Monthly Archives: July 2018

Sound reads from the archives, all summer long. —Ed.

When informed of Wire’s plans to reissue Document and Eyewitness Geoff Travis, known the world over as the man who started Rough Trade (the label and the shops) retorted that the group was “completely mad.” This wouldn’t be especially significant except it was Travis who put up pounds to release the damned thing in the first place. This small anecdote is a big tipoff that Wire’s 1981 live LP, notorious to many and beloved by a few, is really quite special. On August 18th Pink Flag’s expanded multi-format edition will again illuminate the range and polarization of opinion.

I retain a fluctuating level of esteem for the live record, but as worthy captured performances continue to occasionally hit the racks it’s hard to deny that the form’s best days are basically behind it. To my ear the neck-and-neck contenders for the finest non-jazz live set ever waxed came relatively soon after the format’s invention, taped in ’62 and ’64 respectively; James Brown’s Live at the Apollo and Jerry Lee Lewis’ Live at the Star Club, Hamburg. These aren’t controversial choices of course, but they do amplify what’s missing from the vast majority of live records and why most are little more than artistic victory laps/obligatory pop and rock star rites of passage/bones tossed into the salivating yawp of easily satisfied fans.

Surely many early live discs were to varying levels studio-massaged sleight of hand, but in the cases of Brown and Lewis it was their abilities as performers that ultimately made those albums so massive. Plus, each slab possesses further crucial qualities in abundance; danger, uncertainty, surprise, and a legit sense of vérité. Document and Eyewitness is one of the only records I can recall a paid store employee vociferously steering me away from buying, said occasion circa-’88, with the extent of my Wire knowledge then consisting of “12XU” and a Peel Session. Based on that slim exposure I was eager for more, doubly so since Wire’s Harvest-EMI stuff was pretty scarce in my neck of the woods.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Magic Music is one of the most fondly remembered bands of the Boulder Revolution of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Living in a makeshift camp up in the mountains, they would delight local residents and university students with their original songs, acoustic instruments, and light harmonies; their growing popularity brought them to the brink of success more than once. Unfortunately, they never signed a record deal and eventually broke up in 1975.

40 Years in the Making: The Magic Music Movie chronicles how one of their greatest fans, acclaimed director (and UC Boulder alumnus) Lee Aronsohn, tracked down the original band members four decades later to tell their story. More importantly, he makes a dream come true for himself, fellow fans, and the band, by bringing them all back to Boulder for a sold-out reunion concert that preserves their legacy for posterity.

40 Years in the Making: The Magic Music Movie opens in theaters on August 3 with additional markets to follow. The Orchard will release the film digitally on September 4. The film is written and directed by Emmy-nominated writer-producer Lee Aronsohn (Two and a Half Men, Big Bang Theory) and produced by Fleur Saville. Executive Producers are Aronsohn and Lisa Haisha and Producer is Jeff Jampol. Cinematography is by Dean Cornish with editing by Kyle Vorbach.

“I had a vinyl collection before I had an actual record player. I’d go to a record store and see a cool LP from an artist I really enjoy or an old school best seller on discount and figured I should buy it, because I’d eventually get something to play this thing on.”

“After some time, and as my personal collection of unlistenable vinyl got a little bigger, my parents took out their collection from the attic to basically quadruple what I had accumulated. I’d spend hours just looking at the covers, opening up the albums and reading the descriptions. (Still no listening).

Around the same time, my grandparents had begun the process of moving homes. As it just so worked out, they discovered a record player that they had in storage that they weren’t using. They asked if I had a record player, to which we all know by now was a no, and gifted me their old one. It was in need of a new needle, but otherwise was in great condition.

I researched record player needles on the internet and found one that I thought would work. Well, as it turns out they don’t make some types of needles anymore, because they don’t make some types of record players anymore either—so why would they? Anywho, I ordered it online and checked the mailbox everyday for nearly a week.

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Talk about your supposedly fun things I’ll never do again; it would take a million chimpanzees playing electrical instruments 100,000 years to make the ungodly synthesis of southern rock and progressive rock work, and I am here to tell you that Augusta, Georgia’s Dixie Dregs are not those chimpanzees.

The amazing thing? I used to OWN this band of daring genre blenders’ sophomore LP, 1977’s Free Fall. What’s more, I actually listened to the damn thing. I simply cannot come up with a more glaring example of the dangers of rampant marijuana abuse.

Oh, and have I mentioned that the Dixie Dregs play nothing but instrumentals? They don’t want the warming sound of an actual human voice to distract you from paying close attention to all of the whizz-bang playing. Or the best education in musical theory and composition a couple of degrees from Georgia State University can buy. Who needs Ronnie Van Zant when you’ve studied with Alice Shields? She’s a bona fide protege of Wendy Carlos!

But about the whole southern rock/prog fusion thing: It’s more or less a red herring. The Dixie Dregs attempt the impossible on only two tracks, and both tracks are less Dixie than dregs.

“Moe Down” works if your taste in hoedowns runs towards Aaron Copland. This isn’t the kind of thing you’ll want to square dance to. This is the kind of thing you’ll want to take notes on for your advanced course in The Cooption and Trivialization of Appalachian Culture. Talk about your aesthetic distance; the Dixie Dregs might as well be looking at southern culture from Mars.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | You cannot mention rap’s most timeless duos without naming Mobb Deep. To celebrate the 25thAnniversary of their monumental debut release Juvenile Hell, Urban Legends/UMe released both a standard black vinyl LP and a limited edition red vinyl pressing of this iconic release. This is the first time that Juvenile Hell has been available on vinyl, and both versions can be ordered at shop.urbanlegends.com.

Originally named Poetical Prophets, Havoc and Prodigy turned heads in 1991 through The Source magazine’s now legendary “Unsigned Hype” column. As a production unit and a rap troupe, the pair displayed know-how and insight well beyond their years, making it easy to forget that both Havoc and Prodigy were in their late teens in 1993 when Juvenile Hell was released. Raw, unrelenting, and overtly-confident, Juvenile Hell was the infant stages of what would be defined as the Queensbridge Sound—grimy street narratives over cold, sonorous production underpinned with bravado and melancholy.

The prodigious pair were keenly aware of their career stage and brought in established producers to help aid the album, namely DJ Premier on the minimal, angst-filled thumper “Peer Pressure” and Large Professor whose remix of said track gave it an extra shot in the arm. The homespun music video was a local TV hit and “Hit It From The Back,” a track produced by Prodigy and Method Max, also charted at No. 18 on the Hot Rap Singles chart in 1993.

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“I love the anticipation, the “chum, chum” as the turntable spins before the drop of the needle. That countdown before you hear the authenticity of the record is really exciting. With vinyl, you get an experience of being in the room of the actual recording, the analogue sound is so present, so real for me.”

“I have had great experiences at record stores as well. There used to be a store called Penny Lane in Pasadena 2 blocks from the house I grew up in. I used to go there with my Dad and shop for hours (then they moved to Upland—a sad day both my Dad and me).

At the time we did not have a record player at home, so it was mostly CDs back then, but I was always looking at the records. There is another great used record shop in Pasadena called Poo-Bah (the guy who owns it knows so much about music, it is crazy). Just holding an album in your hands is great, I love the feel of it, the weight, the size of the artwork.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Now accepting entries! Submissions deadline is August 15, 2018.

The Making Vinyl Packaging Awards recognizes the importance and critical role that physical packaging plays in selling music. The larger 12″ x 12″ canvas no doubt is contributing to the vinyl format’s astounding comeback. In the age of MP3, downloads, and digital streaming, recorded music experiences diminish substantially. There’s nothing like a well-designed LP cover or a graphics-rich gatefold for a sensory connection to the sounds emanating from the speakers or headphones.

To be considered for this packaging competition, you must submit electronically through this site. There is a fee for submitting, but sliding scale discounts for multiple entries coming from submitting entities (one entry $50, two to five entries $40 each, six to ten entries $30 each, and 11 or more $20 each). Global entries are welcome. All electronic submissions must be received by Wednesday, August 15, 2018, 11:59 pm (EST). No exceptions.

Finalists will be notified by email and they will have two weeks to send two copies of each submission by Wednesday, August 29, 2018 at 5 pm (EST) to the attention of Lilly Smith c/o AIGA, 233 Broadway, Suite 1740, New York, NY 10279. No exceptions will be allowed. Submissions may come from record labels, pressing plants, brokers, packagers, printers, mastering facilities, artists, and distributors with the caveat that they fit the packaging-focused categories.

For more info, see the Making Vinyl Packaging Awards FAQs or download our Packaging Awards Flyer.

“I grew up on cassettes and grew into vinyl. We’d listen to classical music in the morning and Neil Young and Paul Simon at night. There were times when I thought of the classical morning hearkening as boot camp. Once I got a taste of the musical ’60s and ’70s, that’s all I wanted, and my impatience showed. But, as a classical violin student, homework came first.”

“My parents had gotten rid of their record player before I was born and replaced it with a Pioneer tape deck and receiver to match. I still remember my Dad saying, “Pioneer is a great brand. Lasts forever.”

I bought my first vinyl record fresh out of college. Neil Young—Hearts & Doves. I figured if I bought the record first, then I’d have to get a player, receiver, the whole bit. I found a vintage player and some speakers at a warehouse in Pittsburgh. The guy who sold it to me, Dan, had a serious range of options. I bought the Pioneer.

I love the physicality of vinyl—taking time with the artwork, digging into who played on which track. But the listening experience is why I think vinyl is standing the test of time. We’re all up in our phones all day, every day. Lots of people listen to music now the way they scroll through Instagram—jumping from track to track, maybe not even finishing a song before they jump to the next one. Even music lovers are guilty of this. Sadly, even me.

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A few observations on Yacht Rock anti-Christ Christopher Cross’ Grammy Award winning 1979 debut LP.

1. If Stephen King was the Master of the Macabre he claims to be, he would write a short story about a ruthless businessman with a Type A personality who is on his way to shut down an unprofitable mental hospital. He gets into his Porsche only to hear the doors lock around him. Then, and this is the important part, Christopher Cross starts playing on his car stereo and HE CAN’T TURN IT OFF. No matter how many dials he twists or pummels it just keeps playing over and over until the poor fellow goes blubbering insane and ends up as a permanent ward of the very hospital he wanted to close. If the great Mr. King can conjure up a more terrifying scenario than that one, I would love to hear it. Oh, and the scariest part? The whole process takes less than two hours.

2. CC became the face of soft rock with his eponymous debut, which remains one of the sleekest Yacht Rock vessels ever to be launched upon the Easy Seas. It spawned several hit singles (including those immortals “Sailing” and “Ride Like the Wind”), garnered him the Big Four Grammy Awards (which had never happened before and hasn’t happened since), and went platinum five times over in the process. Forget about the horror scenario outlined above. It doesn’t get any more frightening than this.

3. My good friend Dennis Warnack St. George recently told me this story:

“I was on a date with my future first wife when “Sailing” came on the radio. I reached over to change the station, and the next thing I knew I was in Georgetown Hospital. A priest was telling me I would be fine, and I was thinking that that’s what they always say to the moribund. Anyway, a van hit my girlfriend’s car head on. I was thrown through the windscreen (no belt). She was uninjured (belt). She nursed me back to health and we got married two months later.

So, I have bad associations with Christopher Cross. His music makes me think about that harpy I married.”

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Archeophone Records’ mission is the reissue of sounds from the early American recording industry, and after 20 years they’ve produced their first vinyl disc; “4 Banjo Songs, 1891-1897” is a 45 RPM 7-inch featuring singer-banjoist Charles A. Asbury. Rescued from brown wax cylinders dating from the 1890s, per Archeophone the contents are the oldest recordings of banjo songs in existence. It’s a revelation with a significant caveat, as Asbury was a minstrel performer whose music comes burdened with racially derogatory language. However, the artist was identified at different points as black and white, and the accompanying text offers a fascinating examination of race and identity at the end of the 19th century.

Based in Champaign, Illinois, Archeophone Records is owned and operated by married couple Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessey, and the results of their passion, often issued in gorgeous and extensively researched sets, have garnered numerous awards for excellence from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections and won a Grammy (amid a bunch of nominations) for Best Historical Album for their 2006 release Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891-1922.

Archeophone’s catalog includes ragtime, dance bands and orchestras, early jazz, gospel, Yiddish music, vaudeville, comedians and humorists, a series of Phonographic Yearbooks, and spoken word including Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s, a collection of dirty jokes and general smut, and Debate ’08: Taft and Bryan Campaign on the Edison Phonograph, which rounds up the wax cylinders cut by 1908 Presidential candidates William Jennings Bryan and William Howard Taft: for insight into what the USA sounded like from the 1890s through the ’20-’30s, their output is essential.

Though bitesize compared to much of their discography, “4 Banjo Songs, 1891-1897” fits into the scheme quite well. And not merely adorned with the distinction of first banjo recordings, as it’s quickly apparent through the surface noise that Asbury was a considerable talent on the instrument; that his songs are described as having been popular in the phonograph arcades of the era is no surprise.

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