Monthly Archives: February 2016

Today is the last day for discounted early bird Jazz Fest tickets

By Jay Mazza | Published: February 2, 2016

Organizers of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell want to remind patrons that early-bird tickets to Jazz Fest are available through Tuesday, February 2 for $60.

The advanced ticket price will be $65 beginning on February 3. The gate price ticket will be $75. Children’s tickets (ages 2 – 10) are still only $5 and are available at the gate only. Single-day tickets to Jazz Fest are on sale by specific weekend, with each ticket valid for a single day’s attendance.

Tickets are available at nojazzfest.com and ticketmaster.com, at all Ticketmaster outlets or by calling (800) 745-3000. Tickets can be purchased in person at the Smoothie King Center Box Office. All general admission Jazz Fest tickets are subject to additional service fees and handling charges.

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UK Artist of the Week: Eric Taylor Escudero

By Zara Hoffman | Published: February 2, 2016

Brazilian-born Eric Taylor Escudero released his debut album We Were Young And It Was Morning in 2015—an utterly stunning collection of alternative-folk vignettes that definitely deserves your attention.

Escudero has recently released the free track “The Uncountable Colours Of The Sky” from the album, giving listeners outside of South America a chance to understand what his music is all about and what the album has to offer. The track is beautifully written and filled with sincere emotion and depth. It also features guest musician Ana Luísa Ramos on backing vocals who creates a wonderfully haunting and hypnotic effect within the song, complimenting Eric’s vocals perfectly.

We Were Young And It Was Morning reflects the themes of love, loss, nostalgia, and the difficulties of living modern city life. The album has a predominantly traditional folk feel and uses a diverse range of instruments such as the harmonica, mandolin, guitar, concertina, glockenspiel, and violin, allowing Eric to experiment with his arrangements that are both wistful and immersive.

Having already made a name for himself in Brazil, Eric is ready to let the rest of the world hear his music. Watch this space—we’ll be hearing more from Eric Taylor Escudero in the very near future.

We Were Young And It Was Morning is out now via City Lights Produces.

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Graded on a Curve:
Bert Jansch, Avocet

By Joseph Neff | Published: February 2, 2016

By its very nature instrumental music is a study in form, and frequently to such an extent that listeners nurturing vocally focused comfort zones can feel left out in the cold. Bert Jansch’s non-vocal debut Avocet is well-poised to overcome this obstacle; a trio effort of welcoming beauty devoted to the glory of British birds, the whole stands amongst the lauded Scottish guitarist’s most fully realized achievements. On February 5, Earth Recordings reissues the album, its vinyl edition featuring lithograph art-prints by UK illustrator Hannah Alice depicting the six birds titling Avocet’s tracks as the compact disc is tucked into a hardback book with 24 pages of notes and artwork.

The making of Bert Jansch’s twelfth LP transpired in February of 1978, a point on the calendar roughly coinciding with the nasty storm of punk rock, and wherever the eye of the squall traveled across the landscape of the UK, it can be safely surmised Avocet was elsewhere. Over time the guitarist would come to be revered by a heaping dog-pile of alternative-indie figures with creative DNA directly traceable to the punk upheaval, but it’s well-established that the late ‘70s proved to be a tough stretch for practitioners of non-clamorous sounds not limited to veterans of the Brit-folk scene.

Of course it’s not all so simple. As related in Colin Harper’s excellent notes for Avocet’s reissue, Jansch’s prior set A Rare Conundrum, released in the UK in ’77 on Charisma, had been well-received by the Brit music press in part because it was viewed as a sort of homecoming affair after two full-lengths cut out California way (those would be ‘74’s L.A. Turnaround and ‘75’s Santa Barbara Honeymoon).

Avocet also soaked up positive coverage in the weeklies, but didn’t appear in the UK until 1979; its initial ’78 pressing came via the Ex-Libris label of Denmark, the enterprise of Jansch’s Danish manager Peter Abrahamsen having additionally brought out A Rare Conundrum (as Poormouth) a year ahead of its emergence in British record shops.

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In rotation: 2/2/16

By TVD HQ | Published: February 2, 2016

Sonic Boom Record Store to sell, owner moving out of state: Sonic Boom, one of Ballard’s independently owned record stores, is for sale. According to a listing in the Puget Sound Business Journal, the store at 2209 N.W. Market St. is going for $850,000. It was reported that the reason for the sale is the owner is moving out of state. Sonic Boom was Rolling Stone’s 2010 list of the “Best Record Stores in the USA.”

Jazz Record Mart for sale: The Jazz Record Mart, long billed as “The World’s Largest Jazz and Blues Record Store,” is up for sale while its founder searches for a possible new location. “The rent is killing us,” said Bob Koester, 83, owner of the famous shop at 27 E. Illinois St. “I want to die with the store. But it’s either phase it out or sell it. Phasing it out is not easy. Know anyone who wants to buy a record store?”

Record collector opens Winchester’s first vinyl shop since the 1990s: A Winchester music lover has opened the city’s first independent record shop in 20 years. Elephant Records has set up in Kings Walk to capitalise on vinyl’s remarkable comeback…He took his extensive collection of hip-hop and dance albums, rented a unit in the shopping strip and started bringing in new and used stock…”It was something I’d always wanted to do,” he said. “I’m really passionate about music and I thought Winchester could do with a good independent record shop. I thought it might work in Winchester.”

AKAI Pro unveil new hybrid turntable: The Akai BT-500 promises to combine “audiophile performance” with digital file conversion and Bluetooth playback. The brains behind the MPC, Akai Professional have unveiled their newest BT-500 deck to try and drag vinyl into the digital age without compromising on quality. In what sounds like something of a ‘Jack-of-all-trades’ approach, the BT-500 will marry “audiophile performance” with the ability to rip your vinyl to digital, or play back wirelessly through Bluetooth speakers.

Starving for Art: For the record: Round and round we go: It’s been a few years since I hosted a jazz program on WIOX, in Roxbury, but that’s what got me started on collecting vinyl records again. When I began doing the show, I started playing MP3 files off a flash drive, then interspersed CDs, then learned to use the turntable, like DJs of old and new. Around that time, I discovered a record store in Oneonta. Hopefully you’ve heard of it: the Vinyl Music Vault…

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TVD Live Shots:
The Devil Makes Three and Parker Milsap at
the Fox Theater, 1/23

By Jason Miller | Published: February 1, 2016

In 2002 I had the honor of taking Dr. Ralph Stanley to KGSR in Austin, Texas to talk about the release of his self-titled new record. I remember asking him about bluegrass music and he said to me, “I don’t play bluegrass, I play old-time country music.” That’s exactly what I heard on stage last week when The Devil Makes Three played the second of a two night stint at the Fox Theater in Oakland.

Effortlessly blending elements of western swing, folk, honky-tonk, rockabilly, and bluegrass, The Devil Makes Three was formed in Santa Cruz, California, in 2002. Guitarist Pete Bernhard, upright bassist Lucia Turino, and banjo player Cooper McBean have released four studio albums and a couple of live recordings along the way.

The trio have evolved their sound ever so slightly over the course of more than a decade of performing together. “Worse or Better” is a track from their latest record, 2013’s I’m a Stranger Here which showcases the group at its finest hour in my opinion, as Grammy Award winning songwriter and Nashville legend Buddy Miller took the helm as producer, bringing out the best from the trio to tape.

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Garden State Sound
with Evan Toth

By Evan Toth | Published: February 1, 2016

All jokes aside, New Jersey is a pretty great place. While it has a lot to offer as a state, it also has a rich musical history of which many people remain unaware. Everyone knows Sinatra and The Boss, but there’s much more.

One of the keys to success in the music industry—or, perhaps any industry—is dedication and commitment. You can’t just give it a shot for six months and, when it doesn’t work out, throw in the towel. You’ve got to keep going; it’s at that point that you begin to build a loyal fan base and an identity that’s really yours. Though they’ve had many incarnations over many years, Speed the Plough has been plugging away since 1984 and they are still vibrant, creative, and eager to continue their musical pursuits.

This week, John and Toni Baumgartner visit “Garden State Sound” to discuss their brand new album, Now. We discuss how in many ways they’ve come full circle and remain very much committed to the New Jersey music scene, their new lineup, the vinyl process, and much more.

Tune in to hear how John and Toni have cultivated and nurtured Speed the Plough for over 30 years. It’s no small feat.

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Hamish Anderson,
The TVD First Date

By Special to TVD | Published: February 1, 2016

“Growing up in Melbourne, Australia, I remember around the age of 12 becoming obsessed with my dad’s vinyl collection. My dad had all of his vinyl leaning up against a wall in our front room, hundreds of records just sitting there waiting to be discovered…”

“It was kind of like that scene in Almost Famous. I remember flicking through the covers and seeing all those powerful cover art images…Let it Bleed (The Rolling Stones), Abbey Road (The Beatles), Zeppelin II and IV, Harvest (Neil Young), Aqualung (Jethro Tull), Who’s Next (The Who). We’d listen to Get Yer Ya Yas Out!, full volume over and over again.

I just loved everything about vinyl. It’s the tactile quality, the pops and crackles in the sound, that smell, the liner notes…I like the real thing, I want to listen to a vinyl and hold it in my hand, read who engineered it and where it was recorded…you can’t get that on Spotify (or streaming services).

Posted in The TVD Storefront | 1 Comment

TVD’s Press Play

By TVD HQ | Published: February 1, 2016

Press Play is our Monday recap of the new and FREE tracks received last week to inform the next trip to your local indie record store.

Nate Leavitt – Take Me Back
Eric Taylor Escudero – The Uncountable Colours Of The Sky
Reina del Cid – Death Cap
J Hacha De Zola – Let It Go
Relick – Offering
Wylder – Swells
Chris Storrow – Raised The Bar
BadlandsSWE – Echo
Mica & Kardanski – Trouble (Sparkz Remix)
GETOVERHER – Baby Oil (prod. Konrad OldMoney)

TVD SINGLE OF THE WEEK:
Cheap Trick – No Direction Home

Allen Kane – Have Mercy (The 83rd Remix)
IDYLL – Another Day In Paradise (Phil Collins Cover)
Infuze & Father Dude – Easy Lover (Phil Collins Cover)
K Theory X Wizard – Turn It
RDGLDGRN – Just A Lie
Mickey Valen X Lucian – Hero (feat. Oktavian)
Elle Exxe – SYNTHESISING
SNBRN – Beat The Sunrise Feat. Andrew Watt (Steve Void Remix)
FMM: Hashim – Al-Naafiysh (Will Clarke’s Bearded Dubbed ReRub)
YDG – Hold Up (feat. Fawks)

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In rotation: 2/1/16

By TVD HQ | Published: February 1, 2016

The world’s best record shops #004—New Gramophone House, New Delhi: It might be the last shop standing record shop in Delhi, but New Gramophone Records was actually established in, what’s now, Pakistan’s Lahore, in 1930. Following the 1947 Partition of India, the shop relocated to its current spot, atop a shoe shop, in the bustling, hyperactive Chandni Chowk district. Run by Anuj Rajpal, son of original founder Ramesh Rajpal, the shop has become something an institution with both locals and travelling collectors. With stacks upon stacks of Desi records to get through, it’s not always easy knowing where to begin.

Who Is Buying Vinyl? The Bestselling Titles Of 2015 Say A Lot: So, who is buying vinyl? Is it the kids who love pop radio, or the older generations that have been driving to record stores and purchasing wax for years? Well, it’s both, and then some. Sevreal other titles that sold well last year don’t fit into either category…It might not be in first place, but rock sells more vinyl than any other genre, and that is as true today as it has been for decades.

Henry Rollins: I just went through Phil Lynott’s record collection with his mom: Without question, the best vinyl experience so far came out of Sutton, near the city of Dublin. Before the show, Ward and I spent hours visiting with Philomena Lynott, mother of Thin Lizzy’s late bass-playing leader, Phil. We were given full access to the man’s record collection. Standouts included Sabbath’s Paranoid on Vertigo with the swirl inner sleeve intact, plus great-condition copies of Houses of the Holy, Aladdin Sane and The Ramones’ Road to Ruin.

Carlson Takes Two Awards for ‘A Perfect Record’: The film, which featured vinyl record collector Dean Sime, had several Concordia ties in addition to its director. Current student Reilly Myklebust ’18 and alumni Amber Morgan ’15, Justin Kavlie ’09 and Preston Johnson ’11 all worked on the film. “For the documentary challenge, the film has to be made during a five-day stretch,” Carlson says. “This was the first year our film won awards at the premiere.”