The Dreadnought Hoax Part 1

Submitted by Bookride Blog

Adrian Stephen. THE “DREADNOUGHT” HOAX. Hogarth Press, London 1936.

Current Selling Prices
$150-$450 /£100-£300

MODERN FIRST EDITION / HUMOUR / SEDITION
Adrian Stephen’s account of supreme prankster Horace de Vere Cole’s elaborate hoax, in which he, Virginia Stephen (later Woolf), Guy Ridley, Anthony Buxton and Duncan Grant masqueraded as Abyssinian royals, with Adrian Stephen as their interpreter, and were treated to a tour of the Royal Navy’s flagship HMS Dreadnought. Also known as the ‘Bunga, Bunga’ affair, it was de Vere Cole’s finest and most successful prank. He had done a dry run in Cambridge as an undergraduate when he had posed as the Sultan of Zanzibar — who was visiting London at the time — to make an official visit to his own college accompanied by his friend Adrian Stephen (brother of Virginia Woolf). There had been a few hairy moments–at one point an elderly woman academic tried to talk to the Sultan in his native language. The resourceful Stephen informed her that in order to talk to him she would first have to join his harem. Language also proved a problem on board the Dreadnought. This is from Wallechinsky & Wallace’s Hoaxes in History:

“Taken by launch from the harbor to the Dreadnought, Cole and his cohorts were received by Home Fleet Adm. Sir William May. After inspecting a marine guard, the party was taken on a tour of the ship, during which Herr Kauffmann explained the various sights to the wide-eyed Ethiopians. Unsure of what sort of dialect to use, Adrian Stephen suddenly began spouting passages of Vergil’s Aeneid, mispronouncing it sufficiently to make it unrecognizable as Latin. Later, when he could remember no more Vergil, he switched to Homer, mispronouncing the Greek in the same manner he had altered the Latin.

For their parts, the four in blackface could not have responded more enthusiastically to all that they were shown. Although Virginia-fearful of being discovered a woman-limited her commentary to an occasional “chuck-a-choi, chuck-a-choi,” the others let go with loud exclamations of “bunga, bunga” at everything from an electric light bulb to the ship’s heaviest armaments. “

It was, for its time, a media sensation and small children would taunt sailors with cries of ‘Bunga, Bunga.’ De Vere Cole pulled off many other pranks, some violent, even criminal. One excellent wheeze was to hire four bald men to attend a particularly pretentious play with the letters S H I T written on their pates so that when they removed their hats the word could be clearly seen from the dress circle. Less pleasant hoaxes included wrestling the lifelike dummy of a naked woman on the pavement , banging her head and shouting ‘ungrateful hussy’ and standing in front of a moving train and lighting his cigar off the engine after it screeched to a halt. Dom Joly could only dream of such japes. He sold the throne of Croatia to a gullible ‘mark’ and is also said to have slept in a bed in the shop window of Maples. These and other hoaxes are recounted in an excellent recent biography by Martyn Downer - ‘The Sultan of Zanzibar.’ Continuing soon with book values, speculations on the Bloomsbury market (are the knockers moving in?) , a picture of the beautiful and beloved Mavis de Vere Cole Wheeler (if I can find one) and an olla podrida of trivia, gossip and whimsy… by the way that’s Virginia Woolf with beard top left, Horace is said have attempted to ‘ingratiate’ himself with her but she regarded him as ‘an intolerable bore…very rich and very vulgar…’

Express to Hollywood

Submitted by Bookride Blog

Victor McLaglen. EXPRESS TO HOLLYWOOD. Jarrolds, London, 1934.

Current Selling Prices
$600-$800 /£350-£450

MOVIES / BOXING / AUTOBIOGRAPHY
This is a return visit to a resolutely unfindable book. Actually, Peter M a reader of these postings found a copy and mailed me these images. Many thanks. There are no copies on the web and I have only heard of one going through Ebay; there is also the copy mentioned by Prize Fighter in the old comments field. Family members, boxing fans, Brits in Hollywood scholars and movie fans want it.

It is the autobiography of a Hollywood hard man and ex boxer, recalling his wildly adventurous career prior to entering the movies. McLaglen was born in turbulent Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. His father, a bishop, moved the family to South Africa when McLaglen was a child. He left home at fourteen to join the army with the intention of fighting in the Second Boer War. However much to his chagrin, he was stationed at Windsor Castle and was later forced to leave the army when his true age was discovered. From 1904 - 1920 he was a boxer and in 1918 McLaglen won the Heavyweight Championship of the British Army. The Wikiman says of this elusive book:

“His tale of the road, his odyssey from his native England through Canada and the western United States, details his long-held desire to be a professional prizefighter, climaxing in a no-decision fight with world heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. McLaglen supplements his story with vignettes of life as a farmer, gold and silver prospector, wrestler, policeman, soldier, vaudeville performer, miner, pearl fisher, big-game hunter, and sign-painter. In all likelihood the only Academy Award-winning actor ever, past or future, also to be Assistant Provost Marshal of the city of Baghdad, McLaglen writes a story that reads as though Jack London had written it. He writes with candor and humility, and with style. It is am immensely enjoyable book, and the fact that McLaglen was at the time of its writing only beginning to achieve the fame and popularity that would maintain his career nearly another three decades is both astonishing and a bit disappointing: it would have been wonderful to read his accounts of the next quarter century….”

Of course he went on to make “The Informer,” “The Quiet Man,” and “What Price Glory?”. I have trod on his name on Hollywood Boulevard where, as Ray Davies has it, his name “is written in concrete.”

VALUE? 20 years ago someone paid $120 for a signed photo at Darvick , there was a BIN for an insubstantial clipped note at ebay for $250. Sanders Autograph Guide (2000) rate his signature at $165 and a signed photo at $335 and spell his name McLaglin. He wasn’t John Wayne, who can go very high indeed, but for some reason hard guy’s signatures are often pricy. Jarrolds, an East Anglian publisher, tended to have funky colourful jackets so it would look good and modestly priced in the low to mid hundreds it would probably sell to the fastest finger in less than an hour on ABE–there are over 40 buyers waiting. It is a boxing book which, as far as I am aware is still a lively collecting area; there are even boxing book specialists - I used to ask them in vain for Arthur Cravan posters. Do they join the ring? Sans jacket the book still very good, people want to read it. There are no Kessinger reprints. Ugly though they usually are, new printings would lower the price.

Ben Stiller Stars in Greenberg

Submitted by All Movie Replicas Blog

Ben Stiller in Greenberg

Few in Hollywood can perform with consistency on both sides of the camera the way Ben Stiller can.

If Zoolander didn’t establish that, Tropic Thunder certainly confirmed Stiller’s dual talent, underscored by Robert Downey Jr.’s supporting-actor Oscar nomination for his obsessed Tropic Thunder thespian.

Besides being multi-faceted, the 44-year-old is also bankable, which is another rare commodity. Stiller movies have earned more than $1.5 billion US world wide.

That includes the aforementioned Tropic Thunder, and a few studio comedy franchises, most notably, the Meet the Parents series and Night at the Museum flicks.

From time to time, Stiller wades into the more tempered humour pool to challenge himself in emoting territory removed from his more exaggerated comedy comfort zone.

That would be the case in Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg, which opened in select theatres last Friday.

In the movie, Stiller plays the title character, a neurotic New York underachiever who suffers a breakdown. After treatment, he hangs out at this brother’s L.A. home, ostensibly house-sitting while the family goes on an exotic vacation.

After boredom sets in, Greenberg tries to re-connect with some old rock ‘n’ roll band mates, including Ivan (Rhys Ifans), who seems to have as many issues as his former sidekick.As they struggle with their past and their presents together, Greenberg develops a new relationship with his brother’s just-out-of-college assistant (Greta Gerwig), who seems to be almost as lost as Greenberg.

To tell you that Baumbach (who co-wrote Greenberg with wife Jennifer Jason Leigh) previously put together Kicking and Screaming, The Squid and The Whale, and Margot at the Wedding, is to explain Greenberg, the movie.

It falls somewhere into that milieu, mixing comedy with drama as awkwardly as the characters deal with their individual shortcomings. And that was exactly the challenge Stiller decided he needed.

“I really love Noah’s movies, and would have done anything he sent over to me,” says Stiller. “He had written such a layered character and movie, and it was intriguing, and not the kind of material I get that often.”

Originally, Baumbach had written the part for a younger actor, but re-wrote the role when Stiller showed interest in it.

With the screenplay adjustment, the actor embraced his Greenberg persona as defined by Baumbach’s re-modelling. So Stiller jumped in with both feet, defining a cynic who’s apathetic and doesn’t care.

“Greenberg’s trying to get through life, because things haven’t really worked out the way he wanted them to,” notes Stiller.

Opportunities have passed him by, as the film so deftly underscores, “but he tries to rationalize his lack of momentum” with sarcasm and a temper. “He’s probably too smart for his own good,” agrees Stiller.

“But everybody struggles with their own sense of themselves,” he adds. “Playing this guy gave me a real appreciation for what I have, because it’s very easy to focus on what you don’t have.”

Still, he says he’s fortunate his director is just plain “articulate” in showing specific details of all the characters.

“It’s really interesting how people react to Greenberg,” reports Stiller. “All the reactions seem to be very visceral; audiences are moved by it or it makes them uncomfortable.”

He’s also thrilled to work with the dog in Greenberg, who had previously played Delgado in Beverly Hills Chihuahua. “I was familiar with his work, because I have kids,” he says. “So there was a respect.”

Next up for Stiller is a return to the mainstream with Meet the Little Fockers, which opens next Christmas. In it, Stiller’s frazzled husband copes, ironically, with kids.

“It was great to re-connect with Robert De Niro,” the actor says. “It’s always exciting to be around him. He understands his persona, and has an amazing sense of humour.”

Meanwhile, Stiller is in the early stages of developing a sequel to Zoolander as writer and director. “We are working on a script right now, so the idea is to have something to shoot next year,” Stiller says.

And, of course, after Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian earned a whopping $413 million US worldwide last spring, another Night seems inevitable.

Another Tropic Thunder flick doesn’t seem so likely, however.

“I don’t think so,” he says. “That was a one-off thing that took us nine years from beginning to end.”

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Submitted by All Movie Replicas Blog

Roger Dean Talks ‘Avatar’ at Retrospective

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

A special thank you to author Cathy Rose A. Garcia for allowing me to reprint this wonderful article

“Osibisa” is the original work by British cover artist Roger Dean, which was also used for the cover of Osibisa’s 1971 self-titled album.  Courtesy of Roger Dean

By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter

One look at the floating islands in British artist Roger Dean’s landscapes and the first thing that comes to mind is “Avatar.”

But Dean was creating these lush, otherworldly landscapes in the early 1970s, decades before director James Cameron even started work on the billion-dollar-blockbuster. Days after the film came out the Internet was abuzz as fans discussed the striking similarities between Dean’s fantasy world and Cameron’s Pandora planet.

Dean, who was in Seoul last week for the opening of his retrospective “Dragon’s Dream” at the Daelim Contemporary Art Museum, Tongui-dong, Jongno, remained tight-lipped whether he will pursue legal action against Cameron.

“The only thing I will say is I am extremely grateful to these millions of people online who have recognized the similarities and talked about my works. It’s a great honor that so many people recognized it. I didn’t know there were that many people who would remember my work,” he said, during a press conference at the museum.

Dean apologized for not being able to talk about the matter, but hinted of future developments, saying: “I’m sorry I can’t say much about it, but watch this space.”

“Dragon’s Dream” is the largest retrospective of Dean’s works, which include original paintings; original album covers for the rock bands Yes, Uriah Heap, Gun and Asia; and design logos.

“This is exciting for me because this is the biggest exhibition of my work that I have ever seen. It is wonderful that we have my works all in one place. Some of the pictures have never been exhibited before, and some have never been shown since the 1970s,” he said.

Dean’s career in cover art started in 1968. After designing Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in London, record label executives were impressed and asked him to do art cover for then a new band named Gun’s album “Race with the Devil.”

“It was an intriguing thing for me. I never thought to do cover art. … They continued to ask me to do jazz albums with very austere graphic designs. At that time I wanted to go and do more rock ‘n’ roll. So with my portfolio, I went around London, knocking on doors and asking for work,” he said.

In 1971, Dean did his first covers for Osibisa (“Osibisa”) and Yes (“Fragile”), which attracted a lot of attention and made him a sought-after cover artist.

His album cover art was distinguished by a dreamy, surrealistic quality that matched progressive rock music. Dean created a world of floating rock islands with pine trees and flying dragons that most people would label as “fantasy,” but he disagrees.

“I never thought of it as fantasy. Essentially, I paint landscapes. Most are real, like the trees, but I add something that is not real like waterfalls with no source of water or rocks that float. But these are all inspired by places I’ve seen,” he said. For instance, some of his landscapes with rock formations were inspired by American deserts.

Some of Dean’s paintings are now worth as much as $2.5 million, but he takes more pleasure in the fact that his album covers have reached millions of people around the world. “I definitely feel happiest when millions buy the albums. … Basically, I only paint three or four paintings a year and if I sell one, it is a great honor for me,” he said.

Rock music by Yes, Uriah Heap and Asia are played at the museum to get viewers into the right mood while looking at Dean’s works.

Interestingly enough, the silvery-haired artist is not influenced by the music of the bands whose covers he makes. “I talk to the band about the ideas they want to convey through their music. … (But) I’m not reinterpreting their music. I listen to what they’re saying about their music,” he said.

While he loves different genres of music, Dean doesn’t listen to music when working on his paintings and designs. “When I listen to music, it’s for the mood, but not for the creativity,” he said.

Dean is also a designer, who has worked on logos and stage design and architecture. One of his most famous logos is for the video game Tetris, which has been played by millions of people around the world.

The “Dragon’s Dream” exhibition runs through June 6. Tickets are 5,000 won for adults and 3,000 won for students. Visit http://www.daelimmuseum.org/.

SOURCE:  http://www.koreatimes.co.kr

This Date In Music History-March 30

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

Birthdays:

Rolf Harris (1930) (1963 US #3 single “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport”)

Graeme Edge - Moody Blues (1942)

Ronnie Rice - New Colony 6 (1944)

Eric Clapton (1945)

Jim Dandy - Black Oak Arkansas (1948)

Dave Ball - Procol Harum (1950)

Re Styles - Tubes (1950)

MC Hammer (1962)

Tracy Chapman (1964)

Celine Dion (1968)

Mark McClelland - Snow Patrol (1976)

Norah Jones (1979)

They Are Missed:

Born on this day in 1955, Randy VanWarmer, singer/songwriter, (1979 US #4 single “Just When I Needed You Most”). He died of leukaemia on January 12, 2004.

Timi Yuro, died from throat cancer in 2004 (age 62). Was just 18 years old when she reached #4 on the US charts in 1961 with “Hurt.”

Born today in 1913, Frankie Laine, popular singer. He died on February 6, 2007

Born on this day in 1973, Adam Goldstein, DJ AM. Worked with Crazy Town, Blink 182, Madonna and Will Smith. Died on Aug 28, 2009 of an accidental drug overdose.

History:

In 1957,  Buddy Knox became the first artist in the Rock ‘n’ Roll era to write his own number one hit when “Party Doll” topped the US singles chart. Knox would go on to score four more US Top 40 hits between 1957 and 1961.

The Chiffons started a four week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1963 with “He’s So Fine.” In 1971 George Harrison was taken to court accused of copying the song on his 1970 “My Sweet Lord” and ordered to pay $587,000 to the writers.

16 year-old Lesley Gore recorded her breakthrough hit, “It’s My Party” in 1963. The song produced by Quincy Jones went on to be a US #1.

Lesley Gore first appears on TV in 1963, on ABC’s “American Bandstand.”

Paris police arrested 85 rioters at a Rolling Stones concert there in 1966.

Lip-sync mishap in 1967 - Jimi Hendrix was appearing on Top of the Pops, but instead of playing the “Purple Haze” tape, a studio tech rolled Alan Price’s “Simon Smith And His Amazing Dancing Bear.” “I don’t know the words to that one,” Hendrix calmly states.

Also in 1967, the photo session took place at Chelsea Manor studios in London with Michael Cooper for the cover of The Beatles ‘Sgt Pepper’s’ album. A release was needed from all the living persons represented on the cover. Mae West initially declines but is later won over by a personal request from the group. After the shoot The Beatles resumed work at Abbey Road studios on ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ adding guitars, bass, tambourine, and backing vocals. The session began at 11:00 pm and ends at 7:30 am.

The Yardbirds performed and recorded “Live Yardbirds” at the Anderson Theater in 1968.

John Denver went to #1 on the US singles chart in 1974 with “Sunshine On My Shoulders,” the singers first of four US #1’s. Denver was killed in a plane crash on October 12, 1997.

The Sex Pistols played their first show in 1976 at The 100 club, London and they began a weekly residency at the club in June.

The Eagles’ “Hotel California” hits the top of the album chart in 1977.

Paul Simonon and Topper Headon of the Clash were arrested in London in 1978 for shooting pigeons from the roof of a rehearsal hall.

Genesis released “England By The Pound” in 1980.

Phil Collins started a two week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1985 with “One More Night,” his second US #1 hit.

Gloria Estefan started a two week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1991 with “Coming Out Of The Dark.”

R.E.M. started recording sessions for their ‘Automatic For The People’ album at Bearsville Studios, Woodstock, New York in 1992.

Pink Floyd released the album “The Division Bell” in 1994.

Rapper Scarface was at #1 on the US album chart in 1997 with ‘The Untouchable.’

In 2001, LeAnn Rimes reached an out of court settlement with her father and her former manager. The country star filed a lawsuit claiming the pair had stolen $12 million from her.

It was announced in 2006 that Courtney Love had sold a 25-percent share of her stake in Nirvana’s publishing rights to Larry Mestel, of Primary Wave Music Publishing. “I needed a partner to take Kurt Cobain’s songs and bring them into the future and into the next generation,” says Love. ” The grapevine claimed that Love made more than $50 million on the deal.

In 2007, a man was arrested by police and detained under the Mental Health Act after trying to force his way into Paul McCartney’s mansion, screaming: “I must get to him.” The middle-aged man burst through security patrols into McCartney’s isolated Sussex estate; guards who feared an assassination attempt were scrambled to intercept him as he sped towards the front door. He was finally halted by trees and a fence just yards from Sir Paul’s six-bedroom home at Peasmarsh.

Guitars signed by Bruce Springsteen, the Who’s Pete Townshend and Sting were up for bid at the third annual Musicians On Call Benefit Concert and Auction in New York in 2007. The event helped support the organization’s program of entertaining hospital patients through live and recorded music.

Ask Mr. Music by Jerry Osborne

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

FOR THE WEEK OF MARCH 22, 2010

DEAR JERRY: From a book at the library I made a list of 20 hit songs with foreign language titles, all of which were popular long before I was born.

Since you are probably familiar with them, will you tell me which ones are sung entirely in another language, which ones are either partly foreign, and which are really in English but just have a foreign title?
—Gina Lanza, Milwaukee

DEAR GINA: Here then is your newly-alphabetized list, with the performers commonly associated with each song, and a comment about the language.

“Al Di La”: Emilio Pericoli’s Top 10 hit is all Italian; Connie Francis provides one verse in English; and, except for the title, the Ray Charles Singers’ version is all English.

“Allez-Vous-En”: Kay Starr sings a few lines in French, but most of this tune is in English.

“Chanson D’Amour”: By Art & Dotty Todd, mostly in English but with a sprinkling of French here and there.

“Chantez Chantez”: Dinah Shore serves up “a little Paris song,” but with only a few words in Francais.

“Danke Schoen”: Other than the German title, and one “auf wiederseh’n,” Wayne Newton’s signature song is alle Englisch.

“Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup”: Though Nat King Cole opines “wish my French were good enough,” he effectively adds several French phrases to what is mostly an English number.

“Dominique”: The Singing Nun (Sister Luc Gabriel), from the French-speaking area of Belgium, sings in French from start to finish (but not Finnish). A No. 1 hit in many countries, including the U.S.

“Enamorado”: Washingtonian Keith Colley spoke no Spanish, yet learned enough to convincingly sing this Mexican doo-wop classic entirely in Spanish.

“Guantanamera”: From the Sandpipers, this beauty is all in Spanish, except for a brief English narrative-translation.

“Innamorata”: For both Dean Martin and Jerry Vale, this is just an English tune with an Italian title.

“Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus”: Once Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg turn up the heat, it’s probably just as well all the play-by-play is called in French.

“La Bamba”: All of the hit versions (Ritchie Valens; Tokens; Trini Lopez; Los Lobos) are completely in Spanish, though the lyrics do often vary. The 1987 Los Lobos effort reached No. 1.

“Mala Femmena”: As with her treatment of “Al Di La,” Connie Francis provides a token verse in English. The rest is Italian.

“Malaguena”: A Spanish classic from Connie Francis, totally en Espanol.

“Mas Que Nada”: By Sergio Mendes and Brasil ‘66, this is the only tune on the list in Portuguese, or more specifically it’s Brazilian Portuguese. No English heard here.

“Morgen”: Sung entirely in German by Yugoslav-born Ivo Robic and the Song Masters. “Morgen” is mornin’, our abbreviated a.m. greeting. Interestingly, Robic’s follow-up, and only other U.S. hit, “The Happy Muleteer,” is in English.

“Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)”: Using that title, Domenico Modugno took the tune to No. 1 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1958, in Italian of course. Dean Martin did nearly as well with Volare (Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu), using equal parts English and Italian. In 1960, Bobby Rydell’s mostly-English “Volare” (translation: fly) soared into the Top 5.

“Shina No Yoru (China Nights)”: Kyu Sakamoto’s follow-up to “Sukiyaki,” listed first only because they are alphabetical, is all in Japanese. You’d almost think Kyu’s singing “she ain’t got no yo-yo.”

“Sukiyaki”: Recorded in Japan, in Japanese, by Kyu Sakamoto, and a No. 1 hit on three continents. Strangely, the song has nothing whatsoever to do with “Sukiyaki.” The word is not even used in the lyrics, but the powers that be felt the true title, “Ue O Muite Aruku,” would be too difficult for non-Japanese dee jays to pronounce. They picked “Sukiyaki” for its familiarity factor. The tune could just as easily have been titled “Sushi.”

“Senza Fine”: Another from Dino’s old country songbook, though everything but the Italian title is in English.

IZ ZAT SO? Not only did The Singing Nun and Kyu Sakamoto both have No. 1 foreign language hits in 1963, about five months apart, they both died in 1985, also about five months apart.

The Singing Nun took her own life March 31, 1985, and Kyu Sakamoto died Aug 12, 1985 — one of 520 killed in the deadliest airline crash in history.

About 45 minutes after takeoff in Tokyo, Japan Airlines Flight 123 descended uncontrollably into a ridge near Mount Osutaka.

Jerry Osborne answers as many questions as possible through this column.
Jerry’s Question page: Ask your question here.


Write Jerry at: Box 255, Port Townsend, WA 98368
E-mail: jpo@olympus.net
Visit his Web site: www.jerryosborne.com  


All values quoted in this column are for near-mint condition.

Music News & Notes

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

Them Crooked Vultures Join In On Record Store Day

Absolute Radio spoke with John Paul Jones, Dave Grohl and Josh Homme of Them Crooked Vultures on Monday night at Royal Albert Hall and found out that the band will be touring through the end of August, at which time Grohl and Homme will pick up some other projects, pushing the second Vultures album to sometime after this year.

The group is releasing a 10″ vinyl picture disc to retailers participating in the April 17 Record Store Day with Mind Eraser, No Chaser and Highway One on one side and an interview on the other.

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Ten Greatest Album Covers in Roadrunner History: #3 Sepultura - Roots

Roadrunner is continuing their look at their ten best album covers, they’re at #3!

Brazilian death metal contingent Sepultura’s last album with frontman Max Cavalera on the mic, Roots, came out in 1996 just as the metal landscape really began to change in a nu direction. In line with the downtuned sounds of the times and honoring Sepultura’s experimental traditions, Roots basically boasted the band’s return to their Brazilian heritage. Accented by the affluent tribal tones fully realized in the form of thick, layered percussives — even featuring Brazilian musician Carlinhos Brown playing traditional instruments on tracks like “Ratamahatta,” the title was fitting for the sonic offering.

Read the rest here:
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/news/Ten-Greatest-Album-Covers-in-Roadrunner-History-3-21113.aspx

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SOULFLY: ‘Omen’ Artwork Unveiled

SOULFLY’s seventh album, “Omen,” is set for for release on May 25 via Roadrunner Records. The CD will be made available in a standard edition and a special edition featuring bonus tracks.

The cover artwork for both versions of the album can be viewed below.

Standard Edition:

Special Edition:

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Official Cover Art of B.o.B’s ‘The Adventures of Bobby Ray’

Bobby Ray is in action, bending in front of an explosion in the official artwork of his upcoming debut album ‘B.o.B Presents The Adventures of Bobby Ray’.

Gearing up to release his new album on April 27, B.o.B has debuted an artwork to be featured on the front page of the upcoming record. The Atlanta rapper is featured in bended knees in front of an explosion, wearing a black and red jacket on top of white T-shirt combined with a pair of denims and sneakers.

“B.o.B Presents The Adventures of Bobby Ray” has chart-busting song “Nothin’ on You” as a lead single. Bruno Mars, Lupe Fiasco and T.I. are tagged to lend their vocal in this effort.

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MASTERPLAN: New Album, Single Artwork Unveiled

“Time To Be King”, the new album from MASTERPLAN, the melodic power metal band led by former HELLOWEEN guitarist Roland Grapow, will be released on May 21 via AFM Records. The CD’s first single, “Far From The End Of The World”, will be issued on April 16.

Check out the cover artwork for “Time To Be King”

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This Date In Music History-March 24

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

Birthdays:

Dave Appell - Applejacks (1922)

Lee Oskar - War (1946)

Nick Lowe (1949)

Dougie Thompson - Supertramp (1951)

Nena (1960)

Sharon Corr - Corrs (1970)

P.A. Pasemaster Mase - De La Soul (1970)

Benj Gershman - O.A.R. (1980)

They Are Missed:

The late Nervous Norvus (”Transfusion”– real name is Jimmy Drake) was born in 1912. He died on July 24, 1968.

Singer with Philly soul group Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Harold Melvin died in 1997 (age 57).

Neal Aspinall, The Beatles’ road manager, friend and business partner, died in New York in 2008 after an apparent battle with lung cancer (age 66) . Aspinall grew up with Paul McCartney and George Harrison and helped oversee its Apple Corps company until his ’07 resignation. “Neil’s trusting stewardship and guidance has left a far-reaching legacy for generations to come,” says The Beatles’ official statement.

Motown drummer Uriel Jones, died in 2009 (age 74), after suffering complications from a heart attack. Jones played on many Motown classics including “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” by Marvin Gaye, “Cloud Nine” by the Temptations, “I Second That Emotion” by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles and “For Once In My Life” by Stevie Wonder.

History:

Billboard published the first US LP chart in 1945. Nat King Cole was at #1 with ‘A Collection Of Favourites.’

Les Baxter started a four week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1956 with “Poor People Of Paris.”

In 1958, at 6.35am, Elvis Presley reported to the Memphis draft board. From there Elvis and twelve other recruits were taken by bus to Kennedy Veterans Memorial Hospital where the singer was assigned army serial number 53310761.

Future Rolling Stones Mick Jagger and Keith Richards made their professional stage debut in 1962 with the group called Little Boy Blue & the Blue Boys at a club in Ealing, England.

The Beatles continued filming ‘Help’ at Twickenham Studios, England in 1965. They shot the interior temple scenes, including the one where they “dive through a hollow sacrificial altar and into water”. That scene was then cut to the swimming pool scene filmed in the Bahamas on February 23.

Bill Wyman, bass player with the Rolling Stones, was knocked unconscious by an electrical shock onstage in Denmark in 1965.

In 1966, the New York State Assembly passed a bill making it a misdemeanor to sell bootlegs.

Alice Cooper went to #1 on the US album chart in 1973 with ‘Billion Dollar Babies.’

During a Lou Reed show in Buffalo, New York in 1973, a fan jumped on stage and bit Lou on the bottom. The man was thrown out of the theatre and Reed completed the show.

The O’Jays went to #1 on the US singles chart in 1973 with “Love Train.”

In 1976, transvestite singer Wayne County appeared in court charged with assault after an incident at New York club CBGB’s. County had attacked Dictators singer Handsome Dick Manitobe with a mike stand fracturing his collarbone.

In 1978, the British courts granted British record companies the rights to seize bootleg and pirate recordings.

The Bee Gees started a two week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1979 with “Tragedy,” the group’s eighth US #1 hit.

Iron Maiden released the album “The Number of the Beast” in 1980.

Canadian singer Alannah Myles started a two week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1990 with “Black Velvet.”

In 1991, the Black Crowes were dropped as the support act on ZZ Top’s tour after repeatedly criticizing the tour sponsor Miller Beer.

A Chicago court settled the Milli Vanilli class action suit in 1992 by approving cash rebates of up to $3 to anyone proving they bought the group’s music before November 27, 1990, the date the lip synching scandal broke. Milli Vanilli won the 1989 best new artist Grammy after hits like “Blame it on the Rain” and “Girl, You Know It’s True,” selling 30 million singles and 14 million albums. But in late 1990, the performers were stripped of the award after it was revealed that neither actually sang on the Milli Vanilli album.

“(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” peaked at #4 on the US album chart in 1996. The Oasis album sells seven million copies worldwide.

Amway Corp. announced in 1998 that it had agreed to pay $9 million to settle a lawsuit over the company’s use of songs by top artists in videotaped sales pitches.

In 2000, a film company paid $1,079,500 for over nine hours of film shot during the 70s by Yoko Ono. The film contained shots of Lennon smoking hash and talking about his political beliefs.

In 2001, a stretch of road on Highway 19 in Macon, Georgia, was named Duane Allman Boulevard, near where the Allman Brothers guitarist died (age 24) in a motorcycle crash on October 29, 1971.

R.E.M.’s “Accelerate” album was streamed in its entirety via the online social music service iLike in 2008. “Collaborating with iLike and debuting “Accelerate” across the web is in keeping with the spirit and immediacy of the album,” says singer Michael Stipe. The album is streamed for three days. The CD comes out a week later.

The first of Green Day’s entire catalog of studio albums and compilations was reissued on vinyl in 2009. It starts with ‘91’s “1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours” and ‘92’s “Kerplunk!

In 2009, the prosecutor in the Phil Spector murder retrial told the jury he was a “demonic maniac” when he drinks and “a very dangerous man” around women. Deputy District Attorney Truc Do urged jurors to find the music producer guilty of murdering Hollywood actress Lana Clarkson in 2003. During her closing argument, she also accused Mr Spector of demonstrating a “conscious disregard for human life”.

Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing,” Boston’s “Amanda,” Journey’s “Faithfully,” Heart’s “Never,” Cheap Trick’s “The Flame,” Whitesnake’s “Is This Love,” Scorpions’ “Still Loving You” and Def Leppard’s “Love Bites” are featured on the “Now That’s What I Call Power Ballads!” compilation in 2009.

We Have A Winner!

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

We have a Winner in the The Jacksons - A Family Dynasty DVD giveaway!  Congrats to Gavin, who was the first one to email me!   Look for more contests coming very soon to the CollectingVinylRecords Blog!

Odd vols / Odd bedfellows

Submitted by Bookride Blog

I have finally got round to sorting out a five year accumulation of odd vols. The most common are odd volumes of Churchill’s ‘magisterial’ The Second World War (Cassell 1948 to 1954 6 vols) followed closely by odd volumes of Proust’s ‘incomparable roman fleuve’ the 12 volume Remembrance of Things Past (A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu). Odd bedfellows. Churchill and Proust–the undisputed odd volume kings. Would they have got on? Proust had served in the 76th Regiment of French Infantry (see Powell’s ‘Proust as Soldier’ in Weidenfeld’s centenary volume) and was interested in military tactics, so there was some common ground. Somewhere on the web someone claims that WSC never read Proust (’the wrong kind of eloquence’) and it is doubtful Marcel ever ploughed through The River War or even Churchill’s only novel Savrola. Pic left of Proust in uniform–not exactly Audie Murphy.

Third in line used to be Toynbee’s 12 volume Study of History but it is now of so little value that attempts to make a set are futile -odd vols get recycled, tossed or put in the £1 bin. This does not stop the entrepreneurial Bookbarn demanding £99 for an ex-library reprint of the ninth volume. There are a 1000 odd vols on ABE. Across the pond I am told that fellow dealers have to sort out sets of Lincoln and the Papers of John Adams. With Churchills WW2 there is a predictably logical process in their relative rarity. We have 210 odd vols and have made up at least 7 sets from very nice in jacket (£100+) to acceptable and sound sans jacket (£40). Volume one is the most common, closely followed by volume two, volume 6 being the most difficult. Beware- volume two is often a reprint. Churchill signed a lot of sets, sometimes in volume two–signed sets always command a £1000+ even in baleful condition. Fine and fault free sets are something of a rarity, the jackets tend to fade. They are routinely bound up and usually fetch over £400 for handsome examples. American tourists use to buy them almost as a matter of course. For serious money (£2000+) you need Gilbert’s 21 volume official biography. Odds of the early Randolph Churchill volumes tend to accumulate but most of the money is in the ‘Companion Volumes’ (especially the fifth volume- parts 1,2,3.)

As for Marcel, I have 180 odds and made just 4 decent sets. The vast majority are the Philippe Jullian illustrated Chatto edition from 1957 onwards (£60 to £150), then there is the atractive smaller ink blue Phoenix Library edition Traveller’s Library (1929 onwards) and the original Chatto / Knopf edition from 1922 onwards, often seen in limited edition. The complete 11 vol set can get into 4 figures (just) but the number punters wishing to pay that sum is unknowable. The newer Kilmartin translation is easily found in 3 fat vols but the 2002 Lydia Davis translation 3200+ pages in six vols is oddly elusive. We sold a copy last year at £150 within seconds of uploading. C.K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation still finds favour and other early works by him are also much sought after…

following me

Submitted by Nick Frey Blog

Hey all, it’s been a while since NAHBS preview pics!  I want you to know I’m using Twitter and Facebook much more often–you can follow me @nfreyboo and facebook.com/nfreyboo.  Boo Bicycles‘ fan page is facebook.com/boobicycles and you can become a fan and keep updated with all things Boo!  The blog is probably going to stick around as a nicer medium for those rare thoughts and updates longer than 140 characters, but Twitter and Facebook are so much easier to stay on top of!

Thank you so much for reading, as usual, and I’m looking forward to a wonderful season with Jamis Sutter Home and growing Boo into a top-notch company with beautiful bamboo bikes, high-performance art.  Take care everyone.

Collecting John Minton

Submitted by Bookride Blog

BOHEMIAN, NEO-ROMANTIC ARTIST/ SUICIDE

I guess most people’s introduction to the work of John Minton are those vignette line drawings in Elizabeth David’s first book, A Book of Mediterranean Food (1950) or perhaps her follow-up, French Country Cooking, but I think I first came across his work when I was urged in the early seventies to look out for the bright covers of those Penguin New Writing paperbacks by a fellow student John Archer, who later ended up as head of BBC Arts TV in Scotland. I remember him rooting out three or four copies from a pile of dog eared paperbacks outside a junk shop in Balsall Heath, Birmingham. I took the hint and began myself to seek out copies, which back then seldom cost more than 5p each.

Minton belongs with those other British Neo-Romantic artists—Sutherland, Piper, Craxton, Ayrton, Colquhoun, McBryde, and assorted lesser lights, who seemed to dominate, not only the pages of Penguin New Writing, but just about every other little magazine of the period. All except Craxton have been the subjects of biographies —the two Roberts, Colquhoun and Macbryde, being the latest .The fact that Minton, who was essentially an illustrator, has had the rare honour of being chronicled by the acclaimed Bloomsburyite Frances Spalding, is a telling testament to his cult status.

His greatest influence was Samuel Palmer, though equally had Graham Sutherland not lived it is unlikely that Minton would have developed in the way he did. Unlike Sutherland, Minton would have been too young to have been inspired by the ground-breaking Samuel Palmer exhibition of 1926, though no doubt he came to know Palmer and his fellow ‘Ancients ‘ through the exhibition catalogue and indirectly through Sutherland’s pastoral etchings of the 1920s, which were re-interpretations of Palmer’s vision. And like all his fellow Neo-Romantics he saw the significance of Sutherland’s ‘Entrance to a Lane ‘(1939) as a symbol of an English romantic revival So, Minton’s present popularity seems wedded to that of Palmer– and as long as the English continue to be in love with the pastoral dream, Minton will remain a collected illustrator. But there are other factors that make him attractive. He was gay and depressed/repressed with it. He had a private income ( scion of the famous crockery company ), which gives him an added allure and he was a veteran of the Soho and Fitzrovian drinking sets, which are also currently in vogue.

He is probably at the height of his popularity just now, if the prices in ABE are any indication. His most celebrated book is probably Time Was Away (1948), Alan Ross’s diary of a holiday in Corsica. Geoffrey Grigson ( who was ambivalent towards neo-romanticism) absolutely slated it in a review, but it cannot be denied that this unremarkable narrative is improved by Minton’s 52 full page illustrations, eight of which are in glorious colour. Expect to pay between £70 and £90 for a copy without wrapper, to double that for a copy with one, though any Corsican bandit might shrink from asking the £250 that Clearwater demands for their near-perfect copy. I think I shelled out forty pence for my wrapper- free copy, but that was thirty odd years ago.

Other high points include the charming vignettes of Arcadian epicurean bliss in the aforementioned A Book of Mediterranean Food by St Elizabeth of David, a perfect first of which retails on ABE at a tasty $1,200,though fans of the artist prepared to tolerate a second impression with or without grease spots could save a bit of cash. Minton also illustrated ( with Denton Welch ) Contemporary Cookery by someone called Doris Lytton Toye. Contemporary novels with Minton illustrations come in at around £40 - £60, though other, more celebrated fiction, such as Alan Fournier’s The Wanderer (1947) at $200 and Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1947 ) at $133 are visually a bit special. Also worth tracking down are copies of the forties arts magazine Counterpoint, which features work by all the usual forties suspects. Copies in poor condition can be had for £30 or less, but mint ones can cost as much as £ 80. But if you are just looking for Penguin New Writing, there are loads of copies around for £2 or less. Lastly, it’s worth keeping an eye out for a sleeper—certain dealers on ABE offering copies of the dull sounding Football Association Book For Boys (1949), for prices ranging from £5 - £30, don’t seem to have noticed that Minton was one of the illustrators. The only one who has noticed is the astute Peter Ellis, who asks a socking $140 for his copy. [R.M.Healey]

Thanks Robin. I always look out for Minton d/ws (mint in d/w). He seems to have done a lot. Above is his jacket for The Scamp by Roland Camberton, one of Iain Sinclair’s favourites. Barry Miles has a new book named after the Clash’s tedious song ‘London Calling.’ It is a good account of London’s counterculture since the Second World War and John Minton turns up there as a member of the raffish hard drinking Colony Room crowd. Robert Irwin in his T.L.S. review, a sort of kindly hatchet job, says:-

‘Miles presents Minton as a “character” who was better at talking than painting, and a man who could not hold his drink. According to Miles, “today no-one has heard of Minton”. Well, I have. I believe that he was a superb illustrator of books, and I do not regard book illustration as a minor art form. 

You can buy a Minton painting for less than a 100th of a Freud and 200th of a good Bacon. Whether that is a good investment I’m not sure, art is tricky right now. Best to buy books. A propos des bottes the American bookdealer Breslauer destroyed a Lucian Freud portrait of himself because it was unflattering - he objected to the way Freud had painted his double chin. Breslauer was one of the richest dealers who have ever lived but art history will not look kindly on this act, nor his heirs.

The portait above is by Cecil Beaton. The image middle left is a London Transport poster by Minton from the 1950s.

Diary of A Wimpy Kid

Submitted by All Movie Replicas Blog

Release date: Friday March 19, 2010
Genre: Comedy
Director: Thor Freudenthal
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Screenplay: Jackie Filgo, Jeff Filgo, Gabe Sachs, Jeff Judah
Producer(s): Nina Jacobson, Bradford Simpson
Cast: Zachary Gordon, Robert Capron, Rachael Harris, Steve Zahn, Devon Bostick, Chloë Grace Moretz, Grayson Russell
Official Site: diaryofawimpykidmovie.com
Rating: PG for For some rude humor and language.
Runtime: 2 hours
Available film art: Diary of A Wimpy Kid movie posters

Synopsis
To Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon), middle school is the dumbest idea ever invented. It’s a place rigged with hundreds of social landmines, not the least of which are morons, wedgies, swirlies, bullies, lunchtime banishment to the cafeteria floor—and a festering piece of cheese with nuclear cooties. To survive the never-ending ordeal and attain the recognition and status he feels he so richly deserves, Greg devises an endless series of can’t-miss schemes, all of which, of course, go awry. And he’s getting it all down on paper, via a diary—”it’s NOT a diary, it’s a journal!” Greg insists, preferring the less-sissyfied designation—filled with his opinions, thoughts, tales of family trials and tribulations, and (would-be) schoolyard triumphs. “One day when I’m famous,” writes Greg, “I’ll have better things to do than answer peoples’ stupid questions all day.” So was born the Wimpy Kid’s diary.

Based on the best-selling illustrated novel “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” by Jeff Kinney.

Grown Ups

Submitted by All Movie Replicas Blog

Release date: Friday June 25, 2010
Genre: Comedy
Director: Dennis Dugan
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Screenplay: Adam Sandler, Fred Wolf
Producer(s): Jack Giarraputo, Adam Sandler
Cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Maya Rudolph
Official Site: grownups-movie.com
Rating: Not yet rated
Available film art: Grown Ups movie posters

Synopsis
Thirty years after graduating from high school, five former basketball teammates gather at the lake house where they celebrated their biggest victory to mourn the passing of their late coach. Over the course of the Fourth of July weekend, the five friends realize that just because they’ve all grown up and started families doesn’t mean that they’ve lost that old spark. Adulthood is what you make of it, and no one at the lake house is eager to be the grown-up of the gang. Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade, and Rob Schneider star in a film written by Sandler and Fred Wolf, and directed by Dennis Dugan (I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan). Maria Bello, Salma Hayek, and Maya Rudolph co-star.

This Date In Music History-March 14

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

Birthdays:

Quincy Jones (1933)

Walter Parazaider - Chicago (1945)

James O’Rourke - John Fred & His Playboy Band (1945)

Jim Pons - Turtles (1946)

Boon Gould - Level 42 (1955)

Taylor Hanson - Hanson (1983)

Colby O’Donis (1988)

They Are Missed:

Mary Ann Ganser of the Shangri-Las (”Leader Of The Pack”) died of a barbiturate overdose in 1970.

In 1972, soul singer, Linda Jones, died (age 26) in New York after collapsing into a diabetic coma following a performance at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre in new York. Had the 1967 US #21 single “Hypnotized.”

American songwriter Doc Pomus died in 1991. With Mort Shuman he wrote many early 60’s hits including, “A Teenager in Love,” “Save The Last Dance For Me,” “Sweets For My Sweet,” “Can’t Get Used to Losing You,” “Little Sister,” “Suspicion,” “Surrender” and Viva Las Vegas.”

Born on this day in 1922, Les Baxter, (1956 US #1 single “Poor People Of Paris”). Died on January 15, 1996.

History:

In 1955, CBS talent scout Arthur Godfrey turned down the chance to sign Elvis Presley, instead at the same audition he signed singer Pat Boone.

The movie “Rock Around the Clock” (with Bill Haley) made its premier in Washington, DC in 1956.

Perry Como’s “Catch A Falling Star” was certified as the first gold single in 1958.

Mick Jagger saw Buddy Holly & the Crickets perform at the Granada Theatre in Woolwich, England in 1958.

Fabian was voted Most Promising New Talent by the viewers of ABC-TV’s “American Bandstand” in 1959.

In 1963, on a UK tour with Chris Montez and Tommy Roe, The Beatles appeared at the Gaumont Cinema, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire. For the third night in a row, John Lennon, suffering from a bad cold, was unable to perform.

In 1964, Billboard reports The Beatles own sixty percent of it, thanks largely to Capitol Records flooding the U.S. market with numerous recordings. Fortunately, The Beatles survive the “fad” stage.

Petula Clark made her American TV debut on CBS’ “Ed Sullivan Show” in 1965.

The promotional film for ‘Lady Madonna’ was broadcast in black and white on Top of the Pops on UK television in 1968. The video portion of the film clip was shot while The Beatles were performing the song “Hey Bulldog,” but the ‘Lady Madonna’ audio track was paired with the video for the promo release.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded a live concert for ‘Fan Club’, the Dutch TV show in Amsterdam, Holland in 1969.

Elton John was at #1 on the US singles chart in 1973 with “Crocodile Rock.”

Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and Alec John Such formed Bon Jovi in 1983.

Rainbow played their last ever gig as a band when they performed in Japan in 1984.

Huey Lewis and the News went to #1 on the US singles chart in 1987 with “Jacob’s Ladder.”

Michael Jackson was voted artist of the decade at the annual ‘Soul Train Awards’ in 1990.

John Mellencamp and Neil Young joined Willie Nelson for Farm Aid V in Irving, TX. in 1992.

With the release of ‘Me Against the World’ in 1995, Tupac Shakur became the first male solo artist to have a #1 album on the Billboard chart while in prison.

Will Smith started a three week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1998 with “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It.”

TLC started a four week run at #1 on the US album chart in 1999 with ‘Fanmail.’

In 2001, Peter Blake, who designed The Beatles’ classic Sgt. Pepper album cover sued the group’s record company for more money. Blake was paid £200 ($340) for the famous figures in 1967, but was now “cheesed off” that EMI have never offered to pay more money.

In 2004, thieves stole $325,000 worth of Elvis Presley`s jewelry and kitsch from the Elvis-A-Rama Museum in Las Vegas. Among the stolen inventory: a gold-plated handgun, a custom scarf, a bracelet and Presley`s Humes High School ring from 1953. However, the crooks leave Elvis` blue suede shoes.

In 2006, U2 topped Rolling Stone magazine’s annual list of the year’s biggest money earners from 2005 with $154.2m, the Rolling Stones were listed second with $92.5m and The Eagles third with 63.2m. Paul McCartney was in fourth place with $56m and Elton John in fifth with $48.9m.

A Black Sabbath compilation titled “Greatest Hits 1970-1978″ was released a day after the band is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. The disc contains remastered songs recorded by the group’s original lineup, including “Iron Man,” and “Paranoid.”

The Rolling Stones played their first-ever show at New York’s famed Radio City Music Hall in 2006. It’s a benefit for the Robin Hood Foundation which distributes funds to nonprofit charities.

In 2007, Gibson Guitar announced a limited-edition replica of Jimmy Page’s double-necked electric guitar, based on the ‘71 Gibson EDS-1275 that features both a 12-string and a 6-string neck. The Led Zeppelin guitarist’s majestic double neck was a fixture of the band’s live shows. A run of 25 signed, “aged” versions of the guitar retail for $33,500. A cheaper edition goes for $10,000 to $12,000.

Céline, the Glitter paradox and writing in public…

Submitted by Bookride Blog

I have the outlines of a blog somewhere about writers who wrote in public; sadly I cannot work up the enthusiasm to finish it so am using the outlines of it here. The most famous is J.K. Rowling in her Edinburgh cafe, also T.S. Eliot putting the finishing touches to The Waste Land in a seaside shelter (image below) now the subject of a preservation order -(’On Margate sands I can connect nothing with nothing.’) Samuel Beckett would write on the back blanks of post office forms while hanging out in Parisian post offices, Scott Turow wrote his first novel Presumed Innocent riding the commuter train to and from New York. The oddest example was told to me by a customer from the Medway town of Chatham. There was a cafe there where Louis-Ferdinand Céline had sat writing one of his novels. He had lived, even married in London, so it was possible. Maybe somewhere in London there is an old pie and mash shop where Rimbaud and Verlaine (residents here in the summer of 1873) wrote poetry.

Celine is of course a towering figure in world lit -Bukowski wrote “‘first of all read Céline. The greatest writer of 2,000 years.” He was championed by the Beats -both William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg visited him in his Paris apartment during the 1950s and he is regarded second only to Proust among French writers. He became virulently antisemitic - in his 1938 work L’Ecole des Cadavres he calls for a Franco-German alliance in order to counter the pact between British intelligence and “the international Jewish conspiracy”. Here you have what I call the Gary Glitter paradox — do we stop listening to his music because of what we now know about his life? In the case of Celine, his antisemitism has not stopped him being admired by Jewish writers like Sartre and Ginsberg. In the TLS of 12/2/10 with Celine on the cover (’Once again, Celines hour’) George Steiner reviews a new Gallimard volume of his letters. He invokes an amazing story from WW2, possibly apocryphal although Celine is known to have claimed that Hitler was Jewish- it is a scene worthy of Mel Brooks or more likely Quentin Tarantino with the part of Celine played by a demented Cleese:

“At a soirée in the German legation, he leaps to his feet and performs a dazzling imitation of the Fuhrer’s voice and gestures, and instructs his terrified hosts that Hitler will lose the war because he is not anti-Semitic enough! The assembled dignitaries are said to have scattered in panic…”

What of Celine values? In my cautious judgement he is a buy and will rise in value. As time goes by the ghastliness of a person’s life tends to matter less, and can even enhance interest, he also appears to be joining the list of the giants of the last century along with Borges, Nabokov, Proust, Kafka, Joyce etc., He was admired by Queneau, Jean Genet Le Clézio, Robbe-Grillet, Barthes, Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Billy Childish, Henry Green, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., William S. Burroughs, Ken Kesey. A Canadian dealer wants a gamey £10,000 for a trade first edition of Voyage au bout de la Nuit inscribed to surrealist publisher George Reavey. Although not in good enough condition to tempt French collectors (who are less impressed by signatures than us) it is not totally unthinkable it might sell. In a 1971 George Sims catalogue a Celine manuscript (5 pages from a late work heavily revised) appeared at £35, then the equivalent of £650. If sold now it could make £5000, representing an impressive return. Steiner singles out Celine’s late works as masterpieces with scenes which (’using the word with care’) can be qualified as Shakespearean.

Twin Tigers Vinyl Record Contest

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

In association with Sneak Attack Media (http://www.sneakattackmedia.com/ ), I am very excited to announce a contest, where the winner will receive a vinyl copy of Twin Tiger’s debut LP Gray Waves!

The contest is easy, just email me a list your five favorite bands from Athens, Georgia.  The winner will be chosen via a random drawing of the entries received - it’s that simple!  Email your list to fonzie1957@charter.net with the words Twin Tigers in the subject line and you are entered into the drawing!  Contest closes March 19th (noon next Friday), so get your entries in soon!

In the meantime, please check out their single “Passive Idol” here and their new video for “Red Fox Run”

“Passive Idol”:
www.daffodilpublicity.com/albums/TwinTigers.GreyWaves.PassiveIdol.mp3.zip

“Red Fox Run” Video:

Michael Fremer Album Review

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

Thanks to Michael over at http://www.musicangle.com  for the exclusive rights to reprint this material.

Nirvana (reissue)
In Utero


DGC/ORG 180g LP (black or colored vinyl)


Produced by: Steve Albini
Engineered by: Steve Albini
Mixed by: Steve Albini (Scott Litt on “Heart Shaped Box” and “All Apologies”
Mastered by: Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering
Technician: Bob Weston

Review by: Michael Fremer
2010-03-01

Version #1:

When this Steve Albini recorded grunge classic was first submitted to DGC for release back in 1993 label execs where appalled by what they heard. The recording had an odd quality called dynamic range that they found disturbing.

Will the kids understand? Will it scare them? Is that why it disturbed them? Or was it that the shit they had for stereo gear in their offices simply couldn’t handle the dynamic swings.

You can’t believe the level of crap on which these so-called music loving record company executives monitored their recordings. I know. I visited many of them and was appalled by what I found.

“Steven Spielberg doesn’t screen his movies on a fucking bed sheet” I would holler in a vain attempt to get them to buy even a modestly performing music system but it was hopeless. Their excuse was that they wanted to hear it the way “the people” listened.

“Well then have a boombox too,” I yelled, “but listen to it the way it sounded in the recording studio!” (this was back in the days when there actually were recording studios).

In any case, version #1 has DGC, feeling the album was not commercially viable, forcing compression upon some tunes, disgusting both Albini and the band.

Version #2:

Having hired Steve Albini to produce a raw, less finely finished album than its predecessor, Nevermind, Nirvana left the Minnesota Pachyderm Studio with a raw product but one that didn’t fully satisfy them. The group felt the final product missed to some degree what they were aiming for and what they felt they’d laid down to tape.

Albini was happy though and he refused to further involve himself in the project. Version two has the band not DGC hiring engineer Scott Litt to make some minor changes, said to be compression, and to re-mix “Heart Shaped Box,” and “All Apologies.”

We’d want the truth to be closer to version #1 with the execs at Geffen appalled by what they heard because they wanted a commercial-sounding record like Nevermind and Cobain never wanting to go fishing for money in a swimming pool ever again, insisting instead upon an artistic statement and a record he’d want to go out and buy if he hadn’t made it himself.

But apparently Cobain’s original positive reaction to the unmastered tapes began to sour. He felt the bass was not sufficiently audible and the lyrics indecipherable. Bob Ludwig mastered the results at his Gateway Mastering facility in Portland, Maine but Cobain remain unconvinced.

Eventually the band chose to sweeten (if that word can apply to a Nirvana track!) and remix “Heart Shaped Box” and “All Apologies” and the album was supposedly mastered yet again, augmenting the bass and some speculate upping the vocals a few dB but how that can be done in the mastering process without a remix is unclear. Whatever happened, apparently Steve Albini wasn’t happy with the results. Search this website for an interview with Mr. Albini conducted a long time ago.

In Utero was issued in America on September 14th 1993 first on cassette and vinyl only (limited to 25,000 copies) and on CD a week later. Though it debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts neither K-Mart nor Wal-Mart would carry the album because of the cover art and the song title “Rape Me.” A revised version with different artwork and “Waif Me” instead of “Rape Me” was released in March of 1994 with the approval of the band.

Doug Sax cut the original vinyl release on his main lathe. The inner groove area shows the TML-M stamp. By that time Bob Ludwid had probably retired his lathe (bet he regrets doing so now!). Sax followed suit but as we reported in the news section, Sax has re-commissioned two lathes and is back cutting lacquers with AAA preview head capabilities.

As far as black versus colored vinyl, remember that PVC is clear. Carbon black or black dye is added to make records black. Yellow dye makes PVC yellow, blue makes it blue etc.

For some reason, it seems that whatever makes records black also holds a magnetic charge that can be neutralized with a special demagnetizer that clearly makes records sound quieter, deeper, richer and less edgy. Demagnetizing colored vinyl doesn’t seem to have any effect.

So assuming the vinyl formulation is the same except for the coloring agent (and that is an assumption), in fact, the colored vinyl should sound better until you demagnetize the black vinyl at which time they should sound identical and that’s exactly what I found.

As for the music, if you aren’t a fan, you’re not dropping $25 or $30 on something you don’t love. Are you? The album is hard pounding and thick, disturbing, unhappy, dark and spits in your face from the get go as Cobain sings “Teenage Angst has served me well, Now I’m bored and old.” It gets less cheerful from there, but always gripping and worthwhile.

Self-loathing has never been so entertaining or enduring. Get your best sounding dose here. And yes, even when it comes to this dark, messy stuff, sound matters!

Incredibly, tapes of the original version of the album made their way to Universal’s Hannover, Germany facilities and the German vinyl release contains the Albini mixes of “Heart Shaped Box” and “All Apologies” and the tunes in general sound less compressed and more like what one expects from Steve Albini than any of the subsequent American releases.

The copy I bought a few years ago (Geffen 424 536 -1) contains what sound like those original mixes of “Heart Shaped Box” and “All Apologies.” There are some substantial differences, most noticeable in a lingering, undulating feedback guitar line in “Heart Shaped Box’s break.

I can’t be sure if the German vinyl that’s currently available continues to be sourced from that original mixes but I am sure that these new ORG 180g releases on colored and black vinyl are the best sounding vinyl issues of the final mixes of In Utero and by a wide margin. Even the Mobile Fidelity gold CD sounds like a pale imitation. The dynamics are unrestrained (or as unrestrained as a mildly compressed mix can sound) and the inner detail resolution is stunning. The acoustic around Curt Cobain’s voice resolves to a degree not before heard.

Look, it’s grunge but the feedback drenched guitar lines should still sparkle and squeal and the drums should really pound with elasticity while the cymbals should shimmer with a crystalline clarity and stand out in the mix. Everything about this recording sounds better on these 180 gram reissues.
 
Copyright © 2008 MusicAngle.com & Michael Fremer - All rights reserved Reprinted by permission

Music News & Notes

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

RECORD STORE DAY ‘10: EMI to release JOHN LENNON, SEX PISTOLS Vinyl

We all know that RECORD STORE DAY (where “independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music”) takes place on April 17th this year, and the announcements of special releases has begun. EMI has revealed plans to issue limited-edition Vinyl releases for both JOHN LENNON and SEX PISTOLS.
John Lennon Singles Bag (limited edition), (Capitol/EMI); Individually numbered Kraftpak envelope with button & string closure; custom plastic adaptor hub. 24” x 36” poster + three postcards and three 45 RPM vinyl singles with replicated original artwork. Includes such tracks as “Mother,” “Imagine,” and “Watching the Wheels.”

Sex Pistols: The Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Swindle (limited edition),(Virgin/EMI); 180g double LP, gatefold. Among the 24 tracks are “God Save the Queen (Symphony),” ”Anarchy in the UK,” “(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone,” “L’Anarchi Pour Le UK” and “The Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Swindle.”

Visit http://www.recordstoreday.com/  to learn more about this great event.

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Dave And Tim Get A Vinyl Release

Dave Matthews And Tim Reynolds are contributing a release to Record Store Day. The release will feature “Squirm” and “Lying In The Hands Of God,” according to Radio Active Records, and will be a 7″ Vinyl. That’s a little record for those not in the know. Both songs were recorded live from the 2009 Dave and Tim Las Vegas shows. The vinyl goes on sale at specific locations (see below) April 17 and should be priced around $3.49 (or so).

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Pearl Jam & Band Of Horses To Tour

It’s been announced that Band of Horses will open a bunch of dates for the grunge megastars in May. The Pearl Jam tour will start a couple of weeks before Infinite Arms, the third Band of Horses album, drops via Brown Records/Fat Possum/Columbia. Before they jump on the Pearl Jam tour, BoH will play a bunch of shows on both sides of the Atlantic, including SXSW dates and shows with Widespread Panic, She & Him, and Snow Patrol. We’ve got their dates below.

Band of Horses:

03-15 Boulder, CO - Fox Theater
03-16 Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre
03-18 Austin, TX - Stubbs BBQ
03-19 Austin, TX - Central Presbyterian Church
04-08 Paris, France - La Fleche D’or
04-09 Brussels, Belgium - Orangerie
04-10 Rotterdam, Netherlands - Motel Mozaique
04-12 London, England - Koko
04-14 Cologne, Germany - Kulturkirche
04-16 Oslo, Norway - Rockefeller
04-17 Gothenburg, Sweden - Tradgarn
04-18 Copenhagen, Denmark - Vega
04-23 Raleigh, NC - Walnut Creek Amphitheater *
04-24 Raleigh, NC - Walnut Creek Amphitheater *
04-27 Gainesville, FL - University of Florida’s Rion Ballroom
04-28 Miami, FL - The Fillmore
04-29 Orlando, FL - House of Blues
05-01 New Orleans, LA - Jazzfest
05-02 Memphis, TN - Beale Street Music Festival
05-03 Kansas City, MO - Sprint Center ^
05-04 St. Louis, MO - Scottrade Center ^
05-06 Columbus, OH - Nationwide Arena ^
05-07 Noblesville, IN - Verizon Wireless Music Center ^
05-09 Cleveland, OH - Quicken Loans Arena ^
05-10 Buffalo, NY - HSBC Arena ^
05-13 Bristow, VA - Jiffy Lube Live ^
05-15 Hartford, CT - XL Center ^
05-17 Boston, MA - TD Garden ^
05-21 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden ^
05-30 Bend, OR - Les Schwab Amphitheater %
05-31 George, WA - Sasquatch
06-05 Bangor, Ireland - Ward Park &
06-09 London, England - Roundhouse
06-12 Glasgow, Scotland - Bellahouston Park &
06-19 Toronto, Ontario - Olympic Island
09-25 Los Angeles, CA - Greek Theatre

* with Widespread Panic
^ with Pearl Jam
% with She & Him
& with Snow Patrol

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BRIAN MAY, STEVE VAI To Guest On New MEAT LOAF Album

Roadrunner Records/Loud & Proud Records has recently announced the signing of rock and roll veteran MEAT LOAF. His new album, “Hang Cool Teddy Bear”, whose title was taken from a line in “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” is 13 tracks of classic Meat Loaf, primed and ready for the 21st century. More than four decades into his career, the man and his voice are as big, bold and relevant as ever. Meat Loaf has been a towering monument on the musical landscape for the past 35 years and his new deal with Roadrunner/Loud & Proud will allow him to retain his post as the pre-eminent voice in rock music and beyond.

For “Hang Cool Teddy Bear”, the singer enlisted elite musicians, including THE DARKNESS frontman Justin Hawkins, who co-wrote two songs for the album, guitarists Tim Pierce, Paul Crook and Randy Flowers, legendary bass players Chris Chaney and Kasim Sulton, genius keyboardist Jamie Mulhoberac and one of the world’s greatest rock drummers, John Micelli.

“Hang Cool Teddy Bear” is due out May 11 in the U.S.

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As I Lay Dying - The Powerless Rise

Christian metallers As I Lay Dying will release their fifth full-length album THE POWERLESS RISE May 11 via Metal Blade Records. AS I LAY DYING is currently putting the finishing touches on THE POWERLESS RISE in San Diego with producer Adam Dutkiewicz of Killswitch Engage and they have also unveiled the cover art for their new album. THE POWERLESS RISE marks the follow up to their critically acclaimed fourth album An Ocean Between Us (Metal Blade) which debuted at #8 on the Billboard Top 200–the highest debut on the rock chart that week–and earned the group a Grammy® nomination for “Best Metal Performance” alongside metal heavyweights Slayer and King Diamond.

This Date In Music History-March 12

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

Birthdays:

Paul Kantner - Jefferson Airplane (1942)

Liza Minnelli (1946)

James Taylor (1948)

Les Holroyd - Barclay James Harvest (1948)

Bill Payne - Little Feat (1949)

Jack Green - Pretty Things (1951)

Steve Harris - Iron Maiden (1956)

Marlon Jackson - Jackson Five (1957)

Graham Coxon - Blur (1969)

Ben Kenny - Incubus (1977)

Pete Doherty - Libertines/Babyshambles (1979)

They Are Missed:

Born on this day in 1917, Leonard Chess, the founder of the Chess record label, home to John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Jimmy Reed. Chess died of a heart attack on October 16, 1969 (age 52).

In 1955, jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker died of a heart attack in New York City while watching Tommy Dorsey’s Orchestra on television. He was 34. The coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker’s 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age. (After years of drug and alcohol abuse).

Born on this day in 1949, Mike Gibbins of Badfinger (died on Oct 4, 2005).

History:

The Dave Brubeck Quartet appeared for the first time at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1955.

Buddy Holly & the Crickets recorded “Maybe Baby” in 1957.

Elvis-clone, Fabian, performed his hit “Turn Me Loose” on American Bandstand in 1959.

The Beatles played at the Granada Cinema in Bedford in 1963. Also on the bill, Chris Montez and Tommy Roe. John Lennon, suffering from a heavy cold, was unable to perform, so The Beatles set was rearranged so that George and Paul could sing the parts that John usually sang.

Sgt. Barry Sadler started a five-week run at #1 on the US album chart in 1966 with ‘Ballads Of The Green Berets.’

In 1968, the Rolling Stones started recording their next single “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” with new producer Jimmy Miller at Olympic studios in London.

Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman at Marylebone Register Office in 1969. They then held a reception lunch at The Ritz Hotel, Paul then went to Abbey Road studios in the evening to work. George Harrison and his wife Patti were arrested on the same day and charged with possession of 120 joints of marijuana.

John Lennon made the headlines in 1974 after an incident at the Troubadour Club, LA. Out on a drinking binge with Harry Nilsson, Lennon hurled insults at the performing Smothers Brothers and punched their manager before being forcibly removed.

In 1977, the Sex Pistols were involved in a fight at London’s Speakeasy Club with Bob Harris, presenter of BBC 2’s The Old Grey Whistle Test resulting in one of the show’s engineers needing 14 stitches in his head. Two days later Harris’s solicitors contact Derek Green at A&M the bands record label. Harris’s management also managed Peter Frampton, one of the label’s top acts at A&M. Green discussed the matter with the company’s two founders, Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert and the decision is made to cancel the Pistols contract and halt production of the bands first single, ‘God Save The Queen’.

In 1983, Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler had her only UK No.1 single with a song written by Meatloaf’s producer, Jim Steinman, ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart,” which was also #1 in the US, (the only Welsh artist to score a US #1), Canada and Australia, the single sold over 5 million copies.

Rick Astley started a two week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1988 with “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

Nirvana and Tad appeared at the Town Pump in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1990.

Swedish group Ace Of Base started a six week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1994 with “The Sign.”

Boyz II Men were at #1 on the US album chart in 1995 with ‘II.’

The album “Unplugged” was released by KISS in 1996.

In 1998, Korn served a cease-and-desist demand to a Michigan assistant principal, the high school and the school district who suspended a student for wearing a T-shirt that had the band’s name on it.

In 2001, Judy Garland’s “Over The Rainbow” was voted the Song Of The Century in a poll published in America. Musicians, critics and fans compiled the list by the RIAA.

In 2003, the Chinese government ordered the Rolling Stones to eliminate four songs from their upcoming performances in Shanghai and Beijing. The banned songs were “Brown Sugar,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Beast of Burden,” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together.”

In 2009, hundreds of fans queued at the O2 arena in London as Michael Jackson tickets went on sale to the public. The 50-year-old pop veteran had confirmed he would be playing a 50-date residency at the venue, beginning on 8 July 2009. Some 360,000 pre-sale tickets had already sold. Organisers said the This Is It tour had become the fastest-selling in history, with 33 seats sold each minute. Prices ranged from £170 to £10,000, but tickets bought directly from the singer’s website cost up to £75. Jackson had said this would be the last time he would perform in the UK.

New Movie Releases – March 12, 2010

Submitted by All Movie Replicas Blog

These are the movies opening in wide release this, Friday: “Green Zone” (starring Matt Damon), “Our Family Wedding” (starring Forest Whitaker and America Ferrara) and “Remember Me” (Starring Robert Pattinson).

Green Zone

Synopsis: Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, United 93) re-team for their latest electrifying thriller in “Green Zone,” a film set in the chaotic early days of the Iraqi War when no one could be trusted and every decision could detonate unforeseen consequences.

Cast: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Amy Ryan, Brendan Gleeson, Jason Isaacs, Khalid Abdalla; Director: Paul Greengrass

Our Family Wedding

Synopsis: Described as a clash-of-cultures comedy, the story centers on two overbearing fathers (Whitaker, Mencia) who must put aside their differences to plan the wedding of their son and daughter (Ferrera) in less than two weeks.

Cast: Forest Whitaker, America Ferrera, Carlos Mencia, Regina King, Lance Gross, Charlie Murphy; Director: Rick Famuyiwa

Remember Me

Synopsis:
Infused with humor and romance, “Remember Me” tells the unforgettable love story of two young people who learn how important it is to love passionately and live loudly everyday of one’s life.

Cast: Robert Pattinson, Emilie de Ravin, Chris Cooper, Lena Olin, Tate Ellington, Ruby Jerins, Pierce Brosnan; Director: Allen Coulter

Music News & Notes

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

4AD and Sub Pop Announce Record Store Day Releases Featuring Blonde Redhead, Gang Gang Dance, Dum Dum Girls and Soundgarden

Each year since 2008, music retailers have celebrated Record Store Day with special in-store performances and limited-edition releases from some of music’s biggest names. This year, Record Store Day will fall on April 17, and it’s shaping up to be a good one: we’ve already heard about Beach House’s Zebra EP and Deerhoof’s vinyl reissues.

Now, influential British label 4AD has jumped on board the Record Store Day bandwagon, announcing a new twelve-inch EP that compiles unheard songs from five artists on its roster. Entitled Fragments from a “Work in Progress, “it showcases unheard demos and teaser tracks from upcoming 4AD releases. This included new 4AD signings Ariel Pink and Gang Gang Dance, as well as Tune-Yards and the Big Pink.

Perhaps the most intriguing track on the EP is the Blonde Redhead demo “Not Getting There,” which is the first recording the eclectic outfit ever made.

This compilation is only one of many releases the Seattle-based label is preparing for Record Store Day. Sub Pop will also be issuing:

* CocoRosie’s “Lemonade” seven-inch, featuring a song from their upcoming album plus a cover of the Beach Boys’ 1963 classic “Surfer Girl.”

* The Album Leaf’s There Is a Wind twelve-inch, brining together two new songs with two alternate takes of songs from this year’s A Chorus of Storytellers.

* A split seven-inch with one song apiece from Dum Dum Girls and Male Bonding (both of whom will be playing at L.A.’s Origami Records).

* A seven-inch with two unreleased tracks by garage pop newcomers Happy Birthday.

* A reissue of Soundgarden’s 1987 debut single “Hunted Down”/”Nothing to Say” on translucent orange vinyl.

Additionally, two vinyl 7″ singles from the Peter Gabriel Scratch My Back project will be made available at retailers for Record Store Day on April 17. The first has Gabriel singing the Magnetic Field’s Book of Love backed with Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Field’s cover of Peter’s Not One of Us. The second will have Peter’s version of Bon Iver’s Flume while Iver covers Gabriel’s Come Talk to Me.

Perhaps the most intriguing of Sub Pop’s Record Store Day releases is the live compilation Casual Nostalgia Fest. In 2008, the label celebrated its 20th anniversary with SP20, a festival in Seattle featuring performances from Sub Pop bands past and present. Casual Nostalgia Fest collects 19 songs taped live at the festival, including joints from Iron & Wine, Green River, Low, Flight of the Conchords, the Vaselines, Wolf Parade, and Blitzen Trapper. Proceeds from the CD go to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Check the tracklist below.

Casual Nostalgia Fest:

01 Green River: “Leech”
02 Wolf Parade: “Fine Young Cannibals”
03 The Vaselines: “Dying for It”
04 Obits: “Run”
05 Les Thugs: “Dirty White Race”
06 Eric’s Trip: “Smother”
07 Beachwood Sparks: “You Take the Gold”
08 Blitzen Trapper: “Furr”
09 Flight of the Conchords: “Carol Brown”
10 Iron & Wine: “Woman King”
11 Constantines: “Why I Didn’t Like August ‘93″
12 Seaweed “Baggage”
13 Grand Archives: “Dig That Crazy Grave”
14 Low: “Silver Rider”
15 The Helio Sequence: “Lately”
16 Kinski: “The Wives of Artie Shaw”
17 Pissed Jeans: “Caught Licking Leather”
18 Mudhoney: “The Open Mind”
19 Comets on Fire: “Dogwood Rust”

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Braid To Reissue First Two Albums On Vinyl

The emo godfathers in Braid are finally getting the reissue treatment they deserve. Polyvinyl Records has just announced the April 13 reissue of Braid’s first two albums on vinyl. The reissue campaign comes in celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of the release of their 1995 debut, the 26 song Frankie Welfare Boy Age Five, whose song titles each start with a different letter of the alphabet. Braid’s sophomore album, The Age of Octeen, as well as the posthumous two-volume odds-and-sods collection, Movie Music, will also be reissued. All of the releases will be available on black 180-gram vinyl as well as limited edition colored vinyl.

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Neu! Catalog Collected in Vinyl Box Set

Michael Rother and the late Klaus Dinger formed the Düsseldorf duo Neu! in 1971, after both musicians left Kraftwerk.

On May 10, Gronland will release a limited edition Neu! vinyl box set, offering a retrospective of the band’s influential catalogue. The box includes all three of the duo’s studio albums– Neu!, Neu! 2, and Neu! ‘75– as well as the previously unreleased LP Neu! ‘86, originally recorded in 1985 and 1986 and recently reworked by Rother, augmented by Rother and Dinger’s most recent studio recordings. You’ll also get Neu! ‘72, a previously unreleased 18-minute live maxi-single. There will also be a download code, so you’ll get to listen to all this stuff on your morning commute.

A 36-page book includes Neu! photos from Anton Corbijn and Peter Lindbergh. And rounding out the package: A Neu! T-shirt and a stencil of the Neu! logo.

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Abcess LP and Cover Art

California’s extreme death metal outfit, Abscess, have unleashed their latest spawn of punk infused metal, Dawn Of Inhumanity, in the US today, courtesy of Peaceville Records. Dawn Of Inhumanity is the band’s sixth full-length studio album, since recording their first demos in 1994.

“Bursting through the boundaries of brutality, Abscess surpasses all previous efforts and presents a death metal masterpiece filled with insanity, violence, and mind blowing savagery,” states Abscess drummer/vocalist, Chris Reifert.

Featuring former members of legendary bands Autopsy and Death, Abscess hail from Oakland California, joining together in 1994. They released their first studio album, Seminal Vampires And Maggot Men, in 1996.

Dawn Of Inhumanity was recorded at the famous Fantasy Studios, CA in October 2009, with experienced engineer Adam Munoz helping to produce this latest effort. The result is an unrivalled nightmare of raw experimental extremity. Including special guest vocal appearances by the Darkthrone duo, Nocturne Culto & Fenriz, this is twisted, dirty punk death without limits.

The cover art for Dawn Of Inhumanity was produced by top artist, Dennis Dread (Darkthrone, Autopsy), with booklet art courtesy of Abscess’s own Chris Reifert (drums, vocals).

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Vintage vinyl sale to help library

The Friends of the Tippecanoe County Public Library will hold an LP record sale Saturday and Sunday at the downtown branch, 627 South St. More than 10,000 LPs, some dating to 1908, will be on sale. Many of the record albums come from the collection of the late Frank Arganbright, a former music columnist for the Journal & Courier.

The sale is the largest LP sale ever held at the library. There will be no advance sale.

Proceeds will go to the library.

THE HOURS
The LP sale will be held from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 1-6 p.m. Sunday.

SALE HIGHLIGHTS
LPs are sorted in three categories: Rock ‘n’ roll, classical and “everything else,” including big bands, jazz, children’s music, and country and western. Many albums have been cleaned and placed in protective sleeves.

About 3,000 of the vinyl records are in mint condition. There are more than 1,000 rock ‘n’ roll albums, including many from the ’60s. More than 3,000 classical records will be on sale. There also are about 1,000 45 rpm records and about 1,000 78 rpm albums.

Prices start at 50 cents. Most items are priced at $2 or less.

On Sunday, all records will be half-price.

SILENT AUCTION
On Saturday, a progressive silent auction will be held on selected records.

Noteworthy albums include an autographed Dizzy Gillespie LP, the first U.S. and first Capitol albums from the Beatles, and two rare Glenn Miller big band sets.

There also are two 78 rpm records of famous Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley from the 1910s.

Featured will be a Carnegie Hall Library Classical Music collection, which includes 150 LPs.

Sounds like a great time, if you live in the area, make a point of stopping by!

Articles of Interest

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

The Last Record Store

Valley-based Turn It Up! remains a successful outpost of old-school music-buying.

By Matthew Dube

He stole the entire Bob Dylan section.

The grizzled and affable gentleman—think Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart—in the oversized Celtics warm-up jacket was a fixture for several days in early 2001. He’d come into the Northampton Turn It Up! soon after I’d hung the Open sign and spend his mornings listening to music and chatting about everything from the weather to Kevin McHale to Fred Eaglesmith.

Then one day, as I was on the phone with another customer, he hurriedly disappeared up the stairs and onto the street. Instinctively I went and checked out the D section, as he’d previously been relaxing at one of the listening stations with a large pile of live Dylan CDs. Sure enough, it was empty. He’d ripped us off.

I sprinted out of the shop and found him—and the stack of Dylan—in the alleyway behind the store. Later I spoke with a policeman, recommended a few jazz CDs for someone’s birthday, bought three boxes of dusty LPs, and helped an elderly man call a cab.

Just a typical day in the wacky life of a record store employee…….

Read the rest here: http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=11462

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A comprehensive report about record conventions and record collecting, certainly worth the time to read:

Preamble / By Way of Introduction

This paper represents a component of my research into vinyl record fairs and vinyl record collecting, work that has been ongoing for close to three years now. I was first drawn to record fairs as a burgeoning collector, but my research interest in records has grown beyond the phenomenological aspects of the consumption and collecting of musical recordings. Indeed, the question “Why do people collect records?” I find to be unsatisfying, if not because the answers are simple then because there are simply too many of them to be useful for a broader understanding of the forces at work.

Instead, I’m interested in what we can learn about music recordings as commodities in contemporary Western society through the study of record circulation; that is, the buying, selling, and collecting of records. What types of value and capital inform the exchange of musical recordings? To what degree are these processes of exchange dependent upon the subjective lived experiences, emotional lives, and individual interactions of and between individuals? And finally, in what ways can these subjectivities inform responsible research into musical cultures and communities?

This morning I will focus specifically on the experiences of record dealers—the collectors concerned with finding that mythical “compilation of every good song ever done by anybody” alluded to by the band LCD Soundsystem will have to wait patiently for the next conference—and my proposal, drawing from anthropologist Arjun Appadurai’s concept of commodity value, is that the exchange of records at record fairs is structured and disciplined by a broad confluence of mutable values, which differ from record to record and from dealer to dealer depending on their individual circumstances, their expectations of their customers, and their business philosophies. My findings are based on ethnographic research at Chicago-area record fairs conducted over the last three years, a number of interviews with record fair dealers and organizers, and a survey of 30 vendors at a record fair in April, 2009.

Read the rest here: http://atm4.net/?p=294
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Hot Wax – Vinyl Making a Comeback

By Bryan Reed

Perched behind his old Apple laptop and a glass counter filled with stickers and buttons emblazoned with the names of punk bands, Scott Wishart is an anomaly. Lunchbox Records, the Central Avenue storefront he owns, is one of an ever-slimming number of truly independent record stores. As the posters for local shows and indie-label releases plastered on the windows of the shop can attest, Lunchbox isn’t the place to go to pick up the latest T-Pain or Taylor Swift CDs. But that’s precisely what drives Wishart’s business.

As a specialty shop, Lunchbox has been largely unaffected by the record industry’s catastrophic fall from grace that began around the turn of the millennium when a kid named Shawn Fanning developed a little computer program he called Napster. Internet file-sharing boomed, then gave way to digital music sales through services such as iTunes. All the while, CD sales busted with little help from the antagonizing efforts of the Recording Industry Association of America. Big box stores like Best Buy and Wal-Mart continually downsize the floor space devoted to music. At large, the future of recorded music looks dismal.

But at Lunchbox, business is just fine, thanks in no small part to the store’s unique and eclectic offerings—and helped along by a surprising resurgence in the popularity of the most outmoded of recording formats, vinyl records. Wishart, who has been in the music retail business since 1997, says, “I’ve always bought records, but when I first started, records were on the way out. Labels, especially big ones, weren’t even releasing them and it kind of continued that way until a few years ago.”

Read the rest of this interesting article here: http://uptownclt.com/2010/03/hot-wax-vinyl-making-a-comeback/

Ask Mr. Music by Jerry Osborne

Submitted by Collecting Vinyl Records Blog

FOR THE WEEK OF MARCH 8, 2010

DEAR JERRY: Has anyone ever told you they keep a scrapbook of your columns? Well I do, and it is several hundred pages.

In one written about 10 years ago, you say that Billboard began using their Star Performer symbol (a.k.a., “bullet”) in mid-August 1958.

I raise the question because a book I read about Phil Spector states the first record to ever get a bullet, for strong upward movement on the chart, is “Hey Baby,” by Bruce Channel.

Since this is a 1962 hit, one of these accounts must be wrong, unless they refer to another chart.

Did Cash Box, for example, not begin using bullets until 1962?

While on the subject, did Pete Wingfield’s “Eighteen with a Bullet” make it to No. 18 with a bullet on Cash Box, as it did on Billboard?

Of course I’ll add your responses to my scrapbook.
—Julie Kenyon, Vincennes, Ind.

DEAR JULIE: How could you not, especially with you as a guest star this week?

For the week ending November 22, 1975, Joel Whitburn’s “Hot 100 Billboard Charts” has Pete Wingfield, after 14 weeks on the survey, moving up five spots, from No. 23 to No. 18.

That same week, Cash Box showed Wingfield as jumping from No. 22 to No. 18.

It is reasonable to suspect the record would end up at 18 with a bullet on everyone’s chart, that is if it were anywhere close to that number.

Of course dee jays enjoyed their only opportunity ever to say something like: this week “Eighteen with a Bullet” is really 18 with a bullet.

The following week “Eighteen with a Bullet” became 15 with a bullet, but that would be its peak position. Six weeks later it fell off the charts.

Examining the January and February 1962 charts, I find nothing unusual, bulletwise or otherwise, about “Hey Baby,” so I have no idea as to the meaning of what you read.

By then, both Billboard (August 1958) and Cash Box (February 1959) had used the bullet concept for three or more years, though neither magazine’s symbol actually resembled a bullet.

You say it’s a book about Phil Spector, but they must not have asked him about any of this. Surely he would recall the three consecutive weeks in November 1958, when his first hit, “To Know Him Is to Love Him” (Teddy Bears), had bullets on its way to No. 1.

I don’t recall anyone saying they keep a scrapbook, though I know many do clip and save columns of interest. Your lasting attentiveness to the feature is very much appreciated.

DEAR JERRY: Among the tens of thousands of 20th century recording artists, it seems that someone with the same family name as mine would have had a hit record.

Several famous performers with uncommon names — Garfunkel; Zacherle; Humperdinck; Zappa; Kostelanetz; etc. — come to mind, yet we can’t find even one successful Browning.

Is there one out there that we have overlooked? My family’s honor is at stake here.
—Albert Browning, Towson, Md.

DEAR ALBERT: Life can be cruel.

Hopefully this confirmation of your worst fears, likely a devastating blow to Brownings everywhere, will be offset by knowing you have stumbled onto a great bar bet.

Even senior level musicologists would be shocked to learn that in 100 years no one named Browning ever had a hit record — in any of the mainstream fields of music.

If it’s any consolation, it is not for lack of effort.

Here are some of your namesake artists with non-charting records, and their time period: Betty (1964); Bill (1957-’60); Bill Zeke (1957-’61); Dot (1961); and Harry Robert (1980).

There is also a group known only as Browning (1970-;71), and another named the Browning Sisters (1950s).

There are even a few 21st century Brownings you might want to know about: Admiral (2009); Andy (2009); Angie (2007); Bruno (2010); John (2009); and Mark (2001).

IZ ZAT SO? Two hit records also come to mind today, neither by a Browning but both about one.

First is a parody of the Coasters’ “Charlie Brown,” titled “Charlie Browning.”

By the Young Men, this is about Charles Browning, a real-life football star at the University of Washington. It went to No. 1 in Seattle in December 1963.

Then there is Porter Wagoner’s “Carroll County Accident,” in which a fictitious Walter Browning is killed in an auto crash.

Issued in late 1968, this juicy tale with a twist reached No. 2 nationally (C&W).

Jerry Osborne answers as many questions as possible through this column.

Write Jerry at: Box 255, Port Townsend, WA 98368
E-mail: jpo@olympus.net
Visit his Web site: www.jerryosborne.com .

Copyright 2010 Osborne Enterprises- Reprinted By Permission