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Album Reviews
Fine Songwriting From "Under the Radar" Indie "Group"
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2011  |  2 comments

This is not Sam Beam's (A/K/A Iron and Wine) latest album. It dates from 2007. His first release, The Creek Drank the Cradle, was released back in 2002. Somehow that one, this one, his newest and all of his work escaped my attention until last year's AXPONA audio show in Jacksonville Florida where I saw the collected works in the bins of a Florida audio store owner who had a room at the show. I asked to hear something and he played a cut from this introspective, atmospheric and sonically enticing and well-produced album. I was hooked.

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Album Reviews
Mobile Fidelity's "Dixie Chicken" Is All Dark Meat
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2011  |  2 comments

Dixie Chicken and Sailin' Shoes are the meat of the LIttle Feat catalog, with Dixie Chicken arguably being the group's finest studio effort.

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Album Reviews
Classic Protest Songs For A New Generation
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2011  |  2 comments

Keb' Mo's mellow protest album recycles classics from the '60s and '70s, recasting them for the 2004 mindset witnessing the greatest strategic foreign policy mistake in American history. 

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Album Reviews
Ella Classic As You've Never Heard it
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2011  |  0 comments

One of the fascinating aspects of collecting records, particularly if you're willing to haunt Goodwills and hit garage sales, are the variations you often find of the same record. 

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Album Reviews
Beck's Back On Album Meant For Light's Off Listening
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2011  |  1 comments

Clearly a fan, producer Steve Lipson places Jeff Beck's guitar in a distant reverberant  space that decreases its solidity but increases both its size and its mystery, evoking a God-like presence hovering above a lush, string-drenched orchestra. Or you could see Beck playing perched on a craggy, windswept rock surrounded by white-capped water. The album very much has a Pacific Ocean vibe.

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Album Reviews
Iconic Live Dick Dale Back on Vinyl!
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2011  |  1 comments

The only original copy of this album that I ever saw was in The Library of Congress's record collection. It features great period cover art that Green Day lifted for their Foxboro Hot Tub album and a live performance from guitar legend Dick Dale. 

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Album Reviews
Never Before Issued in America on Vinyl!
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2011  |  1 comments

This 1973 release, minus saxophonist Phil Shulman who had left the group (leaving but two Shulmans),  was rejected by Columbia Records for being "un-commercial" yet it became one of the band's most popular releases. It was available only as an import in America.

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Album Reviews
1970 Sophomore Effort Reissued With Original Artwork
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2011  |  1 comments

The second Yes album begins with a strutting cover of Richie Havens' "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed."

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Features
We'll Get It Wrong In The Mix
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 31, 2010  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments
I wrote this article, originally published in Music Connection magazine, back in 1985 after becoming increasingly disgusted with and alarmed by the deteriorating sonic quality of new releases from familiar artists. Little did I realize then that 1985 was a 'golden age' of good sound compared to what most pop and rock recordings sound like in 2008! I remain grateful to editor Bud Scoppa for giving me the platform to spout a then unpopular view in a magazine read by Los Angeles engineers, artists and music business executives.

When The Absolute Sound's Harry Pearson announced he was looking for a new popular music editor, I applied for the job by sending him this article. He liked it enough to give me the job. That gave me an ideal platform from which to advocate saving the vinyl record and extolling its unique set of virtues, sonic and otherwise.

Watching the LP section at the huge Tower Records on Sunset shrink by the week, never did I imagine that in 2008 the LP would be back and Tower would be gone. —Michael Fremer, 1/15/08

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Features
The Beatles Remasters: A Splendid Time Is Guaranteed For Most
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 31, 2010  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments

How bad were the original Beatles CDs issued back in 1987? So bad that even the clueless conditioned to believe that CDs represented an automatic sonic step up from vinyl noticed something was terribly wrong.

Amusing to some observers was the nature of the complaints: “they sound tinny,” “they sound flat,” “they sound thin and bright,” “they’re harsh and edgy,” “where’s the warmth?” etc.

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