It’s our weekly Twitter #MusicMonday recap of the tracks from last week that the folks in the press offices and PR agencies want you to be hearing. We post you decide.
We are excited to join The Vinyl District network and not only keep Nashville up to date what is going on in music and vinyl, but also let the the rest of the world in on all the great music that is being made in Nashville. We have some great features and stories coming up so check back often.
Deemed “the world’s smallest portable record player,” Soundwagon is pretty much exactly what the name states. A tiny Volkswagen with a needle and a speaker drives around a 33rpm vinyl record, and there you go. Very simple. At first it was only for sale in Japan but it’s now available everywhere and it’s also available in colors Cherry Red, Royal Blue, Black, and White.
Watch this video to see exactly what I’m talking about: Soundwagon
Cathy Hsiao of The Missionaries and Kids In Love braved the snow for TVD NYC to bring us this wonderful review of last night’s Amen Dunes and Gary War show at Shea Stadium.
I discovered Amen Dunes the way all good music is discovered: at night, hanging out and having a record thrown on for you. In this case the record was Faust’s So Far, but in the midst of conversion my roommate also mentioned Amen Dunes. As is usually the case, he’s right on. DIA, Damon McMahon, aka Amen Dunes’ 2009 debut (Locust) is a keeper, the kind of thing you want to hear when you’re as cold inside as it is outside and maybe you like it that way. You can hear the Catskills Mountain on the album, where he went in 2006 to record. Common comparisons strike one anywhere from a more drugged-up, slowed down Kurt Vileto one of my personal favorites, the Bay Area’s Gowns(RIP) or further afield, Amps for Christ.
And because nothing transmits dissonant dark-wave quite like a frigid Brooklyn night on a desolate warehouse – lined street, when the part – time Beijing resident played a show at Shea Stadium with Gary War, I decided to brave the cold. Bushwick’s Shea Stadium has all the requisite trappings of a good Brooklyn DIY spot, from the unmarked entrance to the eerie glow cast by the dim green and red lights that bathed the space. Many of their shows are also online now at their archive.
On Wednesday nights in Memphis if you are in midtown and want to check out a slew of talented songwriters – you should stop in Neil’s for their Barstars series. It’s free and always entertaining.
And be sure to check out more music from Grace Askew.
As we get closer to Carnival, the music scene heats up. This weekend there are tons of killer shows happening all over town.
For improvisation genius, you can’t go wrong GarageaTrois at D.B.A. on Saturday night. This quartet features StantonMoore from Galactic on drums, mad saxophonics scientist Skerik, Marco Benevento on keys and Mike Dillon vibes and percussion. These guys seriously bring it. Thanks to everyone who participated in the TVD giveaway and congratulations to the winner- we hope that you enjoy the show.
Donna’s has reopened on N. Rampart Street though the new establishment, dubbed Donna’sonRampart, is not affiliated with the much beloved owners of the original club, Donna and Charlie Sims. Friday night they have the BrassFantasyBand and Saturday night they have SimonLott‘s Upfeel featuring JonGross on tuba and WessAndersonIV on trombone.
For daytime music, TVD contributor and bassist SpikePerkins has a great band called LatanaCombo. They are playing at the ArtMarket in PalmerPark on Saturday afternoon.
Here’s a smokin’ tune by Garage a Trois recorded at the Louisiana Music Factory-
Bassist about town and writer par excellence Spike Perkins is adding his unique voice to TVD all week long. Here he reflects on another of his favorite vinyl albums- the Canby Singers’ album the Dove Descending.
This highly unusual collection of a cappella choral pieces is the Canby Singers’ second for Nonesuch Records. The first was the Baroque Beatles Book, a witty series of Beatles songs re-imagined by conductor Joshua Rifkin in the style of baroque composers like Bach and Handel. This record is no joke, though, and the texts for this lovely choral music mostly dwell on what director and liner notes author Edward Tatnall Canby calls “mournful poetic sentiment.” Some great poets are represented here, too—Emily Dickinson, T.S. Elliot, Rainer Maria Rilke.
The choice of composers it unusual—they range from those of the 16th century (Monteverdi, Gesualdo) to the 20th (Hindemith, Carter, Stravinsky) with a healthy dose of Brahms sandwiched in between. Somehow ancient modality and modern sonority blend to create a haunting listening experience.
I came by my affinity for classical choral music early, as my father was a classical church music director, and I sang in his choirs all through my youth. Nonesuch Records, with their often-offbeat classical repertoire and colorful, whimsical cover art were a big part of my experience growing up, too.
Jack Holzman, head of the then-independent Elektra Records, founded Nonesuch Records in 1964. He had noticed young people reading classic literature in paperback, and thought they might buy classical recordings if they were more affordable. He kept costs down by licensing existing recordings by European artists, and added the groovy art work, which often resembles Peter Max channeling the 18th century. The label was so successful it helped finance the pop side of Elektra and enabled Holzman to sign the Doors and Love.
When I started collecting records in my early teens, classical along with rock and jazz, I didn’t exactly have a Deutche Grammophon budget, and the Nonesuch line was appealing. Today the label has greatly expanded, with a big catalogue of jazz, classical, world music, and even roots artists like Wanda Jackson. Sadly, though, the unique cover art concept is no more.
Spike Perkins has resided in New Orleans since 1982, where he works as a musician and freelance writer. His work has appeared in the Times-Picayune, and other publications, and he has performed with many New Orleans-based artists. He wrote the cult hit “Pitbull” with Coco Robicheaux, and appears on Robicheaux’s “Spiritland” CD.
Mastering—the work of transferring a recording to its final physical format—is literally the last artistic piece of a long process and one TVD is delving into over the coming months from a variety of angles with Scott Hull, mastering engineer and the owner of world-class and world-famous Masterdisk studios in New York City
Scott will be presenting a master class in mastering, from the fundamentals to the final product, as we count down to Record Store Day 2011 when a select few of you will be given the opportunity to win an in-person training session at Masterdisk.
If you missed last week’s introduction, you can find that here. For now, we’re onto Week number two:
How do we listen to CDs and MP3s? We hear them in the car, while jogging, over computer speakers while we blog (as I am now, listening to yesterday’s mastering project, Dave Matthews), and from the tiny little ear buds plugged into our iPhones.
How do we listen to records? We take the record out carefully, and often we’ll clean it. We double check the tone arm balance and anti-skate, we set the first side on the platter, cue the tone arm and sit back and listen,often playing an entire side, maybe even with our eyes shut.
It’s no wonder we have a different relationship with our records than we do with our CDs and computer files. The format engages us on many levels. Records have to be stored and handled carefully or the experience is lost. We’re rewarded with better sound when we spend a little extra time with an anti-stat gun or a record cleaner. The playback sounds nearly the same as it did years ago when we fell in love with music. And I haven’t even mentioned the larger graphics and interesting packaging.
So, I guess I am preaching to the choir, right? All of you understand why you are vinyl junkies. You can justify spending hundreds of dollars on a turntable and pre-amp since it helps you love the music even more. That really is wonderful and I hope all of you have had that experience.
We’ve all heard that the younger generation has rediscovered vinyl. I had a client in my room the other day who told me a story about a young man’s vinyl conversion. A son of a friend of this man was a huge Bob Dylan fan. In fact he believed that he possessed every single downloadable Dylan recording and was very proud of the history and folklore, which he knew by rote.
One day my client invited this friend and his son over to hear his very expensive and detailed record playback system. They left the room for a few minutes to talk, as the son was absorbed in listening to a familiar Dylan record. When they returned they saw he had been crying. And he told them that he had never really heard the album before. It was like everything he knew about Bob Dylan was only on the surface. He had heard the songs a hundred times before, but played back on vinyl it was mind blowing.
Next week I’ll get into the geometry of the record groove. It’s deep!
Scott Hull is a mastering engineer and the owner of Masterdisk (founded in 1973) in New York City. In his 25-plus year career, Scott has mastered records for Sting, Bob Dylan, Steely Dan, Os Mutantes, John Zorn, Uncle Tupelo, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and hundreds more. Visit Masterdisk online or on Facebook.
Harness a love of punk, dub and 60’s girl groups, solicit Portishead’s Geoff Barrow for production duties (and his band Beak> in the studio) and you’ve got Anika’s inventive and well crafted self-titled debut release, Anika.
Combine that well-nurtured musical vocabulary with a love of vinyl and digging through record stores, and Anika’s TVD Takeover is one for the record books. So how about awarding one of you Anika’s aforementioned record . . . on vinyl?
Enter to win Anika on vinyl by leaving a comment below. Simply let us know why you should be sent Anika’s debut and the most convincing of the bunch will find the LP on his or her doorstep.
We’ll give you until Wednesday (2/2) to craft your comment and we’ll award our winner then.
Philadelphia breakout group Dr. Dogwill add DC to the list on their seemingly unending tour with a two night stop at 9:30 Club on Friday, January 28 and Saturday the 29th. The Vinyl District will be there Saturday night to hear the fanciful tones and layered sound of Dr. Dog’s brand of psychedelic indie folk rock. We’ll also be there to check out opening acts by The Head and the Heart, who were just signed to Sub Pop, and Buried Beds.
Dr. Dog released their latest album Shame, Shame in October 2010 while mired deep in a thick touring schedule that shows no sign of letting up until Winter 2011 at the earliest. Hope to see y’all there!
In 1994, Sebadoh, with new drummer Bob Fay firmly installed, set about crafting their skewed-indie leftfield pop masterpiece, Bakesale. Lou Barlow and Jason Lowenstein’s songwriting is at its finest on this soon to be reissued work of lo-fi American art. In these days of bedroom masterpieces and entire ouvres rising out of recordings made on laptops, the term lo-fi now sounds ludicrous when applied to music of this quality, but that was a label the band had to live with back in the day.
Bakesale is Sebadoh at their strident, direct best, the unpredictability of their line-up and live shows replaced with a new found sense of equilibrium. The record is still thoroughly Sebadoh however, so while the performances are more polished and the production and sound quality much clearer than their previous recordings, the subject matter remains the same – Bakesale is one of the very greatest indie-rock break up records.
Running in sequence so Barlow’s and Lowenstein’s songs alternate with each other, Bakesale explores the affairs of the heart; either as worn on Barlow’s rumpled sleeve, or in the passive / aggressive arguments of Lowenstein’s stoned psyche.
The exuberant but tense rush of License To Confuse, Magnet’s Coil, Skull and Rebound show Barlow’s voice at its sweetest; while Careful, Not Too Amused, and Drama Mine signified a new accessibility in Lowenstein’s songs that ensure that he and Fay were now operating on equal terms. In between is Bob Fay’s Temptation Tide, which in the manner of Sebadoh’s ultra-democratic modus operandi featured the vocals of his partner Anne Slinn. Comprising of fifteen tracks in just over 40 minutes Bakesale is a blur of confession and melody concluding with Together or Alone, one of Barlow’s most vulnerable and tender moments of self-doubt.
Upon its release and in tribute to its tuneful accessibility, Bakesale secured Sebadoh their first Top 40 position in the UK album chart and in the US the band were smartened up for MTV. Sebadoh however, remained defiantly uninterested in the mechanics of high-end success, and it’s Bakesale’s intimacy and lightness of touch that both captures the atmosphere of mid-90s lo-fi America coming of age and endures so well.
Bakesale will be re-released by Domino on Monday 4th April on double CD and via digital download. The album features a bonus disc containing all singles, EP’s and rarities from the period, lovingly compiled by Lou and Jason.
Whenever Blank Dogs play a hometown show it evokes that feeling of being a little kid and waking up on a frosty morning to learn it’s snowed 6 inches overnight and you don’t have to go to school. I’d be lying if I said that the 6 inches of powdery soon-to- be-slushy mess currently blanketing the NYC streets outside has anything to do with inspiring that metaphor, but the point is this: Blank Dogs don’t play in New York very often, and when they do it’s always memorable and satisfying. So you better not miss this show tomorrow at Monster Island Basement in Brooklyn with The Soft Moon, Widowspeak, and Further Reductions. Snow or no snow, this one is worth the hike, uphill both ways, in blizzard conditions.
Best known for his work with legendary musicians like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, producer and musician Daniel Lanois is an inspiration. Now, he has launched a Jamaican-influenced soulful band called Black Dub. Catch the group performing this Friday with Rocco DeLucca at the El Rey Theatre.
I caught up with Lanois to talk vinyl.
Ash: What is your favorite record store, whether it’s from your childhood or now?
Daniel: Well, in LA everyone loves Amoeba. I’m with the crowd, it’s a great record store. All power to these people having amalgamated to old records, new records, posters, live performance… I think that’s an example of one of the great current record stores. Growing up as a kid in Hamilton there’s a place called Cheapies, I’m not sure if it’s there anymore, but it was a pillar of rock n roll in Hamilton. This was at a time when there was some life in the downtown core. They had a nice collection of records and the cashiers were hot so there was a lot of hanging around.
Ash: What is in your record player right this second?
Daniel: This very second – I have to listen to a lot of peoples demos. So right now Billy Bob Thorton – he’s working on some songs he wants me to play guitar on so that’s what’s in the player right now.
Ash: If I were to dig through your collection, what would be a few rarities I would find?
Daniel: I’ve got some cool acetates. I’ve got a bunch of test pressings from records I’ve worked on – U2, Bob Dylan, Neil Young. Things I had to give the green light to. They’re all hanging around here. I’ve even got some cool old ones – Rolling Stones. Things that were only meant to be for quality control. Aside from that I’ve got the Black Dub test pressings and Neil Young. Oh, and I’ve got a nice collection of great southern and New Orleans music. But I think the rare stuff I’ve got is acetates and test pressings leading to my own work. Maybe in another 150 years they will be worth something.
Learn more about Daniel Lanois by checking out an extended interview on LACanvas.com.
Check out my interview with Memphis alt-country darling Holly Cole – she has a new critically acclaimed album called Holly and the Heathens. We also spin some of Holly’s favorite Memphis music and chat about being an artist in Memphis, the new Snowglobe movie, what local artists have inspired Holly and how to break into the local music scene.
