Vinyl Pickups 3/11/20, Featuring Johnny Greenwood, System of a Down, and More...
Immediately after I moved back to Baton Rouge, I had to cool it a bit on vinyl purchases. The Pop Shop, one of the only record stores left in town, had apparently shutdown, and on top of that, my own record player situation was in flux. I still need to get a new player with Bluetooth capabilities and a nice sound bar. Maybe I'll use tax return money this year? Thankfully, I recently found my little portable player in a packing box, along with its actually not terrible corresponding speakers. Even better, I went to a Riorosa/Laveda/Maintenance show at the Midcity Ballroom last weekend, and was ecstatic to find that Pop Shop Records has actually moved into the lobby space there, making for a super cool hybrid record store/concert venue. Now my wife and I can go to shows and pretend like we're cool 20-somethings again (any excuse to get back to mid-city), and I get can get back to making more weird record finds--plus, now I can actually listen to them again! So without further ramble (that's not true, herein lies plenty of ramble), these are my recent pickups:
I couldn't believe my luck when I pulled this Rocky: Original Motion Picture Score from the NEW ARRIVALS shelf (meaning both used and new records that recently arrived at Pop Shop). While the packaging shows obvious signs of age, the record itself looks and sounds like it's been vacuum-sealed for the last 40 years. At $7, this was a steal.
The sound held just the tiniest bit of warp, but that only adds to the character of to not only one the finest film soundtracks of the 70's, but one of the most memorable of all-time. Then again, maybe I'm biased--this music is part of the soundtrack to my childhood, and over the years, the Rocky franchise has slowly overtaken other cinematic collections for me. Probably helps that the Rocky movies in the 21st Century have all been great...compared to, uh...some less than stellar Indiana Jones and Star Wars entries.
Speaking of character, this included Italian-phillic album note by Sylvester Stallone himself was almost worth the purchase price alone.
I found this Jimmy Ruffin album, Sunrise, in a mysterious sack of old records I purchased right before we moved.
Two things stood out immediately upon listening: 1.Jimmy Ruffin has a rich, beautiful voice, and I love it. 2.Sunrise is a damn disco album produced by a BeeGee. Disco is the bane of music's existence.
I know Jimmy Ruffin recorded a truckload of music better than this, and though Sunrise was an inexpensive ($1) miss, I'm definitely going to seek out some of Ruffin's pre-disco records.
This next record is the best "find" of any of these, as I just bought it because the title seemed ridiculous (one of my wife's friends plucked it up from the shelf to show me how silly it looked). However, I can confidently say now that the $1 I spent on Larry Rivera with the Kahili Boys' A Nite Cap with Larry brought perhaps the best value I've received for 100 cents.
I wrongly assumed A Nite Cap With Larry would be some kind of cheesy Jimmy Buffet-style take on Hawaiian music (sorry, but valeting parties for rich, drunken Buffet-loving boomers who all had "Margaritaville" blasting in their Jaguars has permanently turned me off from the Coral Reefer Band). I've been wrong before, but I was really wrong in this case. Larry Rivera is a native Hawaiian who spent 68 years playing music at the now shuttered Coco Palms hotel (he began as a waiter there) on the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi.
These 12 songs are so pure that they border on the sacred. This man loves and exudes the essence of his home state on a supernatural level. Listening to A Nite Cap with Larry feels like a holy experience. I was folding clothes while listening to this the first time, and the second Rivera's serene voice came from 50 years ago through my speakers, I had to sit down. I immediately texted my wife, who I went with to Hawaii 14 years ago, that she had to hear this. We ended up cooking together that night with this record slowly spinning in our kitchen, an absolutely blissful experience.
Thanks, Larry.
Love em or hate em, Barnes & Noble has slowly become one of the best large chain record stores in the country. I've bought far more records than books from them in the last few years.
My son and I stopped by B & N on the way to its neighboring movie theater (where we saw Sonic the Hedgehog), and for whatever reason, both of us had a "let's drop some cash" impulse. He got some awesome Nintendo paraphernalia, and I picked up a new record. For some reason, B & N were having a huge vinyl sale, and I was somehow able to purchase Johnny Greenwood's incredible score for There Will Be Blood, my favorite film of this century, for about $15.
This was a great pickup, as the green-tinted gatefold packaging is beautiful (Daniel Day-Lewis himself doodled out the sketch on the record label), this version includes an updated tracklisting, and the pressing is clean and sounds unbelievably good--perhaps one of the best classical pressings I've heard.
I noticed in my bag of mysterious records that before we moved, I'd bought Three Dog Night's It Ain't Easy. Here is a tell that I would not enjoy Three Dog Night's It Ain't Easy: my parents' don't have any Three Dog Night records in their collection.
I came to terms years ago that my own musical taste (outside of all the classical music I like) is just an updated version of my parents' music taste:
Few if any country albums in their collection? Few if any country albums in my collection. Essentially no pop music in their collection? Essentially no pop music in my collection. A disdain for disco? A disdain for disco. Enough Black Sabbath and Deep Purple albums to fill Scrooge's moneybin? Enough modern metal albums to fill Scrooge's moneybin. Only early Pink Floyd albums? Every Radiohead and Mars Volta album and hardly any Coldplay (most of it is my wife's, I swear). As soon as I played It Ain't Easy, which I started on side two because of mislabeling, I was reminded of my old junior high social studies teacher, who took profane expressions and sterilized them so he could use them to chastise the class. In the spirit of Mr. Warren, Three Dog Night's It Ain't Easy is some "Soft Butt Stuff."
Gross, Mr. Warren!
This album is full of a bunch of high-pitched vocal harmonies, and poppy rock songs that might as well be disco. Side one fares a little better, as the opener, "Woman," is a solid psychedelic rock song. For some reason while I was listening to it, my cats jumped up next to the record player, and started licking each other in an aggressively erotic fashion, so I filmed it and put it on Youtube.
I saw the words "Godspeed You Black Emperor" on the sticker description for The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse, and got so excited, I completely overlooked The Beach Boys comparisons.
My parents don't have any Beach Boys albums in their collection. I have nothing against The Beach Boys, and I can appreciate what they did, but that sunny harmony stuff just isn't for me. I bought an album with this cool album art thinking I'd be getting a dark post-rock album, and instead I got a psychedelic pop one. I also hate Animal Collective, so that should tell you how much I didn't enjoy the "chamber pop" of Are the Dark Horse. In fact, this falls into that Animal Collective/Dirty Projectors/Grizzly Bear-era of late 00's hipster indie-pop that I hate more than any other style of music. It sucked, and if you want to argue with me, when is the last time you listened to any music by those awful bands?
I'm sorry, The Besnard Lakes. I dig that your core duo is a husband and wife, and I'm sure you're good at what you do. Does anyone want a Besnard Lakes record?
I'm about to review every System of a Down album I own as a part of my "Every Album I Own" series (I'm going through my entire music collection in alphabetical order, and reviewing everything), so I recently remembered a thought I had in early 2003: I want Toxicity on vinyl. Lo and behold, I checked EBay and saw someone was selling a sealed copy for dirt cheap.
In early 2003 (Junior year of college), I was trying, and not having much luck getting my parents' old Dual record player to function again. It had been broken for about a decade. My dad always insisted it was a top-of-the-line unit when he bought it in the mid-70's, but none of the local repair shops seemed to have a clue on how to fix it. I had to make do with my Toxicity CD, which honestly sounds great, itself.
Five years later, I got a new record player, but Toxicity was out-of-print, and very expensive second hand. Thankfully, American Recordings has pressed it again. This pressing sounds fine, if not spectacular. I was surprised at how clear the drum cymbals sound. As cool as this version looks, there is some artwork missing that was in the CD booklet, and I think the album warranted a gatefold LP, so it could all be included. Maybe next time.
(POSTSCRIPT: I JUST HOOKED UP A NEW, MUCH BETTER SOUNDSYSTEM IN MY HOUSE WITH A SUBWOOFER, LISTENED TO "CHOP SUEY," AND FELT A TEAR ROLLING OUT OF MY RIGHT EYE, SO I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID, THIS SOUNDS GREAT)
The final album in my mysterious and magical old Pop Shop bag might just be the oldest record in my collection. It's a 1957 pressing of The Paris Conservatoire's excellent performance of Stravinsky's masterpiece, The Rite of Spring.
The Rite of Spring will always be tied in my mind to the prehistory segment of Fantasia. RCA promises on the sleeve that this record is part of their "New Orthophonic" series, and will sound super awesome. Well, congrats 1957 technology, because 63 years later, this record still sounds incredible. It's a mono recording (RCA apparently released a stereo version the next year), but this is honestly the best Rite of Spring recording I've heard. And to think, I had in sitting in a paper bag in storage.
That's all for now. With my setup currently functional (though desperately needing an upgrade), there should hopefully be more of these entries coming round soon.
I couldn't believe my luck when I pulled this Rocky: Original Motion Picture Score from the NEW ARRIVALS shelf (meaning both used and new records that recently arrived at Pop Shop). While the packaging shows obvious signs of age, the record itself looks and sounds like it's been vacuum-sealed for the last 40 years. At $7, this was a steal.
The sound held just the tiniest bit of warp, but that only adds to the character of to not only one the finest film soundtracks of the 70's, but one of the most memorable of all-time. Then again, maybe I'm biased--this music is part of the soundtrack to my childhood, and over the years, the Rocky franchise has slowly overtaken other cinematic collections for me. Probably helps that the Rocky movies in the 21st Century have all been great...compared to, uh...some less than stellar Indiana Jones and Star Wars entries.
Speaking of character, this included Italian-phillic album note by Sylvester Stallone himself was almost worth the purchase price alone.
I found this Jimmy Ruffin album, Sunrise, in a mysterious sack of old records I purchased right before we moved.
Two things stood out immediately upon listening: 1.Jimmy Ruffin has a rich, beautiful voice, and I love it. 2.Sunrise is a damn disco album produced by a BeeGee. Disco is the bane of music's existence.
I know Jimmy Ruffin recorded a truckload of music better than this, and though Sunrise was an inexpensive ($1) miss, I'm definitely going to seek out some of Ruffin's pre-disco records.
This next record is the best "find" of any of these, as I just bought it because the title seemed ridiculous (one of my wife's friends plucked it up from the shelf to show me how silly it looked). However, I can confidently say now that the $1 I spent on Larry Rivera with the Kahili Boys' A Nite Cap with Larry brought perhaps the best value I've received for 100 cents.
I wrongly assumed A Nite Cap With Larry would be some kind of cheesy Jimmy Buffet-style take on Hawaiian music (sorry, but valeting parties for rich, drunken Buffet-loving boomers who all had "Margaritaville" blasting in their Jaguars has permanently turned me off from the Coral Reefer Band). I've been wrong before, but I was really wrong in this case. Larry Rivera is a native Hawaiian who spent 68 years playing music at the now shuttered Coco Palms hotel (he began as a waiter there) on the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi.
These 12 songs are so pure that they border on the sacred. This man loves and exudes the essence of his home state on a supernatural level. Listening to A Nite Cap with Larry feels like a holy experience. I was folding clothes while listening to this the first time, and the second Rivera's serene voice came from 50 years ago through my speakers, I had to sit down. I immediately texted my wife, who I went with to Hawaii 14 years ago, that she had to hear this. We ended up cooking together that night with this record slowly spinning in our kitchen, an absolutely blissful experience.
Thanks, Larry.
Love em or hate em, Barnes & Noble has slowly become one of the best large chain record stores in the country. I've bought far more records than books from them in the last few years.
My son and I stopped by B & N on the way to its neighboring movie theater (where we saw Sonic the Hedgehog), and for whatever reason, both of us had a "let's drop some cash" impulse. He got some awesome Nintendo paraphernalia, and I picked up a new record. For some reason, B & N were having a huge vinyl sale, and I was somehow able to purchase Johnny Greenwood's incredible score for There Will Be Blood, my favorite film of this century, for about $15.
This was a great pickup, as the green-tinted gatefold packaging is beautiful (Daniel Day-Lewis himself doodled out the sketch on the record label), this version includes an updated tracklisting, and the pressing is clean and sounds unbelievably good--perhaps one of the best classical pressings I've heard.
I noticed in my bag of mysterious records that before we moved, I'd bought Three Dog Night's It Ain't Easy. Here is a tell that I would not enjoy Three Dog Night's It Ain't Easy: my parents' don't have any Three Dog Night records in their collection.
I came to terms years ago that my own musical taste (outside of all the classical music I like) is just an updated version of my parents' music taste:
Few if any country albums in their collection? Few if any country albums in my collection. Essentially no pop music in their collection? Essentially no pop music in my collection. A disdain for disco? A disdain for disco. Enough Black Sabbath and Deep Purple albums to fill Scrooge's moneybin? Enough modern metal albums to fill Scrooge's moneybin. Only early Pink Floyd albums? Every Radiohead and Mars Volta album and hardly any Coldplay (most of it is my wife's, I swear). As soon as I played It Ain't Easy, which I started on side two because of mislabeling, I was reminded of my old junior high social studies teacher, who took profane expressions and sterilized them so he could use them to chastise the class. In the spirit of Mr. Warren, Three Dog Night's It Ain't Easy is some "Soft Butt Stuff."
Gross, Mr. Warren!
This album is full of a bunch of high-pitched vocal harmonies, and poppy rock songs that might as well be disco. Side one fares a little better, as the opener, "Woman," is a solid psychedelic rock song. For some reason while I was listening to it, my cats jumped up next to the record player, and started licking each other in an aggressively erotic fashion, so I filmed it and put it on Youtube.
I saw the words "Godspeed You Black Emperor" on the sticker description for The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse, and got so excited, I completely overlooked The Beach Boys comparisons.
My parents don't have any Beach Boys albums in their collection. I have nothing against The Beach Boys, and I can appreciate what they did, but that sunny harmony stuff just isn't for me. I bought an album with this cool album art thinking I'd be getting a dark post-rock album, and instead I got a psychedelic pop one. I also hate Animal Collective, so that should tell you how much I didn't enjoy the "chamber pop" of Are the Dark Horse. In fact, this falls into that Animal Collective/Dirty Projectors/Grizzly Bear-era of late 00's hipster indie-pop that I hate more than any other style of music. It sucked, and if you want to argue with me, when is the last time you listened to any music by those awful bands?
I'm sorry, The Besnard Lakes. I dig that your core duo is a husband and wife, and I'm sure you're good at what you do. Does anyone want a Besnard Lakes record?
I'm about to review every System of a Down album I own as a part of my "Every Album I Own" series (I'm going through my entire music collection in alphabetical order, and reviewing everything), so I recently remembered a thought I had in early 2003: I want Toxicity on vinyl. Lo and behold, I checked EBay and saw someone was selling a sealed copy for dirt cheap.
In early 2003 (Junior year of college), I was trying, and not having much luck getting my parents' old Dual record player to function again. It had been broken for about a decade. My dad always insisted it was a top-of-the-line unit when he bought it in the mid-70's, but none of the local repair shops seemed to have a clue on how to fix it. I had to make do with my Toxicity CD, which honestly sounds great, itself.
Five years later, I got a new record player, but Toxicity was out-of-print, and very expensive second hand. Thankfully, American Recordings has pressed it again. This pressing sounds fine, if not spectacular. I was surprised at how clear the drum cymbals sound. As cool as this version looks, there is some artwork missing that was in the CD booklet, and I think the album warranted a gatefold LP, so it could all be included. Maybe next time.
(POSTSCRIPT: I JUST HOOKED UP A NEW, MUCH BETTER SOUNDSYSTEM IN MY HOUSE WITH A SUBWOOFER, LISTENED TO "CHOP SUEY," AND FELT A TEAR ROLLING OUT OF MY RIGHT EYE, SO I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID, THIS SOUNDS GREAT)
The final album in my mysterious and magical old Pop Shop bag might just be the oldest record in my collection. It's a 1957 pressing of The Paris Conservatoire's excellent performance of Stravinsky's masterpiece, The Rite of Spring.
The Rite of Spring will always be tied in my mind to the prehistory segment of Fantasia. RCA promises on the sleeve that this record is part of their "New Orthophonic" series, and will sound super awesome. Well, congrats 1957 technology, because 63 years later, this record still sounds incredible. It's a mono recording (RCA apparently released a stereo version the next year), but this is honestly the best Rite of Spring recording I've heard. And to think, I had in sitting in a paper bag in storage.
That's all for now. With my setup currently functional (though desperately needing an upgrade), there should hopefully be more of these entries coming round soon.
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