Album Reviews

This famous 1957 “Living Stereo” three-track recording (originally LSC-2201, issued in 1958) was among the first series of bargain-priced BMG SACD's issued last year. A second set has recently been released. By focusing on the “audiophile community,” doubling up the content (two full LP's worth) and selling them for 12 bucks, BMG hit all the right notes, and apparently these are selling well-in the context of what that means in today's shrunken record biz.

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. 

To those of us at a certain age and religious persuasion, there's something bizarre about Iggy and the Stooges playing  Kutsher's Country Club, once one of the Borscht Belt's premiere venues. Of course Kutsher's and the Borscht Belt aren't what they used to be but Iggy and the Stooges still are!

You'll never confuse Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2 composed in 1957 with piano concertos composed during the romantic era, except when you get to the squooshy center where the composer goes all Rachmaninoff on you. The cinematic first movement sounds both ominous and light-hearted like a Hitchcock chase scene and it's easy to hear how Bernard Herrmann may have been influenced by this rousing first movement. It will get your heart pounding. 

Around 1963 Miles’ rhythm section of Wynton Kelly on piano, Jimmy Cobb on drums and Paul Chambers on bass left Davis to form their own group.

Whether the release of this album or Dylan's "plugging in" at Newport in 1965 enraged fans more is debatable, but whichever way you see it, everyone agrees that this record was reviled when first released back in the Spring of 1969.

Talk about throwing it back to the 1980s! These guys channel Manifestoera Roxy, Brit/Industrial (Joy Division) and even Haircut 100 on their latest double LP set (CD included for easy iTunes/iPod loading).