Chuck Berry 1926-2017
"If you tried to give rock'n'roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry.'"John Lennon
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Robert Baird
SXSW 2017: Chicano Batman
Space Soul Rock in Austin. . .
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SXSW 2017: Is a Mega Artist Going to Stand Up For Hi-Rez Music?
Can high-resolution audio become "The New Cool?"
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SXSW 2017: Whitney Rose
Women are bringing much-needed new energies to music of all kinds
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SXSW 2017 Day 2: the Ultimate Analog Medium?
"Crafted out of aluminum and coated with nitrocellulose lacquer, this truly fascinating object is the ultimate analog medium."
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SXSW 2017 Day 1: Shiny, Happy Aussies
The Heart Collectors are an Australian band with a positive message.
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Sun Ra Live at Inter-Media Arts, April 1991
Sun Ra recordings take time to absorb through the ears, heart, and brain. The emotional osmosis necessary to process his multi-faceted explorations, which most often fall under the heading of jazz, but are really a music unto itself, can take a while. Hence, after much listening to Modern Harmonic's 3-LP set, recorded in 1991 at the Inter-Media Arts Center in Huntington, NY and featuring the Arkestra in good form, it's time to declare this Record Day release a triumph.
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The Survivalists: Mosaic and Newvelle Records
One is a well-established reissue label, known the world over for its completist black boxes filled with beautifully remastered jazz recordings from the 1930s through the 1960s.
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The other is a new label that records only new jazz, released in elaborate packages that include a poem and original artwork, not to mention transparent 180gm pressings, tying into the newly fashionable idea of a vinyl lifestyle.
In both cases, hope truly springs eternal.
Rolling the Stones
Call me perverse, or perhaps I've just been around too many musicians for too long, but the part of Exhibitionism, The Rolling Stones traveling show that I liked best was the very opening display in which you walk into a facsimile of the apartment that the five band members once shared in London when they were starting out. You could almost smell the rotting garbage and unwashed socks and underwear.
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Tapeheads
The latest brave adventurer to spend his evenings running off duplicate copies on half-inch or quarter-inch tape is singer/songwriter, producer John Vanderslice, in partnership with North Carolina-based Ramseur Records, has launched a new reel-to-reel tape venture. So far Ramseur is offering three records to be put on tape: Under Branch & Thorn & Tree (2015) and You Had Me at Goodbye (2017), both from buzzworthy singer/songwriter Samantha Crain, and Fences from the group Bombadil.
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