The great debate over digital versus analogue audio has been raging since a joint venture between SONY and Philips brought the (literally) logical successor the the vinyl record to market over a quarter-century ago. It came up again in the course of a review in Goldmine magazine, the New York Times of the music-collecting community. It was for the vinyl reissue of a long-sought-after 1973 album by the seminal German progressive (or “kraut-rock”) band, Faust,. whom I had the privilege of seeing live in concert at Philadelphia’s International House last fall. The Goldmine review lauded EMI’s 180-gram audiophile edition of Faust IV. I recommend this album or any other by this act without hesitation, whatever form you choose to buy it in.

I’m always glad to see great vintage music back in print. I do take issue however with the reviewer’s apparent assertion that vinyl always sounds better than digital audio. As I’ve pointed out from time to time elsewhere, the technology used to make a recording, analogue or digital, takes a back seat to the technique and skills of the engineer and the amount of care he or she takes in making the recording. The mastering process, as any producer can tell you, can make or break the sound of a recording. And the efforts of everyone else in the chain, from the performers on down, don’t mean a thing if similar care isn’t taken in manufacturing the final product. Read the rest of this entry »

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Death as a subject in rock music (or “nec-rock-philia” as some wags have dubbed it) is nothing new. It showed up in everything from Mark Dinning’s 1959 one-hit wonder Teen Angel, to J. Frank Wilson & The Cavaliers’ romance-comic-like tear-jerker from 1964, Last Kiss to Bloodrock’s grinding, dirgey, death-metallic 1971 hit, DOA. Nonetheless, when Jim Carroll’s single People Who Died arrived at the radio station I spin for back in 1980, my jaw hit the floor. What was this guy up to? What was this guy on? Read the rest of this entry »

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I’d only heard a few of Acid Mothers Temple’s recordings before I saw them last April in Philadelphia. One of them was a seven-inch which sounded much to me like the output of any number of Japanoise bands, such as The Boredoms or The Machine Gun TV. Another was a live recording from 2004 which had them sounding like Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd jamming with Blue Cheer with members of Pere Ubu sitting in. This turned out to be merely a fraction of a fraction of the output of this extremely prolific Japanese psychedelic-rock band One day while I was in Philadelphia visiting friends, I heard on the radio that Acid Mothers Temple’s 2009 North American tour would bring them to a club in Philadelphia called Johnny Brenda’s. So I decided to make the trip and check them out. Read the rest of this entry »

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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 »

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Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express
Closer To It
Original vinyl: RCA APL1-0140
CD Reissue: Fuel 2000 Records

I pulled this record, which I’d found years ago in a bargain bin, off my shelves just the other day and slapped in onto my garage-sale-bought Harman-Kardon turntable. Damn, but I’d forgotten just how flat-out funky this album is! Read the rest of this entry »

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