Leo 🥇

 

Wait for it! 💫

 

Jerry’s hand 💫💫💫

 

Yes, it’s “that” hot 😱😵‍💫😱

 

ECC83

 

The most ubiquitous tube, ever 💫🥇💫

Manygoodears

 

Thanks to Quino 💫

Weasels

 

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

 

On this date, August 4, 1967, Pink Floyd's debut album The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, taking its title from chapter seven of Kenneth Grahame's 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, was released in the UK (not until October in North America on Tower Records, a Capitol Records subsidiary). The album was recorded at EMI Studios in London from February to May 1967 with producer Norman Smith. It is the only album where guitarist/songwriter Syd Barrett played a leadership role. The album has been hailed as a pivotal psychedelic rock album.

The album is made up of two different styles of songs: lengthy improvisations from the band's live performances (that would become the cornerstone of the band's sound) and shorter whimsical songs that Barrett had written, often with nonsensical lyrics. Barrett's ingesting of LSD increased during the recording of the album making him difficult at times to work with and frustrating producer Smith. "With Syd, I eventually realized I was wasting my time," recalled Smith. Barrett would end up writing eight of the album's songs and contributing to two instrumentals credited to the whole band, with Waters creating the sole remaining composition "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk".

The original UK LP was released on 4 August 1967 in both monaural and stereophonic mixes. While the US and UK track listings differed slightly, the American album including the band's recent single "See Emily Play" in place of "Astronomy Domine", "Flaming" and "Bike", the Canadian LP, on Capitol Records, had the same title and track listing as the UK version.

At the time of release, both Record Mirror and NME gave the album four stars out of five. Record Mirror commented that "the psychedelic image of the group really comes to life, record wise, on this LP which is a fine showcase for both their talent and the recording technique. Plenty of mind blowing sound, both blatant and subtle here, and the whole thing is extremely well performed." In July 2006, Billboard described The Piper at the Gates of Dawn as "one of the best psychedelic rock albums ever, driven by Barrett's oddball narratives and the band's skill with both long jams and perfect pop nuggets".

Nipper’s Story

 

Behind the image of one of the most recognizable advertising icons in the world, lies a fascinating and little-known story.

The English painter Francis Barraud, upon the death of his brother Mark, inherited a hand-cranked phonograph, some wax cylinders and a small dog, a crossbreed with a Fox Terrier, called Nipper. Francis noticed that when the cylinders played his deceased brother's voice, the little dog approached the horn and listened attentively.

The painter captured this moment on canvas, titling it very logically: "His Master's Voice". It was 1895 and Francis thought that he might be of interest to the Edison Bell Co. of London, creator of the cylinder phonograph, but the work was rejected. Thus, the painting returned to his studio, where it remained for four years, until William Barry Owen, head of relations and propaganda for the "Gramophone" record company, suggested to Francis to replace Edison's 1877 cylinder phonograph with the disc gramophone invented by Emile Berliner in 1888. The painter made the change, painting the gramophone instead of the phonograph, and Owen then purchased the work.

The trademark was registered by Berliner on July 10, 1900. The following year, Berliner, together with Eldridge R. Johnson, founded RCA Victor in Camden, New Jersey, on October 3, 1901. From that point on, the image of Nipper listening attentively to the gramophone became famous throughout the world, as all products manufactured by the company bore that symbol without exception.

From the first acoustic recordings on wax matrix to current laser, compact or digital recordings, Nipper sitting in front of a trumpet has become a universal symbol of music.

Vitavox CN-191

 

Such a beauty 💫

Home of Music

 

The Big Note - a Frank Zappa compendium 💫

 

Based on careful listening to authorized and unauthorized recordings, and drawing on hundreds of interviews with Frank Zappa and numerous musicians who worked with him, The Big Note is the complete guide to the music of Frank Zappa.

The product of seventeen years of research by Charles Ulrich, The Big Note provides detailed commentary on 1,663 tracks spanning 100 albums recorded over 35 years, backed up by 1,773 citations. Ulrich’s book provides the liner notes that every album in the protean and prolific composer’s oeuvre cries out for; it is the indispensible resource for any FZ fan or scholar.

Who’s playing what on each track? When was this recorded? How did FZ put this together? Just what is the Apostolic Blurch Injector? What the heck are we listening to, anyway, and why does it sound so familiar?

800 pages (xliii + 754)

6.75" x 9.75"

ISBN: 9781554201464

Out-of-print, but much worth the search 🥇

My New Studietto

 

Here is my new Studietto’s planimetry:

✅

Roy Halee 🥇

 

Roy Halee with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel - Columbia Studios New York, NY - Original Studio B, 52nd Street, console used for 8-Track recording. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" session, CBS .

Roy Decker Halee (born 1934) is an American record producer and engineer, best known for working with Simon & Garfunkel, both as a group and for their solo projects.

Halee grew up on Long Island, New York. His father, also named Roy Halee, provided the singing voice for Mighty Mouse in late 1940s Terrytoons cartoons, as well as the voices of Heckle and Jeckle from 1951 through 1961. His mother, Rebekah Cauble, was a former stage actress with several Broadway credits.

Halee, who had been studying to be a classical trumpet player, began working as a cameraman for CBS Television in the late 1950s, eventually becoming an audio engineer for Goodson-Todman game shows and the top-rated The $64,000 Question.

As television shows moved to the West Coast, he lost his job in a union dispute and layoff at CBS Television. He went to work at Columbia Records Studio A, first as an editor then later a studio engineer, where his first recording session was for Bob Dylan's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited, including the first long-format radio single, "Like a Rolling Stone". In 1964 he first encountered Simon & Garfunkel during their Columbia audition, and he is mentioned in the song "A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission)" by Paul Simon. In 1965, Halee collaborated with Columbia staff producer Tom Wilson to overdub electric instruments and drums onto the originally-released acoustic version of "The Sound of Silence" without the duo's knowledge, with the remixed version reaching number one on the Billboard singles chart.

Halee's role with Simon and Garfunkel expanded to producer-engineer, with Halee producing several albums with the duo. Halee discovered that the uniqueness of Simon & Garfunkel's vocal harmonies could only be achieved by recording both voices on the same microphone at the same time. The song "Mrs. Robinson", from the 1968 album The Graduate, won him a Grammy Award. Three more Grammy Awards followed for his work on the album Bookends, and the song "Bridge Over Troubled Water" in 1970. After Simon & Garfunkel split up, Halee co-produced Simon's first solo album and its follow-up, There Goes Rhymin' Simon.

Halee also worked with the Lovin' Spoonful, the Dave Clark Five and the Yardbirds, as well as Barbra Streisand, the Byrds, Journey (on their first album Journey), Willie Nile, Laura Nyro, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Mark-Almond Band, Rufus and Blue Angel. After working at Columbia studios in New York and Los Angeles, Halee established Columbia's San Francisco recording studio. In 1975 he left those studios for ABC Recording Studios, where he worked with new acts and established ABC artists as producer, engineer or both.  His first project was the Mark-Almond Band.

In 1985, Halee went with Paul Simon to South Africa to record something new that, he said, "wasn't written yet, we were going with nothing, so it was a gamble. A lot of people thought we were nuts." It led to the Grammy Award-winning album Graceland. "I was having a ball recording these guys. For a guy from my background, everything was so organised generally. Here in the rawness of this, the earthiness, I was in seventh heaven." After Graceland, Roy Halee continued travelling with Simon as an engineer, to Brazil and West Africa, for the album The Rhythm of the Saints, with "all congas, bass drums, bata...everything imaginable." He has continued working with Simon.

In 2001, Halee was named to the TEC Awards Hall of Fame.

The King 👑

 

              Robert Fripp turns 78 years old, today 🥂🥂🥂💫💫💫💎💎💎

Happy birthday, Maestro 🥂

Johanna Martzy’s 100th anniversary edition 💎💫💎

 

These 100% made in Switzerland 🇨🇭 masterpieces are a true musical statement, a labor of love of my friend Jürg Schopper whose good taste and unique tape library are world renowned.

He was able in decades of collecting and - literally - rescuing thousands of master tapes from being trashed by recording studios, defunct labels and radios, private collections, festivals and state-owned collections.

Now these gems are kept in a temperature and humidity controlled archive and the process of evaluating ALL these recordings is a lifetime effort… many long forgotten gems are found and the best are painstakingly made available to music lovers worldwide.

Many great recordings were already issued, in a typically uncompromising Swiss fashion: ultra-limited edition 1:1 reel to reel masterdubs or extremely limited edition vinyl-discs, all with comprehensive musical and technical liner-notes, beautiful pictures and high quality Swiss-made pressings.

A Tibor Varga’s Saint-Saëns/Albinoni is a personal fave and a gem every music lover should own 💎

The volcanic Herr Schopper and his Triston label - after the awesome Yello’s reissue on tape masterdub presented at last Munchen HiEnd 2024 and almost sold-out - did it again and published - up to-date - three of four AWESOME Radio Zurich Johanna Martzy’s recordings  and they are of highest quality, a true must-have.

These the track-lists… the discs are amazing in every aspect: almost nobody (but the enthusiast and not-compromising lunatic 😏) produces records the old way, from analog master-tapes to mastering, plating and pressing… no digital gimmick!

The violin is captured at its best and Mrs. Martzy’s playing is first-rate and a truly well-kept secret among music connoisseurs, a violinist’s violinist, indeed.

I suggest everybody interested in stellar quality music and golden-ears around to believe yours truly and grab these triptych before the very limited edition goes sold-out.

Unfortunately, I had to play these amazing discs on a lesser home audio system as my Gotorama (as I extensively described) is dismantled and in storage… but I can assure these beauties will be among the first I’ll spin on my Garrardzilla, hopefully soon.

A Love Supreme 💫

 

Rare as it can be 💫

Sooooooo saaaaad news 😥😥😥 John Mayall passed away 😥😥😥

 

I swear: I’m right now listening to beloved “Bare Wires” and yesterday I enjoyed “USA Union” and “Blues from Laurel Canyon”… and I just read the news.

John Mayall has been a constant musical presence for me since early ‘70s when I discovered his “The Turning Point” and  “Jazz Blues Fusion”, and then all his amazing recordings, a true goldmine and a smooth soundtrack of my whole life.

I’m really, really sad… he was 90 years old, but what the heck! you don’t think Mount Everest will never die!

Here is an obituary (cut&paste) from JM official site.

“ It is with heavy hearts that we bear the news that John Mayall passed away peacefully in his California home yesterday, July 22, 2024, surrounded by loving family. Health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of this world’s greatest road warriors. John Mayall gave us ninety years of tireless efforts to educate, inspire and entertain.

In a 2014 interview with The Guardian, John reflected, “[blues] is about – and it’s always been about – that raw honesty with which [it expresses] our experiences in life, something which all comes together in this music, in the words as well. Something that is connected to us, common to our experiences.” That raw honesty, connection, community and playing of his will continue to affect the music and culture we experience today, and for generations to come.”
RIP, dear John 💫💎💫 you made myself and countless others happy with your burnished nice voice and music 💫🥇🔝🙏🙏🙏💫

Wolfgang Dauner - Output (ECM 1006 - 1970)

 

This was my first (of hundreds to come) ECMs’… this disc and music sure changed my life!

I vaguely remember I was - of course - attracted by the cover; the shop owner in Padua never listened to it neither he knew nothing about label and artist.

A young daredevil me felt confident to spend the hideous 3000 lire price-tag and rushing at home to listen to this newly found 💎.

The disc sounded quite stodgy to my young, virgin ears… nonetheless, a piece - i.e. “Mudations” - first track of side one, captured my senses and I remember I listened to it repeatedly, while my mom sometimes opened my room door and stared at me, with worried eyes… this music was “this” strange and alien.

I kept my nerves and absorbed this completely new nectar…

 

Then - some months after this epiphany - I bought my second ECM’s Ralph Towner’s “Trios/Solos”… and I was hooked for the life.

Strange or not, this first ECM’s also opened my doors of perception toward (now so-called) Krautrock: Tangerine Dreams, Popol Vuh, Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Temple.

So: thanks Manfred Eicher and Wolfgang Dauner 💫💫💫