Ollie on double-bass 💫

 

The Beatles meets Tin Tin 💫

 

Possibly the first six strings guitar

 

Len’s

 

Very proud 💫

💎

One of the rarest 💫

 

The legendary Gioconda de Vito's original UK HMV ASD 429, here in its rarest test pressing, Theoretically one of the most rare violin records of the planet, more than that, the unique de Vito's stereo known LP, a truly Holy Grail of British violin LPs.

With de Vito’s marriage to EMI executive David Bicknell in 1949 so too began her main international career. It is mused that the platform afforded to her was an extension of her position, not necessarily her talent, a thought perhaps reflected by the very small production and hence extreme rarity of this recording. With her retirement in 1961 from all aspects of the violin at the age of only 54, her repertoire and recorded legacy is small. One can’t help but wonder whose hands have held this record over the decades along its journey into collectors. A true piece of classical music history.

Thanking Saulo Zucchello 🙏💫🙏

… and now for something different: Luigi Russolo’s IntonaRumori 💫

 

In 1916, Luigi Russolo (1885-1947), a painter and musician, published “L’arte dei rumore.” (The Art of Noise)

Russolo believes that noise in its irregularity is able to recall real life and that it has enormous potential for representation because, where the notes are limited, the noises are infinite. In fact, he theorizes a true musical revolution: he modifies the orchestral composition by inventing instruments capable of reproducing the sounds of everyday life, the so-called “intonarumori”. To represent these sounds, he also introduces a new writing of music that proceeds by lines rather than by notes.

The reflection on noise does not exhaust the complex personality of Luigi Russolo who through the arts proceeds “Beyond matter”: with him, noise becomes the protagonist of the new century.

The above disk I fortuitously found at my local records shop represents a cool follow-up of a century-old musical adventure… and Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, etc.) is also here.

What a disk 💫

Do you leave, Corto Maltese? Yes! 💫

 

“ Oh go quickly over the dark lands

And cross the sea

That seas and lands may not part us,

My love and me. “

James Joyce

What a sucker!

 

Thanking Robert Crumb (he knows how to behave 😉)

RIP Rutherford Chang, who collected more than 3,400 copies of the Beatles White Album 💫

 

RIP Rutherford Chang, who collected more than 3,400 copies of the Beatles White Album. 

In a fascinating obituary, the New York Times reports:

Chang, a conceptual artist, turned his collection of the Beatles’ “White Album” into a meditation on the aging of a vinyl classic. 

Mr. Chang was not initially a collector of the 1968 double LP “The Beatles,” better known as “The White Album.” He bought one copy of it as a teenager, but when he got a second one some years later, he realized that the two — with their plain white covers as blank canvases— had changed over time.

“The more I got, the more I could see how different these once identical objects had become,” he told the website The Creative Independent in 2017. “I didn’t know where it was going when I started other than that I wanted at least enough to see the differences between them. Then it just kept going and I can’t stop.”

Mr. Chang’s installation, “We Buy White Albums,” unveiled at the Recess gallery in Manhattan in 2013, took the form of a facsimile of a record shop, with albums in bins and turntables to play the music.

One wall was filled with albums whose owners had put their names on the covers, as well as written letters, poems and other ephemera on them. Some had drawn pictures. The covers also showed wear patterns created by rotting cardboard.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/09/arts/rutherford-chang-dead.html

The exhibition traveled to several cities, including Liverpool, the home of the Beatles, in 2014.

Prog at its best 💫

 

The Keith Tippett Group - Dedicated To You, But You Weren't Listening

1971 Vertigo 6360 024 (UK)

The second Keith Tippett Group album with the core members of Keith, Elton, Mark, and Nick augmented by a a stellar cast including Gary Boyle, Robert Wyatt, Neville Whitehead, Phil Howard, Bryan Spring, & Roy Babbington. 

The title comes from a Hugh Hopper composition from Soft Machine Volume II and a brief instrumental version of it introduces Nick Evans' "Black Horse" as the closing track on side 2.  The band have really progressed since their first album.  Keith's jagged runs are more pronounced and the three wind players feature more strongly. The cover is one of Roger Dean's earlier ones. The closing track on side one, "Green and Orange Night Park" would be further developed for Centipede.

I picked up this copy during the summer of 1971 second-hand at Cob Records in Porthmadog in N. Wales during the summer break.  Back in the days when you'd browse through the bins, see an interesting cover and look at who names of who played  on it and pick it up sound unheard. I was not disappointed.  I recall playing this, especially side one, a  lot. Sheer bliss, that rapid firing big-band sound, the hard driving riffs, the solos and Keith's inimitable piano. If I wasn't already an Elton Dean fan, his solo on "Green and Orange Night Park" would have made me one! Jazz-Rock at its finest. 

One reason I like the Canterbury scene is the broad spectrum of music which my ears were opened up to. And this is just one small region of that spectrum.

Thanks to Julian Christou 🙏

Neumann CF-3 & Studer 961 💫

 

I’ll be able to advise musicians when the tape is rolling and microphones are ON… without having to wave my hands 

😳😄😄😉☺️😄

Long Boxes 💫

 

Thanking Susan Whittle 💫

Jim O’Rourke in Padua 💫

 

An intense, dreamy evening, indeed.

Bob’s first 💎💫💎

 

Bob Dylan's Promo 1st LP. 

There are many variations. The front cover photo was reversed. He's actually holding a left-handed guitar because of this. This website gives you the complete history of this LP. https://www.searchingforagem.com/1960s/International001.htm 

There were 2 different promo labels. The other one had a white sticker. The pressing plants were identified by numbers at the lower right of the back cover. The 6 eye labels later became 2 eye Columbia. This copy was found on eBay and was sold by Tim Hauser of The Manhattan Transfer.

Robert Zimmerman 💫

 

A photo of young Bob Dylan sent to his high school sweetheart, Barbara Ann Hewitt, between 1958 and 1959.

The Grandest Piano

 

A curious 15 year old ended up creating the longest grand piano in the world after asking a simple question. 

Inside a piano, the bass strings are wrapped with copper wire to deepen the sound without needing more length. A young pianist named Adrian asked his piano teacher, "without using copper wire, how long would the bass strings need to be to hit the right notes?" 

His teacher had no idea, so Adrian decided to figure it out himself. He purchased some piano wire and strung it up in his backyard. It was around 22 feet and the sound was amazing. Inspired by the incredible sound quality, the next step was to build a huge piano to hold the length of the wire and keep the amazing sound. Over the next 5 years, he came across difficulties that required a lot of problem-solving and dedication. But finally, his hard work paid off and his piano was complete. The Alexander Piano is 18ft 9 inches, weighing over a metric ton and is the world’s largest single keyboard grand piano.

R.I.P. for Mike Ratledge 💫

 

John Etheridge has let it be known that Soft Machine co-founder Mike Ratledge has passed away today. He had such a distinctive and inventive voice as a soloist.

I count myself lucky to have seen him play two times, back in the Seventies.

A brilliant composer, he was also cool as fuck.

His music and unique Fender Rhodes’ sounds will never be forgotten 💫

Loudspeakers efficiency vs. W needed 💫

 

“Nice guitar, too bad you’re a communist”

 

Joan Baez’s 1880 Martin guitar… a luthier wrote in reversed hand-written pencil the above mentioned message.

Tools of the trade - Don McLean’s Martin 000-28 (1929)

 

Don McLean and the 1929 000-28.

On all of his early 70's albums and for his live work, Don McLean played a 1929 000-28. It remains one of the greatest guitars I have ever heard. He actually had a1928 as well, but the '29 was the standout. Martin made 48 in 1928 and 82 in 1929. Like all the 000's of this period, they were long scale and braced for steel. Most had no pickguard but many of them sport a later one. In late 1929 Martin offered a pickguard as optional. The guitar in photo 1 is a 1929 with original pickguard. Photo 2 shows him onstage with the guitar. If you want to hear him at his height with the guitar in question, the album to get is "Solo",  Photo 3, from 1973. Here, the guitar is superbly recorded and the sound will blow you away. There is also an old film recorded in Ireland, in which he is playing the guitar. Link below. I have also given a link For Homeless Brother from the "Solo" album as a teaser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n_vqwRCI34

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwmxywuopVY

Thanks to Peter Gibbs for above article 🙏💫🙏