Archive for April, 2009
Belated Record Store Day Recap
Author: jon
We’ve been very busy with back-to-back weekend events, so this is a little belated, but we wanted to give a big thanks to all the folks who came out and supported us on Record Store Day! Read the rest of this entry »
read comments (0)Whole Lotta Utopia Goin’ On
Author: Jeff Boule
Good readers I return from the Grand Parade Of Life-full Packaging (to paraphrase Peter Gabriel) where I am triumphant and have all the scars to show for it. Some of the those scars involve taking a thirteen-hundredth look at some previously published blogs that, for some inexplicable reason just, disappeared from the site. If this seems familiar, you are NOT having a Déjà vu, it is repeating the mantra (again from Gabriel) “Man feed machine, machine feed man”.
Anna Troy Band “Wait Another Day”
Author: Beverly Paterson
An impressive debut album can be both a blessing and a curse. One on hand, how wonderful it is to be accepted first time around. But then again, recording a follow up to such a fine piece of work can be stressful since expectations are running high. However, Anna Troy need not worry, as her sophomore release, “Wait Another Day” is just as good as her freshman outing, “Ain’t No Man,” which hit the streets a couple of years ago. Read the rest of this entry »
Punk Jazz: The Thing at Kung Fu Necktie
Author: Anthony Medici
No, not “Thing,” that disembodied hand that creeped you out in “The Addams Family.” No, “The Thing” I’m talking about is the kick-butt Scandinavian free jazz trio, with Swede Mats Gustafsson on tenor sax, and Norwegians Ingebrigt Håker Flaten on bass, and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums. The band has been touring the U.S. behind its new album, “”Bag It,” and a new CD box set. These guys are as much influenced by the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash, as they are by Coltrane, Ornette, and Albert Ayler. When you go, you know it is going to be loud, intense and full of high-voltage energy. I could feel that energy traveling way down to DC, enough so to make me drop what I was doing and make the two and a half hour trek to club Kung Fu Necktie (no, I have no idea either what the name means) on North Front Street, in Philadelphia, this past Friday night. Read the rest of this entry »
Ms. Delmhorst and Her Little-Winged Bird
Author: HJ Mills
“I just want to be part of all this beauty, want to be part of all this flight on little wings”, sings the lovely Kris Delmhorst in her song, “Little Wings” I see her as one of the most remarkable musicians I have ever come across. Her lyrics are as beautiful as the leftover drops on bushes after a sweet summer rain. In her song, “The Drop and Dream”, Kris wistfully sings “It’s both our curse and our grace, here in this place to reach for heights that we’ll never climb”. She sculptures her pieces with light, philosophy, self-reflection, cracked bits of robins’ eggs, and broken guitar strings tied in a bow. Yet, her name is only whispered, and according to “Little Wings”, Ms. Delmhorst does not mind that a bit. She confidently professes, “Now I don’t want to be a jet airliner, I just want to be a little bird, I don’t want to rip the skies wide open, I just want my song to be heard” . I heard her exquisite melodies long after one of my favorite music writers unveiled her . Read the rest of this entry »
We Five “There Stands The Door>>”
Author: Beverly Paterson
The old adage of being in the right place at the right time can certainly apply to We Five. Formed in 1964 by Michael Stewart (brother of John Stewart of The Kingston Trio), the San Francisco based group not only proposed a sound that fit in with what was happening on the airwaves, but the city by the bay was also shaking with action then, as a wildly fertile art scene existed and would eventually blossom into something even bigger and more influential. Read the rest of this entry »
Going Dutch in Baltimore
Author: Anthony Medici
Record Store Day this Saturday April 18,2009
Author: jon
The 2nd annual Record Store Day is this Saturday April 18, 2009!
We here at Princeton Record Exchange are proud to be one of the largest remaining independent record stores in the country and are pleased to be participating in this exciting event.
There are a lot of reasons to visit us and join the fun. Read the rest of this entry »
Seeing Filligar Live
Author: Eliza Varner
Last Friday I had the opportunity to go to a Live Campus show here at Dartmouth. Held in the commonground of Collis (our student activities center), with a minimal donation, we could go see several live bands as well as get pizza, soda, and free beer (21+ with ID). What a perfect way to spend the first Friday night of Spring Term. Read the rest of this entry »
In Defense of Digging
Author: Doctor B
Online shopping has its uses. With it, I have built and repaired computers for myself and others. I’ve located a new tweeter for a friend’s 1970’s-vintage loudspeaker. And at long last, I’ve finally found a source for sneakers which fit my feet properly.
But in my humble opinion, for finding music, online shopping misses the point. Read the rest of this entry »
More Other Stuff
Author: Anthony Medici
My order from Clean Feed came in yesterday. In case you’ve been misled by those pop-jazz magazine polls into thinking the usual suspects (Blue Note, Verve, ECM) are actually issuing jazz recordings of real artistic interest, let me fill you in: Clean Feed, a label based, perhaps rather improbably, out of Portugal, is among the new leaders in creative improvised music. The label, started in 2001, has performed brilliantly, and features some superb artists: Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, Tony Malaby, Steve Lehman, Charles Gayle, Paul Dunmall, and many other artists who are continuing to advance the art of creative improvised music. Where the industry “giants” look for the next Norah Jones clone, or pop star in need of a jazz “makeover,” Clean Feed is still about the “sound of surprise.” Blue Note used to be like this, but it has lost its way, depending upon a stream of reissues and pop crossovers to fill its roster and beholden to a corporate titan to adhere to the bottom line. Blue Note is now part of the “industrial-musical complex.” Anyway, the first two Clean Feeds out of the shipping box and into the CD player were Tony Malaby’s TAMARINDO, and Evan Parker’s A GLANCING BLOW. Read the rest of this entry »
The Appropriate Category for Amadou & Mariam’s Music is “Great”
Author: John Moses
I’ve been telling my friends about how much I like Amadou & Mariam’s music. Since they’re not well-known in the U.S. yet, the question that inevitably comes up is, “What sort of music is it? Who do they sound like?” After trying several weakly descriptive, “it’s-sort-of-like-this-and-sort-of-like-that” responses, I’ve settled on, “It’s just great, fun music. You should give it a listen.” Read the rest of this entry »
Vocal Blanketing: Ethereal Music for Rainy Days
Author: Adrienne Brown
Recently, during a rather frazzled moment of negotiating the vehicular nightmare that is Commercial Avenue in New Brunswick, I heard one of the most soothing songs to ever reach my ears. My radio was tuned in to 90.3 The Core (Rutgers University Radio) and the song that was playing was Generosity by Mirah. Not only was her vocal style an unexpected comfort as I weaved through traffic and random pedestrians, but the accompanying violins brought me to a place far from the industrial landscape. As a voracious reader of music magazines, I encountered articles extolling the wonder of Mirah, but had never actually given her music a listen.
Earlier this week, I started giving guitar lessons to a young boy. On the first day, I taught him how to tune the instrument and showed him some chords, then we started writing down some ideas for songs he can learn. During this process, I asked him what he thought of the Beatles, and what happened next still scares me a little.
He gave me a confused look and said “I don’t know who they are.” Read the rest of this entry »
“Rufus Huff”
Author: Beverly Paterson
Not an individual artist, but a full-blown band, Rufus Huff features the talents of lead singer Jarrod England, Kentucky HeadHunters guitarist Greg Martin, bassist Dean Smith and drummer Chris Hardesty. Focusing on the sounds they grew up on and motivated them to make their own music, the foursome specializes in the type of heavy rock and roll penetrating FM radio in the late sixties and early seventies. In view of their self-titled debut album, there’s no mistake Rufus Huff has what it takes to recreate such wild and crazy expressions. Read the rest of this entry »
Kyle Vincent “Where You Are”
Author: Beverly Paterson
Growing up in Berkeley, California, Kyle Vincent was seduced by the music bug at a very early age. By the time he was eight years old, he was playing saxophone in school jazz bands and later took lessons from guitar god Joe Satriani. Read the rest of this entry »
Some Other Stuff
Author: Anthony Medici
It arrived on the scene inconspicuously, without fanfare. It had been on my want list for ages. I only came across it online while I was looking for something else. I found out it was released on February 24, 2009 in its current incarnation. A welcome arrival, indeed. What am I talking about (you may well ask)? I am referring to the Rudy Van Gelder series release on Blue Note of trombonist Grachan Moncur III’s laconically titled Some Other Stuff, recorded July 6, 1964 at RVG’s studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, and released initially in 1965 on Blue Note. It is one of the great “inside -outside” albums produced by Blue Note. For some reason, previous issues of this album on both LP and CD had proved hard to come by. Even repeated trips to our dearly beloved PREX failed to turn up a copy. I mulled purchasing the Moncur 3-CD box set on Mosaic just to get it, but I had all the other albums contained on the set and was loathe to pay the asking price just to complete my Moncur collection. Now the Moncur set is out of print (and already commanding high asking prices), but here was the individual album that I sought, complete with Reid Miles original and enigmatic cover art, and with an added annotation by Bob Blumenthal. It did not take long to hit “Buy,” and pop it into the CD player on arrival. Read the rest of this entry »
Animal Collective Live In London
Author: Andrew Overton
Last night I finally was privileged to experience the magic of Animal Collective live. The band (less Deakin) has been tweaking many of the tracks that eventually ended up on the brilliant Merriweather Post Pavilion. Since the ground-breaking album dropped on the 20th of January AC has only done four gigs in the U.S. so very few Americans have heard their favorite Merriweather tracks live. I am fortunate enough to be studying in England and was able to catch them towards the end of their European tour at the HMV Forum in London. Read the rest of this entry »
LANGUAGE IS A VIRUS FROM OUTER SPACE
Author: Jeff Boule
I am coming up on my first year anniversary of scribing for PREX. I tend to get introspective around such events. It has been a most eventful year, both personally and here on the blog. Some pretty outrageous things have happened behind the scenes and on the pages of this blog over the past year. I am going to use this blog entry to review, examine the possibilities of an open future, some short-term goals, long term goals, and more. Time to delve…