Monthly Archives: March 2018

Purchase log, 2018-03-27

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

Catalog

CDs
  • 808 State, Ex:el
  • Carole King, Tapestry
  • Guadalcanal Diary, Flip-Flop
  • Shudder to Think, Pony Express Record
  • Squeeze, Babylon and On
  • Terence Trent D’arby, Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’arby
Vinyl
  • French Kaiser Frith Thompson, Live, Love, Larf & Loaf
  • The Human League, Crash

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Thank you, Russ Solomon

[Tower Records: No Music, No Life]

This site owes its existence to Russ Solomon, the founder of Tower Records who died on March 11 while watching the Oscars and drinking whiskey, according to reports.

I’ve already mentioned how Pulse magazine shaped my listening habits. The magazine also inspired me to become a music reviewer.

Jackson Griffith wrote columns for the magazine using a series of aliases. His writing style could be inscrutable and long-winded, but it was also humorous and, for avowed non-reader as myself back in high school, endlessly fascinating.

When I started writing reviews for the school paper, I tried — with little success — to emulate Griffith’s style. By the time I reached college, the greater lesson sank in: write like yourself, not that I had a clue who I was. The advent of the Internet allowed me to become my own publisher, and I’ve been subjecting you poor readers to these opinions for some 18 years now.

In college, I would receive promotional albums to review, but I could never get behind them. I could only write about items I bought with my own money, and back then, most of those items were bought at Tower Records. It was a lovely racket — Pulse spurred me to write about music, and Tower provided the product to do so.

I would read stories about how Walmart was the only place in town to buy music, which horrified me. Department store music sections were temples of mediocrity compared to the cornucopia found at Tower. I counted my lucky stars I could take the bus to a store that would stock albums by John Zorn, Joan Tower and In Tua Nua.

And while the Honolulu stores did their darnedest to have breadth and depth, Pulse hinted more was available that would never reach the islands. Early music e-commerce sites CD Now and Music Boulevard would chip away at Tower’s hold on my spending.

After I moved to Austin, my allegiance shifted to Waterloo Records and Amazon. I would later discover Tower didn’t have a monopoly on the idea of far ranging stock. Waterloo, Amoeba, Music Millennium, Silver Platters — the experience of Tower lives on.

So thank you, Russ Solomon, for connecting a precocious teen-ager to a lifetime of music fandom, financial ruin and obscure punditry.

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Purchase log, 2018-03-20

[Roxy Music - Avalon]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

This past weekend was the annual Big Book Sale by the Friends of the Seattle Public Library, so I should have enough music to last me for weeks, right? Right.

Catalog

CDs
  • Anita Baker, Giving You the Best That I Got
  • Beastie Boys, Check Your Head
  • Victor Borge, Live(!)
  • Glenn Branca, Symphony No. 2: Peak of the Sacred
  • Cameo, Word Up!
  • Capercaillie, Secret People
  • John Coltrane, Giant Steps
  • John Coltrane, Meditations
  • John Coltrane, My Favorite Things
  • John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
  • Eazy-E, Eazy-Duz-It
  • Bill Evans Trio, Waltz for Debby
  • Fugazi, End Hits
  • Peter Gabriel, Shaking the Tree
  • Guns N’ Roses, G N’ R Lies
  • Heart, Bad Animals
  • The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced?
  • Ketsumeshi, Ketsunopolis 4
  • LL Cool J, Mama Said Knock You Out
  • Milt Jackson and John Coltrane, Bags and Trane
  • Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark
  • Morrissey, The Best of Morrissey
  • Mother Love Bone, Mother Love Bone
  • Nirvana, Incesticide
  • Robert Palmer, Clues
  • Prince, Musicology
  • R.E.M., Dead Letter Office
  • Radiohead, The Bends
  • Rage Against the Machine, Rage Against the Machine
  • Einojuhani Rautvaara, Symphony No. 7: Angel of Light / Annunciations
  • Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus
  • Roxy Music, Avalon (Remastered)
  • Soundgarden, Ultramega OK
  • Bruce Springsteen, The Rising
  • They Might Be Giants, Flood
  • TLC, Ooooooohhh… On the TLC Tip
  • Värttinä, Seleniko
  • Soundtrack, Pride and Prejudice
DVD
  • Tokyo Jihen, Dynamite Out

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The Ones That Nearly Got Away: Various Artists, Common Ground

[Various Artists - Common Ground: Voices in Modern Irish Music]

In an attempt to ride the successful coattails of Clannad and Enya during the 1990s, labels attempted to package Celtic music as the next new thing in world music.

While folk labels such as Green Linnet and Shanachie played up their indigenous creds, major labels opted for the safety of crossovers. So in 1996, EMI released a compilation titled Common Ground: Voices of Modern Irish Music.

The intent was simple enough — survey the various forms in which Irish music takes, ranging from such traditionalists as Davey Spillane and Dónal Lunny to superstars in the form of Bono and Adam Clayton of U2.

Of course, Máire Brennan opens the compilation with a traditional song sung in Irish and arranged for a pop band. After that, the concept splinters. The big names — Elvis Costello, Sinéad O’Connor, Tim and Neil Finn, Bono and Adam Clayton — stay in their pop music realms, while the traditionalists remain in theirs.

When the twain meet, it doesn’t come across as organic as it ought to. Brian Kennedy and O’Connor turn in nice performances of their respective traditional choices, but that’s all they are … nice. They aren’t illuminating nor particularly daring.

Kate Bush, on the other hand, takes the biggest leap, singing in Irish, and Liam Ó Manolaí of Hothouse Flowers tackles mouth music in a searing performance.

Otherwise, the parts don’t really add up to a very compelling sum.

When I spotted a copy of this compilation at the Lifelong Thrift Store selling for $1, I had forgotten why I let it go, considering the inclusion of Bush, Brennan and a number of Irish musicians I followed at the time.

After listening to it again, I’m reminded of the Chieftains attempt to do something similar with their album The Long, Black Veil. They couldn’t make it work either.

Crossover is fraught with all sorts of issues about appropriation and performance practice, and in the title alone, Common Ground takes too diplomatic a stance. I would rather see these musicians mix it up further, blurring distinctions entirely or embracing roles furthest outside of their comfort zones.

 

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Purchase log, 2018-03-13

[Tracey Thorn - Record]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

New Releases

CDs
  • Tracey Thorn, Record

Catalog

CDs
  • Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Trout Mask Replica
  • Elvis Costello, Brutal Youth
  • M.I.A., Arular
  • Madonna, MDNA
  • Robert Palmer, Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley
  • Radiohead, In Rainbows
  • The Roots, Things Fall Apart
  • Stephen Sondheim, Company (Original Cast Recording)

 

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Rewind: Benjamin Gibbard and Andrew Kenny, Home, Vol. 5

[Benjamin Gibbard and Andrew Kenny - Home, Vol. 5]

A few weeks back, I spotted a used copy of Home, Vol. 5, a split EP between Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and Andrew Kenny of American Analog Set.

I listened to that EP quite a lot when it was first released, but I never got around to picking up a physical copy. It’s been nearly 15 years since it came out, and I had to listen to it on Google Play to remind myself what drew me to it.

I barely remembered that I actually wrote a review for it in the earliest incarnation of this site.

Home, Vol. 5 holds up really well, and while my writing about it was clumsy and stilted, the conclusions still bear out.

Gibbard had a really good year in 2003. Death Cab for Cutie would release its best album, Transatlanticism, that year, and Gibbard’s collaboration on the Postal Service would also prove fruitful. On Home, Vol. 5, he already sounds ready for a major label budget.

But Andrew Kenny’s quiet delivery and darker writing lingers much longer. When Gibbard sings Kenny’s “Choir Vandals”, he’s forced to turn the wattage on his demeanor, and when Kenny takes on Gibbard’s “Line of Best Fit”, he’s not browbeated to be more than he is.

Split EPs are economical for labels, but at their worst, they result in clumsy pairings. Home, Vol. 5 avoids that pitfall by allowing Gibbard and Kenny to inhabit different corners of the same aesthetic space.

The sparse instrumentation and light production make the EP cohesive without impinging on their distinct styles.

Rewind takes a look at past Musicwhore.org reviews to see how they hold up today. The albums featured on Rewind were part of my collection, then sold for cash only to be reacquired later.

 

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Purchase log, 2018-03-06

[My Bloody Valentine - Loveless]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

New Releases

Vinyl
  • Shiina Ringo, Gyakuyunyuu ~Koukuukyoku~

Catalog

CDs
  • Andrew Lloyd Webber, Song and Dance (Original Cast Live)
  • Billy Bragg and Wilco, Mermaid Avenue
  • Jeff Buckley, Grace
  • Freedy Johnston, Right Between the Promises
  • Joni Mitchell, Ladies of the Canyon
  • My Bloody Valentine, m b v
  • Robert Palmer, Addictions, Vol. 1
  • Ride, Nowhere
  • R.E.M., And I Feel Fine: The Best of the I.R.S. Years (Deluxe Edition)
  • Roxy Music, Roxy Music
  • Soundgarden, Badmotorfinger
  • Texas, Mother’s Heaven
  • Texas, Southside

Reissues

Vinyl
  • Annie Lennox, Diva
  • My Bloody Valentine, Loveless (2018 Remaster)

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Achievement unlocked: the first collection purge since 2012

[James Blake - The Colour in Anything]

In 2013, I was ready but reluctant to turn my music collection over to the digital services. My ripped library had been backed up to Google Play, and my waning interest in new releases meant my shelves filled slowly.

Then I got bit by the vinyl bug and doubled down on physical product.

It’s taken a few years, but I’m reminded now of a big drawback to ownership — space constraints.

In short, I’ve run out of shelf space, and I have little room to add more shelves.

So I’ve had to resort to a collection purge. The last time I did one was right before I moved to Seattle in 2012. Those posts about the ones that nearly got away? Well, I’m letting a few titles do exactly that.

Many of the purged discs are actually redundancies — old pressings of albums that have been remastered or expanded into deluxe editions.

But those thrift store bargains that led me to explore something unfamiliar? Some of them ended up as duds. And as cheaply as I acquired them, I can’t say letting them go is much sweet sorrow.

In the case of James Blake’s The Colour in Anything, which I bought when it was released, I should have stuck with my initial impression and left it on the store rack. (Metaphorically speaking — I ordered it from Amazon.)

When I made the decision to keep collecting — even when market forces would rather I rent — I told myself I’d keep the purges to a minimum. It’s hard not to second-guess myself when trying to decide how much I like an album occupying some much needed room. The ambivalent choices are the toughest.

But sometimes, spring cleaning is in order.

In trying to find some old files from college, I ran across some ancient spreadsheets which documented albums I had nearly forgotten I owned. I turned that info into a private list on Discogs.

In a fit of nostalgia, I tracked down some of those lost titles online — and reminded myself why many of them remain lost.

Titles I’ve welcomed back into my collection needed a change of context to let me know what I gave up. Other titles will never be that lucky.

All is not really lost, though. I still have more than enough room on the external hard drive for the rips of those departed albums to remain. And I still have my Google Play subscription.

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