Monthly Archives: August 2016

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—wildly encouraged.

Hear ye hear ye: I am going to begin this review of Alabama native son Wilson Pickett’s 1969 LP Hey Jude by stating right off that the title cut is one of the most phenomenal songs ever recorded, and is in fact so great I would probably give this album an A even if every other song on it was a jingle for a cereal commercial.

Pickett, whom I consider the best screamer in the history of soul and R&B, if not rock too, lays into “Hey Jude” like somebody just chopped his foot off with a hatchet, while the horn section kicks ass and Duane Allman, who was just beginning his career as a sessions musician, tears off one of the most brilliant and in-your-face guitar solos you’ll ever hear. It’s a bravura performance, “Hey Jude,” and supernatural in its greatness, and if I die tomorrow I will die having heard a sound so pleasing to God that he decided (I’ve talked to him about this) to push the date of the Last Judgment back a hundred years or so.

Fortunately Pickett fills out the album with a bunch of other songs that, while they can’t (what could?) compare with “Hey Jude,” are excellent in their own right. His voice is a miracle, his screams make Joe Cocker sound like a pee wee leaguer, and in short he turns in a whole slew of superb performances, demonstrating his mastery of phrasing and the wild scream even on those songs (his unfortunate take on Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild,” the gospel-flavored but not very exciting “People Make the World,” and the funky but unhappily titled “Toe Hold”) that don’t quite measure up to the rest of the songs on the album.

Putting Pickett, Allman, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (the so-called Swampers), and some great horn players together in the studio was a stroke of genius on Atlantic Records honcho Jerry Wexler’s part, and it paid off in a royal flush as the bunch of ‘em simply could not fail to turn an okay song into a great one.

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“When the needle hits the groove, everybody recognises that signature sound.”

“I think it is built into our DNA now from generations of our grandparents hearing ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ for the first time—it’s hereditary and the reason it’s remained as a format for so long is you can’t deny the intoxicating experience of spinning a record for the first time. It’s an addiction, there’s something sensual about it that is truly unique in itself.

My parents have an exhaustive record collection and they bonded through music. Pop hits of the ’80s when they were growing up like Tango in the Night, those club Bowie records that took the world into a new dimension. Music was such an obsession back then, falling in love with a band was like picking a team. It identified you, and you lived your life through the shared ideals of other like-minded people.

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As one half of Quasi and a participant in a bunch of other activities, Portland, OR’s Sam Coomes has a rather imposing résumé, but until now he’s not released a solo LP. Bugger Me puts an end to this lack as the singer-songwriter-keyboardist goes it truly alone; the results ooze a compelling strangeness as honest-to-goodness songs are cloaked in home-recorded lo-fi finery via organ and rudimentary drum-box. Ripe with underlying complexity without clamoring for attention, it’s the kind of left-field record that could only be made by a veteran; it’s out now on vinyl, compact disc, and digital through No Quarter in the USA and Domino everywhere else.

Actually, describing Sam Coomes as a veteran is something of an understatement. First emerging on the scene in late ’80s San Francisco via the trio Donner Party, after their breakup in ’89 he split the Bay for Portland and formed Motorgoat with Janet Weiss. Proving a short-lived entity, Motorgoat gave way to the enduring combination of Weiss’ big beat and Coomes’ distorted keyboard tones in Quasi.

Plainly Coomes is adept at collaborating; joining Heatmiser in time for their final album, he subsequently contributed to the records of bandmate Elliott Smith and additionally chalked up extensive involvement with Built to Spill, played on The Go-Betweens’ The Friends of Rachel Worth and Jandek’s Portland Thursday and Seattle Friday, and helped turn Pink Mountains, Crock, and the Deep Fried Boogie Band into realities.

Blues Goblins could perhaps be considered as Coomes solo debut, except that in diving so deeply into a pool of blues covers the disc kinda registers as a one-off. That’s decidedly not the aura emanating from Bugger Me, a record its creator has described as “Suicide meets The Beach Boys,” with Coomes quick to emphasize the early “Surfer Girl” period over the later more sophisticated Pet Sounds.

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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.

“Vinyl—the format exists in multiple dimensions.”

“My mother brought home Sgt. Pepper—the original U.S.-released, Capitol label—and handed it straight to me. I was eight. We had my grandmother’s record player, an imposing piece of mahogany furniture about chest high on a grown up. I stood on a chair and watched Sgt. Pepper go round and round while that mind altered and altering music pouring out. It smelled of hot wiring and the speakers were covered in tweed.

The music was three-dimensional, happening all around me. But it existing in a fourth as well—time—either moving past me or I moving forward through it. Yet the record was flat. Two dimensional.

Mom explained how the groove of the record wound around the disk, each tightly packed against the next, and how the needle travelled along it. So, it was a line, too, not just a disk! And the needle was a point on it! And the whole thing moved, but the needle stayed still, right there in the record player, while tangerine trees and lovely Rita and ten thousand holes filled the room like a Maurice Sendak dream.

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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.

On December 4, 1971 the worlds of Deep Purple, Frank Zappa, and Claude Nobs collided in Montreux, Switzerland. What was almost a massive tragedy turned into one of the most popular and enduring songs in the history of rock and roll music. We tell the full story, complete with an interview with Don Preston, keyboard player for The Mothers of Invention. Plus we discuss the upcoming Pink Floyd box set, The Early Years, 1965-1972.

In terms of retrospectives, 2016 has been a pretty good year for Rocksteady, the Jamaican subgenre that briefly flourished in the second half of the 1960s as the stylistic bridge between ska and reggae; in an unexpected twist The Frightnrs’ Nothing More to Say is loaded with high-quality contemporary slow-groove action. Thankfully eschewing a revivalist approach while being highly versed in tradition, the group’s soulful flair makes them a perfect fit as Daptone Records’ inaugural excursion into long-playing reggae. It’s out on vinyl, compact disc, and digital September 2; those ordering from Daptone’s website prior to that date will receive Victor Axelrod’s dub version of the track “Purple” as a download.

Rocksteady might be a relatively brief flash in the grand continuum of Jamaican music, but it’s been far from pushed aside by ska, reggae, dub, or dancehall. As evidence, earlier this year the 17 North Parade label issued a boxset of seven 45s and a 40-track 2CD collection; both titled First Class Rock Steady, they offer a sweet appetizer and immersive banquet into a style that’s more than just a transition.

The Frightnrs hail from Queens, NY, with the lineup that made Nothing More to Say featuring Preet Patel on bass, his brother Chuck on piano, Rich Terrana on drums, and Dan Klein on vocals. Sadly, Klein passed away in June after being diagnosed with ALS last November, a cruel circumstance turning this fine debut full-length into a vivid and surely durable document of his considerable abilities at the microphone.

Residing in the USA, The Frightnrs hurdle a major geographical stumbling block like Olympic champs, for far too frequently Jamaican-inspired sounds wafting from the North American mainland conjure up a Patchouli-reeking patchwork pants-clad nightmare. A clue to their success would seem to derive from the “punk rock spirit” mentioned in a Daptone press release.

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