Chet and Lester, Lionel Johnson+ Big Joe Williams w/ Bob Dylan playing harmonica+ Spivey and..., The Animals, Miles, Seven Come Elleven
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RFS, obviously you 'get it' about the Lips, and might enjoy checking out the thread I mentioned, and I'd be glad if you felt moved to contribute, it's been dormant for a while now. I've been waiting for AWWTM to sink in for a while longer before I commented there -- slowly I've been easing up some in my opinion of it lately. Not that I thought it was terrible or anything, or very surprising either -- no one can be expected to climb forever at the heights these guys had been scaling recently. |
... In the way that many felt the lose of XTC for what they once were when they made "Skylarking" of 1986 with production by Todd Rundgren (personally IMHO, one, if not THE crowning achievement of their carrier) many may fall away from the Lips now due to their last two endeavors because refinement of the craft in all its aspects is confused with commercialism or the lose of some raw edge. If so then why note trash the fab four of "Abbey Road"?! I like what I hear, for what it is worth. Cheers! |
Zaikesman, I find "At War With the Mystics" to be a great continuation of where "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots" left off. Mind you, some of the Lip's greatest work "Transmissions from the Satellite Heart" of 1993 or maybe "The Soft Bulletin" of 1999 IMHO but not one, not one of their releases has fallen on deaf ears in this house. Wayne Coyne and the fellows seem to continually up the ante with every mind-bending encounter. Rare are they who reinvent themselves and walk the fine line for their entire carrier as these folks have so poignantly. At their worst I genuinely love them and what they do. At their best I find them to be psychedelic geniuses. I also love them live, which adds a whole enhanced other element to what they do. Happy Listening! |
RFS: That sounds like a playlist I'd make, except I'm missing a couple of those titles (but not artists). What do you think of the new Lips? I once authored an archived thread devoted to them, but I'm mostly underwhelmed by AWWTM although I do like much of it pretty well. Still, IMO not in the same catagory for me as their best recent work, including their last two albums. |
Hi Foster, yes I *have* replaced the Magic Diamond with another Magic Diamond cartridge. The Magic Diamond does so many things so well I continue to be very impressed with it; from top to bottom it is has a consistency of sound quality that I've never heard another cartridge better. It just makes incredible music. Slipknot got the same Magic Diamond cartridge with his new Walker turntable, so there's certainly some common listening biases being shared in this neck of the woods. I'm delighted to see Speakers Corner delving in to reissue the Harmonia Mundi catalog. They have several out or on their way. All are superb recordings in their original issues, so given Speakers Corner's track record for quality, I suspect the reissues will be well worth getting if you like the music. The "Danses Anciennes de Hongrie" is one of my favorites. I'm just hoping they will reissue a Harmonia Mundi I don't have in my collection already but have been searching for! . |
New acoustic room treatments and everything is dialed in! Miles Davis -Porgy and Bess on Columbia 6-eye Mono. Rahsaan Roland Kirk -Rahsaan Rahsaan on Atlantic. Cannonball Adderley -Quintet at the Lighthouse on Riverside. Yusef Lateef- Eastern Sounds on Prestige OJC. (Just grabbed it up still sealed in the shrink wrap) Flaming Lips -At War With the Mystics on WB. Rushton! Good to see you back with vinyl... this must mean you have replaced the trusty 'ol Magic Diamond, may it RIP. Hey, Have you seen the Danses Anciennes de Hongrie, Clemencic Consort conducted by Dr. René Clemencic is being released by Speakers Corner end of this month? Thanks to you and Slipknot1 for the many recommends to the Clemenic Consort back some time ago. I'm starting to find a few selections. More later. Happy Listening! |
Today (so far) David Gilmour "On An Island" EMI import LP. This is an LP that grows on you with repeated listenings. Very well recorded, excellent packaging, quiet surface, and great sonics. Kind of like an introspective Pink Floyd work. Pink Floyd "Wish You Were Here" CBS Half Speed Master. This release has a rounder, less tizzy top end than either my Japanese or standard domestic pressings. Falla "Nights In The Gardens Of Spain" Rafael de Burgos/Orchestre de la Societe des Concerts du Conseratoire, Gonsalvo Soriano (piano) From the Time/Life 10 volume box set: "The Story Of Great Music" Good sonics typical of many of the Time/Life issues. These box sets represent an excellent way to develop a collection of the basic repertoire in classical music. |
DCC Compact Classics Limited Edition of Queen "At Night at The Opera". I paid a pretty penny for this LP but it is better than 95% in my LP collection (and the collection is excellent in quality and content). Mastered by the great Steve Hoffman on an all vacuum-tube cutting system. Who, but Freddie Mercury, could have sung "Love of My Life" with so much emotion and precision? Surely, this is one of the most underrated songs of all time. It will always live large in my heart. Cheers! |
Mostly some old Columbias... Miles Davis Quintet - Round About Midnight (6-eye mono, '57) His first for the label, with Coltrane, Garland, Chambers and Philly Joe. "Ah-Leu-Cha" is the highlight for me, managing to both slither and kick. Miles Davis - Milestones (6-eye mono, '58) His next small-group effort for the label, following the orchestrated "Miles Ahead" with Gil Evans. Same lineup as previous but add Cannonball to make a sextet. Seems not quite as distinctively Miles in comparison, fine but also a tad generic, although the title tune's a stone classic. Trane gets off best of all. Of course, headier things were right around the corner. Jimmy Rushing - The Smith Girls (6-eye mono, '61) Songs 'made famous' by Bessie and her sisters, this joint rocks and jumps. Featuring Coleman Hawkins and Buck Clayton with a full band. Big Bill Broonzy - Big Bill's Blues (Columbia Adventures In Sound gold label mono, '58) Solo acoustic vocals + guitar, simply mic'ed with good presence, includes many between-songs spoken asides and even the sound of a bottle pouring into a glass to open "When I've Been Drinking". Derek & The Dominos fans, note "Key To The Highway"! Gerry Mulligan-- "Presenting The Gerry Mulligan Sextet" (EmArcy, '55) The first of a trio of LPs the Sextet recorded for EmArcy in '55-'56. Featuring Zoot Sims, Bob Brookmeyer and Dave Bailey. Mesmerizing, swinging arrangements meld with sympatico group improv reminiscent of vintage dixieland in spirit. Has a Mulligan-penned tune y'all dig the punning title of: "Nights Of The Turntable" -- get it? Like some other 50's jazz EmArcys I own, this (pristine) disk sounds fairly muffled, but I've heard some of the CD remasters (not this one) and they've been significantly more open-sounding (as I'm sure the Mosaic LPs are), so it seems the session masters weren't the reason. |
completed some tweaks on my table, and bought and armload of lps at Joe's Record Paradise yesterday, so this is the lineup for today: Greatful Dead, "Europe '72" "Pablo Live", w/Stephane Grappelli, Joe Pass et al Chick Corea, "My Spanish Heart" Oregon, "In Performance" Hot Tuna, "Burgers" The Tubes, "The Tubes" The Doors, "LA Woman" Stomu Yamashta, et al, "Crossing the Line, Live from Paris" 45rpm Others from the collection: Philip Catherine, "Nairam" Bill Evans, "The Second Trio" Billy Cobham, "Spectrum" Brian Eno, "Before and After Science" |
I love finding still-sealed older records. The other day I broke the seal on Ravi Shankar's "Improvisations" in stereo on World-Pacific from 1962, found for $2 in a bargain bin. It really feels like a privilege to be the first one to spin pristine vinyl that's over 4 decades old, and this didn't disappoint. A couple of the tracks are collaborations between Shankar's Indian trio and a few of the WP West Coast jazz luminaries, Bud Shank, Gary Peacock, Dennis Budimir and Louis Hayes. Beautiful music and sound. Another SS one I found this week was The Church's "Sometime Anywhere" double LP on Arista from '94. I've had the CD for years, but hadn't seen it on vinyl before. I was very surprised to find this pressing may have one of the quietest surfaces I've ever heard -- more than once I've actually done a double-take to check whether I selected the right input or turned up the volume enough after dropping the needle in the groove, because I didn't hear anything before the music began. I'll be interested to compare it with the CD when I get a chance, as some of the extended tunes cover an usually wide dynamic range for a modern rock recording, particularly the epic "Two Places At Once", also released as an abridged single. (I believe this may also have been The Church's last recording issued on an American major label.) |
Slipknot, the comment Lloyd was supposed to have made about my Walker TT was a joke (worked verbally Tuesday night but not all that well in print :^). On topic, the following LP's were "on my turntable" for Lloyd Walker and the rest of my music loving group: Red Hot Chili Peppers "By The Way" Goldfrapp "Felt Mountain" Eels "Beautiful Feak" Eels "Electro Shock Blues" Kate Bus "Aerial" Lee Morgan "Candy" Reiner-Chicago "Scheherazade" Lonnie Johnson "Blues and Ballads" Royal Ballet "(Gala Performances) Ernest Ansermet" Cassandra Wilson "New Moon Daughter" Kate Bush "Sensual World" Ricki Lee Jones "Traffic From Paradise" Miles Davis "Siesta" Miles Davis "Tutu" Donald Fagen "Morph The Cat" Jan Jelineck "~Scape 007" Bjork 'Debut" Dave Brubeck "A la Mode" Jellyfish "Bellybutton" Man Jumping "World Service" Yello "Flag" Dead Can Dance "Aion" The Streets "Original Pirate Material" Actually quite a few more than these, we listened all day Saturday and again Tuesday night. Lloyd did say (and this is the truth) that he was pleased I played a variety of music. Seems he's bombarded with (only) audiophile LP's when visiting most audiophile groups. He now has a copy of Kate Bush "Aerial" and wrote down titles of several other LP's. |
Just something I found on allmusic that helps sum it up... Grant McLennan R.I.P. Biography by Jason Ankeny As the co-founder of Australia's beloved cult band the Go-Betweens, Grant McLennan established himself among the finest and most effervescent songwriters in contemporary pop music, a standing his subsequent solo career did little to alter. Born in Rock Hampton on February 12, 1958, McLennan was attending Brisbane University during the mid-'70s when he and fellow student Robert Forster decided to channel their shared affection for punk and '60s folk into a band; dubbing themselves the Go-Betweens, they issued a series of singles before recording their debut LP, Send Me a Lullaby, in 1982. Over the course of the decade to follow, the Go-Betweens emerged as one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the post-punk era, yet excellent LPs like 1983's Before Hollywood and 1987's Tallulah simply failed to find an audience; when 1988's brilliant 16 Lovers Lane failed to push the group to the stardom so many predicted, they disbanded, and McLennan began his solo career. After recording as one half of Jack Frost, a duo he formed with the Church's Steve Kilbey, he issued his solo debut, 1991's Watershed (credited, as was its 1993 follow-up, Fireboy, to G.W. McLennan). After 1995's double-LP Horsebreaker Star, he toured with a briefly reunited Go-Betweens before issuing his fourth solo effort, In Your Bright Ray. The Go-Betweens reunited again in 2000 and enjoyed a creative and critically acclaimed streak that lasted for four albums and a concert DVD. On May 6, 2006, McLennan died at his home in Brisbane at age 48. If your familiar there's no need in an introduction, if your not, this band and singer/songwriter is well worth checking out. Again, Thanks Grant McLennan for all the great music! |
. Carmen Fantasie / Havanaise / Ruggiero Ricci  London Symphony Orchestra  Gamba - Decca SXL-2197 ffss - reissue - just a knockout recording/performance. . Mahler Symphony No.4 - Reiner / Chicago Symphony / Lisa Della Casa - RCS LSC-2364 reissue - heavenly . Steely Dan - Katy Lied MCA 1483 . David Roth - Pearl Diver / Stock-Fisch 357.8031.1 - . Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms / Warner Brothers Records W-125264 . Carly Simon - The Best if Carly Simon / Columbia - FC-40052  Surprisingly good recording . Louis Armstrong - Satchmo Plays King Oliver - 45RPM  Classic Records 200 gram - mind bogglingly wonderful . Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon / EMI Heavy Vinyl 30th Anniversary Edition . Jennifer Warnes  The Well / Cisco Music 180 gram  great recording /music . Loggins and Messina - The Best of Friends / CBS/Sony 25AP 527 - Japanese pressing - great recording...great music . A very, very nice day.....IÂm smiling . Rgds, Larry . |
Yessongs...original pressing, great live performance, average recording. Buddy Guy, I was Walking through the Woods, MCA 200 gram reissue, great recording lets you hear how many later recordings are so over produced. Fabulous guitar. Bill Evans/Jim Hall...Undercurrents, great piano and especially guitar. Billy Joel, The Stranger, original pressing...what a recording! |
