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Thursday, May 30, 2019

Beloved Leon Redbone passed away today!



I'm really, really sad... 

Mr. Leon Redbone, after health issues and retiring in 2015 from active music scene, passed away a few hours ago...

 


I'm sincerely condolencing to his family and friends... he gave to me - and many worldwide - pure joy... 

His class, panama hat and music were - ARE - absolutely timeless and never will be forgotten by yours truly.



R.I.P. dear Champagne Charlie... R.I.P. Leon Redbone... thanks, Mr. Dickran Gobalian.


Sunday, May 26, 2019

Some 50 cents vinyl nuggets




Lovely vintage covers... and gorgeous sound from these flea-market finds.

Disc of the Month - Sounds Harpy - featuring the David Snell Quintet




Disc of the Month!

On DECCA, recorded in England in 1966...


Superb recording of great music... cool, seldom heard arrangements and musical blend.


Master quality!

BTW: better Harpy than... Horny;-)






Furry cello mute




Saturday, May 25, 2019

Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man OST by Neil Young




Bought this double-disc this morning after reading a review on MOJO June issue... the reviewer was hinting to most experimental Neil's disc, ever... suggesting a comparison with Paris, Texas by Ry Cooder... mmmhhhh... always amazed by reviewers' opinions;-)

... an electric fuzz guitar lucubration with deeeeep bass and William Blake's poems read by movie prima donna - i.e. Johnny Depp.



Yes, I enjoyed this music quite a lot... despite the honest, small print on back cover corner, well... it's an amazingly nice recording, too...



Give it a spin, pals... but don't take any responsibility as you'll DO NOT listen to any Neil's voice or acoustic guitar... 

A footnote: the recording reminded to me more than a.m. Paris, Texas, Peter Fonda's The Hired Arm OST... an electric, fuzzed, one, of course.

Enjoy. 




J.J. Cale - Stay Around (2-discs set 2019)




Posthomous discs are such a trange breed, folks: they can be awesome - thinking to Tim Buckley's live at Royal Albert Hall in 1969... and it sounds weird as artist isn't anymore.

They sort-of make resurrecting your fave, late musician... as music never dies.

In J.J. (Cocaine) Cale's case, well... I've been a very, VERY fond of his music and bought everything he recorded... my most beloved, the Raccoon-cover 1st, Okie, Troubador, 5 (wow, love it!)... then the others: Grasshopper, etc.... down to JJ & Slowhand...



I felt quite out of time, late, if you get it... but the discs contain some little laid-back gems... the recording is nice but discontinuous as it was on the above mentioned JJ's nuggets, being recorded at several different locations and studios... we're far away from the '70s masterpiece quality, yet... I found the Christine Lakeland-Cale (JJ's widow and long-time music-partners) tracks cherry-picking and pleasant...






A must-have disc?

No, don't think so... BUT a pleasure to listen to, anyway, sort-of memory lane, good ol' Americana honestly played and crafted and a nice package to par: you may be able to change cover-window pixie while playing the attached CD;-)






BASF - Liszt or Twist?




Lovely '60s BASF ad...







Tuesday, May 21, 2019

iTape




Lol!



... at 15 i.p.s. it would give... 30 seconds recording?

;-)




Saturday, May 18, 2019

Shinichi Tanaka-san at his place, Hino-shi, Tokyo (Japan 2017)



I found these (forgotten) pixies while emptying my old Sony camera memory-card... such a surprise.



Shinichi-san




The balsa-wood lilliputian-sized model of Tanaka-san's bass-horn.






My mentor and sensei-san Shinichi Tanaka-san at his place, May 2017...




Lovely man and lovely memories, despite so-so framing;-) on above pix, as taken by Shinichi's lovely wife.







Wednesday, May 15, 2019

The Mahavishnu Sounds




Talk about "elusive discs":



1972 Japanese-only promotional 7-track LP that was never commercially released, focusing on the band members' pre-Mahavishnu releases including John McLaughlin with Miles Davis & Solo plus Jerry Goodman with The Flock & Billy Cobham with Dreams. The textured sleeve is a unique design featuring incredible artwork by Taul Satoh with track/artist biography, selected album details on the back in Japanese & the tracklist in English.



Woodstock 50th Anniversary





The 50th anniversary of 1969’s Woodstock Festival is to be celebrated with the release of a mammoth 38 CD, 432 track box set, featuring 267 previously unreleased tracks. It’ll be released on August 2.
Woodstock 50: Back To The Garden also features a Blu-ray of the Director’s Cut of the Woodstock Film, the book Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music by Michael Lang, a replica original programme, a festival diary, replica posters, photo prints and a guitar strap based on the one Jimi Hendrix used during his historic performance.
The set will come in as numbered, limited edition of 1969 copies and be housed in a screen-printed plywood box.
Woodstock - Back To The Garden
The collection is a near complete reconstruction of the Woodstock running order, clocking in at 36 hours and featuring every artist performance from the festival.
The complete list of artists featured, in chronological order, is Richie Havens, Sweetwater, Bert Sommer, Tim Hardin, Ravi Shankar, Melanie, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Quill, Country Joe McDonald, Santana, John B. Sebastian, The Keef Hartley Band, The Incredible String Band, Canned Heat, Mountain, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, Sly & The Family Stone, The Who,Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, Country Joe & The Fish, Ten Years After, The Band, Johnny Winter, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Butterfield Blues Band, Sha Na Na and Jimi Hendrix.
The set will also be available in three other versions: a 10 CD set, a 5 LP version, and a 3 CD collection. All are available to pre-order from Rhino.
Meanwhile, vinyl subscription service Vinyl Me, Please has announced a 10 LP set of the previously available compilations Woodstock Vols 1-4 on tie-die coloured vinyl. It’s expected to be available in late August.

Explore eil.com… the world’s best online store for rare, collectable and out of print Vinyl Records, CDs & Music memorabilia since 1987.

A bargain at € 714,99 for the mammoth-set.

;-)))




Sunday, May 12, 2019

Tedeska Tondose from Berlin




Berlin is more and more the Silicon (Audio) Valley of Europe... from Neumann onward, many artisans began here their activities in audio industry.

Now, Tedeska, building hand made cartridges since 2015... these people love for music, luthiery and classic audio is well represented in their production: mono and stereo cartridges and a useful repair service for their own and vintage carts... 





To my eyes, their mono model pays kudos to old, beloved Ortofon's "leaf cantilever" design... someway reassuring.


from Tedeska's site:


"Especially for the "TEDESKA eye", a traditional lutherie technique is used which has been applied to the frog part of a violin bow. As a violinist who has to place his right thumb on the frog before he starts playing, so should everyone who holds a TEDESKA system in his hands, feel like an instrumentalist who is about to unveil his “wonder–full“ soundscapes."

Prices are - reportedly - in the pain-zone - i.e. more apt to Audi-owners target than Dacia-owners - in the € 3,000.00/4,500.00 range...




Building quality is, as appreciated from their site, high.




Much worth deepening and exploring this very brand.

Thanking my pal Leif for his truffle-nose on this.






Friday, May 10, 2019

Class in spades



... this very pix means a lot to me: it's "audio", "technology", "care for details" and a "long gone era"... class in spades at its best.



Studer C37, EMT 930, the model impeccable dressing... down to the Ferragamo's shoes... I almost smell her scent.

Give me more of this timeless beauty... I'm not after blinking pimp-like LEDs or the like... give me a well-built piece of gear to properly serve music.

Ha!




Serge Rogozyansky's Karmadon Bandage rim-idler wheel turntable



Folks: the following few pictures represent to me more, MUCH more than all the hyper-polished, hyper priced and hyper-hyped M.O.C. pictures hugely and heavily circulating these days everywhere on the WEB, period.

The above lapidary statement is my strong opinion, the very reason why I'm still so fond of audio... like my friend Sierra Aznar Victor - the former owner of this beauty - so nicely pointed it out, it's man-made gears for man...

A bespoke piece of gears, be them mechanical, electro-mechanical or electronic, simply owns a soul lacking to mass-made gears.





This elegant, yet no frills turntable reminds me a Commonwealth or Byer from Downunder or a Presto or a Rec-o-kut, from USA but Serge, the maker of my beloved Karmadon's Gray replica, is a man of taste and knowledge whose skill simply is at the service of music... he's not a copycat, he's a fine lathing artist and a creator of music machines.

His gears price-tags are always surprisingly honest, down-to-earth... how it should be to make our (audio) passion more palatable to a broader audience.

Not by chance, Serge is a close friend of my pal Misho Myronov of Audio Antiquary/WoodenAmp's fame... same approach, out of the choir, yet singing with purest of voices in a Flat Earth.

I wish to Serge all the success he deserves... looking forward in personally deepening my close encounter with this bespoke, seldom seen turntable.

Spasibo, Serge.



Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Garrard - the legend continues...




What the heck! 

A Garrard 301.. yawn... seen and re-seen... nothing new, uh?

No!

Here it is, as seen behind the curtains at upcoming M.O.C. 2019 in Munchen, beginning tomorrow, the brand new 301!

... or, reportedly, a Loricraft's minty 301 approved, blessed and re-christened by SME.




The new SME-approved Garrard 301 after the 2018 merging with Loricraft's know-how, while going on parallel acquisition and bringing back to England of  Garrard  brand ownership from previous owner, Gradiente, a Brazilian firm.

Shown in classic cream finish with oil bearing. 

Reportedly £12,500 with plinth and SME M2-12R tonearm. 

Photo by Herbert Reichert.

Saturday, May 4, 2019