Hi, may I ask what how you are transferring songs from vinyl to tumblr?
Yes, great question! The secret is this bad boy:
You can use it as a preamp, but the way I have it set up is that the input is coming from a better preamp I have, and this acts as a splitter. The signal goes out to my stereo, as well as getting converted to a USB signal. My computer can use that like a two-channel USB microphone input, and then it's just a matter of recording the disc in Audacity.
From there, I have to cut up the recording into individual tracks, name them, and export them as FLACs for my player. Then, for Tumblr, I export the song I want as an MP3 and have to lower the quality a bit to be under the 10MB limit. I have noticed quite a few I try to upload get auto-flagged for copyright, but what can you do.
Album Review #68: Casiopea // The Soundgraphy // 1984
Awww yeah! Today we get a sublime collection of Japanese jazz fusion. This is one that I picked up in Japan last fall. Come, take my hand and we shall explore the glossy 80s synthscape together!
I bought this used from Disc Union in Ocha no Mizu, Tokyo. One thing that I must say about used records in Japan, they are pristine. This album is over 40 years old and it sounds absolutely flawless. Records are by and large very well taken care of in Japan, based on my experience.
Casiopea is a highly successful group, and are still making music today! Granted, there have been many lineup changes, and only the guitarist Issei Noro remains from the original lineup. The group got their big break in 1982 with their album Mint Jams, which you may have heard the name of floating around on the internet.
Funnily enough, the band's name doesn't appear to have anything to do with Casio, the keyboard brand. I always thought it was supposed to be a pun. Apparently Issei Noro's mother suggested they name the band after a constellation, and Noro had initially selected Cassiopeia, but adapted the spelling.
This album is a greatest hits compilation, featuring songs from their first five years. The sound is incredibly polished, and just oozes 80s charm. The heavy use of synthesizers and electric piano pairs perfectly with that specific 80s jazz guitar voicing, just a hint of overdrive.
It's hard to pick a favorite, but I'm going to go with "Misty Lady" from the 1983 album "Photographs". And hey, it's going to let me post my vinyl rip today, yippee!
I love me a good slap bass. But you hear what I mean, right? It's just so gorgeously retro! It's like I'm watching an ad for a tropical cruise line on VHS or something. Also I feel like the sound team on a few early Sega Genesis games lifted a lot of inspiration from groups like this, I could almost hear this being in Sonic the Hedegehog 2 or something.
So hey, if you like this sound of that, definitely give the band a listen! A very fun, very cool sound.
every fleetwood mac documentary i've ever watched is like "the band was at the height of their success, enjoying the fame rolling in from their #1 hit 'i know about the other woman, lindsey'. however, nobody could have sensed the tension brewing between members."
"the group initially disbanded immediately after the release of the single 'well get the fuck out if you're going to be like that', leaving thousands of fans shocked."
If you told me that Jon Anderson lived in an acorn and rode around on a bumblebee and used a mushroom as an umbrella and wore pajamas spun from the finest spider silk I would 100% believe you.
Yes is the best represented band in my collection, with 23 recordings at the time of writing this. They're really one of my favorite groups, and one that has output albums at a prolific rate. Today we're taking a look at their very first album, self-titled from 1969! Nice.
Look at them all on the front cover, so young and decked out in the finest fashions the late 60s have to offer! I love Jon Anderson's blue sweater/silk scarf/pirate belt combo.
I'll go ahead and transcribe the little blurb on the back, it's not too long. It comes from Tony Wilson, who was a record label owner and radio personality, on this occasion writing for British music magazine Melody Maker:
At the beginning of 1969, I was asked as were all Melody Maker writers to pick two groups who I thought would make it in the following year.
One of my choices was Led Zeppelin. A bit obvious perhaps, but then we all like to back a winner occasionally.
The other was Yes. I'd just heard them in a London discothéque where all too often the groups tend to be over-amplified and under-talented.
Yes were not. They had much more than the usual wall-paper music sound. There was life, virility and musicianship in their approach. They had a superior vocal sound - assured, clear and harmonic. They knew what they were doing and did it with style. It showed in their own songs and imaginative arrangements. It all shows on this, their first album.
So Yes became my other choice. My second runner in the Great Group-Most-Likely-To-Make-It Stakes. And my money is on them! Naturally I've watched them with special interest - at the Marquee, the Speakeasy, in concert with Janis Joplin and Cream. Totally convinced after these events, my choice is confirmed.
London in the late 60s was a hotbed of musical activity. New acts were popping up like weeds, and withering just as quickly. A group needed to have something very special going on to have any staying power in this cutthroat environment.
The debut lineup of Yes of course includes the core duo of vocalist Jon Anderson and bassist Chris Squire, also with drummer Bill Bruford, organist Tony Kaye (See Album Review #39 for his work with Badger), and guitarist Peter Banks. In my opinion, we are 3/5ths of the way to the peak Yes sound. By the time of Fragile in 1971, the personnel changes to add Rick Wakeman on keyboards and Steve Howe on guitar catapulted their sound into the stratosphere.
This album has a jazzier, more straightforward rock sound than their future entries. They hadn't quite nailed down their characteristic sound yet, but the seeds had been planted. Tight, lush vocal harmonies and Chris Squire's prominent bass guitar sound are something you come to expect from Yes, and it's here all the way back in the beginning. I'd say the most "Yes-like" of the tunes on this album is the first, "Beyond and Before". You hear more songs of this sort on their next album, A Time and a Word. I also really like "Yesterday and Today", it showcases Anderson's signature high tenor vocals so nicely, just a really sweet song.
My favorite of the bunch is "Looking Around".
I think the thing I like the most is the vocals. Those harmonies are so nice... especially those jazzy chords in the chorus! As I said, this is a little more straightforward rock than the the ethereal 15 minute epics of their later career, but I appreciate this stuff too. As I said at the start, groups had to have something really special to survive in this environment, and Yes absolutely had the sauce!
This is one that I got from a coworker who was clearing out his basement. I was like, "Oh, Herb Alpert! I know Herb Alpert, like with the Tijuana Brass!" Well, this is definitely not that. More after the break!
If you're not familiar with Herb Alpert, he's had a long and storied career as a trumpeter and band leader, most famously of the Tijuana Brass in the 60s. You've likely heard the name, and maybe a song or two, before. As of my writing this, he's still kicking at 91, and still touring to sold-out crowds! Another fact I didn't know until writing this, he's the "A" in A&M records! That's a fairly major record label, or at least was back in the day, and I couldn't even tell you the number of A&M records I have in my collection.
The story with this album is kinda funny, Alpert was initially going to release a collection of disco remixes of famous Tijuana Brass hits, which is about the most 1979 sentence imaginable. It did not end well though. Alpert is quoted as saying, "It just sounded awful to me. I didn't want any part of it." Yikes! But, the musicians were booked for an album, and an album they would make.
This is definitely not a Tijuana Brass record. As a refresher, here's a pretty (internet) famous song of theirs you've probably heard before:
Pretty easygoing, pretty corny to a modern ear. Now, compare to what we get on Rise:
Very different! I love the electric piano in this one. It's also very fun to see this as a music video after only listening to the recording. Another one that kind of a fusion of the two is "Aranjuez", which is like, mariachi trumpet mixed with a disco beat. Very uh... of its time.
All in all though, this is an interesting album if not for the story behind it. A musical legend adapting his sound to the style of the time. Of course now they both sound pretty dated, but for the time this was a major turning point.
Times That Copyright Expansion Has Historically Fucked Over Artists On An Institutional Level:
Sampling rights becoming prohibitively expensive to use by small artists
Musicians being forced to sign over sampling rights to their record company, making any benefits they would hypothetically gain moot.
The Digital Milennium Copyright Act leading to the vidmaker-stomping nightmare that is ContentID
The DMCA leading to making it harder than ever to preserve media due to the way it prohibits tinkering with any locks the megacorps put on it, meaning it's way easier for artists' hard work to end up vaulted and lost.
The way basic chord progressions and musical styles have become copyrightable thanks to various lawsuits by the Marvin Gaye estate
The fact that the artists of the past used to be able to remix; adapt and iterate on art made within 56 years of them, likely created in their lifetimes, and now artists can only do those things with art produced nearly a century ago by people long dead.
New and independent artists being crowded out of the market by megacorp-owned IPs that would be public domain (and thusly convey less of an overwhelming advantage-via-marquee-value to megacorps) if the US had its pre-1976 copyright laws.
Times That Copyright Expansion Has Actually Materially Helped Artists On An Institutional Level:
Wow, I don't even know where to start here! There's a lot to unpack, so let's hop right in.
So, if you haven't heard Tool before, they've got a lot going on. They're an American progressive metal band, and Lateralus was their third album. It was a turning point for the group, and they saw a pivot from a more straightforward metal sound to their more recognizable sound: esoteric, complex, and introspective.
Fun story about the release of this album; Tool was an outspoken opponent of file-sharing sites like Napster and Limewire, which were rampant in the early 2000s. A month before Lateralus dropped, the group announced their new album, titled Systema Encéphale, along with a number of track names like "Riverchrist" and "Encephatalis". Predictably, the file-sharing sites became flooded with these songs, except the problem was... Systema Encéphale never existed. Then, Tool did a surprise release of the actual album, pulling a complete bait-and-switch on the pirates.
I first learned about this group by playing Guitar Hero: World Tour back in 2009. There was a Tool concert featured in the game, which at the time was a little... intense. The marathon-length songs, mind-bending meter and syncopation changes, and trippy visuals certainly were a lot for 9th grade me.
It turns out my wife is really into Tool though, so I gave them another chance a number of years later. I liked them a lot better the second time around!
The inspiration for this album album comes from a variety of sources. With the name and album art design, there's clearly influence from human anatomy, mysticism, and sacred geometry. The actual songs take inspiration from such things as: the Fibonacci sequence, Buddhist monk chanting, a paranoid phone call about aliens controlling the government, and slowed down audio of frontman Maynard James Keenan's cat.
Also: picture discs! I have a few in my collection, and man, these ones are cool. Some Trve Avdiophies™ turn their nose up at them, claiming they are more prone to warping and have more surface noise. Call me uncultured, but they sound fine to me. Fun little Easter egg, on side D you can see artist Alex Gray hid the word "GOD" in the brain matter.
The music itself is so, so cool. Each member of the group is firing on all cylinders in this album. Maynard, of course, kind of steals the show with his vocals. He imparts this almost primal energy to his songs. I also have to shout out Justin Chancellor on bass. Those riffs are so iconic. One contemporary reviewer negatively compared Tool's sound to "Black Sabbath jamming with Genesis at the bottom of a coal shaft", and like? Yeah, but in a good way? The way the sound effortlessly flows from contemplative solo guitar to fierce, intense full ensemble playing is so good. Good luck trying to dance to it, though. They're definitely a group like Dream Theater or Rush that relish in disorienting time signatures and syncopation.
My favorite song on the album is "Schism", which has one of the most iconic bass lines in all rock music. Working at a music store, it's probably between this and "Seven Nation Army" for what gets played the most by people testing basses. I'm not even going to attempt to post a vinyl rip, because 1. a song this popular will 100% get auto-flagged by Tumblr, and 2. you really owe it to yourself to watch the music video.
Tool's visuals are nothing if not consistently very, very weird. Content warning for weird body horror, if you're sensitive to that sort of thing.
The song is generally about how relationships fall apart, and the human need for connection. Maynard James Keenan says of it, "They're all about relationships. Learning how to integrate communication back into a relationship. How are we as lovers, as artists, as brothers - how are we going to reconstruct this beautiful temple that we've built and that's tumbled down? It's universal relationship stuff."
Apparently, the initial draft of the song was much more personal, and was changed last minute because guitarist Adam Jones thought it hit too close to home. It very explicitly mentioned the growing creative tension in the band, especially between Keenan and Jones, and after a lengthy discussion Keenan relented and made the lyrics more vague and universal.
