Vinyl Exam

Punk News - interesting review by a writer who found a copy of “Pleased to meet me” in a used vinyl bin (how could such a record be sitting there, alone?). That is a rare find any way you slice it. After reading about his experience spinning that vinyl, i put my copy on the turntable, and yes. vinyl is better than cd.. again and again

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Beatles Hard Die’s Site has an incredibly detailed expose on this album. This is a link well worth looking at, as it has some downloads and in depth material.  I will be spending the afternoon here, I think.

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Beatles site has a neat story on the introduction of the beatles to south america, and all the vinyl that followed. good story and cool video content.

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This an interesting post in that the the author explains why he doesn’t think that sgt peppers stood the test of time. Some good info on recording for you gear and history buffs out there too. I would imagine that stirring the pot this hard is gonna splatter. More info -> LINK!

That was Then

This was one of the later Psych Furs albums, and although I have found them all on vinyl these days, it is still surprising to me that I chose this as the first album to put on the site. I think it has alot to do with the fact that there were some good mix tape songs on this album. While the previous albums were great as albums, it seemed like they were just that. Albums. If you took any of the songs away, or played any of them on their own, they were just disjoint songs. This is not a bad thing in any way, and I will address this phenomenon at some point.

I think what sticks out most is having “Heaven” and “Ghost in You” in the mix. They were songs that were all over KROQ , and those songs were usually the ones that enveloped you. I still remember those songs at the beach, and riding my bike through Wheeler Canyon. Those were the years before I could drive, and mix tapes were blasted through big clunky walkman.

This is Now

Even now, when I listen to First Wave on Sirius I still turn up “Heaven” when it comes on. Unfortunatley, other than Ghost in You, which gets some play every now and then, The Psych Furs are slim pickins on any radio stations.

After all these years, this album still sounds great. I have wanted to hear these guys again, but over the past ten years, have grown tired of their old material. It was nice to see Love Spit Love hit the scene and threw me a bone, but I have no idea what is going on with those folks these days.

So, after a decade or so break from the music, this album is still a great sunday morning album. Even when my sunday mornings are a little bit more busy than they ever were, it fits into the soundscape nicely.

The Jury Says

This album does indeed stand up to the test of time. Buy it, spin it, and remember what you used to be sad about.

That was Then

When I was a kid, we used to go to Blanchard Library in Santa Paula to listen to Mrs. Spencer read for story hour. It wasn’t long until I found that you could check out records, along with books. Most of the records were terrible. Most were marching band music, and things that people in their sixties during the seventies would consider “mighty fine music.” Sprinkled in with those albums, I found a copy of Carly Simon’s “No Secrets.”

I kept a copy of this record around until I traded my vinyl in for CD’s. As the years went by, this album grew on me. Sure, that album cover was enough to make any kid in the middle of puberty lose his marbles, but the album did have a alot of facets to it.

I remember listening as a youngster, and thinking “Wow, this must be what it’s like to be a grown up. All this drama, all this passion, this is gonna rock!” I remember playing the album over and over, and wondering if sometime in my future, I was gonna be a part of this whole grown up thing. I wanted my life to have a cast of characters. When I grew up, I wanted someone to write a song like His Friends Are More Than Fond Of Robin about me an my adventures.

This is Now

Needless to say, setting out to find your fortune in life with the idea that a grown up life includes drama and a cast of characters will get you just that. I can’t say that I wish I would have done it differently, because it was a really wild and memorable ride, but I guess I didn’t read between the lines enough to see that there would be collateral damage.

Listening to this album again, it’s hard to believe that this was written 33 years ago. Not that the album sounds contemporary, but the songs are honest. In that honesty, you find that even though this was written when I was only three, and I rediscovered it at age 35, there is not much that has changed with me, with Carly, or with the world.

I guess it just seemed like it the whole world was different back then. It wasn’t, just my vision of it was smaller. This album is a great one to revisit not only for the songwriting, but for the honesty, the humanity, and the drama.

It’s interesting to note that I recently found out that there is a big hub bub over who the song You’re So Vain is all about. At the time it came out, I was too young to worry about such things. Growing up in Southern Californita, it’s hard to even think of a random group of ten guys where 8 of them didn’t have this attitude. I never thought about who it might be. Then, when I heard there were contests as to who it might be about, and I saw the lists of potential beaus, I was even more disinterested in who it might might about. I preferred to keep the idea that even Carly could fall for a guy like that while a guy like me had to beg and plead for dates as just another private shame.

The Jury Says

In case you are not familiar with this album, go look for it. If you were only a Carly Simon fan for the hit songs, this is a great album to check out just to realize that in between the hits, she was a fab writer.

The recordings are great, the musicianship is top notch, and this should stand as one of the better albums out there.

Preface:

I should preface this entry by saying that it is my very first entry on this site (as far as record reviews goes.) I had to think long and hard about what album to review first, but I think that this is in the spirit of the site.

I have been waiting forever for this album to come out on CD, and have been actively seeking it for the past 20 years. I soon realized that this album would probably NEVER come out on CD, as I had my vinyl epiphany, I just went ahead and picked it up again on vinyl. So, my quest to hear this album again is finished, and in the process, it brought me back to the wonderful world of vinyl.

That was Then

When I was a kid, I had a HUGE aversion to christian music. As a Rodney Bingenheimer freak, and a critical listener, I mostly felt insulted by the music in the christian realm. Not that I had a serious issue with someone else’s religion, but I thought it was just a sham. Not the real thing, and not even a good effort. Even though I felt this way, I was not afraid to give credit where credit was due.

One day, my mom won this album on some local radio station. As long as the cover was not completely corny looking, I was would give it a spin. When this one came in, I gave it a spin, and it was the first christian album I had heard that was a bona fide jazz album. Not some cheesy kenny g knockoff, but a great album in its own right. I listened to this album a million times. I knew each note of this thing.

I noted that I liked side A more than side B, but in retrospect, I think it was because the side B started with a Blues type jam, and I have never been a huge blues fan. It also featured the only song with lyrics. This song had a serious religious bent, so I just shrugged it off.

This album would grow to be one of my favorite albums ever. I effected my playing style much more than I ever would have thought.

This is Now

When I got my turntable gig running, this was the first album I went looking for. I found it on ebay, along with three of their other albums for around ten bucks (including shipping.) It was in near mint condtion, and I was almost afraid to play it. I wasn’t afraid to wreck the album, I was just afraid that it would not sound as good all these years later.

Surprisingly, almost 20 years later, I still know every nuance to this album. I know each solo like the back of my hand. I listened to it about five times, end to end. It was GREAT.

I found that I still like side A better than side B, but now that I am older and not so gruff, it’s mostly because of the blues style beginning. The melodies on this record are still penned by some higher power, and after playing in bands for thousands of years, I am finding that the playing is much better than I had given credit for.

I had seen Justo Almario ive a few times back when I lived in Southern California, but it was not until I sat down with this album again, did I really realize how great these guys were.

And the Jury Says

This album passes the Vinyl Exam with flying colors. If I had it to do over again, I would have kept a turntable handy all these years just so I could hear this album.

That was Then

I can’t remember which summer it was, but I think it was the summer between sixth and seventh grade. that would make it somewhere around 1980, give or take a year. Two of my friends, David and Darrel had moved from where we all grew up to a town just north of us called Ojai. It wasn’t really far, but it was far enough to make it difficult for kids to see each other very often. We had somehow talked our parents into letting us stay at David’s house for a few days, most of which were spent playing Atari 2600 and walking around with a boombox. There were three tapes I remember from that time. The Surf Punks – My Beach, Ozzy Osbourned’s Blizzard of Ozz, and some Missing Persons album. The latter two were standard fare at that time, but the Surf Punks were a totally new experience. I was a beach kid. My family vacationed at the beach, and when we weren’t vacationing there, we were going to our local beach. As I grew up, the beach thing tended to be ingrained in me from the beginning. When I first heard My Beach, I thought it was the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Keep in mind that for me, this is usually a compliment of the highest order. They were silly stupid songs about surfing and territorial pissing. The one thing that sticks out in my mind is at the time, the song “Teenage Girls�? seemed to be an ode to older women. I had a third or fourth generation tape of this record before I finally picked the album up at some point in my teenagehood.

This is Now

I found this thing for a buck on ebay or a buck or so, and snapped it up. Putting it on, it’s immediately apparent that this album is terrible. The writing is horrible, the recording is horrible, and the musicianship is even worse. Taken as separate issues, this would make this a terrible record in any book, but the sum total of so much badness is a sort of goodness. It will never win any awards anywhere for anything, but I think that it should be put some place on a list of historically significant albums in southern California lore. If you have never heard The Surf Punks, you would probably not be too impressed, but for those of you who have fond memories of this album , it’s all there.

The Jury Says

Once again, if you have never heard this album before, you will probably turn it off after the first song or two. If you had this for any part of your childhood, you will find yourself flipping this album over a few more times than you figured. It’s worth keeping an eye out for.

That was Then

I have alot of memories tied up in this one. This is one of the first albums that I remember listening to more than three or four times in a row. It was one of those albums that anyone named Ruiz had in their collection. I first discovered it when it was playing at one of the backyard parties we had as kids. That, and an album by a band called Malo were some of my earlist memories.

We had a copy of this record, and this band is where I first realized how cool drumming was. Most of the other music at the time did not really focus on drumming, and drumming didn’t play a huge part in the music. This album was fueled by drummer David Garibaldi. Garibaldi played the drums. Not like a drumkit, but like an instrument. He played music on the drumkit that fit in with the rest of the sound. He was not a backup player, but an integral player in the sound.

One of the cool things that happened with this record that you rarely see anymore is that it was cross generational. The kiddies liked it, the parents liked it, and the grandparents liked it. And everyone was okay with the fact that for around 40 minutes, we were messing with the generation gap.

This is Now

I have had this album as a constant in my music collection and it was one of the first I bought on CD. Pulling it out again on vinyl was a neat full circle experience. It has been years since I had seen the album jacket so big, and I remembered every image and every design on it.

Listening to it on vinyl again, I could almost smell barbecue and Santa Ana winds. Since it had been a staple for so long, I had never realy thought about the album. Sort of like your feet, you just never think about them because they are always there. Give this album a little attention, and you’ll realize that this is probably one of the most important funk albums in history.

The Jury Says

If you are not versed in funk, this is probably one of the better introductions out there. This album stands the test of time, and I am sure it will continue to stand as an important work for a few more generations.

That was Then

I should preface this by saying that I picked up all John Cougar’s records on vinyl. When I was trying to figure out which one to do first, I kinda just picked the one that made the most entries into my life. This is probably the one. I first found this album back when it came out and the singles hit the air. I bought the album, and found that, like alot of other albums, there were some great songs here that would never make the airwaves. Although that happened alot back then, it seems to be a rarity now. This album was a great one to rediscover through various stages of growing up. Listening again, I remember thinking “Thundering Hearts” was probably one of the greatest motorcycle songs ever, next to Billy Idol’s “Blue Highway.” When I got my first motorcycle, these were the songs that ran through my head when I was out in the middle of nowhere. “China Girl” is still one of the coolest songs ever written. I could go on and on about this album, but out of respect for the privacy of others (who might not want to have anyone know that they have ever been associated with me, I’ll stop now)

This is Now

I bought this record in a pile of others for around a buck off ebay. I still can’t get over what a cheap hobby this is. Anyway. Playing this again on a real HiFi, the sound is much better than I remember. With more than 20 years of listening experience since this album first came out, I now realize why John Cougar was and is such a big time player in the game. This album is a great recording of great performances of great songs. This album came out during the 40 minute album era, which means that there was no room for fluff.

The Jury Says

This album is better than I gave it credit for when I first heard it. Now that I can actually understand the craftsmanship of the songs, I think John Cougar is cooler now than I did back then. And back then, I thought he was pretty dang cool.