The Daily Vinyl Blog

Life has been busy in “The Dude’s” world. I have several vinyl videos filmed and ready to be edited and uploaded. Just trying to get the time. Sorry my Vinyl Video fans…! Coming soon, I promise.

In the meantime, I thought I’d talk about some cool things I want to get.

#1 — BOOK: Drugs, Divorce and a Slipping Image – The Complete, Unauthorized Story of The Beatles’ ‘Get Back’ Sessions
I own the previous version of this book entitled “Get Back: the unauthorized… somethingsomtheingsomething.” And what a facinating read! It chronicled every musical performance during the recording & filming of The Beatles when they were creating the Get Back/Let It Be record in January 1969. The tapes were rolling and they were jamming all sorts of songs. Some of which I have acquired (primarily “Thirty Days” – a 17 CD set and various other sources). Apparently, this version has been completely re-written with more source material located.

2. — CD: Doves – The Places Between (The Best Of Doves) – 2CD + DVD!

Anyone following The Daily Vinyl knows that The Dude LOVES Doves! I cannot get enough of this band. This best of collection looks awesome. Although I do have all their albums & several b-sides, there is a DVD included with 13 music videos. (None feature The Daily Vinyl, unfortuately, but you can see the one I made for “Kingdom of Rust” and “Winter Hill” here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHwhJqsXRfM

3) DVD: Lagaan – Once Upon a Time in India

Ok, so my two little girls watched the movie which we borrowed from a friend. It’s four hours long and they completely hang with this Bollywood flick. The music is amazing (which is their favorite part.) It’s by A.R. Rahman, whom I just discovered. He also did the music for Slumdog Millionaire

4) 1/8″ or Headphone extension cable. So check this out. It’s only 1 cent! I’m totally getting, like, 2!

5) Book – yep another Beatles book. This looks fascinating too!

Let me know if you check any of these things out.

In a word, the new Peter Gabriel album is Haunting. 53 minutes of voice, piano and orchestra. It’s dark. And mysteriously sinister throughout the 12 cover tunes. The “Scratch My Back” project has Peter Gabriel performing completely stripped-down arrangements of tunes by other artists. These 12 artists will then cover Peter’s original compositions on the to-be-released album “I’ll Scratch Yours.” Clever. You need to be in the mood for sure. But if you are, you will captivated, drawn-in, almost afraid to pull away. Because you might miss something important. And that’s the key. Is this album something important? Time will tell.

Gabriel has a knack for changing the course of music every decade. His experimentation with drum sounds and world music in the early 80’s was underratedly influential. The production of the 1986 album “So” changed what was expected in terms of a perfectly mixed album. In 1992 he released “Us” which changed how loops were used and the production was a bit, dare I say it, grundgy. Gabriel was also the first person I saw sport a goatee in the 90’s. Perhaps his influence in the 2000’s were minimal, but certainly his pursuit of international artists have exposed more than 65 performers to the rest of world.

So here we are, 2010. How will this deeply intense record effect the next 10 years of music. There are no drums, percussion, guitars, bass guitar, synthesizers. Perhaps the I-cover-your-song/you-cover-mine will be the more influential element here?

Here is the track listing with the original artists

1. “Heroes” – David Bowie 4:10
2. “The Boy in the Bubble” – Paul Simon 4:28
3. “Mirrorball” – Elbow 4:48
4. “Flume” – Bon Iver 3:01
5. “Listening Wind” – Talking Heads 4:23
6. “The Power of the Heart” – Lou Reed 5:52
7. “My Body Is a Cage” – Arcade Fire 6:13
8. “The Book of Love” – The Magnetic Fields 3:53
9. “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” – Randy Newman 2:34
10. “Après moi” – Regina Spektor 5:13
11. “Philadelphia” – Neil Young 3:46
12. “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” – Radiohead 5:06

Stephin Merritt’s (The Magnetic Fields’ frontman) has covered “Not One Of Us” and Paul Simon’s version of “Biko” is expected to be the second release on March 28. Both songs are from Gabriel’s 3rd self-titled album. Radiohead will be covering “Wallflower” from Gabriel’s 4th self-titled album.

I rate the album 4 out of 5 record sleeves.

There are two versions available. The Deluxe version w/ a 2nd disc of remixes:

And the standard single-disc version:

Pick one up, fer sure! Let me know if you do.

This classic soul number was performed by Peter Gabriel in Chicago 1979. It was released on the Bristol Recorder. Which was apparently a record with a magazine attached to the gatefold sleeve and produced in Bristol, UK. This was the 2nd volume released like this. To my knowledge, this recording is NOT AVAILABLE ANYWHERE! (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)

Peter’s notes on this track (and references to 2 other live songs “Not One Of Us” and “Humdrum” for possible future TheDailyVinyl release) are as follows:
“A cassette recording featuring my Alexis Korner impersonation on the intro. The band were Tony Levin: bass. Larry Fast: synthesiser. Allan Schwartzberg: drums. Jimmy Maelen: percussion. Phil Aaberg: piano. Steve Hunter: lead guitar. Robert Fripp: rhythm guitar (partly concealed). These cassettes were dug out of the live cassette box, so the quality of sound is rough. Certain of the vocal bits made me cringe so I spent a little time ‘doctoring’ ‘Not One Of Us’ and ‘Ain’t That Peculiar.’ In the profession, we call this cheating.” (You can hear how his vocals are “double tracked”)

Pre-order the new Peter Gabriel record “Scratch My Back”

Description on Amazon:
Peter Gabriel s Scratch My Back album project is the first part of a series of song exchanges in which Gabriel and other leading artists reinterpret each other s songs. To help craft his recording of the album s eclectic array of cult favorites and classic tracks, Gabriel enlisted former Durutti Column member John Metcalfe, composer, arranger and the expertise of producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd’s The Wall , Lou Reed’s Berlin ) and engineer, mixer and producer Tchad Blake (Suzanne Vega, Sheryl Crow, Tom Waits).

Gabriel describes this as a very personal record with twelve songs performed only with orchestral instruments and voice. He made the choice not to include guitar or drums. The album’s richly diverse sounds include the sparse romance of Lou Reed’s The Power of the Heart , the powerful musical journey of David Bowie’s Heroes and an epic arrangement of Arcade Fire’s My Body Is A Cage. Gabriel and his collaborators recorded the album at George Martin’s Air Lyndhurst Studios and the Real World Temple with further editing and mixing at his own Real Worlds Studio in Wiltshire. The Scratch My Back release is one of the most creative and engaging records from an iconic artist in a long time. The marketing focus is to penetrate Peter Gabriel’s core fan base as well as fans of all genres and in all demographics given the scope of artists being covered as well as its depth of composition.

Here is the complete track listing:
1. Heroes (David Bowie)
2. The Boy In The Bubble (Paul Simon)
3. Mirrorball (Elbow)
4. Flume (Bon Iver)
5. Listening Wind (Talking Heads)
6. The Power Of The Heart (Lou Reed)
7. My Body Is A Cage (Arcade Fire)
8. The Book Of Love (The Magnetic Fields)
9. I Think It’s Going To Rain Today (Randy Newman)
10. Apres Moi (Regina Spektor)
11. Philadelphia (Neil Young)
12. Street Spirit (Fade Out) (Radiohead)

The Deluxe special edition has a 2nd disc with:
1. The Book Of Love (Remix)
2. My Body Is A Cage (Oxford London Temple Version)
3. Waterloo Sunset (The Kinks) (Oxford London Temple Version)
4. Heroes (Wildebeest Mix)

The Release Date is March 2nd!!!

By NATALIE ROTMAN, Associated Press Writer Natalie Rotman, Associated Press Writer – Mon Nov 30, 10:24 am ET
LOS ANGELES – Tom Petty has grown up, but not too much.

The 59-year-old spent a year going through thousands of hours of live concert recordings covering Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ tours across three decades.

The result is “The Live Anthology” — not a greatest hits album, but a multiple-disc set. There are no overdubs, and the notorious perfectionist can now see why his hard-driven mates were “a good little rock ‘n’ roll band.”

Petty, who said the process was like looking at a family photo album, talks about how watching three films a day helped hone his acclaimed music videos and how his love of English as a kid helped him write some of America’s most beloved rock songs.

____

The Associated Press: What made you want to pull out hours and hours of tape?

Tom Petty: Well, it seemed like a good time to do it and I thought it would be a chore in a way. I started to do it and I just fell in love with the project. … I spent a year digging out stuff and mixing it. It was great. It was like looking at a photo album, but you can all be in the picture.

AP: Did you ever get overwhelmed?

Petty: Well, you can. But we knew we had plenty of time to do it. So, we just went bit by bit and pretty soon into the project, we told them that this wasn’t going to fit on two CDs. … To get an idea of what the band was and is, there is a lot of stuff you have to hear to take in an accurate document of all those years.

AP: Did you find anything that surprised you about yourself going through all that footage?

Petty: I was surprised that we were as good as we were. I really didn’t listen to us when we were back in our 20s and starting out. It was a really good little rock and roll band. I see why it caught on.

AP: What inspires your writing?

Petty: I always did really well in English in school. … I like language. I like words. … For the longest time, I think, everything I did I wrote the music, and the words just kind of flowed in at the same time. As time went by, I started to concentrate more and more on the lyric and try to make that better and better.

AP: Your videos are iconic. Did that come from your love of film?

Petty: I probably watch three or four movies a day. … I love film. It wasn’t hard to make something better than everyone else. … I was amazed at just how bad MTV was. … Terrible videos and terrible songs, and most people made them almost all the same. … I thought let’s just get out of the box here and do something different.

AP: What do you think this all means? This album, this life that you have been handed?

Petty: It was a gift I was given and what it means I don’t know. Johnny Cash once told me, he said, “It was a noble job.” And I said, “Really?” And he said, “Well, it makes a lot of people happy.” … It does. It makes a lot of people happy. You can lose sight of that. People come to me and stop me on the street and tell me how some song played some role in their life or how it got them through a hard time or this and that and I just think, “Damn, that’s what it is about.”

___

On the Net:

http://www.tompetty.com

Sweet… 4 CDs for only $21!

Did you ever get into the late 90′s britpop thing? I really got into BLUR. I didn’t “get” them until I heard “Song 2″ (which you may know as the one that goes “WOO-HOO! When I feel heavy metal. WOO-HOO! And I”m pins and I’m needles. WOO-HOO!…”) Suddenly it all made sense to me. But I haven’t listened to them in probably 8 years. I link to this 2 CD set popped-up in my Facebook ads and I really enjoyed listening to all the samples. SO many songs I forgot about completely! Songs like “Blue Jeans” “Badhead” and “Strange News from Another Star”. Brilliant stuff. I’m glad I had some distance from it, but I think I’m ready to pick it up again.

If you aren’t familiar with their stuff, listen to samples here.

The Dude really wants to know what you think of it. Does it sound dated to you? Do you dig it?

You listening to anything new that you’d like to share with the class?