Monthly Archives: June 2016

PHOTOS: RICHIE DOWNS | The recollection is still quite vivid—my pal Shawn sidling by my room with a copy of The Posies’ 1990 release Dear 23 in hand. He’s tapping the CD jewel case deliberately. “I know you…you’re going to love this record.” And, as it turned out, both were true. Plus, it didn’t hurt one iota that I was, in fact, 23 at the time.

Hooked since then through stylistic turns, rhythm sections, break-ups, solo projects, Big Star status, reformations, and happily new (vinyl) releases, The Posies’ brand new full Length LP Solid States is in stores as you’re reading this right now.

Touring to support Solid States, Jon Auer, Ken Stringfellow, and new drummer Frankie Siragusa embarked on a set of band-booked, intimate house concerts. The day after what was apparently one hell of a Washington, DC show, The Posies joined us at DC’s Som Records for a rummage through the racks—warm, chatty, and hilarious throughout.

So, onward—we’re record shopping with The Posies at Washington, DC’s Som Records.

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The Vinyl Guide is a weekly podcast for fans and collectors of vinyl records. Each week is an audio-documentary on your favourite records, often including interviews with band members and people who were part of the project.

It’s hosted by Nate Goyer, a self-described vinyl maniac who enjoys listening to records and sharing the stories behind them. Despite his Yankee accent, Nate lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife, 2 kids, and about 1,500 records. (But only about 1,000 of them his wife knows about.)

The Vinyl Guide takes records one by one, telling the tale of how they came to be, why the work is important, and then shares how collectors can tell one pressing from another. Learn more at the TheVinylGuide.com or simply subscribe via iTunes or RSS feed.

What will happen to your body when you die? Jason at AndVinyly.com has an option; get your ashes pressed into vinyl records to be enjoyed by your loved ones. Hear his interview as well as some discussion on cratedigging in Northern China. I travel to the city of Dalian and made a video of a record hunt, available on Facebook.com/vinylguide.

John Coltrane’s Atlantic period presents an arresting convergence of circumstances. It was a time of raised profile and of considerable transition, the artist’s confidence audibly growing as he united jazz tradition and experimentation; most of all it was an era of major breakthroughs establishing the saxophonist as a leader in his field. The Atlantic Years in Mono doesn’t include the entirety of his work for the label, but it does ably document a thrilling era that brought Coltrane to a mainstream audience. Don’t be scared by the audiophile angle; Rhino’s 6CD/6LP+7-inch set is a splendid acquisition for both newbies and longtime fans. One gets to hear the thriving mastery as it was originally released.

By the time John Coltrane hooked up with the Ertegun brothers he’d already chalked up a significant list of achievements, serving as a powerful voice in post-bop’s development via the bands of Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis, guesting for a track on Sonny Rollins’ Tenor Madness, teaming with Hank Mobley, Al Cohn, and Zoot Simms for Tenor Conclave, and leading bands for Prestige and for one LP Blue Note.

Top billing came with Coltrane in 1957, and next was Blue Train for Blue Note, which many consider to be his first great album. John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio followed in ’58 (aka Traneing In for its ’61 reissue), and Soultrane retained the services of the Garland band. As Coltrane’s fame grew Prestige would later release nearly a dozen albums under his name from unissued sessions and elevated sideman dates, in turn possibly lending a false impression of the saxophonist as unusually prolific during ’57-’58.

Coltrane was constantly playing but was nowhere near popular enough to have that many albums produced in such a short span; indeed, his two ’58 records with Wilber Harden as co-leader, Jazz Way Out and Tanganyika Strut, are rarely discussed in spite of their being positioned directly before Coltrane’s move to Atlantic. Well, not quite; the closest correspondent recording to his ’59 Atlantic debut Giant Steps is Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.

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Look, it’s hard to tell people how you feel, what’s going on, the tides pushing and pulling.

Time was when a mixtape was that bridge, or the spin of a well-intentioned record eliciting its own waltz about a candlelit room with the object of one’s adoration.

It’s an emotional world, it is. Thus TVD HQ’s recurring fuel for your fires and mixtapes. Reading between the lines—encouraged.

“I was born right at the end of the golden era of vinyl recordings but I remember, at an early age, sitting in my father’s bedroom listening to his vinyl records for hours on end. There were various artists like Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Mike Oldfield, Stevie Wonder, Cat Stevens, and of course The Beatles.”

“A few years later The Beatles would become a huge influence in my life but by then I was more interested in painting the cover of Tubular Bells and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as photo realistic as possible, without much success. However, I do remember vinyl sounding extremely good, a different kind of depth and warmth compared to CD. Might be an afterthought, perhaps. I think that was the beginning of my lifelong interest in analog recording.

Me and my best friend used to record a rhythm track to one cassette tape and then play and sing to that recording while recording to another tape recorder. Then back to the first tape recorder with more instruments and so forth. When I was ten I bought a multitrack cassette tape recorder with four tracks. A huge improvement. I made countless demos on that one. Today I use a 24 track Studer tape machine.

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I’ve said it before, goddamn it, and I’ll say it again: The Felice Brothers are the best folk and country rock group to come our way since The Band. Strong words, I know; but I’ve seen them live on numerous occasions and listened to their LPs more times than I can count, and I’ve come to the conclusion there’s something in the drinking water of those Catskill Mountains both they and The Band called home that is pure glory.

And I’m happy to report that Life in the Dark is the Felice Brothers at the top of their game, veering from hillbilly tunes to murder ballads to the best nonsense tunes to come our way since Dylan and The Band recorded The Basement Tapes in that famous pink house in West Saugerties, New York. Life in the Dark will break your heart, it will send you reeling, and it will make you smile at the sheer absurdity of life, and an album, no album, can do you any better than that.

The Felice Brothers are Ian Felice on guitar and lead vocals, brother James Felice on accordion, keyboards, and vocals, Greg Farley on fiddle, and Josh Rawson on bass, and they recorded Life in the Dark in a garage on a farm in the lovely Hudson Valley. The results speak for themselves; you’ll come away, I kid you not, from listening to Life in the Dark, with its rich musical textures and Ian Felice’s distinctive voice and always surprisingly lovely lyrics, with a new appreciation for the joys and sadness, to say nothing of the imponderable mystery, of this life.

As familiar with the folk tradition as they are with classic rock, The Felice Brothers carry the history of American music on their backs like a bag of gold coins, and happily empty that bag at our feet. “Aerosol Ball” is a happy-making number, heavy on the fiddle, tambourine, and accordion, and it bounces along while Ian Felice tosses off non sequiturs (“The rain in Maine/Is made of novacaine/In the Florida Keys/It’s made of antifreeze/In Maryland, it’s made of heroin/In Minnesota/It’s made of baking soda”) before getting down to business, namely his love for the “Doll of St. Paul/At the aerosol ball/She’s such as special girl/She’s been all around the world.” But I would be remiss not to quote the song’s most wonderful lines, to wit: “Well the cat ate the rat/And the beast ate the cat/And the boy ate the beast/And the beast made him fat.”

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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.

Katie Rose – Wonder
Amy Blaschke – Running My Heart To You
LION BABE – Jazz Drums
Modern Studies – Dive Bombing
Young Mister – Pasadena
Carl Creighton – I bought a card at the Hallmark. No, at the Walmart. It’s a Hallmark.
The Dirty Clergy – Decades

TVD SINGLE OF THE WEEK:
Beyond Beyond is Beyond 2016 Summer Jam Sampler

Dot Dash – Daddy Long Legs
Warshow Angels – Bang Bang Love
Matt Bennett – Hook Pt. 1
Fialta – Another Lonely Heart
Cafe Disko – Can’t Stop The Feeling (Justin Timberlake Cover)
Ariana Delawari – Here Is My Love
Liana Bank$ – Off
EXSSV – Hangover (feat. Jitta On The Track)