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Saturday, April 13, 2019

Photos from Record Store Day 2019

Slowboat Records in Cuba St. hosted 3 acts including Lawrence Arabia, Caroline Easter (The Chills, Let's Planet) and Kurt Vile.  Rough Peel Records (RPM) hosted Motte and Hex.  Here are a few snaps from the day.  Enjoy.

Caroline Easter

Caroline Easter

Caroline Easter

Caroline Easter

Caroline Easter

Hex

Kurt Vile

Kurt Vile

Kurt Vile

Lawrence Arabia

Lawrence Arabia


Lawrence Arabia

Luke Buda watches on ...

Motte

Rough Peel Records

Slowboat Records

Slowboat Records

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Check out Record Store Day Saturday 13 April 2019





Every day is Record Store Day! Read the Spinoff: https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/07-04-2019/every-day-is-record-shop-day/

"Some of my fondest childhood memories are of going to a small record store in Florence AL called The Turning Point every friday or saturday afternoon. I would skip lunch at school and save my lunch money for the week and it would put me within a dollar or two of having enough for a record a week (1974 prices). It doubled as a head shop and the smell of incense burning always made me think (even in 5th grade or so) that it was covering up the smell of some illicit drug being burned in the back. (It probably was, actually). I was very attracted to that thought and just loved the whole experience.
After they shut that store down I began going to a smaller, but really well stocked store across the river. The manager there was named Jay and he turned me onto The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen and upteen other acts. We became life long friends, in fact he road-tripped into Athens GA this weekend to see my band play here. He runs Plan 9 in Richmond which is about as good a store as any in America and he still is turning me onto great bands. When I was 14 they built a mall on my side of the river with a Record Bar in it. They were a chain, but in those days it was a pretty cool one and when I turned 16 it became my first job. I was a terrible employee, but I'm convinced they never fired me because I spent all my paycheck on records and I knew our inventory inside out.
Actually they eventually did fire me, but by then I had grown into a pretty decent employee and the company had gone all corporate so I had to go. We have a turntable on our tourbus and we go scouring for little indie record stores in every town and I still blow my whole per-diem on records. Here I am 43 with a wife and child and I'm still misappropriating my lunch money like in 5th grade. The record labels throwing the indie stores to the wolves and casting their lot with the faceless megastores is indicative the mindset that has put them in such sorry shape of late. The indie record store was the closest link between music and the consumer and there was no replacing that interaction.
It is good tho see that some of the surviving indie stores are in some cases showing growth largely due to sales of vinyl records. It IS an interesting time to watch how all of this is going to pan out. Long Live Record Stores!"
- Patterson Hood (Drive-By Truckers)



Monday, April 08, 2019

Coltrane ’58: The Prestige Recordings - Box Set Released


Coltrane ’58: The Prestige Recordings BOX SET

CAPTURES LEGENDARY SAXOPHONIST’S GENIUS IN FIRST FLOWER DURING HIS BREAKTHROUGH “SHEETS OF SOUND” YEAR
2019 MARKS 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF PRESTIGE RECORDS

Though it’s been 52 years since his tragic passing, John Coltrane’s importance and influence have never been greater. Though active for a relatively short period—from 1957 to ’67—he was an intrepid spirit who developed at a feverish pace. Coltrane’s breakout year, when his mature sound first grabbed ears and his own recordings began to sell consistently, was 1958. Coltrane ’58: The Prestige Recordings, out March 29th on Craft Recordings, is a box set (8-LP, 5-CD & digital formats) that chronicles the exciting story session by session, featuring all 37 tracks Coltrane recorded as a leader or co-leader for the independent Prestige label in those twelve months. This collection captures him in creative high gear—developing the signature improvisational style that journalist Ira Gitler famously dubbed “sheets of sound.”

The timely release of Coltrane ’58 marks the 70th year since the founding of Prestige Records and comes just after the 60th anniversary of these recordings. It also follows on last year’s successful release of Both Directions at Once, which debuted at No. 21 on the Billboard 200, the highest chart position of his career.

Coltrane ’58 brims with the shared jazz repertoire of the day—blues, bebop standards and familiar ballads—as well as original compositions and obscure tunes Coltrane rediscovered. Together they offer an array of emotional depth and instrumental prowess, showing how the rising saxophonist was actively stretching sound and increasing the intensity, and shifting the direction of what jazz performance was about. Included are definitive versions of “Lush Life,” “Lover Come Back to Me,” “Stardust,” “Good Bait” and “Little Melonae”; first recordings of originals like “Nakatini Serenade,” “The Believer,” “Black Pearls” and the heartfelt “Theme for Ernie”; and extended tenor saxophone tours-de-force such as “Russian Lullaby,” “Sweet Sapphire Blues” and “I Want to Talk About You” that anticipate the stratospheric heights Coltrane would reach in the 1960s.

In 1958 Coltrane was still two years away from emerging as a bandleader, but his membership in ensembles led by Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk had propelled him into the spotlight as one of jazz’s most exciting and controversial figures. Coltrane ’58 serves as a window onto the shock and awe—and eventually deep appreciation—Coltrane generated during this period, when his sheets of sound approach pushed the bebop ideal of slaloming through a tune’s chordal pathways to its extreme.



To be sure, Coltrane ’58 is more than sheets of sound: It’s the sound of Coltrane working and smoothing out those sheets and exploring other ideas as well.  For example, he frequently played in double-time—as if the chords were moving twice as fast as the rest of the band—and, if the music called for it, he’d decrease the intensity, caressing and embellishing a melody, an aspect that could calm the toughest critics.

Produced by Nick Phillips, the vinyl box includes eight 180-gram LPs, remastered from the original analog tapes by Paul Blakemore (all of which were recorded by renowned engineer Rudy Van Gelder) and cut by Clint Holley from 24-bit/192kHz transfers. The lavish, linen-wrapped, portfolio-style book features an eye-catching design and includes 40 pages containing extensive liner notes by Grammy®-winning American music historian Ashley Kahn, rare ephemera and historical photographs of the saxophonist and his collaborators, including several taken by renowned jazz photographers Francis Wolff and Esmond Edwards. The 5-CD edition, containing a 76-page book, is a faithful replica of the 8-LP vinyl box.

Coltrane ’58 reveals other significant aspects of Coltrane’s emergence, too, like his growing status in the hard bop brotherhood of the day. He recorded with contemporaries (many future legends in their own right), including pianist Red Garland; guitarist Kenny Burrell; trumpeters Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard and Wilbur Harden; bassist Paul Chambers and drummers Art Taylor, Jimmy Cobb and Louis Hayes. The sessions all took place in Rudy Van Gelder’s legendary home studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, where so much of the best jazz of that era was recorded. Coltrane’s music of 1958 benefits from a marked blue-collar, pressure-cooker aesthetic: Born in three-hour sessions with minimal rehearsal, head arrangements and mostly first takes, these tracks provide a true and transparent view of the talent Coltrane was able to draw upon and the timeless, improvised magic they created together.

It’s a challenge today to imagine how radical Coltrane must have sounded sixty years ago to jazz listeners accustomed to a gentler, lyrical flow. In his liner notes, Ashley Kahn sees an enduring relevancy in Coltrane’s bold chance-taking, as a creative artist and an African-American: “In the context of current headlines and an overriding sense of déjà vu, Coltrane’s music rings clearer than ever, with even greater meaning than it had in 1958. What he was playing then never felt less than urgent and relevant—subversive even. It still sounds that way.”

Remarkably, the majority of this music wasn’t released until the ’60s on various albums after Coltrane’s emergence as a bandleader, denying these 37 tracks the chance to tell their own collective story. By sequencing this music in the order of its original creation, Coltrane ’58 clearly delineates Coltrane’s first full year as a recording artist, finally allowing fans to experience—track by track—the emergence of a master improviser in his first great career crest.

CD available now / Vinyl available 21.04.2019