Wow And Flutter

Long and short pieces on music you should listen to; audio gear; and pop culture.

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Summer of Stereolab

May 30, 2019 /

Before they called it quits/went on hiatus in 2009, Stereolab were one of the towering giants of Post-Rock, releasing an incredible volume of innovative singles and non-album work – enough to fill four compilation CDs worth – in addition to their ten studio albums. The inclusion of Lo Boob Oscillator as a pickup line in (and on the soundtrack of) High Fidelity should be enough for you to check them out.

[image credit: Stereolab]

But last year, the core of the band (Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier) and their longtime manager Martin Pike, announced plans to reissue their classic run of albums from their Duophonic label, from 1993’s Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements to 2004’s Margerine Eclipse in remastered (triple) vinyl, digital and CD versions, including tons of unreleased bonus material. The first two discs, Transient… and Mars Audiac Quartet (the latter including the song whose title that inspired this blog) came out a couple of weeks ago, and people let me tell you, they’re worth every dollar. The vinyl pressings are fantastically quiet and lovingly remastered, the price includes FLAC/WAV/MP3 downloads of everything, the packaging is top quality, and each disc includes a pull out poster sized lyric sheet and extensive liner notes from Tim Gane.

Best of all, the band is mounting a huge tour this fall! Dates will include a run of the big festivals (Primavera, Pitchfork) and club dates INCLUDING BOSTON THAT I MANAGED TO GET TICKETS FOR! Watch this space over the summer for more ruminations on one of my favorite bands of the past fifteen years.

The only five R.E.M. albums you need

May 27, 2019 /

My piece on the Bingo Hand Job (a/k/a R.E.M.) 1991 concert disc got me thinking about this band that’s been part of my musical DNA since they wormed their way into my brain in 1983, with the release of Murmur, their dark, mysterious, poppy and pretty fantastic full-length debut album. That disc sat on my turntable for a good solid month while I listened, headphones on, trying with all my might to figure out just exactly what Michael Stipe was actually singing about. And once I thought I had the lyrics figured out, I had to reevaluate that opinion the next time I listened to those songs. It was like they were a living being, constantly changing their shape and identity; but that’s what made those early songs so beautiful. Their meaning is what you want to believe it is. It’s like the ending of Lost In Translation: what is Bill Murray whispering in Scarlett Johansson’s ear in the last scene? Doesn’t matter: write your own poetry.

Which R.E.M. albums do you need to have? That your life will be entirely empty without? Well, let’s be honest: you need ALL of them, but if you had to pick only five, they are:

  1. Murmur (1983) Where it all began. Jangly guitars, and mood that mirrors the kudzu vines growing on the cover. Song You’ll Play On Repeat: Radio Free Europe.
  2. Reckoning (1984) Their followup, but deftly avoids the “let’s make another one like the last one” trap. Their lyrics are a little clearer, and the sound punchier. Song You’ll Play On Repeat: Don’t Go Back To Rockville.
  3. Document (1987) The album after Lifes Rich Pageant. NOT produced by John Mellencamp’s producer Don Gehman, but goddamn if “Strange” isn’t the spitting image of vintage Mellencamp. Side two gets murky (but worth the trip) after “The One I Love,” but side one is killer, including the song-for-our-current-times “Exhuming McCarthy.” Song You’ll Play On Repeat: It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).
  4. New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996) A recent addition to my collection, and so fricking good that it kicked Out Of Time from the top 5 list. The last album with Bill Berry behind the drum kit, and the band playing (most of the tracks were recorded live, during their tour behind Automatic for the People) as if they knew it were the last time they’d all be together. Song You’ll Play On Repeat: The Wake-Up Bomb.
  5. Automatic for the People (1992) Saved the best for last. In fact, if you only had room for ONE R.E.M. album on your shelf, this would be it. There is not a single song on this album that is not a classic. Despite the album’s overall theme of (as guitarist Peter Buck noted) “mortality, the passage of time, suicide and family,” it’s inspiring, moving and (yes) funny. And it rocks hard (“Ignoreland.) Song You’ll Play On Repeat: Nightswimming.

New release: Bill Evans Trio on MoFi

May 12, 2019 /

I’ve been a big fan of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab‘s half-speed mastered releases since they opened everyone’s ears in the early 80’s as to how GREAT vinyl could sound (and, how crappy the major label pressings were.) They’ve been on a roll lately, tearing off a new bunch of Miles Davis discs, and they’ve started to dip into the Stevie Ray Vaughn catalog, remastering his first two classic discs.

[Mobile Fidelity]

For about three years now the company has been issuing select releases, at a higher price point, that have been pressed using the company’s “Ultradisc One-Step” (UD1S) pressing process. Single albums are spread over two discs, at 45RPM, leaving more room for the grooves and higher fidelity. They come in a fancy box and super heavy-duty packaging, with reproductions of the original artwork and liner notes. Recent releases have been pressed on the company’s “Supervinyl,” which is a new version of the really pure vinyl compound used in the company’s earlier JVC Japanese-pressed discs. Bottom line: this is the best sounding vinyl you’ll find – super silent where it’s supposed to be, and clear as a bell. They’re pricey ($125!) but well worth it.

The latest release is the landmark 1960 release by the Bill Evans Trio, Portrait In Jazz. This is one of my favorite jazz records, and it features the groundbreaking trio of Evans, Paul Motian on drums, and the transcendant bass playing of Scott LaFaro. Up until this time (if you can believe it) the full melodic potential of the bass had never really been explored the way that LaFaro did on this and the subsequent Trio releases. His solos here are just astonishing.Orrin Keepnews’ production is incredibly crisp and clear, one of the best engineered and “real” recordings you’ll hear. Of all the MoFi discs I’ve listened to, I’ve never been as blown away with the sound quality as I was with this release. It really does justice to the source material. These are limited releases (6000 in total) – if you already love this record, order one now before they’re gone.

The Flash of (Soundtrack) Recognition

May 9, 2019 /

I love the movies. More to the point, I love going to the movies. When I was a kid I loved seeing movies, but I really started going to the movies in college (the scene of so many discoveries, I know.) Everyone at the U had a writing requirement in their first year – everyone took the same course first semester, but you got to pick the second semester course. So, I picked “Rhetoric of Film.” NOT a gut course, I assure you. We had to write a lot, but the fun part was that we got to see a different film/program every week to write about. One week was Persona. Another week was a bunch of Max Fleischer cartoons (“Popeye”, the Superman shorts.) But every week was awesome, and I grew to love and appreciate every aspect of great film – the cinematography, the writing, and the music.

Music has always been a key tool of the filmmakers’ craft, used to create mood or convey thoughts without dialog. In the mid-70’s filmmakers (starting pretty much with Saturday Night Fever) began incorporating more popular music in their soundtracks, and relying less on traditional, original musical scores. (TV, too – The Sopranos was masterful in its music selection.) Blockbuster movies especially leaned heavily on pop music. It’s become a game of mine to rate movies based on how awesome the song selection is. High Fidelity, of course, gets top marks.

But I was very pleasantly surprised when I went to see Avengers: Endgame opening weekend and found that the filmmakers were totally on their music game, capped with a scene where two of the Avengers visited another (don’t worry, no spoilers here!) to the backdrop of The Kinks’ Supersonic Rocket Ship. Whaaaaat?

“SRS” is on Everybody’s In Show-Biz, the half-studio, half-(drunkenly) live followup to the Kinks’ classic Muswell Hillbillies, and the track is often overlooked by the titanic song that is Celluloid Heroes, a legit Kinks Klassic. But Supersonic Rocket Ship is a classic in its own right. It channels the same tropical vibe as Apeman, but spools out some of the well-honed Ray Davies social observation in a way he wouldn’t do this skillfully for quite some years later. So, Marvel: well-done! If Avengers: Endgame wasn’t great enough already, including this song pushed the movie into the stratosphere.

Record Store Day 2019 Review: Bingo Hand Job (R.E.M.), Live at the Borderline 1991

April 25, 2019 /

One of the more anticipated releases from this year’s rich Record Store Day trove was a widely-bootlegged March 1991 almost impromptu live set from R.E.M., playing under the hilarious pseudonym Bingo Hand Job.  There are a couple of reasons I was stoked to get a copy: 1) the fairly limited number of copies pressed (3000 in the US); 2) R.E.M. was a band I sadly never got to see live, and 3) at the time, the band was not quite the biggest band in the world, though they were sure on their way.  So the chance to hear them in a really loose, mostly acoustic setting (they cover Love Is All Around, for crying out loud) was too good to miss.

[Craft Recordings]

The Borderline is a pretty legendary London club – holding only about 300 people, it’s pretty intimate.  You can get a sense of the room from the acoustic space generated from this recording.  For a bootleg recording, it’s not too bad.  I honestly don’t think they’ve cleaned it up at all, but it doesn’t matter: muddy sonics didn’t hurt Murmur, after all.

R.E.M. in 1990 (JA Barratt/Photoshot/Getty Images)

This is still the early R.E.M. I love so much – the songs on this two-disc set span their entire catalog up to that time.  The band is clearly loose and having a great time (as is the well-lubricated crowd), and the fun extended to the band members’ pseudonyms (Michael Stipe =“Stinky,” Peter Buck =“Raoul,” Mike Mills = “Ophelia”, Bill Berry = “The Doc,” as well as guests Spanish Charlie (Peter Holsapple of the dBs), Conrad (Billy Bragg) and Violet (Robyn Hitchcock).  As Mike Mills said recently, “” too concerned about being a professional band.”  Thank god for that.  If you can track down a copy of this at a not-insane price, (copies are going on eBay right now for about $75(!)) get it. 

Tracklist:

Side A

1. “World Leader Pretend”

2. “Half A World Away”

3. “Fretless”

4. “The One I Love”

Side B

1. “Jackson”/”Dallas”

2. “Disturbance At The Heron House”

3. “Belong”

4. “Low”

Side C

1. “Love Is All Around”

2. “You Are The Everything”

3. “Swan Swan H”

4. “Radio Song”

5. “Perfect Circle”

Side D

1. “Endgame”

2. “Pop Song 89”

3. “Losing My Religion”

4. “Get Up”

5. “Moon River”

Record Store Day!

April 13, 2019 /

It’s 6:30 in the morning at in Buffalo, New York. Where else would I be?

Revolver Records, Buffalo NY

It’s the happiest day of the year! It’s Record Store Day, the day where music lovers everywhere get to celebrate the great culture that is the record store, and get the chance to score some great new, often previously unavailable music from, well, everyone. Often the list includes a lot of limited edition, just-for-Record-Store-Day discs, but the real attraction is in the music itself.

This year’s list was really rich and diverse. Each of the past couple of years have offered one or two discs I was really interested in, but this year’s list was an absolute treasure trove of great stuff. Best yet, I managed to get everything I was looking for – I can’t wait to get these home and get them on the turntable!

This year’s RSD haul

Top to bottom, left to right:

  • Bingo Hand Job (a/k/a REM), Live at The Borderline 1991: an oft-bootlegged set from REM, now (presumably) sonically tidied up for the masses
  • Fleetwood Mac, The Alternate Fleetwood Mac: same track order as the classic first album of the pre-Rumours lineup, but all alternate versions/takes
  • Mission of Burma, Peking Spring: first vinyl release of the influential Boston band’s 1998 compilation/rarities disc
  • Courtney Barnett, Everybody Here Hates You: 12″ single B/W “Small Talk”
  • Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Purse EP: four track disc with Elvis collaborating on the songs with Burt Bacharach, Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan
  • Bob Dylan, Blood On The Tracks (NY “test pressing” version): do I need another version of this record? No! But the record we all know wasn’t the one Dylan originally recorded in NYC in 1974. Right before Columbia was going to release the record, Dylan decided to re-record a bunch of it in Minneapolis. This is the complete NYC version.
  • Lou Reed, Ecstasy: one of Lou’s last albums first time on vinyl, from 2000, featuring the great Fernando Saunders on bass (limited edition, this one.)

By the way, Buffalo is a GREAT vinyl town, and Revolver is an amazing story. The owner, a great guy named Phil Machemer, got his start selling vinyl for a couple of years in popup locations around Buffalo before opening Revolver in another part of the city a couple of years ago. In December, he opened a second (!) location in Elmwood Village (the college-y part of town, where I went this weekend.) I can’t think of a better example of the strength of the vinyl resurgence than this! A must-visit if you’re up this way.

Sight Unseen™ – David Byrne, Grown Backwards

April 3, 2019 /

I’ve loved the Talking Heads from the(ir) very beginning.  Their entire career arc – until it came to a crashing halt with Naked – was one of joy, exploration, funk, noise, and flat-out weirdness.  It says something about how the world has finally caught up with them, that when you do your weekly shopping at Market Basket and hear “Take Me To The River”, it just sounds like the jam that it is rather than the eyeballs-open-oh-my-god-what-is-that-coming-out-of-the-speakers effect it had on everyone in 1978.  Although: when I hear “I Zimbra” or “The Great Curve” in the Produce section, THEN the world will have fully caught up.

Of course I’ve been engaged in David Byrne’s post-Heads work, although given how musically promiscuous he’s been over the past almost 30 years with solo work and collaborations, it’s a bit of a task to keep up.  I’ve liked selected singles of his like “My Fair Lady” (released in 2004 as part of a Wired magazine collection produced under Creative Commons) and his track “Who” with St. Vincent, what’s and of course his two collaborations with Brian Eno, especially 2008’s Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.

[Nonesuch Records]

Nonesuch released Byrne’s 2004 disc Grown Backwards on March 15th on vinyl for the first time (hard to remember the “no vinyl” days, I know.)  The quality, inside and out, is typical for Nonesuch’s recent vinyl re-releases (including the spectacular 180g remaster of Nashville by Bill Frisell.)  Although this is the lighter 140g vinyl, the pressing quality is great, and Greg Calbi’s mastering is likewise. 

Grown Backwards is, on the one hand, a typical Byrne outing, running the gamut from songs like the opener “Glass Concrete & Stone” (now one of my new favorites) to “Glad”, with its Talking Heads-like cute/quirky/insightful lyrics (“I’m glad I’ve got skin, I’m glad I’ve got eyes/I’m glad I got hips, I’m glad I’ve got thighs/I’m glad I’m allowed to say the things I feel”)  The tunefulness of the original material is on par with the same year’s “My Fair Lady.”  And, strings!  Lots of them.  So, the album’s a keeper just based on those.

What really clinched the deal for me were the two songs lifted from the opera canon.  Yes.  Opera.  Byrne’s voice has always been an almost-operatic sweet tenor, just “off” enough in places to make to make it sound more like a natural yawp, but the rest of the time quite sweet (rather like one-time Talking Heads guitarist Adrian Belew (his voice is all-the-time great.))   “Au fond du temple saint”, from an 1863 Bizet opera, and Verdi’s “Un di felice, eterea” are the standouts on this record.  “Au fond du temple saint” is a duet with Rufus Wainwright(!) and is, hands down, the best track on this record.  The twin voices complement each other – in parts where Byrne’s seems to falter, Wainwright’s soars.  And vice versa.  There aren’t a lot of «««««-rated tracks on my iPod, but: welcome to the club, “Au fond du temple saint.”

The nice thing about Sight Unseen records is that they often (not always!) surprise you.  Grown Backwards turned out to be a satisfying confirmation of David Byrne’s creativity.  Get yo’self a copy.

You Guys, We Have To Talk About Thundercat

March 19, 2019 /

I have a TIDAL subscription, which lets me a) stream their tremendous catalog in VERY high fidelity anywhere I’ve got a broadband connection (some content even in the VERY VERY high fidelity MQA format) and b) dig in to a new artist’s catalog if I hear a new track I like, or read an article somewhere about someone hot or interesting.

Which brings me to Thundercat (Steven Lee Bruner.)  He’s been on the scene for about 15 years, joining Suicidal Tendencies as their bassist WHEN HE WAS 16.  Since then, he’s been in the forefront of the music scene, working closely with Kendrick Lamar, Kamasi Washington and Childish Gambino.  Just for starters.  And he’s released three albums as Thundercat, the most recent being 2017’s Drunk.

(Brainfeeder)

[Which I just started listening to last weekend!  Listen, I’ve got a backlog of music to get to!  Don’t give me shit!  Have you gone through your entire Netflix queue?  No?  Finished all those things around your place that you promised your roommate/wife/partner you’d get done?  Ok, then.]

Drunk is a 51 minute, wildly inventive, solid jam from start to finish.  Every track has an authoritative groove, and a lot of it is pretty chill.  Quite a few tracks actually remind me of early, downtempo Earth, Wind and Fire (without the horns.)  Which is not to imply that it’s in easy listening territory.  OK yes, Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins do show up on Show You The Way.  But the very same disc includes maybe my favorite song, Uh Uh, which is 2:16 of just insane bass playing that rivals anything Jaco Pastorius did in his most fevered sessions.  So, yes: nobody’s putting Uh Uh on at the company dinner party.   Or Walk on By, featuring Kendrick.  But it’s one of the most satisfying listens I’ve had in long time.  When I really like something, it pushes everything else out of the way for a good couple of days.  (In fact, prior to Drunk, my obsession for about a week was Stereolab’s Space Age Batchelor Pad Music.)  So, I figure this record has at least another week of the deep dive treatment; but, after that, Drunk is definitely going to occupy a permanent spot in my regular album rotation.  Highly recommended.

I need a 12 step program for vinyl

March 14, 2019 /

I was not always such a voracious music consumer (shocking, I know.)  Yeah, I’d always been immersed in the music scene and had lots of bands that I loved, followed and went to see, and I DID work in a record store for a couple of years.  But collecting?  That was for those Goldmine nerds chasing a mint condition Beatles butcher cover.  Nope, I bought stuff to PLAY.

Then, this happened:

1000 songs!

Yes, the iPod.  1000 songs in your pocket!  For the first time I could carry around all of the music I owned and listen to it, any time I wanted.  Problem was, I had way more stuff on vinyl than I did on CD.  So the bulk of my collection (maybe less than 100 LPs) was essentially languishing on its shelf. 

So I got working.  If I know how to do anything, it’s research stuff, so me and the Google figured out how to record LPs to WAV files with my audio rig, split the tracks, convert them to MP3s, stuff them into iTunes, then sync them to my iPod.  And for a good couple of months, I was on Cloud 9, walking around with my shiny white iPod and my Koss PortaPros, shunning the radio.

After a while, that little box got too small.  So as soon as iPods with bigger hard drives became available, I upgraded.  And after a while longer, those pops and clicks on some of my records weren’t so cute, so I found the magical Burwen noise reduction units (hiss and pop-and-click) on eBay and put them in my tape loop.  And once those iPods got big enough, I switched over the superior Apple Lossless format.  And all those files needed a bigger house in which to live, so I got them a nice NAS drive.  Which came in handy when I got a pair of Sonos speakers.  Etc. 

Now, I wasn’t afraid of those garage sale finds anymore!  But there’s something about garage sale records: they’re generally, um, pretty filthy.  And people, some of those dirty records are worth taking a chance on.  I wasn’t going to let a little dirt and dust keep me away from checking out those 50 cent treasures!  So, the thing that really turned me into a vinylvore was this little game changer, the Nitty Gritty 1.5 vacuum record cleaner:

CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN those records.

This was the portal to the Land Of Vinyl.  Now everything was in play (so to speak).  If a record can be cleaned (and it’s astonishing what a good cleaning will do), it’s playable, and nothing is off-limits.  You see something cheap that’s interesting?  (I’m looking at you, old-ass John Renbourn album.)  Dollar bins?  Yes please!  And, it’s liberating.  I’ve gotten into so much great music that I would have otherwise have passed on because noisy=unplayable.

But I’m not obsessed.  No.

Turntables – they’re for everyone!

March 11, 2019 /

Like anyone possessing superior musical taste, I saw High Fidelity upon its 2000 release and thought immediately –

“You get me.”

So much of the movie and Nick Hornby’s original book has wormed its way into my life since then.  I’ll try to spare you in this blog from endless quotations of this titanic cinematic achievement – that will get old real fast.  However: today I have to lead off this post with a quote from Barry, lecturing his customer on Echo and the Bunnymen: “The Killing Moon” EP – it’s almost impossible to find – especially on CD. Yet another cruel trick they played on all the dumbasses who got rid of their turntables.”

I am not one of those dumbasses.  I’ve been spinning vinyl since before college.  And while I will admit a flirtation with other formats (I reliably “saved” many of my LPs by dubbing them to cassette, then wearing those out in whatever car or Walkman I was driving), and YES I BOUGHT A LOT OF CDs, the light on my turntable never dimmed.

When I got to college, I was lucky enough to have, as my second roommate (and good friend) someone who knew folks (with employee discounts) at Acoustic Research in Canton, MA.  AR made a suspended turntable that they sold for 99 bucks.  WITH a cartridge.  The thing with suspended turntables is that they’re WAY better isolated from the vibrations that would otherwise pollute your cartridge with low-frequency sludge and random footdrops. (the very expensive but wonderful Linn Sondek is the purest distillation of the AR concept.)  I LOVED that cheapo AR – it was built like a tank and nothing short of picking the deck up and shaking it like a cocktail shaker could make that thing skip.

So when, a couple of years out of college, AR released a vastly improved (and much sexier) version of their turntable, I  fastidiously put away my spare change to buy it, with the best arm (Linn Basik Plus) and cartridge (the classic Shure V-15 VMR) I could afford.  I’ve had it ever since:

Yeah, we’ve been through a lot together.  I even tracked down an old radio shop in Chicago a couple of years ago that sold me enough new old stock replacement styli for my Shure to keep me pretty much set for life.  But getting a dream “deck” is not when my music consumption really spiked.  More on that in my next post on Thursday.

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