dad in a cheerily spartan, neon-washed burger joint (not a chain) in Orlando. It would have been 1959, because as I could not then and cannot now resist in-booth jukeboxes, I was burning through some nickels with my selection for the evening, Johnny Horton’s “The Battle of New Orleans,” the which I wheedled my father into playing (doubtless to the consternation of the other patrons) maybe four times in a row, as I found the bit about the gator so goddamned hilarious. (Dad was something of a military history buff, and took the opportunity to fill me in a little on Jackson and Lafitte.) And I remember also — again, it chances, an episode from ’59 — compulsively spinning in my bedroom, as I also spun myself in a Mevlevi-like approximation of grand nineteenth-century ballroom dancing, a 45 of the waltz from Tchiakovsky’s Sleeping Beauty that had been authorizedly or otherwise (that disc didn’t survive time’s wrack, so I can’t say) released in exploitation of the Mouse Empire’s animated feature; transported, I couldn’t stop listening to it. I think that’s when I learned not to stop listening until the beauty is departed.
And that, as a matter of, if nothing else, sheer causal contiguity, is what I owe vinyl: the first intimations of what the intersection of my autonomy and the neural blandishments of moving air governed by that self-moved me could mean. Quondam et futurus, I am suitably grateful. — Atlanta, 8.ix.2010 Kevin Dunn - Saturn (Mp3) Approved for download!
"This past February, my friend Raina Rose and I did a tour together from Memphis to Boston, then from Boston to Austin. The first stop on the tour was an in-studio performance / webcast at Ardent Studios in Memphis. Like most people I suppose, the first thing that struck me about Ardent was the number of records by legendary artists hanging on the wall throughout the whole building. At the time, a bartender friend of mine here in Greenpoint, Brooklyn had just turned me on to a fabulous record by an Artist named Chris Bell called 'I Am The Cosmos'. Along with Alex Chilton, Chris Bell was an original member of the band Big Star, but I had never heard any of his solo work. That record sort of blew me away the first time I heard it, so you can imagine how surreal it was for me to find it hanging on the wall of Ardent Studio a short two weeks after first having heard it.
The studio space itself at Ardent is beautifully designed. There is a large kitchen / lounge area in the back and a long hallway leading to a control room which -- through a large glass window -- looks out onto a large, open hardwood-clad studio room. This room is where we recorded the session / webcast.
The session consisted of Raina, myself and another friend of ours, Hunter Paye, each playing a few songs. I was lucky enough to have Raina and some other in-studio friends sing with me on a few of my own songs. My favorite part of performing as a part of the session / webcast at Ardent was the fact that they allow you to bring friends with you and they can sit on the couches in the studio with you while you perform. Robby Hecht, Rebecca Loebe and Betty Soowere all there at the same time as us because they were recording a session just before us, so we got to sit in the studio room and watch them perform and they got to come into the studio and hear us. It really helps foster a sense of community among the artists, and since we had all just come from the annual folk alliance convention held each February in Memphis, it was a natural extension of that community.
Another great thing about doing the session / webcast at Ardent is that afterward, you have a professionally done high quality audio and video recording of your performance. Such high quality production would usually run you hundreds of dollars if not more!
All told it was a great experience and one I'd happily repeat anytime I'm in southwestern Tennessee. Thanks Ardent!" —A.J. Roach
I've said it many times over but I'll repeat it once more—the beauty of this endeavor is being the recipient of solicitations from across the globe pointing me to new music and/or new record labels. Or, shall I say, new to me.
Case in point was an email from Berlin introducing me to that city's Haywain Recordings and the music of Château Laut andJeanie Bueller. And I've asked them to introduce themselves to you:
"Haywain Recordings documents the creative surrounding of photographer and musician Stephan Laackman. With its do-it-yourself philosophy it has distinguished itself in the past 11 years as an independent platform for offstream acts. From electro to noise, from indie rock to acoustic folk, releases of all kinds can be found on the label, whether as limited vinyl, tapes, CDs or CD-Rs.
Bands, such as Château Laut(bluNoise) or composer and producer Stanley Anscorm (Diamonds and Pearls/EXR) choose Haywain to release music apart from their regular output. 2010 sees the release of the album "Elegiac Stanzas" by Johnny3000, a split 12“ vinyl with Château Laut and Laackman‘s own band Jeanie Bueller, the cover of it featuring art by painter Klaus Lomnitzer. An album with live bootlegs of Château Laut and a new EP with selected and unreleased archivmaterial by The K.o.N. is in the works for a late 2010 release.
It has been Laackman‘s work as a photographer for several years to capture internationally known independent rock bands in Berlin, bringing him in contact with a lot of artists, such as Lambchop, Sonic Youth, Deerhunter, Tortoise or Times New Viking. The resulting book "Citybirches Photography Works" will be accompanied by a compilation of tracks by many of the collaborating bands, released through Haywain.
More exclusive recordings with some of these bands are to follow in form of "Citystreet Hihat", an audio series of spontaneous field recording sessions of artists and bands on tour, captured in hotel rooms, on the street, before the soundcheck, or after their show. Topped off with individual art work, photos and tour diaries, the episodes are released for free as virtual 7" on the labels website. The first of those features Tiny Vipers (Jesy Fortino) out October 6, 2010. All releases are available exclusively at the label‘s webshop."
We have two copies of the Château Laut andJeanie Bueller split 12" by way of further introduction to Haywain to award to two of you who request one in the comments to this post. Download the Mp3s offered below and share your thoughts—with a contact email address—and a package directly from Berlin will land upon the doorstep of two deserving commenters. We'll give you a week and select our winners on Thursday, 9/16.
Any music with any vague connection or reference to The Beatles—I need to turn over that rock. So, it was with some interest when I first caught word of Fistful of Mercy, a project that includes Joseph Arthur, Ben Harper and Dhani Harrison, son of Beatle George.
If anything, the collaboration veers toward Turin Breaks territory with its strummed acoustic guitars and harmonic interplay—and it's quite pleasing indeed with Dhani's high parts in the harmonies touching on something very familiar and 'Harrison-esque.'
Fistful of Mercy will release their debut album 'As I Call You Down' on October 5th on Harrison’s own Hot Records. Pre-orders for the album are currently available at the band's online store. The first 300 pre-orders will come with a signed poster from the band. Limited edition vinyl will be available in stores a week early starting September 28th.
Fistful of Mercy plays the Sixth & I Synagogue on November 16.
"Some may say it's a dying breed, or a dying business, but I still love the ritual of going to record stores or junk sales and buying vinyl. I love the warmth of the analog, the size, the artwork, and I love the experience of having to get out of the house and shop spontaneously.
The first records I got as a kid were records that my babysitters were playing. I would read the lyrics, stare at the artwork, and dream of a better life and other places than my tiny apartment in Queens, New York. Music gave me the confidence to not feel alone and like a total freak in a suburban middle class mainstream world. It is my favorite format to hear music.
Just when I get tired of schlepping my record collection around in apartments in New York or storage spaces, I have that night when I hook up the turn table, plug in, and once again clearly see the sonic difference.
I dig the idea of having an iPod when I'm in the gym or sitting in the van or airplane. My favorite program on there is "shuffle" because it feels like one of my friends or somebody came into my house at a drunken party and started playing my records, picking their own choices, and making me hear my collection in a different way. Nonetheless, looking at an album cover on a tiny MP3 player really does not turn me on, even though for my own records the little image makes my nose look smaller.
I always release all of my records on vinyl and sell them at the live shows. Me and the band love playing in stores & as many mom and pop shops as we can in this country. Traditionally, on release day, I play one of my favorite shops, Vintage Vinyl in New Jersey. There are many of these cats still out there. They are the real lovers, passionistas, and outlaws.
The idea of going into a store looking for one thing, and maybe something else catches your eye—a person to fall in love with, become friends, start a band, or buy a record you weren't planning to. As a kid we went to record shops and some of the cool folks behind the counters would suggest things to buy. Sometimes these were life changing records. We would travel hours on trains and busses to find a certain shop or record. When we found what we needed it made all the difference.
I'm an advocate of showing up and being in person. I'm not religious, but I believe in people and life. Going to live shows, bookstores, movies, and record stores are all part of the experience. To sit at home on one's couch and be told by shopping networks, "if you like this, you'll like that, etc. etc. etc." seems very big brother.
Favorite things to listen to include: Bad Brains "Pay to Cum" 7 inch, anything by The Kills, The Hold Steady "Boys and Girls in America," Lucinda Williams "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," Elton John "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (double album with gatefold and lyrics), Chuck Berry "The Great 28," Suicide's debut album, Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" on 180 gram vinyl, Sam Cooke "Nightbeat," The Dickies "Dawn of the Dickies," and Bob Dylan "Blonde on Blonde." —Jesse Malin
Jesse Malin & The St. Marks Social play DC9, this Sunday (9/12) with Moneybrother.
