Led Zeppelin in a day

Not long ago I decide to listen to all of the Led Zeppelin albums back to back in a single day and write a couple of micro reviews on Facebook.

Led Zeppelin - "I" thoughts: The album starts off with a bang, the sound of a revolution beginning. It's a band that's already found it's sound but not quite it's voice. Lot's of covers, songs that are heavily based on existing blues standards, or direct rip offs with one or two originals mixed in. But, since they play them so amazingly well it's all easily excusable.

July 22 at 10:49am ·

Thoughts on Led Zeppelin "II" - It's a frenetic album that shows the chaos and creativity of being recorded while touring. The influences are less obvious and are more assimilated. The bands style is expanding and they are becoming more self-assured in abilities.

July 22 at 11:36am ·

Thoughts on Led Zeppelin - "III" Jimmy Page and Robert Plant solidify their rolls as the creative engine of the group. The band lets off of the accelerator a bit creating an album with both calm and frenzy. There's very little musical "borrowing" on this album. Hats Off to (Roy) Harper is the only song to "lift" lines from blues classics.

July 22 at 1:51pm ·

Thoughts on Led Zeppelin-"IV" Jimmy Page begins to "paint" with sound using a multitude of guitars and different tones within the same song increasing the sonic palette exponentially. Robert gains confidence in his lyrical abilities. The group creates a fully realized coherent style that raises this above just a collection of songs and makes it a true album that must be listened to start to finish to truly enjoy.

July 22 at 2:48pm ·

Thoughts on Led Zeppelin - "Houses of The Holy" The musical complexity greatly increases compared to previous releases. Not a single song on the album has a simple riff. The band is challenging themselves and pushing each other to their creative limits. If Zeppelin ever made anything close to a progressive rock album this is it.

July 22 at 3:48pm ·

Thoughts on Led Zeppelin - "Physical Graffiti" The album is a bit like an quilt cobbled together from other, older items. Half of the songs on the album were recorded for previous albums. While there are lots of great songs the album lacks a certain coherent focus. It's more of a book of short stories as opposed to a novel.

July 22 at 5:36pm ·

Thoughts on Led Zeppelin - "Presence" It's the sound of a band eager to re-invent itself. The album is full of melancholy and uncertainty. The songs all fit together well to present a satisfying total picture. It's a great listen while alone late at night or during a rainy day.

July 22 at 6:21pm

Thoughts on Led Zeppelin - "In Through The Out Door" It's the sound of a band struggling to be as great as they should. While Page and Bonham are present, they really aren't "there." Plant and Jones work hard to pick up the slack. For the first and only time Jones Keyboard take center stage in many if not most of the songs.

July 22 at 8:13pm ·

Thoughts on Led Zeppelin - "Coda" It's not really an album more just a bunch of left-overs. In fact "Poor Tom" sounds like the drums were added after the fact by taking a bit of left over drums and looping them. The guitar on "We're Gonna Groove" is clearly an overdub done most likely after the end of the band. All of that having been said, Led Zeppelin's leftovers are better than most band's best efforts.

July 23 at 12:30am ·

record store crawl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FTFY8Fk7AI

Write About Love

October 11th can't come fast enough for me to see Belle & Sebastian at the Chicago Theater.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQnodOwG0OM

Live On From Beyond The Groove

Thinking of a unique way to immortalize yourself that doesn't involve the wind blowing your ashes back into your friends' faces?

Get your ashes pressed into a vinyl record instead! Read on in this article from Wired.co.uk.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-08/27/and-vinyly

David's been busy

Apparently, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame has been keeping busy. Here he is performing with Roger Waters at an event for charity.

Hoping Foundation benefit performance from Hoping Foundation on Vimeo.

While the performance isn't great it's just nice to see these two being civil to one another, let alone playing music together.

Mr. Gilmour has also recently snuck out a collaboration with Orb. Hopefully it won't be too hard to track down the two disc version which has a special surround mix for headphones. Where are those Stax headphones when you need them?

Last, but certainly not least he served as Executive Producer on the new Syd Barrett compilation, not so cleverly titled, "An Introduction to Syd Barrett." Which will mix Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd and solo material, some of it remixed. Sadly, "Vegetable Man" nor "Scream Thy Last Scream" will be included, another missed opportunity. Why not put out these songs officially and give the fans the best quality possible and make a couple of quid in the process, instead of forcing us to continue to listen to sub-standard bootlegs? It would be a win-win for all involved. The big draw of the package isn't even on the disc it's a free bonus download of "Rhamadan,"a 20 minute previously unreleased instrumental. Since it's a download the sound quality won't be what it should. As obsessive as David is about sound this is a very odd choice. A bonus disc on the first pressing would have been a better way to get it out there, maybe even including "Vegetable Man" and "Scream Thy Last Scream". Now that would have been a great.

Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin

This looks like a perfect pairing. I'm sure lots of people will buy this besides Clint.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCy-z3e4D9A

Sheryl Crow Tuesday Night Music Club

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIx8XMjy5mg

Vinyl Hoarding

The vinyl revolution shows no signs of slowing down, let alone stopping. Some of the shots of these peoples collections make me feel like a poser but then again there's probably a lot of crap in there and no one has enough time to listen to all of that stuff. Maybe it's as much hoarding as collecting music that they have any serious intention of spinning and enjoying.

To Have & To Hold - Taster Tape from Jony Lyle on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/10284225

JA's Podcast Appearance

Audiophiles often get a bad rap for being unreasonable and unrealistic. Stereophile's editor John Atkinson does a wonderful job showing that many of us are reasonable, intelligent, and well adjusted individuals in his podcast appearance here. The portion about the difference in the audibility of cables near the end was of particular interest. Especially his illustration of how an amplifier has not one, but three inputs.

http://twit.cachefly.net/htg0017.mp3

Which Smith are you?

This 1957 film endeavors to describe what hi-fi is all about while discussing the importance of the then relatively new stereo format. Oddly enough as much as things have changed audio enthusiasts still fall into roughly one of the three categories discussed.

http://www.archive.org/details/HowtoLis1957

Van Speakers?

Anyone who has ever worked at an audio store have been on the other end of this transaction when a customer brings in one of these cheap pieces of shit when they stop "working." This segment does a great job of dissecting the scam. Hopefully this guy will go to jail for a long time but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/hall_of_shame/sweet-sounding-deal-hits-a-sour-note

Your So Vain (You probably think this post is about you)

A certain female singer/songwriter finally revealed the name of the person that inspired her song “You’re So Vain” and it was of course for the most artistic of reasons, to sell a new album that no one would have known about otherwise. Is the song about Warren Beatty, James Taylor, Mick Jagger, David Bowie Jack Nicolson, Kris Kristofferson, David Cassidy, Cat Stevens, or even Abraham Lincoln? After 38 years who cares? How many famous men did she sleep with anyway? The only one more stupid than all of the people who wasted their energy trying to figure it out is Dick Ebersol, who spent 50 grand to know. She's so vain that she thinks people still give a shit. As she said in another song when it comes to being egotistical "Nobody Does It Better." Apparently it’s about David Geffen, now that you’ve been nice enough to tell us you are free to fade back into obscurity.

Big Dock

The iPod has officially brought music listening so far into the future that we've actually reached the distant past again with giant monolithic speakers.

http://thewosexperience.com/

How far back in the past am I talking? Well...

For Sale by heartless corporation: number 3 Abbey Road

According to a number of sources EMI’s parent company, Terra Firma is trying to sell Abbey Road Studios in an attempt to stave off the wolves at Citibank. Sadly the studio is only expected to bring in something like tens of millions of dollars when the amount necessary to stop the $3 billion dollar loan from going into default is over $190 million dollars. If that's the case it's a bit like throwing the deck chairs off of the Titanic thinking that it will stop it from sinking. Also sad is the fact that many feel the “brand” of Abbey Road is worth more than the facility itself.

Abbey Road of course is most famous for having been the studio of choice for the majority of Beatles recording sessions and many early to middle period Pink Floyd recordings, though not “Dark Side of the Moon” as many sources are erroneously claiming. According to some sources EMI doesn't consider a recording studio an essential asset. That's not a joke by the way the music industry has lost it's way so badly it doesn't even see the value in owning a first class facility in which to record music. In this day and age a lot of music can be recorded using a computer and pro tools, many consider anything over and above that to be a luxury.

Customer Satisfaction

While this isn't something solely related to audio, I hope it serves as a reminder for home theater installers not to make a "goddamn maze" out of the wires behind your customers' systems. Especially when that customer is Hunter S. Thomson.

Delicious Sound

Haven't you ever wondered what would happen if you made a record out of chocolate? Me neither. Just think of what this thing would do to a decent cartridge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVM18iJTMZs

Sort of Supergrass

The boys from Supergrass are going to have a busy year. In addition to a new studio album there will also be a new side project consisting of covers called The Hot Rats. The album was produced by Nigel Godrich so it should be a good one. Samples are available on their myspace page. Below is a video of them performing The Beatles "Drive My Car."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2Ak9eypq0U

Roads to Rome

One of the most unique things about high end audio in the diversity of ideas present in the hobby. I've always believed that there is more than one road to Rome. While every path doesn't make sense to me as long the traveler arrives at the destination, which is musical enjoyment of course who am I to judge? When a designer looks at their products as something that is created, rather than simply manufactured that is always a good sign. After all if they aren't passionate about their offerings what's the chance that anyone else will be? After all we aren't talking about toasters or washing machines. Audio equipment acts as a conduit through which an artistic is conveyed. Just some ideas that these two videos inspired. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh9n9v4bNhY


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1KpWkhGFlM

Them Crooked Vultures

In many ways John Paul Jones was the most under appreciated member of Led Zeppelin. Until recently his post-Zeppelin work has been pretty sparse but recently he seems to be making up for lost time. In the last couple of years he has released two excellent solo albums, "Zooma" and "The Thunderthief" and produced a couple of others. On Tuesday, November 17th his next project will be released. The album is a collaboration with Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame titled Them Crooked Vultures. It is currently available to stream through youtube.

Even more Beatles remasters news

In addition to The Beatles remasters being released on CD in mono and stereo versions Mojo recently broke the inevitable news that they will also see a vinyl release as well. Thus far there is no news on pricing, stereo and/or mono, or whether they will be sourced from the 24/192 digital masters or analog masters. But it's good news for record lovers everywhere. For those on the complete other end of the spectrum the catalog will also see release on a USB drive according to Reuters news agency, just in time for Christmas of course. Apparently, the release will be limited to 30,000 units. Probably in much the same way that the mono boxed set was "limited" to 10,000 units. In addition to the 320 Kbps MP3 files the drive will also contain the albums in FLAC at 24 bits 44.1 Khz. It's good to see that they are offering people something at higher resolutions than MP3. Now the only question is when will they release the music in 24/192 (possibly on Blu-Ray) because we ALL know that it's coming sooner or later.