Vinyl Madness

I've been on a vinyl catching up binge recently and spent too much money on the things. On the bright side, having moved in with my girlfriend recently I had to leave my CDs behind (I'll get them back some day), so now I listen to proper records all day like you're meant to.

 The first one up is a Flying Lotus' Cosmogramma Alt Takes that was released for Record Store Day. There were only 750 of these made worldwide I believe and he is a very popular artist so I was surprised I could pick this up at the normal price or at all.

 This is a split EP between New Found Glory and Dashboard Confessional called Swiss Army Bro-Mance. Being a British male I'm not that familiar with Dashboard Confessional. Initially it was meant to be a tour-only EP, but the tour was cancelled so they released it through the normal channels. They each cover two of the other's songs. Mine is purple.

This is a split between Face To Face and the awesome Rise Against. There has been a bit of a kerfuffle online about this due to Folsom Records decision to send out the records without giving people the option to chose what colour they want. I don't care about colours, but I got a yellow one, which will annoy people.

Speaking about Rise Against and me not caring about colours, the next record is Rise Against's Join The Ranks. This was initially released on Record Store Day on picture disc in the USA. Fat Wreck then decided they can make more money by re-releasing it on black 180g vinyl. This is the version I got. I loves it.

Next up is a split between Hot Water Music and The Bouncing Souls. They each do one cover of the other's song. Chuck Ragan has a cool voice. This comes on a blue tinged muticolour vinyl that would make it hard to work out where the different tracks are if there were more.

This is a 10" recording of radio station sessions made by The Bouncing Souls. There are several diferent versions of this on different colours and at different speeds. Mine is the Side One Dummy version that is a 45 on black vinyl with a yellow splatter. The splatter effect does not come out that well on the photo, nor that well on the actual physical product. It also came with a download code, but my piece of shit computer would not allow me to download it properly, so I was forced to fund terrorism and download it illegally.

The last record is the super-dooper popular Burial/Four Tet/Thom Yorke collaboration Ego/Mirror. You'll have to take my word for that as there is no distinguishing markings for you to know this, except some etchings on the record.

Explosions In The Sky- Take Care, Take Care, Take Care

I have a friend who only listens to the most extreme Death Metal. He considers all other types of music as “pussy shit.” Despite this one day when he was feeling particularly melancholic he confessed that he doesn’t always listen to extreme Metal. In near tears he confessed that he also listens to Explosions In The Sky. In his mind Explosions In The Sky were a gentle band playing lovely, romantic melodies. They are not.

Along with Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky are the quintessential Post Rock band. Never straying far from long songs with loud-quiet dynamics and an absence of lyrics, they have been mining a similar field since their inception. Take Care, Take Care, Take Care is their latest opus and it is a similar story here. There are few shocks, although ‘Trembling Hands’ is a pop perfect three and a half minutes long. This is not a detriment, after all if it ain’t broke why fix it? And if bands have spent the last ten years ripping you off it certainly is far from broke.

The CD comes in ridiculous packaging that must be worth the price of admission alone and is probably the only way to stop CDs from disappearing from sight totally.

Burzum- Hvis Lyset Tar Oss

The most notorious of Black Metal musicians, although I would rather stumble across Varg Vikernes than meet Gaahl down the gay bar. Burzum in many ways is also the quintessential Black Metal musician. He is the only member of his group, because BM Nazis have no friends. He has released two albums of synthesiser music (although he had no choice in that matter) and of course has burnt down at least three churches.

Recorded in 1992 but not released until 1994 by which time Vikernes most notorious aspects were behind him and he had recently started his imprisonment. It is albums like this that makes me wonder why I or anyone else bothers to listen to any other music except true brootal cvlt Black Metal. Atmospheric, brooding, scary, engaging. In some ways Black Metal is the late 20^th century answer to Classical music, much more interesting than anything John Cage ever did. I cannot recommend this album enough. While you are down at Helvete it would be a good idea to pick up some Emperor too.

Savatage- Streets: A Rock Opera

God. Look at that cover. The late 80s/early 90s was such a depressing time. If Rolling Stone magazine can call the ‘Zuma’ cover one of the worst ever, heaven knows what they made of this one. Savatage have even stuck Cactus Jack on there pretending that no one would even notice because they are too busy laughing.

This is a 1991 album from Technical Metal/Prog Rock outfit Savatage. Just in case you were wondering if it might be too cool for you to listen to they gave the album the subtitle of ‘A Rock Opera’. This is the type of album that Dream Theater would produce if they made concept albums rather than concept songs. The CD edition that I have kindly provides the story as I never bother to listen to lyrics as I see the voice as an instrument and am more interested in the sound rather than what they are saying. The story is somewhat similar to ‘The Wall’ by Pink Floyd but with less totalitarian aspects. ‘The Wall’ comparison goes further than just the story, with many parts of the music sounding like they could come from that album too as well as Journey.

The variations that Savatage have in their music consist of mainly the difference between acoustic and electronic, rather than any Faith No More style genre hopping. It makes you wonder why The Mars Volta insist that they are Progressive Metal, being lumped in with Savatage and Dream Theater, when I would say they were more Jazz Metal.

The Kinks- The Kink Kontroversy

The Kink Kontroversy is a transitional album. It features the cool ‘You Really Got Me’ copying Hard Rock of ‘Till The End Of The Day’ and ‘Gotta Get The First Plane Home’ while having the more mundane English song writing like ‘I’m On An Island’, which can be blamed for Damon Albarn boring everyone for 10 years with Blur.

Obviously the rockier songs are better, unless you read Q magazine in which case you will disagree. But you would be wrong, and boring. In a little side note, this is the chronologically the earliest album I have, predating The Doors debut by two years. Yes that’s right, fuck you proper bluesmen.

Four Tet/Daphni- Pinnacles/Ye Ye

12" split between the Canadian Four Tet and the British Caribou. Unfortunately I can't listen to it yet as my turntable is in France and I'm in England. Philip Sherburne (who apparently can't spell Sherborne correctly) calls the Four Tet track 'like Carl Craig remixing LCD Soundsytem covering Carl Craig' and the Daphni song 'full to bursting'. I'll have to wait til the 13 May to verify.

Foo Fighters- Wasting Light

Dave Grohl used to be in Scream. Dave Grohl used to be in Nirvana. Dave Grohl used to be in Queens Of The Stone Age. Dave Grohl used to be in Probot. Dave Grohl played drums for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers once. Dave Grohl is now in Foo Fighters. Well, he’s been in Foo Fighters for ages. For ages Foo Fighters have been mundane ‘Dad Rock’ who would have one to two good songs on an album and the rest was blatant filler, including ‘Long Road To Ruin’ a contender for worst song ever. Some people bitched and complained about this, the vast majority though, lapped that shit up and had the balls to ask for more. We really are a masochistic society.

Thankfully Grohl has decided to listen to us with ears and has produced a better album this time around. Looking back into his history, Pat Smear from The Germs is back in the band full time, Butch Vig produces and Krist Novosellic plays bass on one track. There is also a lot more balls, and best yet, no sloppy, sappy ballads. Songs like ‘White Limo’ stand out with the snarl that should be present on every Foo Fighters song. It does make you wonder though with lyrics like ‘Fame, fame, go away’ on ‘Arlandria’ why Grohl has always made mainstream Radio Rock to appeal to the lowest common denominator. If this is his attempt at an ‘In Utero’ trying to cast off fans, then making a balls-out Rock album, that is his best maybe ever, then I don’t think that plan is going to work.

Record Store Day 2011

Today is, if you haven't realised yet, is Record Store Day. I got up early to join the queue at my local independent record store, Acorn Records, where I was somewhere near the back of a long queue. I saw some old friends and made some new ones while waiting to be let in. After about 40 minutes I finally managed to get into the shop and to peruse the purdy vinyl. My first notice was an Iggy & The Stooges 'Raw Power Live' release. This threw me a little, as I had checked the releases on the Record Store Day website and this was not among them. I tossed up the idea of buying it for a while, but decided to not go with it and to continue looking. 

The first record I bought was Vorwarts by Mute Records. It is a compilation containing unreleased, exclusive and rare recordings from bands on the Mute roster. It includes a composition by Can as well as numbers by Grinderman, Liars and Yeasayer. It comes on a beautiful translucent orange vinyl.

My second choice was this wonderful split between Oval and Liturgy from Thrill Jockey. Oval produce four tracks, a 6-minute one and several shorter lengths that remind me of all those CDs the Wire gives away every once in a while. Liturgy offer one long track that was apparently recorded at Shea Stadium. I imagine that was a joke unless there is a studio at Shea, but I doubt it. This had an extremely limited release of 150. So limited when I looked on ebay earlier this was not on there. It must be worth millions.

This yellow 7" is a split between ZZ Top and Mastodon, both playing 'Just Got Paid'. If you play the ZZ Top version at the wrong speed it still sounds quite good and a lot more arty.

My final purchase was The Clash's 'rap' song 'The Magnificent Seven'. On the Record Store Day website they say this is backed with 'The Magnificent Dance'. It's not. I've got number 341 out of I presumer 1,000.

All in all a good haul, in my opinion. Unfortunately I could not get hold of Flying Lotus' 'Cosmogramma Alt Takes' or the Yeasayer 7". Oh well. There's always next year, where I'll see you there.

Arcade Fire- Funeral

While researching this album I had noticed Pitchfork, in all its wisdom, gave this album 9.7 out of 10. Now I know it’s easy to kick Pitchfork what with its attempts to mathmetise the impossible (music), but come on; this is not an almost perfect album. I can pick plenty of holes in it. Songs like ‘Haiti’ go nowhere and while going nowhere do not do anything that interesting. Well certainly not a 0.3 away from being the most interesting song of all time.

This was not intended to be a critique of Pitchfork Media through the medium of ‘Funeral’ by Arcade Fire so I will try to steer away from that. Coming out in 2004 I have heard of many people claiming this album being their gateway to less popular music. I remember around the time Arcade Fire getting a lot of publicity and plays, coming out of a time when Post-Punk Revival was all the rage. While I would not call ‘Funeral’ Post-Punk, in fact being closer to Post-Rock, it is easy to see why they led to better things. They have a handful of catchy little numbers, ‘Rebellion (Lies)’, ‘Wake Up’ and ‘Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)’ being the most notable, although somewhat ruined by the BBC’s appropriation of them over Christmas. Then you get to songs like ‘Haiti’ that is nowhere near as entertaining. However these songs contain depth not seen by the likes of Bloc Party or The View and so will eventually pull up alongside the catchier tunes as your favourites on the album.

It is an excellent album. Not a 9.7 album.

Just Kids by Patti Smith

I was not originally going to buy this book. I had read Ian Penman’s scathing review of it in The Wire (Issue 315 if you are interested) and finding Smith’s musical output usually rather staid and insipid had not bothered to look it up. However a sunny full day in Taunton with absolutely nothing to do after look in Black Cat Records led me to HMV where the book was on some sort of discount (all books in HMV are generally less than RRP. The Taunton one has a wide selection of choice. I also recommend the Plymouth branch for books).

My previous knowledge of Patti Smith’s writings extends to a few of her poems and her epic ‘The Coral Sea’. ‘Just Kids’ follows ‘The Coral Sea’ in subject matter. It is an autobiography of Smith and her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Smith is an excellent writer and I cannot but help feel that Music’s gain (loss possibly) the literary world has lost a great, especially if she is as fond of crime fiction as she states she is in the book. She could have been a more poetic Elmore Leonard. There are issues with the book. I have to echo Penman’s criticism about Smith filtering everything through art. You are not Lee Krasner because you stole something. You are either poor or a wrong ‘un.

Patti Smith has written an excellent recollection of her time with Robert Mapplethorpe and just because she quickly glazes her musical work is not a reason not to buy or Lee Krasner the book. It is an excellent piece of work that Penman wrongly criticised as Smith’s art filter and naivety hardly spoil the flow and interest of the book whatsoever. My biggest criticism would be the tacked on chapter at the end of the paperback version, which tends to be a regular occasion for autobiographies, which serves no purpose except to show some photos and some small poems.