So much to say, so much to write...

So I'm a music teacher meaning I'm off for the summer and have nothing but time in the world to listen to vinyl.  I've been listening to full records non-stop and just haven't had the time to write about it.  Here's a list of what's been on the turntable recently...

Sandy Denny - self titled, album I picked up at Amoeba Music in San Francisco.  Nice, but not in as good a shape as I'd hoped.

Cheiftans 7 - Columbia Promo pressing, sounds great and a great album.  I'll have to share this with my celtic enthusiast friends

Fairport Convention- Expletive Delighted, again, picked up at Amoeba with the Denny and Chieftans album... love it!

AC/DC  - Back in Black, new 180 gram issue.  Can't believe I've never owned this album!  Silent and huge.  Love it!

Jeff Beck - Blow by Blow, got this from my stepfather's sister.  What an AMAZING album!  Can't believe I haven't heard it before but I've digitized it now.  This is a must listen for any guitar fan.  Jeff Beck is a real guitarist's guitarist.

Beach Boys - Pet Sounds, everyone RAVES about this album.  It was okay, don't really know what all the fuss is about.  Of course Wouldn't it Be Nice, God Only Knows and Sloop John B. are the go-to tracks here.  All in all one of the better Beach Boys albums...

Spooky Tooth - Spooky Two, really good album though this one I just bought on eBay and it's in rough shape, sounds like a group of 20 kindergarteners chewing cereal with their mouths open. Music is really excellent though, will have to find a better copy more on this in another post...

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - Whipped Cream and Other Delights, not just notable for the album cover!  Their cover of Taste of Honey is a classic!

Paul Butterfield - North South, this is not what it seems.  It appears that Paul had a slight lapse of judgement.  This is no East West.  Blues meets disco?  This one is not one of my favorites.  I like drums to sound like drums, not like some electronic overly produced synthesizer.  I'm posting this one on eBay if anyone is interested...

That's all I can think of now.  I then spent some time modding my Turn Table to be able to play 78rpm but that is for a new post.

King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King

Recently I mentioned how I came across a compilation album that I've never listened to until recently.  Listening to some of the tracks on there inspired me to find full albums by the artists.  One of those albums is the debut album by King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King.  I've seen this album around but thought that the band was probably some heavy metal band or just something I wasn't interested in.  Then I found out that Robert Fripp was the guitarist... instantly I thought this would be a snooze fest.  A long time ago I was given a record collection by my mother's boyfriend at the time and a couple of those albums were Fripp and Eno records.  'Nuff said right?  I didn't need to hear another record of ambiance.  Man, I was wrong.

21st Century Schizoid Man was a great start to this.  I don't know if the Black Keys or the Dave Grohl ever listened to this album before making waves with their own albums, they probably didn't have to.  The influence of this record on everything that has come after is obvious, and huge.  I'm not sure when the first documented use of distorted vocals appears, I know that on a lot of the old folkways blues recordings those vocals were distorted just because of the nature of the field recording technology of the time and I know that 60s and 70s blues based bands tried to emulate that sound but the the case of 21st CSM this was used in a very different way, not to emulate or shock but to get across the nature of the song.  Layered over the top is alto sax (soprano sax?  I'd have to listen again) doubling all the lead guitar lines into a chaotic yet organized and expertly layered solo section going through a number of syncopated time changes that just grooves harder than anything in a straight 4/4 can.  I would say that this is my favorite track on the album but then I kept listening.

Then came I Talk to the Wind.  Ever listen to one of those tracks where, the lead vocals are definitely not performed by a technically accomplished vocalist but it pulls you in anyway (here I think Dylan, Waits, Young)?  This is one of those.  The voice is effective, the harmonies are out of tune for a split second before they come together, I thought I would hate it.  I love it.

The last track on side one and side two SCREAMS of later Pink Floyd.  Ever listen to much of Pink Floyd from their days in the late 60s?  No, neither do I but I absolutely love their stuff from 1973 on.  It's probably because they listened to this album, let it sink in and then got down to business releasing Dark Side of the Moon.  When I listen to Epitaph by KC I can't help but think of Us and Them.  The hugeness of the sound, the depth of the instrumentation, the melancholy of the lyrics and orchestration, theres a reason that this album is considered the birth of Prog Rock.

The second side of the album is much the same yet totally different.  Moon Child is a giant acid/free jazz improv section with some great interplay between mallet percussion and guitar.  Definitely not stoned enough to listen to this track without getting distracted.  Amazingly quiet passages which stayed quiet which is a testament to the condition of the album I'm listening to... more on this later.

The last track, In the Court of the Crimson King is the most obvious pre-Floyd inspiration.  Vocals sound a bit of Bowie in the upper ranges and the vocal chorus, wall-of-sound cymbals and relentless bass and woodwinds make this one really powerful.  It comes down pretty dramatically with a little interplay between guitar and flute with some sparse percussion and bass before building to the final crescendo.  I was very interested in seeing how other folks were using flute back in the days when Jethro Tull was but a babe.  I was really surprised at just how many bands were incorporating the flute into their sound but equally surprised at how NONE were using it like Ian Anderson.  Ian's obvious influence by Roland Kirk with the percussive breathing and vocalizing whilst playing the flute with a bluesy/jazzy tint was unlike any other performer of the time who were mainly using the flute in a more classical style.

Getting back to the quality of the vinyl I will leave you with this; I love getting these things in their original pressings from their original countries.  But this record goes for WAY too much for a 1st pressing so I opted instead for a 3rd pressing English import.  These can be had at a fraction of the cost of a 1st pressing and there's a general consensus that these Pink Rims (as they're called) has as good a sound as the original pressings.  But there's something about those pink Island records that I love, the thick vinyl, the strangely unique 60's quality about it.  I was able to get this on the Pink Rim label which is fine and all, it's a little flimsy feeling, it's no orange eye edition but maybe someday, in a dusty old record store out there somewhere I'll come across that first pressing.  Maybe not.  For right now I've got the music and that's fine enough for me.

Bumpers: Various Artists of Island Records

So, as a Jethro Tull fan I used to buy anything that had Jethro Tull stuff on it.  Quite a while ago I did a quick search and this quirky little album showed up.  I filed it away for later and hadn't even really played it since I'd already heard the Tull song on it..  until recently that is when I decided to check out what else was happening in the British music scene back when Tull was getting started.  I pulled out this thing and decided to give it a spin.  The thing is, it's not just a quirky little album, it's a DOUBLE album FULL of some absolutely amazing music I've never heard before.  I'm sure most readers will already know of these bands as most likely you found this post by searching for one or more of them. Welcome to MY awakening!

Aside from Tull and the more blues based off-shoot Blodwyn Pig, other bands on here include Traffic (featuring Steve Winwood's characteristic vocals and organ work), Mott the Hoople (I had always heard of this band but thought it was some 80s punk band... shows what I know... or don't know), King Crimson, Free, Fairport Convention, Fotheringay and Cat Stevens.  Two albums worth of this stuff... just imagine that listening party!  I seriously enjoyed the track on here by the band Renaissance, very baroque classical mixed in a rock style, not exactly in the Tull style, still very cool. The Fotheringay track blew me away.  Can't believe being the big Zeppelin fan that I am I've never found this band formed in part by Sandy Denny.  What amazing, haunting vocals.  Also of note was the track by the band Clouds and the Cat Stevens track.  The latter I have on vinyl but have never listened to it.  It was really cool to hear it in this context.  I've never thought of him as a British musician until he was included on a British compilation.  The track by Free was also of note.  This is a great album to play on a rainy Sunday afternoon if you're stuck inside.

I'm now on the lookout for albums by most of these groups, more specifically Fairport, Fotheringay and King Crimson and Blodwyn Pig.  I'll have to look for the others later.  What a find, what a find.

Squeeze: UK Squeeze

A first pressing of a record released in 1978 on limited edition red vinyl!?  Must be a collectible worth tons of $ right?  Not so much.  These can be had on Amazon for $6.79.  I hope I can get that deposit back on the lake house...

Judging a book by its cover I forever believed that the music on here would be reminiscent of the Sex Pistols only not as good (I swear my "Never Mind the Bullocks" album is the same color, same style without the guy about to explode).   This is an American release by the band Squeeze.  How can you tell it's American?  They had to put 'U.K" on the cover as there was apparently some legal trouble with releasing an album in the US by a band called "Squeeze" when there was already a band in the U.S. called "Tight Squeeze".  I don't see what the big deal was.  But that's neither here nor there.  I've been dragging this album around for 30 years from school to apartment to house to house.  So today I decided that, after 30 years, I would actually pull this out in order to figure out what was on here.  I was in for a complete surprise.

I'm actually eating Chinese food right now so I'm going to make this quick.  There are some great songs on here.  There is some bluesy stuff with some tasty musicianship.  There's even a pretty cool instrumental on here.  It spans the gamut from new wave and punk to R&B.  Not at ALL what I thought would be on here.  I can't give track names because I wasn't paying attention and just like when I watch movies I'm going to have to give this another listen before I can really remember anything in depth.  I was mostly left with a feeling of "this is cool, I need to hear it again".

As far as the red vinyl though, it sounds like crap.  It's noisy, the mastering is really terrible, squashed and thin.  I have this album also on normal vinyl and swapped it out when I flipped the record over. It was less noisy, not as badly mastered but not great.   When I go to put this on again (most likely next week in order to wash the sound of Shrek the Musical out of my brain) I'll be putting on the black vinyl.  A little research online found quite a following for the Squeeze with many other releases I didn't even know existed.  I'll have to check out a "Best of" to figure out what they really sound like and how they've changed over the years but that's for another day.

the Beatles: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

For a number of years I've owned a copy of Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band that I found at a used record store.  Most of my Beatles records came to me in this way and were more than a little noisy, inked up, marked up, abused and smelly.  So when I heard that they were re-releasing the whole Beatles catalog on vinyl I couldn't resist, I had to replace my Sgt Peppers album.  I was of course worried about all the detractors of the new pressings.  Some said they were noisy, some said they were sonically inferior but all I knew was that if I wanted to hear a pristine, vinyl copy of Sgt Peppers I would either have to spend hundreds of dollars on an untouched original or I could spend $25-30 on this remaster.  I'm so cheap the choice was easy, it would have cost me money not to buy this! 

I was a little nervous about dropping the needle down on the new vinyl.  First things first, the packaging is beautiful.  The vinyl is heavy, the record label is an exact reproduction of the original Parlophone label, the gatefold, inner record sleeve, everything reproduced beautifully and faithfully.  These weren't my main interests though, my original copy came with everything it was supposed to except for a clean copy of the vinyl inside.  My fears were quickly alleviated; I dropped the needle on the outer edge and was met with... silence. 

I hate it when I read reviews on records and people talk about the mastering and compression and analog digitality blah, blah, blah.  Some people can hear that kind of stuff.  I can't. Even as a musician a lot of that seems to be lost on me.  What I can tell you is that when I sat in front of my sound system and listened to this album I felt like I was inside the sound.  I felt like it was happening around me rather than in front of me.  If I closed my eyes I could imagine being surrounded by the musicians (which is pretty cool considering that the musicians were the freakin' Beatles).  

This is one of my favorite Beatles albums and being able to listen to it in this manner was like re-discovering it all over again.  Most who know me know that I'm not a huge Beatles fan, I came into them only recently upon reading the book by Geoff Emerick on his days recording the group. The only reason I had the original album to begin with was for the fact that I couldn't really call myself a record collector without having any albums by the Fab Four.  This is one of those albums where most people in the world know just about all the songs on here.  Same held true to me before I first heard it.  The tracks on here that left me wanting would probably be She's Leaving Home and Mr. Kite, while the un-precedented classics would be the title track (of course), Little Help, Lucy in the Sky, Getting Better and, most poignantly as I age, When I'm 64.  

Needless to say, I'm after the rest of this collection.  People hoot and holler about the Mono release. Someday I should get these out of morbid curiosity, but I'm a stereo guy.  I don't like my music, movies or pictures in "flat".  I love music that surrounds you, I love ViewMaster slides and 3D movies.  I can't wait to hear the rest of the new releases... Beatles on pristine vinyl?  Yes please.  But that will have to wait for another day.

Toy Dolls: Dig That Groove Baby

Man, I haven't had this much fun listening to an album in a long time.  I actually find myself singing through these songs in my head, realizing I don't do them justice, and heading back down stairs to put this back on the turntable.  Hell, I'm listening to it again right now with my son who's digging it as well.  

A lot of people who've spoken to me after one of my band's gigs usually remarks on how much energy the band has on stage and how much fun it looks like we all are having.  I gotta say, we've got nothin' on these guys!  Jeez, their whole album sounds like it was a party to record.  I can't imagine a world where it didn't happen that way!  I don't want to imagine a world where that wasn't the case.

In a nutshell Toy Dolls are a fun-punk band.  I don't mean like your Clash or Ramones or Sex Pistols. The Clash were actually quite "message based" for their time, one of the first bands like that and musically excellent.  The Ramones were less musically excellent but were produced very well, loud and pretty badass.  The Sex Pistols were pissed, anti-establishment, sort of middle ground musically and really lived that punk life that we all associate with this sort of music.  

The Toy Dolls are completely different.  Musically quite accomplished with some fascinating chord choices (think a punk song about a guy named Archie from Brooklyn but with chords reminiscent of Pachelbel Canon/Puff the Magic Dragon).  The guitarist is innovative, creative and his lead singing is irreverent with a completely over-pronounced, stuffy nosed yet nasally Cockney that brings forth such classics as Nellie the Elephant (my daughter's favorite), Blue Suede Shoes (with a geometrically ascending guitar break) and their original (and my favorite) which titles the album, Dig That Groove Baby.  This tune makes me think of what Buddy Holly would have sounded like had he put out a punk album in the early 80s.  

I had to look all the way to Germany in order to find an original pressing of this one.  Believe it or not it landed in excellent though it's quite staticky.  Could just be our crap weather right now.  Everything is dry, cold and brittle.  This album's really heating it up in this house though... time to turn it over! 

Grateful Dead: Skeletons from the Closet

I'm about to admit something that I'm not particularly proud of.  Back in 1995 when I heard that Jerry Garcia had died (it's one of those times, I remember exactly where I was... I was driving on the dirt road to the summer camp where I worked, it was a warm, sunny day in August and I was coming back from my day off listening to the radio when I heard the news) I remember thinking, "at last". What was my rationale?  I had seemingly forever lived with Grateful Dead obsessed stoners who thought of little else but the Dead and weed.  At camp, the handful of us who were not Dead-Heads had to fill in for the unbelievable number of staff who requested the weekend off to attend the historic Dead concert in Highgate, Vermont.  My college suite was constantly awash in reefer-smoke while strains of the Dead and Phish came thumping through thin dorm walls accompanying the smoke that drifted from under the doors.  A part of me thought that if Jerry Garcia were dead, maybe all the madness would end.   

Now 20 years later I'm left feeling rather bad about my initial reaction and now that I'm able to listen to the Grateful Dead on my own terms, not those of my room-mates or co-workers I find that there is a lot about the Dead that I can appreciate.  For one is very lightness of the music, and I don't mean in an adult contemporary or easy listening kind of way.  The harmonies, the chord progressions, the melodies and the grooves, Skeleton's From the Closet is nice way to spend part of your weekend whether you partake or not.  This album is like listening to a great batch of old Americana recordings except they're not tunes pulled from the 20s and 30s but from the 60s and 70s.  I also find that this record pulls at my nostalgia strings quite a bit.  Like I said I heard these tunes many, many times during my high school/college career and, whether I like it or not, these songs bring about memories of summers spent with friends, bonfires, music pouring out of cars parked in the dark woods with folks having fun and spending summer nights together.  I would also throw into this lot the music of Cat Stevens and Van Morrison.  Seems I spent a lot of time with hippies.  All these albums now live in my collection and when the weather is below freezing and it just seems like the snow will never go away I can throw on the Grateful Dead and all of a sudden it's summer again, my hair is longer, I'm a bit skinnier, there's a fire going in the middle of the woods, the beer is crappy but everyone's happy.