Vinyl Record Architect
Paul Rosenblatt's weblog on vinyl records, music, and architecture.
Vinyl Record Architect
Pittsburgh is a Vinyl Town
Okay, it's official. Pittsburgh is a vinyl town, a great vinyl town. What is a great vinyl town? A vinyl town is a place that has more than a few great record stores, a place where prices are reasonable and the selection is varied. A vinyl town is a place that you might go out of your way to visit and not be disappointed by the number of record stores, the condition of the records available, and the prices.
According to these criteria, Pittsburgh definitely has it going on as a vinyl town.
Cities like New York City have sent most of its best record stores out of business or to nearby boroughs like Brooklyn. The rents are too high and the record stores apparently have to charge exorbitant prices just to pay their bills. That stinks for vinyl enthusiasts like me that would rather dig into crates of cheap records and dollar bins anyway, but who might also value a fairly priced obscurity that is in their sights....but New York was never really a vinyl town, because there are too many other things New York is!
A Vinyl Town is by definition defined as much by vinyl as by anything else. By my definition, that is, created right here and now.
Once upon a time long, long ago Pittsburgh was a steel town but those days are past. Today, Pittsburgh is a burgeoning hipster Mecca, rife with cool new restaurants and bars, used bookstores and cafes, and, yes, more than a few record stores.
To start with, there is Jerry's Records, in Squirrel Hill, one of the country's greatest pure record stores. No CDs here. Just vinyl as far as the eye can see. Jerry is the king of vinyl town. Undisputed. There is no one else who even comes close.
But if Jerry were the only vinyl record purveyor in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh wouldn't be a vinyl town. No, one store does not a town make.
Today, Pittsburgh offers so many vinyl shopping options that I have started calling it a vinyl town. In addition to Jerry's there is The Attic in Millville, Mind Cure on Polish Hill, Rather Ripped and Unifaun in Lawrenceville, Sound Cat in Bloomfield, and Dave's Music Mine on the South Side.
You could easily spend a few days digging into these varied record stores, large and small.
Which, to me, makes Pittsburgh a vinyl town, A great vinyl town in fact. Come visit and judge for yourself.
Do you know or live in a vinyl town? Tell me about it and I'll plan a visit.
Save the Date - Jerry's Second Annual Vinyl Palooza June 15-17, 2013
Last year's Vinyl Palooza was amazing - so many dollar records, plus vendors from all over with all kinds of records - rarities and bargains - including Whistlin' Willie's 78s!
I am planning on being there and hopefully, you can make it, too.
I'll be writing more about the event in the coming weeks, which is more than a month a way, but wanted to make sure you knew about it now, if you are doing some traveling or have complicated weekends and are juggling multiple responsibilities!
I have alot going on these days, too, but hope to schedule some kind of a special event for my readers, so stay tuned!
Re-Organizing Your Collection
Since I started collecting records I have used only two organizational systems. A straight alphabetical system and no system at all. Is that one or two systems - is randomness a system? Anyway. In both instances, I could find my records when I needed to, but my collection was much smaller before I started alphabetizing. Alphabetizing should be ideal. If you know the name of the artist you are looking for, you'll be able to find the record. Great system, no?
Well, no, not really. When you are looking for a book in the library, or a file in your cabinet, an alpha system is great. But when you are looking for an album, you are probably playing your album, and then another and another. So, your search needs to be more fluid.
In my alpha system The Housemartins sit right in front of Freddie Hubbard. If you are into eclectic music mixes this could be cool. or maybe not...
To be honest, I have already separated out most of the jazz albums. But everything else is in one 26 parcel section, A-Z. My country, folk, blues, pop, rock, and garage all live together. My 'big' names - The Beatles, The Stones, The Beach Boys, etc - are in there with everyone else. Okay, fine. No big deal, easy enough to find.
But, I have been thinking that it might be fun to have all my 1960s era psych albums - famous and obscure - together for comparative listening purposes. And all of my old time country albums together. And soul. And folk. And..well, you get the idea.
Like a record store. Record stores always separated genres. Why not my collection, too?
Don't Judge a Record by Its Cover!
One of the poorest looking album covers I've seen in a long time, but a great lost psych album of 1970 nevertheless. the album has everything - psych, prog, jazz, blue grass - even - unfortunately - bagpipes.
Yep, bagpipes.
I apologize to whoever designed this back in 1970. I really do. But you have to admit, a bit homely in relation to the great art that came to be associated with the history of recorded pop music. Imagine this album cover competing for attention on record store shelves and displays.
Most vinyl fans like me extol the virtues of the sound of vinyl and the pleasures of holding and perusing the lavish square twelve inch cardboard sleeves that we call album covers. Many collectors show off beautiful or unusual album covers which contain questionable or uninteresting music. Sometimes these beautiful or striking covers even enclose great music, seminal or accomplished or entertaining or rocking...that is the holy grail, the ideal confluence of visual design and musical concept or experience. Think Sgt.Pepper, or Disraeli Gears, or - really an endless list of combinations of great music and cover art.
That is typically, what collectors celebrate.
Of course. Album art is so iconic.
There are dozens of books filled with wonderful cover art. It is practically an industry in itself.
And yet, sometimes the cover art falls short but NOT the music. Sometimes the music is great, but the cover is not. Not hot.
Really not.
Like this strange but wonderful album by JF Murphy & Free Flowing Salt, Almost Home. with really not hot album art....
They could have used some help with their name as well, I dare say!
But what you can hear....
What am I listening to tonight? After All - 1970 Florida Psych
http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=1577367&style=music&fulldesc=T
Great Song: Angel from Montgomery
Brave woman.
Short Cut: Willie Nile
Another critic,Dave Akamoto, in his Music Hound Rock: The Essential Album Guide, described this 1980 debut album by Buffalo native Willie Nile as "as one of the most thrilling post-Byrds folk-rock albums of all time."
Led to his touring with Pete Townshend and the Who on the basis of this record..
Probably worth a listen, don't you think? Oh, yeah!
Start with the elegiac ballad, Across The River, or Sing Me A Song... or...Oh, heck, it's an ALBUM. Listen to the whole darn thing from beginning to end, start to finish on VINYL, why not? I am....Poignant dynamics from track to track, some hard and rocking, some soft and sweet, with Patti Smith Band's Jay Dee Daugherty laying down the beat on drums and percussion.
You'll either get hooked or you won't. I did.
Short Cut: Just a Story From America by Elliott Murphy
Elliott was one of the poor young souls saddled with the 'New Dylan' wish fulfillment label for fifteen minutes. He has more than survived to play more than a hundred shows a year ever since. He is a legend in France, and should be here. He and a guy named Bruce were reviewed together in the Rolling Stone by critic Paul Nelson before Bruce was Bruce. Their lives have been intertwined ever since as he describes in his story, Bruce and Me:
http://www.elliottmurphy.com/writings/springsteen.html
I was introduced to Elliott Murphy's timeless music by a college friend who took me to see a show - at Toad's Place I want to say - and I have been hooked off and on ever since. More off, to be sure, since Elliot's music hasn't bowed to trends, while my taste, embarrassingly, has. But I am back for the duration, I feel, listening back to some of the beautiful music I missed.
Like 'Caught Short in the Long Run' on this classic album.
Sweet, smart and more than a bit conscious of the power of rock 'n roll, the songs echo this history, our love affair with rock 'n roll. Drive All Night, Rock Ballad (with Mick Taylor on lead guitar), Darlin' (And She Called Me) resonate with 50s rock 'n roll and 60s Brill Building without sounding old.
Still sounds pretty fresh today.
Album cover by Pentagram's Paula Scher. She designed a few classics!
Short Cut: David Blue's Cupid's Arrow
Beautiful, melancholy music by the legendary troubadour, David Blue. The house is empty and his voice, which was much loved by the likes of Leonard Cohen, fills the gaps. Levon Helm, Duck Dunn, Jesse Ed Davis, David Lindley and many others help out. Produced by Barry Goldberg, who also plays a little organ here. Essential: Cordelia - "I need ya/I need ya/I wonder did you ever know." Slow and soulful...
Command Records Features Josef Albers: Record Album Artist
Legendary Bauhaus artist and educator Josef Albers, the man behind the 'Homage to the Square' color studies and one of the world's most influential artists and educators, designed record album covers.
I recently discovered Enoch Light's Command Records, an early sixties experiment in sound recording and chill jazz. While some consider Light's records MOR (middle of the road) shlock, others like me enjoy his so called 'Bachelor Pad Music.' Admittedly, you have to be in the right mood. Maybe a martini helps. Imagine what is playing in the background of the 'Mad Men' bachelor pads and you'll get the idea.
I probably wouldn't be that interested if it were not for the meticulous attention Light payed to the recordings and to the gatefold album covers which contain them, many designed by major graphic designers and artists of the era.
Including none other than Josef Albers.
Albers' covers reflect his characteristic abstract, geometric studies grounded in the Bauhaus. The percussion albums he covers especially fit the designs he created.
How many other album covers are truly works of art? How many were actually designed by artists? I can think of the work of the Hipgnosis team, Paula Scher, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha - even Andy Warhol designed a few album covers.
Think of Sticky Fingers.
