Congratulations Tim on the Thales arm. We’ll be waiting for your reports as it settles in.
Showing 50 responses by puffball08
Straying dangerously afield from records on my turntable….. The late Marc Reisner in his 1986 book “Cadillac Desert” predicted with great clarity exactly what’s now happening in the western states. Everyone knew it was coming except (with a wink and a nod) greedy developers, chambers of commerce and the property tax collector. Since the ‘90s, hardly a year has gone by that California and Arizona (now Nevada too) haven’t been in court fighting over water rights. It has to do with “senior water rights” which date back to 1922. Basically, who got there first and took it. I live in a town not connected to the aqueduct from up north that depends solely on Lake Mathews which is fed by the Colorado River (and to a lesser extent, desalination). Thanks for the book recommendation. I will definitely check out Arax’s book.
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You’re very welcome. Have a look at Chris Butler and Ralph Carney’s “Songs For Unsung Holidays”. Very humorous and witty, typical Chris Butler. (yes, that Chris Butler as in The Waitresses). This was the last recording Ralph Carney did prior to his very unfortunate passing. |
+1 Great tradition. I'll dig out "Honey In The Horn" (1963) and marvel at how Al could play "Lava" on his horn with one hand! Spinning a few discs before the eat-a-mania begins. 801 Live "s/t" Island UK 1977 Family "Bandstand" United Artists 1972 Rowland Howard-Lydia Lunch "Some Velvet Morning/I Fell In Love With A Ghost" EP 4AD 1982 Los Microwaves "Life After Breakfast" Posh Boy 1981 Go•Go's "beauty and the beat" IRS 1981 One can criticize the GoGo's for many things but few pure pop bands starting out, then and now, wrote their own material. |
+1, amazing collection of music from Peter and other musicians who would go on to join the likes of Pere Ubu and other Cleveland bands. Sad thing is it looks as though Frank (Smog Veil) has sold out of the box set. And even more distressing, Frank has decided to retire the label after 30 years. So much amazing music from NE Ohio was showcased because of Smog Veil. They will be sorely missed. Evidently this is all that remains: https://www.smogveil.com/collections/all |
@sbank Wow! ++The Feelies, another overlooked jem of a band that really has withstood the test of time. @alan60 Yes, Albini is a very adept engineer in his own right and working in his, or anybody's studio, Steve puts his ample talents to good use. @boxer12 Oh my, wouldn't that be nice if Cale's "HoboSapiens" were to appear on vinyl. This would be a nice addition for a "curated" label like Numero Group or Superior Viaduct. But, EMI (or whomever owns the publishing rights) might not be easy to deal with. Happy Thanksgiving (if you're in the States) to the group. Don't overeat now.....as I'm daydreaming about the cheesecake I baked last night that didn't collapse for a change😂 |
@boxer12 +1 Tortoise, another often overlooked band. |
@alan60 +1 Shellac, nearly everything Steve Albini is associated with is worth a listen. |
@bkeske I lived in NYC in the early 80s and saw the Lizards perform. One of several great bands that Arto Lindsay and Anton Fier (another NE Ohio native) were involved with. |
@reubent And strangely Adam Ant had his own day of reckoning some years later. |
@reubent It’s too bad Bow Wow Wow didn’t last very long, something like 3 years. But it seemed they wrote and performed everything they were capable of in that time. After Lwin was booted from the group in September ‘83, that pretty much was the end of the band. The lawsuit brought by Lwin’s family over exploitation against the record label and the other band members certainly didn’t help. I too was fortunate enough to catch them sometime in early ‘83 at, as I recall, the Whiskey A Go-Go. I think they were the headliners that night. Adam Ant was no doubt smiling as the Wows imploded. |
@boxer12 +1 Blues Control/Local flavor, found it, gave it a quick listen, great stuff, LP on order John Cale "Slow Dazzle" Island UK 1975 Bow Wow Wow "See Jungle! See Jungle!" RCA 1981 Eric Burdon and the Animals "s/t" Metro/Polydor UK 1975 John Cage/David Tudor "Variations IV" volume II Everest 1966 The Danse Society "Heaven Is Waiting" Arista 1984
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@boxer12 -Blues Control / Local flavor
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@bkeske +1 "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts" |
Got time for one more.... The Guess Who "Live At The Paramount" RCA 1972 (recorded 22 May 1972 in Seattle) One of those god awful Dynaflex discs that have built in warp no matter how carefully they’re stored and totally don’t match the VTA of the cartridge because they are so thin. But hey, Runnin’ Back to Saskatoon still sounds great. @boxer12 thanks Tim. Maybe I'll get one and compare with the original. |
@bkeske Thanks 👍 |
@bkeske Brian, do the Fire reissues of Ubu say anything about remastering? |
Off to a great Saturday. @bslon +1 Patti Smith "Easter" @sbank +1 Elliot Smith "From A Basement on a Hill" @sns +1 Butthole Surfers, you compared them with Dead Kennedys, in fact Jello Biafra is/was a huge fan of theirs. Surfers opened for the Kennedys in San Francisco once. Biafra's label Alternative Tentacles released several Surfers albums as I recall. |
Got time for one final record.
Procol Harum "Grand Hotel" Chrysalis 1973
@slaw Happy Birthday Steve, and many more to come!
@ boxer12 yes Tim, you don't know how much you miss it until it doesn't work.
@noromance oh my yes Brian, I remember the many burned up flyback transformers and open deflection coils. Fun days actually. |
@bslon -Yes, amazing record given it was 1968. Bad thing is the record label, Tetragrammaton, was a shoe string operation. Their pressings were made with regrind (recycled) vinyl to save money. The surface noise of this record is horrible but the music is irreplacable. Fortunately during the active tracks, the background noise gets cancelled pretty well. But oh the lead in, track spaces and lead out are just horrible. |
@bkeske -Thanks Brian, and you mentioned Sandy Denny above, I came across one of her records in my flurry of cleaning the shed records.
@tomic601 - yeah, started my career working in a TV repair shop way WAY back when (when TVs were repairable) and made the switch in college to broadcast and post production. Haven’t put the soldering iron down for long since then. Wish I had a nickel for each of the XLR connectors I soldered over the decades.
@boxer12 - I noticed Ubu’s "The Modern Dance" above. My Ubu collection appeared in one of the boxes. I have both the Blank Records (US) and Polydor/Polygram (UK) versions. Haven’t listened to the Polygram pressing but the Blank version (Blank was distributed by Mercury who in turn is owned by Polygram) still sounds very amazing. |
Capacitor swapped, ziltched pass transistor in the power supply regulator replaced and music pours forth from my speakers once more.
Deep Purple "Shades Of Deep Purple" Tetragrammaton Records 1968
Sir Douglas Quintet "Mendocino" Smash-Mercury 1969
Dead Kennedys "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables" Cherry Red UK 1980
David Bowie "Heroes" RCA-Germany 1977 |
@slaw Steve, you mentioned Nikki Sudden recently, Nikki (Adrian Godfrey) and his brother Epic Soundtracks (Kevin Godfrey) co-founded Swell Maps who I mentioned in a post a few days ago.
Numero Group has collected a number of Sudden's recordings in a 7-LP box set "Dark Rags at Dawn". I just learned of this after recently getting the Swell Maps compilation "Mayday Signals". Since the Numero box set is a 500 unit pressing, I may just get that.
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@noromance Don’t be hasty about writing off Jupiter capacitors. I did a fair amount of capacitor rolling and still am most impressed with the Jupiter copper foil and wax.
If you have the physical space, I would not hesitate to use Jupiters.
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@sourpuss123 - +1 for The English Beat |
@bkeske -yes, I do have a pair of home made monoblock amplifiers if I decide I need music back quickly.
Actually, I have 250~300 more records in line for the 3 step cleaning process. I may just concentrate on whittling that down a bit while waiting for the capacitor.
@big_greg -I built both amplifiers. One from scratch, one from a kit. So when something goes POOF, it's out with the Fluke meter and Tek scope. Fortunately the POOFs have been quite rare.
@noromance -Yeah, it kind of puzzled me as well as why the Jupiter cap suddenly became a 0.04 ohm resistor. The amplifier has 4 stage coupling capacitors, all Jupiter foil and wax. I also used Jupiters in the scratch built (based around a RCA 811A triode) without any problem. I'm thinking there might have been a void or imperfection in the kraft paper layer which allowed a pin hole to form between the copper foil layers. There have been some strange clicks once in a while from the channel that finally died today. It may have been early signs of the capacitor failing. The capacitor that failed is rated at 400V in a circuit operating at 130V. I hardly think the AC component of the music would get anywhere near 400V. And even if it did, Jupiter tests each capacitor at 2x the marked operating voltage. I will send them the defective capacitor and see if they can figure out what happened.
@boxer12 -You're welcome Tim. Enjoy! If you're a fan of Swell Maps, definitely check out the new compilation of old and very rare tracks covering almost their entire lifespan in the double 12" "Mayday Signals" on the Easy Action label from the UK. The distributor I bought it from in England ran out already. They'll go quickly.
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....so many records to listen to then the amplifier died!
Got out the meter and discovered a shorted coupling capacitor.
But, that involves ordering a replacement which will no doubt take a week.
Fortunately the amplifier design incorporates protection for the 300B triodes. When I went over to check why one channel went out, the grid in the 300B was already red hot. In an instant, the protection disabled the filament protecting the 300B.
So, it will be a quiet few days until the replacement capacitor (Jupiter if anyone is curious) arrives.
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@boxer12, Tim, I was listening to Bardo Pond “Volume 2” earlier. My copy looks like a translucent military fatigue. Excellent stuff, by the way. You might want to look into this, Amyl And The Sniffers “Comfort To Me” ATO Records Australia 2021 Ten Years After “Watt” Deram/London 1970 Savoy Brown “Blue Matter” Parrot/London 1969 Talking Heads “Remain In Light” Sire 1980 Phew “s/t” Pass Records Japan-reissue of this 1981 record coproduced with Holger Czukay Nomad “EP TWO” Curved Pressings 2021 the The “Soul Mining” Epic/CBS 1984 |
Squeezing in one more this evening. Pink Floyd “Dark Side Of The Moon” Harvest US 1973 first pressing I didn’t hold out much hope this disc would be playable. I played it way too many times on a cheap Garrard turntable with an equally cheap cartridge. Much to my amazement, after a thorough cleaning, it’s magic! Analog in all its glory. Only thing I can figure is the old stylus rode high in the groove leaving the bottom intact. My current cartridge and its stylus ride much lower in the groove essentially missing the wear above. |
Boxer12, I ask about AMT since they are not well known in the states. They have a small, but devoted following here. They are much better known in Europe where they have toured extensively. I crashed at Kawabata’s house in Nagoya for a few days back in 1996. He did a duet performance with Haco at Tokuzo, a club in Nagoya. I recorded the performance with the intention of releasing it on vinyl. Money was tight, project got shelved. |
@bkeske-Brian, yes, Suma in Painesville. The Hamanns were legends in the Cleveland music scene. So sad when Paul Hamann died in 2017. With his untimely passing, Suma also passed into oblivion. I too have a couple of Human Switchboard 7”s around somewhere. They are bound to turn up in this large scale vinyl restoration project. |
@boxer12-Tim, regarding Golden Palominos, my favorite is “A Dead Horse” mainly because Robert Kidney (15-60-75/The Numbers Band) plays guitar and composed several of the tracks. I believe Robert also composed several tracks on “Blast Of Silence”. Daniel p.s. How did you know about Acid Mothers Temple? |
@bkeske-Brian, it’s amazing me as well. I’d forgotten I had many of these records. As I mentioned, “30 years since they had seen daylight” was a bit conservative. Actually it’s been more like 35 years. Equally amazing is how well the vinyl has held up. I didn’t expect miracles given my previous turntables/cartridges were very brutal to the grooves. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Turns out many of the UK pressings withstood the torture better than some of the US pressings. Oh, a big + for Siouxsie |