LATEST ADDITIONS

Ask Mikey
"Ask Mikey" Fires Up With Questions About USB Microscopes, the Quality of Ron McMaster's Lacquer Cutting, Etc.
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 15, 2012  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  11 comments
What is the name of the USB microscope you use? Brand and resolution?
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Album Reviews
Finally, "Music From Big Pink" on AAA Vinyl With BASS
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 14, 2012  |  3 comments
Who begins a debut album with a dirge-like, mournful song taken at a heartbreakingly slow pace like Richard Manuel's "Tears of Rage?" The Band did on their debut album that didn't exactly hit the pop charts running.

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News
Mikey Does Video Podcast With Home Theater's Scott Wilkinson
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 14, 2012  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  6 comments
Mikey cuts loose on the superiority of vinyl on this new video podcast using his unbelievably unflattering MacBook Pro camera. The chatroom digiphiles went crazy!
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Album Reviews
ORG Reinvents Heavy Weather
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 13, 2012  |  2 comments
Jazz Fusion may have turned out to be a dead end genre exiled to The Weather Channel's 24 hour forecast, but at its inception arguably with the group Weather Report, the sun shone brightly on its possibilities. How ironic that the jazz offshoot took off with Weather Report and dead-ended on TWC!

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Album Reviews
Acoustic Dead Album Puts You Right On Stage
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 12, 2012  |  9 comments
Who knew vinyl lovers were such Deadheads? The labels doing the reissuing hope you are. There are recent studio reissues from Warner Brothers/Rhino and Analogue Productions and live recordings from Mobile Fidelity and Analogue Productions including this one from AP.

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Album Reviews
Gene Clark Album That Wasn't, Finally Is
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 11, 2012  |  4 comments
Gene Clark owed A&M an album in 1972 and so to fulfill his contract he did what most artists do in such circumstances: he decided to make one for himself.

Graham Parker kissed off his label with an album called Mercury Poisoning. Van Morrison owed one to Bert Berns' Bang label. Berns had died but Van, who had had a volatile relationship with Bert and was anxious to go to Warner Brothers and record Astral Weeks, handed his grieving widow Eileen an unreleasable album containing the ten songs and the publishing rights thereto. The songs—actually a series of short ridiculous and nonsensical jams— had titles like "Blow In Your Nose," "Nose in Your Blow," and "Ringworm."

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News
Alcohol and Vinyl: A Deadly Mix!
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 11, 2012  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  8 comments
An Australian record store owner recently had an idea: why not mix vinyl and alcohol? Thanks to changes in the liquor laws in Sydney, MOJO Music's Neville Sergent opened MOJO Record Bar. (Photo by Peter Rae)

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Album Reviews
Small Club Miles Davis Engagement Makes For Engaging Vinyl Reissue
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 08, 2012  |  5 comments
Friday and Saturday Nights in Person at The Blackhawk, San Francisco,everyone's second favorite small club live engagement (the first being Bill Evans at The Village Vanguard) finally gets the AAA 180g vinyl treatment with this double LP set from IMPEX. I wonder why it took so long for a reissue label to do this one?

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Beatles
McCartney's Misunderstood, Impeccably Produced Beatles "Prequel"
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 07, 2012  |  7 comments
It shouldn't be surprising that The Beatle who sang on Meet The Beatles "Till There Was You" from the Broadway hit "The Music Man" would eventually dip into the old song basket and pull out nearly an album's worth. McCartney has written so many songs in the "old style," from "Honey Pie," to "When I'm Sixty-Four" to "Martha My Dear." His father led a jazz band.
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Set-Up Tips
A Turnbuckle In Time Saves Your Stylus
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 07, 2012  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  9 comments
I once lived on the second floor of an old farmhouse with a springy floor. How it got in my pants, I'll never know! I had a VPI TNT turntable at the time, on a VPI stand that had been filled with leadshot and sand. It was heavy! But the stand still bounced and the 'table's suspension couldn't deal with it and so the stylus bounced around in the groove.

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