When the legendary LA Roxy Theatre opened its doors on July 20, 1973, it was another legend who greeted the club’s first customers. Neil Young, who was then, as he put it, down in the ditch in the wake of the drug-related deaths of two close friends, played a triumphant bummer of a set with a band calling themselves the Stray Gators. And at long last the show (or three of them actually) are available on vinyl in the form of 2018’s Roxy: Tonight’s the Night Live.
The studio versions of the songs Neil plays on the live disc wouldn’t see the light of day until 1975’s Tonight’s the Night, but Young more or less runs through them all here, omitting only “Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown” (which was actually recorded live at the Fillmore East in 1970 with Crazy Horse guitarist and drug casualty and Danny Whitten and adding “Walk On” from 1974’s On the Beach.
On both the live and studio LPs Young sounds like a man trying to come to terms with the anguish he was feeling after the drug-related deaths of both Whitten and roadie pal Bruce Berry. Don’t let the Vegas-style stage patter Young engages in between songs on Roxy: Tonight’s the Night Live fool you; Young was one hurting individual.
And it wasn’t just Neil who was feeling gloomy; America’s youth were suffering a collective bring down from the loss of the idealism that marked the psychedelic sixties. On both LPs Young puts paid to the crystal visions of the Age of Aquarius, and channels the pain and disillusionment of a generation of innocents ravaged by hard drugs, Altamont, and the Manson family.
5. Willie Colón, The Hustler (Craft Latino) & V/A, No Other Love: Midwest Gospel (1965-1978) (Tompkins Square) Partly because there continues to be two major Record Store Day events annually that seem to be going down gangbusters, it’s safe to say that vinyl buying is still very much an endeavor connected to being in a room full of records. This makes the steady stream of reissues emerging via Craft Recordings’ Latin subsidiary a real service, as the plain facts are that original specimens from the Fania Records catalog aren’t common in less metropolitan areas. I mean, you could buy secondhand copies online, but that practice is a few blocks from Nowheresville. Oh, how’s The Hustler sound? It’s a fucking beast…
Grabbing an original Willie Colón LP is unlikely out in the boondocks, and you can forget about the selections on Tompkins Square’s latest African-American gospel volume. As Ramona Stout’s accompanying essay explains, No Other Love’s contents were the direct result of community record canvasing (only one track has been anthologized before, on a Numero Group set). It’s safe to surmise that nobody besides Stout and her partner Kevin Speck heard all these cuts prior to presenting the compilation to others. It’s an amazing LP, with Stout’s notes contextualizing matters far beyond the increasingly trite “pure sounds of religious fervor” concept. You know, things are never so simple.
4. Joe McPhee, Nation Time (Superior Viaduct) & Sounds of Liberation, New Horizons & Unreleased (Columbia University 1973) (Dogtown / Brewerytown Beats) To get back to the idea of rarity, or maybe more appropriately, scarcity, when Atavistic commenced the Unheard Music Series shortly after the turn of the 21st, it was cause for celebration for fans of avant-garde jazz the globe over. I mention it because Nation Time by the great multi-reed man Joe McPhee kicked off the whole shebang. The only real caveat is that the UMS was a CD-only endeavor; Superior Viaduct’s reissue of Nation Time gives folks a new vinyl pressing and inspires hope that further UMS titles will see fresh wax editions in the years ahead.
But you need not wait years to scoop up some truly scant ’70s avant-free-spiritual jazz in reissue form, as two records from the Philadelphia-based band Sounds of Liberation have been reissued by the above labels (interestingly given the remarks over brick and mortar above, Brewerytown Beats is also a Philly record store). The septet’s highest-profile players were saxophonist-flautist Byard Lancaster and vibraphonist Khan Jamal; the other members were guitarist Monnette Sudler, drummer Dwight James, bassist Billy Mills, and percussionists Omar Hill and William Brister aka Rashid Salim. Fans of loft jazz and the Wildflowers volumes in particular will want to grab copies of both. The sound is flowing but potent.
Las Vegas, NV | Elton John purchased more than 11,000 records from this tiny Las Vegas shop. Here’s why: Elton John is working on his record collection. For new vinyl, the 72-year-old English pop star goes to London’s Rough Trade Records. But for rare and collectible stuff, he visits a converted surf-green stucco house on the west side of Las Vegas. A place called Wax Trax Records. “It’s like walking into Aladdin’s Cave,” John told British radio DJ Paul Gambaccini in a 2017 interview about his love of vinyl and the shop at 2909 S. Decatur Blvd. In 1991, he sold his extensive vinyl stash that included every single released in England since around 1959 to fund his AIDS charity. He’s been since replacing the more than 50,000 records, and this Las Vegas shop has been helping him find the pieces — more than 11,000 so far. “I’ve been 
Jannali, AU | Sutherland Shire is home to a new vinyl record store: The owner of a new record store in Jannali is banking on new figures that show vinyl record sales are on the rise and set to overtake CDs for the first time in 30 years. Shane McGlinchy, who turned his love of music into a career, recently opened his second bricks and mortar record store after outgrowing his previous premises. Figures by the Australian Recording Industry Association show vinyl records made up 5.1 per cent of recorded music sales in Australia last year while CDs accounted for 12.4 per cent. This is expected to grow to 5.9 per cent this year (compared with CDs at 8.4 per cent) and 6.56 per cent next year, overtaking CD sales, projected to be 5.4 per cent. An avid music fan and collector since his teens, Mr McGlinchy, of Como, already ran an online music store before deciding to branch out. “About five years ago a friend and I did several local markets where we sold records and CDs and found that the shire had many collectors that shared our 
10. Lightning Bolt, Wonderful Rainbow (Thrill Jockey) & Robbie Fulks, Country Love Songs (Bloodshot) The general tendency is to refrain from listing straight reissues of stuff that is less than a quarter century old, but occasionally exceptions will be made, and the controlled duo mayhem that comprises Wonderful Rainbow is one of them. That it’s part of Thrill Jockey’s extensive plunge into Lightning Bolt’s discography no doubt added some weight to the consideration; however, taking this baby out for a few fresh spins provides as wild a ride as it ever did before. The rainbow splatter vinyl is going to splendid revolving on the turntable.
Country Love Songs hasn’t hit the 25-year mark either, but, released in 1996, it’s inching nearer by the second, and it’s a record that’s as necessary now as it was upon initial release. Fulks had a few songs out prior, but the set was his full-length debut and it put him solidly on the map, in the process differentiating him from much of the alt-country pack, as listening to his stuff; rich of voice, strong of song, and exquisite instrumentally including pedal steel from Tom Brumley, made it clear that a couple of decades prior he would’ve been a legitimate country hitmaker. That is conjecture of course, but what’s hard to dispute is how at his best Robbie Fulks is timeless. This LP is a prime example.
9. Miles Davis, The Complete Birth of the Cool (UMe) & John Coltrane, Blue World (Impulse!) I can envision the eye rolls from the non-jazz-loving contingent. These guys again? Didn’t they just make yesterday’s list? Hey, maybe we’ll eventually call for a moratorium on Miles and Trane in the annual Best Of tallies, as it seems unlikely that a year will elapse without multiple reissues and/ or archival editions from these two august names. As you can see, no great jazzman ban was undertaken at TVD in 2019, but things have been kept in perspective.
Birth of the Cool is total jazz canon stuff to be sure, but UMe’s highly attractive 2LP edition (with LP-sized booklet featuring photos and notes by Ashley Khan) is also the first time the live and studio material has been offered on 2LP. For jazz fans and vinyl aficionados, I’d say it’s a must. As a soundtrack recorded by the Classic Quartet for Canadian director Gilles Groulx, Blue World is simultaneously a major discovery (though one hiding in plain sight) and a minor work. But as it offers the saxophonist revisiting previously recorded tunes in the studio, it’s noteworthy, and definitely of interest.
Brisbane, AU | A definitive guide to Brisbane’s 5 best record stores: While Brisbane isn’t necessarily a hotspot for Australian vinyl consumption with a total of 20 record stores against Sydney’s 33 and 70 in Melbourne, there is a few gems to be uncovered. If you’ve been following the stats over the last decade you will have noticed a significant and frankly surprising rise in vinyl sales around the world and we couldn’t be happier. To celebrate the return to music’s most efficient format it’s time to shout out the top 5 record stores in Brisbane that are keeping the dream alive. In 2007, annual vinyl sales in the US was sitting at 2 million which has risen significantly to 16 million in 2017. …While skeptics would argue this is still a far cry from the early 1980s when vinyl hit its peak at $2 billion in the US moving 300 million units, we are shouting out the 5 best record stores in Brisbane to get your 
Wollongong, AU | Wollongong’s last record store, Music Farmers, turns 15: While other Wollongong record stores have fallen by the wayside, Music Farmers is celebrating 15 years of turning people onto new sounds and inspiring them to do their own thing. Back in 2004, if you were placing bets as to which record store in the Wollongong CBD would be the only one left standing today, you probably wouldn’t be putting your money on Music Farmers. Jeb Taylor and Simon Dalla Pozza had opened up a tiny store in 2004, upstairs in Central Chambers. Not the most well-known location; there would still be people today who wouldn’t have a clue where that was. For the record, it’s in the mall, the same place as all the other record stores – all of which were much easier to find. “There was a lot of record stores around at that time,” Taylor says. “Redback was still there, Rock Factory was still there. I think Wilson’s was there and Sanity still existed.” Today they’re all gone, but that small shop with the weird name that started out upstairs in the mall is 
10. Konk, The Magic Force of Konk 1981-1988 (Futurismo) This reissue label, summarized somewhat concisely as being focused on the fringier twists and turns of the New Wave era, has brought out fresh editions of classics from noted New Yorkers James Chance and Alan Vega, so this 3LP collection devoted to this No Wave-affiliated NYC-based proto-dance punk outfit is no surprise. That it goes down so nicely in the here-and-now while spotlighting a vital strain of stylistic hybridization in the 1980s, a decade where a high percentage of punk and post-Wave music became increasingly insular, is a stone treat.
9. Art Pepper, Promise Kept: The Complete Artist House Recordings (Omnivore) The retrospective diligence on the part of Omnivore into the late work of saxophonist Art Pepper continued in 2019 with this 5CD collection of material cut for the Artist House label, originally offered on a string of four albums from the first half of the 1980s (only one, So In Love, actually issued by Artist House), plus 21 previously unreleased takes. Drawn from sessions held in Cali and NYC and with a slew of major players in the bands, Promise Kept is a deep exploration of Art Pepper’s duality; he was a cornerstone West Coast guy but also totally adept in an East Coast context. I mean, there are some major burners on this baby.
8. Chet Baker, The Legendary Riverside Albums (Craft) As West Coasters, Art Pepper and Chet Baker recorded together a few times, perhaps most notably on Playboys, a sextet LP released in 1957 by World Pacific with a big ol’ slice of ’50s cheesecake on the cover. The Legendary Riverside Albums dates from ’58-’59 and corrals some of his most enduring work. In the case of (Chet Baker Sings) It Could Happen To You, it’s also some of his most divisive, as he was iconoclastic as a vocalist but without alienating an audience that, for a while, elevated him to the stature of pop star. More importantly, this collection emphasizes his prowess as a trumpeter and his deep love of standards, a facet shared with Pepper.
7. The Pop Group, Y (Definitive Edition) (Mute) Available either as three LPs and a 7-inch or as a 3CD set, the core of this collection, specifically the debut album from 1979 from these Bristol, UK-based post-punkers, is an absolute must in the scheme of the genre they helped to define. The great news is that the record of additional, previously unheard material, Alien Blood, is way up to snuff, as is the self-explanatorily titled Y Live; the 45 is a repress of the “She’s Beyond Good and Evil” single, and that’s indispensable, too. Standing in the rubble of punk in the late ‘70s, The Pop Group integrated funk, skronk jazz, dub, African influences, and leftist politics into a stew that’s lost none of its potency.
6. Patsy Cline, Sweet Dreams: The Complete Decca Masters 1960-1963 (Third Man) If one were to jot down the biggest names in the history of C&W music, Patsy Cline would figure high upon the list. I’ll add that she achieved this stature in a relatively brief career cut short by a plane crash, and that she was a perfect example of an artist for whom the descriptor of mainstream was not a putdown. With all this said, it’s kind of a stumper how we got all the way to 2010 without her Decca recordings (in short, her finest stuff) being compiled in one set (Hip-O-Select rounded them up on 2CD) and basically another decade before they received the vinyl treatment. Mandatory on any well-rounded country shelf.
