Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets
I picked this up and in the first 30 seconds, I was hooked. As a piece of rock n roll genealogy, it's fantastic: you can hear some of the campy glam rock of Roxy Music (Eno's previous band) in some songs, but you can also clearly hear stuff that foreshadows experimental rock of every era since in there, too. This sounds like Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah. This sounds like Broken Social Scene. Bauhaus probably liked this song. And this is essentially the piano line to Bob Seger's "Still The Same", over and over (though it predates Seger's by 4 years). And, even better, it's a great listen without paying attention to any of that.
Robert Fripp - Exposure
In the late 70's Robert Fripp, long done with the Red-era version of King Crimson, was busy doing guest appearances on records by Blondie, Talking Heads, Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Eno, etc.. And in 79, he started work on a solo record. To support him, he hooked up with various vocalists and drummers and with session bassist Tony Levin. And they made a double album called "Exposure". This was a couple of years before he rebooted King Crimson with Levin, Adrian Belew and Bill Bruford, but it's clear that Fripp was already in that experimental new-wave mode. And it's also clear that he was already fiddling around with some of the things that would become those new KC songs. So, it's interesting in that way. But, that's about as far as I can get with it.
Parquet Floors - Light Up Gold
There's a long prickly branch of the R&R family tree that starts with the Velvet Underground, MC5 and the Stooges in the 60s; it goes on to produce The Modern Lovers, Wire, The Buzzcocks and The Fall in the 70s and 80s; in the 90s it gave us bands like Pavement and Yo La Tengo and Sleater Kinney. Well, Parquet Floors is right on the end of that branch. You know the sound: quick, simple almost-pop songs with shouted lyrics and often dissonant guitars, a rhythm section that can put its head down and keep things moving despite frequent squalls of feedback from the guys up front. They're at their most fun when they cut way on melody and turn up the energy. But I dig their slower tunes, too. Good to see that branch is still alive and still growing.
et tu?
This week I accidentally discovered the 2005 remaster of Remain in Light by Talking Heads. Bloody hell. It sounds fantastic! Way better than the rip of my 80s CD I’ve been listening to all these years. Damn. I’m going to have to listen to all the other remastered Talking Heads stuff now. And all those Bowie albums that have had the same treatment. Not fair.
Got talking to a guy at work who is a real audiophile. He tells me he finds the 256kbps MP3 remasters of this stuff sounds better than the FLACs of the original issue CDs. Which is crazy. And it’s not just volume: I’m hearing things I’ve never heard in the mix. It’s magic. But it also makes me want to buy this stuff all over again. Because the physical format is dead they will just keep remastering every few years and sucker you into opening your wallet.
I also came across a version of Bowie’s Life on Mars from a gig he played in Boston in 1972. It’s incredible: his vocal is perfect. I have a live version of the same song from later in the same tour (Santa Monica) where he sounds *knackered*. A great find. Sadly his record company have been pulling this rare stuff from all the big online stores as they have a new box set of his early stuff to hawk: but it’s missing some of these gems. This is why you should buy your music people! Tracks disappear from Spotify/iTunes/etc. *all the time* at the behest of record labels. You have been warned.
yeah, i have that RiL remaster, too. and it does sound great. i have the ’99 remaster of Hunky Dory, but i don’t have any earlier version to compare to.
yes! always buy your music – and back it up, if you buy digital copies ! a portable 2TB drive for backups is cheaper than replacing four albums!
Yeh, I have backups all over the place. NAS at home, plus I’ve uploaded everything to both Amazon and Google. Plus all those actual CDs slowly deteriorating in my garage (some of the really old ones are now unreadable.)
that’s a sad thought. i have dozens (hundreds?) of CDs i still need to rip, but haven’t bothered doing. hope i get the energy before entropy has its way with them.