199 posts tagged with records.
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"Dumas began his Dr. Death radio show on KLSU in December of 1983"
"A small but influential independent record label ... C'est la Mort specialized in ethereal, ambient, dream pop, & darkwave bands." Ca. 1990, an interest in 4AD groups like His Name is Alive (2024 boxset; eponym for a quiescent MeFite) may have led you to early work by The Magnetic Fields (2024 Tiny Desk previously) on "Doctor Death's" compilations from C'est La Mort, also introducing artists like Area, The Millions, Orange, Collection d'Arnell-Andréa, Ivory Library, and The Arms of Someone New. A mainstay of the series was "a somewhat obscure post-punk band from San Francisco ... Often paired [live] with ... bands like Necropolis of Love." Contributing songs like "Market," "Rousseau's Rainbow," "Dilemma," etc., M-1 Alternative also had albums less available now, but their early work is available on Bandcamp. And KLSU is still going.
"another day of listening to my late father’s record collection"
Jula is listening through her late father's record collection one album at a time on TikTok and Instagram under the name Soundwaves Off Wax. In an interview with Discogs, where you can see which records she's listened to, Jula explains the origins of the project, and talks about her dad. She has made a playlist on Spotify of her favorite songs, as well as one with all the albums. To give a flavor, the records are by artists such as Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Pointer Sisters, Culture Club, Connie Francis and Lou Reed.
"Many convicts are untraceable after their sentence expired"
Tasmania’s convict records are part of the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register along with the convicts records for New South Wales and Western Australia. [more inside]
Compliance and resilience
“There’s not going to be a fair (shoe), no one product that affects everyone the same,” says Yong. “Everyone’s biomechanics are different. Unfortunately, this is a part of the sport. If you really wanted to be fair, everyone should be running naked in bare feet. You don’t have any expensive clothes or shoes, but that’s obviously not where we’re at.” from How ‘shoe doping’ changed marathon times forever – in ways we still don’t fully understand [The Athletic; ungated] [more inside]
2,189 Miles, 40 Days, and 3 Showers
Tara Dower Sets The Appalachian Trail Speed Record On a southbound run from Maine to Georgia, a new FKT trail record has been set by Tara Dower of Virginia Beach. She breaks Karel Sabbe's record by 13 hours, all while raising money for the non-profit Girls on the Run.
Not quite an album. More than a single.
An Ideal for Living by Corey duBrowa (Hozac Books) is the first book devoted to a music packaging format that has gone virtually unknown to some in the U.S. Yet from early jazz and rock through the punk, new wave, post-punk, alternative/indie rock eras, and ultimately up to the present, the extended play, or EP (usually four or sometimes six tracks), has been a staple of the record industry. from The Little-Known Legacy of the EP [Daily Heller] [more inside]
The MeFi Mystery Post - Which Surprise Ending Will It Play?
You put a dollar bill into the 'Ask The Brain' fortune telling machine and await its response. Roll a seven-sided die or use a random-number generator. One Two Three Four Five Six Seven [more inside]
Justice League
Major League Baseball has incorporated the statistics of former Negro Leagues players into its historical records on its website, meaning legendary leaders in some categories like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb have now been replaced in the record books by players who were not allowed to play on the same fields as them during segregation. Josh Gibson, one of the greatest sluggers in the history of the Negro Leagues, is now listed as MLB’s new all-time career leader in batting average at .372, moving ahead of Ty Cobb at .367. The MLB website shows Gibson also overtaking Babe Ruth in career slugging percentage. [more inside]
Merging the Negro Leagues into MLB stats has not been seamless
MLB’s plan to integrate Negro League numbers and statistical legacies with its own remains years from completion. More than two years after its announcement, MLB is still in the initial phase of the project: data acquisition. (archive.today link)
1 Batter, 59 Home Runs; Needs 3 With 16 Games to Go
Judge hits 58th AND 59th HRs, just two shy of Maris ... Aaron Judge home run pace tracker ... HR Digest: Aaron Judge [more inside]
‘Oh, my gosh, I’m playing the Clash... in the White House!’
The Untold Story of the White House's Weirdly Hip Record Collection Jimmy Carter’s grandson is unlocking its mysteries (Washingtonian, Rob Brunner)
Rom-ads of the Three Kingdoms
The concept of McDonaldland (huge playlist, notable compilation from same) has a prominent place in public consciousness. Less well known is its rival, the Burger King Kingdom (compilation video). But before the current Jack-in-the-Verse (playlist) or even the Jack Pack, there was the Jack in the Box Bunch. (Two ads and three flexidisc-records-with-comics. Alt. vid of last one. And yes, at least those last three are voiced by Paul Winchell, Disney's original voice of Pooh and Tigger.) [more inside]
Organic Grooves on Vinyl from High and Low, Near and Far
My Analog Journal's Youtube channel features guest mixes by DJs as well as those by its host Zag Erlat, a London based music producer. Usually shot from above to showcase the turntables and the record albums, Season 2's guests include Krishna Villar's set of Psychedelic Cumbia, Norsicaa's mix of Latin-influenced Southeast Asian singers, Westside MuzeeQ's exploration of 70s Indonesian Psych, Funk & Disco, Poly-Ritmo's deep dive into music from Guadeloupe, Martinique and Haiti, and Dona Carla's selection of funky Brazilian samba grooves from 1969 to 1984. All tracks time-stamped and labeled. Or if you prefer, go to the Soundcloud for just the audio. Submissions for guest mix slots are open at My Analog Journal.
The Digital Death of Collecting
How platforms mess with our tastes. In the era of algorithmic feeds, it’s as if the bookshelves have started changing shape on their own in real time, shuffling some material to the front and downplaying the rest like a sleight-of-hand magician trying to make you pick a specific card — even as they let you believe it’s your own choice. (Substack) (Previous Kyle Chayka posts.) [more inside]
Plainte - Chekoua - Lamentation / Épreuve - Mihna - Hardship
Chris Silver (Gharamaphone): "In May 2020, I posted Sariza Cohen's stunning recording of 'أَشْكُوا الْغَـرَامَ' (Ashku al-gharam) [Soundcloud], released ... in 1938. This is the other side of that record [Soundcloud]. It is no less remarkable. Here the pianist and vocalist from Oran performs a composition by Algerian Jewish impresario Edmond Nathan Yafil." More on Yafil in "Breaking the Colonial Spell" by Jonathan Glasser, whose introductory anthro lecture "What is a Boundary Good For?" also reflects on Line Monty, Alice Fitoussi, and Salim Hilali. A detail connecting her to music trends in metropolitan France and the US is that Sariza Cohen's brothers operated the well-known Café des Ambassadeurs (producing a revue by Cole Porter) and Maxsa record label (helping popularize jazz etc.).
The world's greatest record store might be in Upper Darby
“[Val Shively] has a store called R&B Records in this sketchy neighborhood out past West Philly. ... The building is listing like the Tower of Pisa because he’s got five million records in there. It’s likely the biggest record store in the world and collectors fly in from the U.K., Germany, Japan and wherever else, in order to buy from Val. But if they say something wrong, or he doesn’t like their attitude, he explodes in an unbelievable rage and throws them out of the store.” [more inside]
“We have this relationship with it like no other form of plastic.”
Climb Every Mountain
Ultra-runner Sabrina Verjee is struggling through blizzards even as you read this, on her latest attempt for a record-setting run of the Wainwright Fells Round, after becoming the first woman to do the run continuously last year. Her almost unbelievable effort to climb 214 peaks, without stopping, in less than six days, in the British "spring" weather, can be followed live here. [more inside]
"I'm a song catcher."
The Guardian interviews Chris Strachwitz, founder of Arhoolie Records. Just in advance of a free stream of the documentary 60 years of Arhoolie (on Thursday Dec 10, 8 pm EST/5 pm PST), a discussion with the 89-year-old founder of one of the record labels instrumental in capturing, documenting, and popularizing many styles of folk and working-class music. [more inside]
It's the masked pumpkin, Charlie Brown
As autumn has descended on the Northern Hemisphere, giant pumpkins and other cucurbitae have been (or about to be) hauled to the weigh scales. Fall fairs and competitions have had to adapt to the pandemic by holding virtual, live-streamed, and socially-distanced weigh-offs. This year, the state record in Utah was smashed. In Germany, the national record remains intact despite an impressive Bavarian effort. In Canada, a 1,939.5-pound monster almost broke the national record, while in tangentially related news, divers in Manitoba took pumpkins underwater for a carving and clean-up event. This is also an annual tradition among Finger Lakes divers in New York state. [more inside]
If you're rich enough to have your own special submersible built...
Once you become one of the approximately 275 people have done the Seven Summit challenge, climbing the tallest peaks on seven continents, what's next? How about becoming the first person to reach the deepest depths of all the five oceans? [SLNewYorker]
Coffee Break Sessions
Why not enjoy your coffee with some vinyl in the morning? Brazilian grooves • Japanese city pop and jazz-funk • Jazz from the USSR [more inside]
It turns out that it's a lot of running
The idea was simple. Break the speed record for “fastest to ever visit all 50 states” but also run a 5k while in each state.
21-Year Old WWII Soldier’s Sketchbooks Are Visual Diary of War
"The Internet Archive is determined to preserve these at-risk records"
There are 50 million songs on Spotify (Expanded Ramblings), but there are still generations of music locked on physical formats. Imagine if your favorite song or nostalgic recording from childhood was lost forever. This could be the fate of hundreds of thousands of audio files stored on vinyl, except that the Internet Archive is now expanding its digitization project to include LPs. Earlier this year, the Internet Archive began working with the Boston Public Library (BPL) to digitize more than 100,000 audio recordings from their sound collection. How the Internet Archive is Digitizing LPs to Preserve Generations of Audio (IA blog) [more inside]
👁️ “A Great Eye, lidless, wreathed in flame.”
Revealed: This Is Palantir’s Top-Secret User Manual for Cops [Vice] Motherboard obtained a Palantir user manual through a public records request, and it gives unprecedented insight into how the company logs and tracks individuals.
“Through a public record request, Motherboard has obtained a user manual that gives unprecedented insight into Palantir Gotham (Palantir’s other services, Palantir Foundry, is an enterprise data platform), which is used by law enforcement agencies like the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center. The NCRIC serves around 300 communities in northern California and is what is known as a "fusion center," a Department of Homeland Security intelligence center that aggregates and investigates information from state, local, and federal agencies, as well as some private entities, into large databases that can be searched using software like Palantir.”[The document obtained by Motherboard for this story is public and viewable on DocumentCloud.]
Private Mohammed Kahn: Civil War Soldier
Private Mohammed Kahn, also known as John Ammahail, was born in Persia, circa 1830. Raised in Afghanistan, he immigrated to the United States in 1861. About two months after his arrival he enlisted in the 43rd New York Infantry Regiment, following a night out with friends who convinced him to join.
The Boston Public Library 78rpm Collection
Internet Archive: "Following eighteen months of work, more than 50,000 78rpm record 'sides' from the Boston Public Library’s sound archives have now been digitized and made freely available online by the Internet Archive."
"The audience went nuts for it." [citation needed]
The single for the Captain and Tennille's song Muskrat Love featured a locked groove in the 45 which would play little pitter-patter muskrat mating sounds, forever. Other albums with locked grooves. [via]
Black Grooves
Black Grooves is a monthly online music magazine highlighting the latest releases - often reissues of classic, underground, lost or simply underrated albums - by black musicians. It is edited by the staff at Indiana University's Archives of African American Music and Culture (AAAMC). [more inside]
It's competitive gourd season, motherf**kers
From Barnesville, Ohio, Topsfield and Marshfield, Massachusetts, to Half Moon Bay, California, contest and county fair records for "heaviest pumpkin" have been falling like autumn leaves. National records have also been crushed beneath the weight of some impressive specimens - a new Canadian
record (1,959 lbs), a new UK record for the largest pumpkin grown indoors (2,433.9 lbs), and a new U.S. (and North American) record (2,528 lbs). The current world record of 2,624.6 lbs still stands for now. Have pumpkins maxed out? [more inside]
Co*Star: the Record Acting Game
Today is the day your bizarrely specific dream comes true: this is your chance to act with Vincent Price in scenes from An Enemy of the People and The Importance of Being Earnest. [more inside]
Mr. Records
Hello! This is Rough Trade ...
Melvyn Bragg's South Bank Show profiles Rough Trade Records in 1979. Includes live footage of and interviews with Stiff Little Fingers, Lora Logic and Essential Logic, The Raincoats, Robert Rental and The Normal, and Geoff Travis and various Rough Traders.
Time for some Feats of Strength
On September 3rd, 2017, Adam Ondra became the first person to climb Silence, currently considered to be the most difficult rock climbing route in the world with a proposed rating of 5.15d / 9c. A 17 minute film by Bernardo Giménez documents Ondra's process and the successful climb (you can skip to the actual ascent at 10:56). Shortly thereafter, on October 22nd, Angela Eiter became the first woman to climb a route rated 5.15b / 9b and one of only three people in the world (including Ondra) to have completed that particular route, La planta de Shiva.
Every physical record shop and record event on the planet
The 45 rpm record
Fran Blanche shares with us about one of her favorite things: the 45rpm record!
26,000 78s digitised
Through the Great 78 Project, the Internet Archive has begun to digitise 78rpm discs for preservation, research, and discovery with the help of George Blood, L.P. Currently the number digitised stands at 25,989.
Four stylii are used to transfer the records – 2.0mm truncated conical, 2.3mm truncated conical, 2.8mm truncated conical, 3.3mm truncated conical – recorded flat and then equalised. The preferred version is then chosen by an engineer.
“Stalin didn't like anything that made people dance,”
X-ray records of the Soviet Union.
Back in London, he tried it on his record player. “It was obviously an X-ray, but also a record. I played it and I found out it was a 78 RPM: it was 'Rock around the Clock',” Coates tells me. “I obviously decided to find out more about this.”By Gian Maria Volpicelli in the New Statesman
T E C H M O A N
Techmoan is a YouTube channel about old, weird, obsolete, kitschy, expensive, cheap, bizarre, and charming technology.
You take Bank Americard?
In the old days (1972) when you discovered a copyright violation you didn't have your lawyers fire off some boilerplate takedown notice. In the old days, if you were Neil Young, you just made off with it. After informing the manager and paying for the candle your production crew broke, of course. [more inside]
Music for weird black girls
Cameroon-born Lætitia Tamko is the sole force behind indie experiment Vagabon. Her just-released LP Infinite Worlds is getting some attention, which surprises her. Her opening track - The Embers - puts her as a small fish in a big pond, and in the music video her petite dark frame dances next lanky white men. It's a fitting metaphor for the girl who never thought she'd be on the radio. She embraces her position in indie music with raw talent, but wishes there was more space for young black women.
Her lyrics draw from other sources, always personal. She compares herself to the well where her village got their water : "People don’t always check to see if there’s any more left after they’ve taken what they need. No one looks down a well."
Her lyrics draw from other sources, always personal. She compares herself to the well where her village got their water : "People don’t always check to see if there’s any more left after they’ve taken what they need. No one looks down a well."
The Art of Recording
Soundbreaking is an 8-part documentary series about the art of producing records, featuring both legendary and lesser-known producers like Quincy Jones, Linda Perry, Don Was, RZA, Brian Eno, Questlove, and of course George Martin. [more inside]
New Rubik's Cube World Record of 4.74 seconds
Rubik's Cube mastermind Mats Valk set a new world record over the weekend at the Jawa Timur Open in Indonesia. "Valk, 20, managed to break the existing record of 4.90 seconds, set last year by 14-year-old Lucas Etter, with a blistering time of 4.74 seconds."
78rpm records from Africa
“...not more communism but more public-spirited pigs.””
TS Eliot's rejection of Orwell's Animal Farm [The Guardian] Digitised for the first time by the British Library, Eliot’s rejection is now available to read alongside others including Virginia Woolf’s to James Joyce. Eliot’s letter is one of more than 300 items which have been digitised by the British Library, a mixture of drafts, diaries, letters and notebooks by authors ranging from Virginia Woolf to Angela Carter and Ted Hughes. The literary archive reveals that Orwell was not the only major writer to suffer a series of rejections: the British Library has also digitised a host of rejections for James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, showing how his patron Harriet Shaw Weaver attempted to find a printer for the novel she had published in serialised form in The Egoist. [more inside]
As seen on TV
Phillip Kives, the founder of K-Tel International, has passed away at age 87. (previously) [more inside]
Ain't Misbehavin' - Louis Armstrong transfer from a master disc
Listen to this 1929 Louis Armstrong recording cleaner than you have ever heard, thanks to Nick Dellow's audio transfer from a mother record shipped by Okeh to Germany for their Odeon pressings. (slyt)
The Vinyl Frontier
Brazilian businessman Zero Freitas owns over six million records, a collection which he intends to catalogue for public use and transform into a vast listenable archive. Writer and cultural sociologist Dominik Bartmanski visited Freitas’ São Paulo warehouse for a rare interview with the man himself.
The Curious Tale of Bhutan's Playable Record Postage Stamps
"For decades, the stamps were dismissed by the philatelic establishment as tacky novelties and were, correspondingly, as cheap as chips." [more inside]