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Album Reviews
He Swallowed His Pride and Puckered His Lips
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 01, 2008  |  0 comments

You had to be there, and I was.

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Album Reviews
One of the Greatest Finally Reissued
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 01, 2008  |  1 comments

It’s easy to understand why a cut-up rocker with one foot in metal and the other in Vaudeville like David Lee Roth would break out of Van Halen and go solo with a faithful cover of Louis Prima’s version of “Just a Gigolo”/”I’m So Lonely.”

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Album Reviews
Smith-Burrell Combo Equals Tasty Licks
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 01, 2008  |  0 comments

Listening to a straightforward, blues/gospel-drenched comping session like this reminds you that jazz has lost its soul today and aims mostly for the head. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s good to get back to the essential, visceral nature of the genre. This set, recorded in New York at an unidentified studio or studios on three days during the summer of 1963, let’s you know why.

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Album Reviews
Pure Pleasure Spins the Roulette Wheel, Reissues Mid-'70's Carter Album
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 01, 2008  |  0 comments

When this record was issued in 1976, 47 year old Betty Carter (born Lillie Mae Jones) had already sang with Dizzy, Miles, Lionel Hampton, Sonny Rollins and many others.

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Phono Preamp Reviews
Nagra VPS phono preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 17, 2008  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments
Not that many years ago, it seems, every sound crew in Hollywood and around the world recorded production sound using a compact, open-reel analog tape recorder made by Nagra. The first iteration of the Swiss-made machine appeared in the early 1950s. Shortly thereafter, with the addition of an inaudible recorded tone that allowed easy syncing to picture, the Nagra recorder became the industry standard, and remained so through the 1980s. To this day, Nagra's line of audio products retains the look of those early recorders.
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Album Reviews
Matador Gives Ace of Hearts '82 Debut AAA Treatment!
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2008  |  0 comments

In the nervous, jumpy, wiry world of guitar-driven late ‘70’s-early ‘80’s post-rock intellectual punk, popularized by bands like Gang of Four, Buzzcocks, early XTC and (more broodingly) Wire, Mission of Burma was America’s premier practitioners. They probably accrued more legend than record sales, though.

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Album Reviews
Another Black and Blue Session Saved From Obscurity by Pure Pleasure
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2008  |  0 comments

Reminiscent of what Carl Jefferson was doing at Concord back in the 1970’s, this reissue of a French Black and Blue release recorded March of 1978, keeps alive the straight ahead tradition that seemed to be passing into jazz history back then.

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Album Reviews
Crazy Horse Live 1970 Well Worth the Wait!
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2008  |  0 comments

Memories can play nasty tricks on the mind. Events long since past that once seemed sublime can turn out to be anything but when the time machine slides them into the present.

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Album Reviews
Rare Psychedelic Masterpiece Finally Reissued From Original MONO Tape!
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2008  |  1 comments

Legendary, much sought after and barely in print when first released on the obscure International Artist label, both the original mono and stereo versions of Roky Erickson’s psychedelic scream and surf fest fetch big bucks.

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Features
Dylan Then & Dylan Now. Forty Years Is A Long, Long Time...Or Is It, Really? (Part 1)
Roger Hahn  |  Jul 31, 2008  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments

The Motorcycle Crash.

The famous motorcycle accident in 1966 that disabled a rising music star—then mired in a now long-forgotten controversy of folk-versus-pop—setting the stage for an extended period of seclusion and retreat. It’s an episode that continues to intrigue tellers of the star’s story (a recent article in American Heritage magazine, for example, can’t help introducing it as “The Bob Dylan Motorcycle-Crash Mystery”).

And for many chroniclers, it remains the central event in the Legend of Bob Dylan, the before-and-after moment, the durable frame for the-young-and-the-old, the-rise-and-the-fall, the Icarus-inflected storyline of the-burning-meteor-and-the-fallen-angel cautionary tale.

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