Leica M, 50mm Summilux Asph.
Archive for November, 2013
In The Winter, You Find Beauty Where You Can
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 50mm Summilux Asph, Leica M on November 30, 2013 by johnbuckley100Tulip Frenzy 2013 Top Ten List ™ Shortlist Announced
Posted in Music with tags Capsula, Crocodiles, David Bowie, Deathfix, First Communion Afterparty, Houndstooth, Kelley Stoltz, Kevin Morby, Kurt Vile, Magic Trick, Mikal Cronin, Neko Case, Parquet Courts, Phosphorescent, Robyn Hitchcock, Secret Colours, Thee Oh Sees, Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List, Wire on November 30, 2013 by johnbuckley100So we promised Magic Trick that we would wait for River Of Souls, out Tuesday, before locking the ballot box on the Tulip Frenzy 2013 Top Ten List ™. We will save them a spot on the shortlist, okay? Below, in NO PARTICULAR ORDER are the bands in consideration.
At Tulip Frenzy World HQ, the horse trading, lobbying, and outright bribery are in full force. We’ve cast a sideways glance at our competitors, and let us just say that this was one of the rare years in which we did not automatically scoff at the Uncut Top 50 list, and they did settle one thing for us: yes, the Parquet Courts album is to be considered this year, even though it actually was released last November. But no one listened to it until January 1, when we were all suddenly forced to grapple with a) 2013, and b) the Parquet Courts’ greatness. But mbv as the Album of The Year? Please, nice to have Kevin Shields back but it’s not really that good. Still, could have been worse.
We should note that we are NOT considering the Bob Dylan 1969 Isle of Wight release, even though it finally came out this year, and even though it is simply amazing. Why is it ruled out by the judges? Because we don’t think that’s right to knock a band in their prime out of consideration just because another incredible album fought its way out of the Dylan archives. But here’s a pretty great set of bands/artists who will be considered:
Houndstooth
David Bowie
Kurt Vile
Phosphorescent
Crocodiles
Robyn Hitchcock
Parquet Courts
Thee Oh Sees
Kelley Stoltz
Magic Trick
Neko Case
Capsula
Deathfix
Secret Colours
Kevin Morby
Wire
First Communion Afterparty
Mikal Cronin
In consideration: 18 artists. It’s going to be a long few days of wrangling in these here parts. Stay tuned.
On How We Anthropomorphize The Silliest Things
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 50mm Summilux Asph, Leica M on November 29, 2013 by johnbuckley100It’s a face, right? Leica M, 50mm Summilux.
Richard Hell Is A Stand-Up Guy
Posted in Music with tags "I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp, "Spurts", Dim Stars, Richard Hell, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Television on November 29, 2013 by johnbuckley100So funny, we’d been thinking this morning how unhappy we are not to be in Brooklyn tonight to see Television play at Rough Trade. And then we got this email…
For a long time, we’ve loved listening to Richard Hell’s music, particularly the two albums he recorded with the Voidoids — Blank Generation and the original Destiny Street. But since the ’90s, we’ve also enjoyed reading his fiction (Go Now), and then his excellent memoir, I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp, which we absolutely adored.
Today, Richard contacted us out of the blue to let us know that he had just re-issued his compilation SPURTS AKA The Richard Hell Story because… well, we’ll let him tell it:
What happened is I became aware a few months after the original release that it was degraded because, due to a miscommunication, all the tracks on it had been terribly limited/compressed, sucking out the dynamics and vitality of the original tracks and reducing them to a blare. (If you’re interested, there’s a more detailed account below of the long process of dealing with this.) The new versions are especially significant for the large number of the tracks, like the Neon Boys numbers and “The Kid With the Replaceable Head” and the DESTINY STREET and DIM STARS cuts, etc., which basically aren’t available anywhere except on SPURTS.
The new masters were made this fall at Sterling Sound by Greg Calbi (the maestro of masterers, who actually mastered the BLANK GENERATION album for Sire/Warners in 1977). He was good enough to let Don Fleming and me sit in. We used the very best original sources, some actually higher quality than on the 2005 sessions, but the main thing was to keep the pure powerful full-range sound, sans the nasty frequency-squeezing added at the last minute in 2005.
I feel bad that all the customers of the last eight years paid for something inferior and now if they want the good stuff will have to pay again. But there’s nothing I can do about it but apologize. It’s my fault.
Warner/Rhino agreed to substitute the new tracks at all merchandisers, and they started the process November 19. They’re now up at most of them, including iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify. So far the song titles are not individually described at these places as new masters (and there’s various other scrambled misinformation, such as still listing the release date as 2005)–though at most sites the album title states “(Remastered)”–but you can be sure it’s the full 21 newly remastered cuts when you see that the song “Downtown at Dawn” runs 5:59 or so; on the original Spurts it’s 4:07. I’m working on trying to get the separate tracks labeled “2013 remaster” so they can’t be confused with the old bad tracks, but it’s hard to get the business bureaucracies to trouble. Also, eventually the jewel-boxed CD at Amazon will be replaced, but we don’t know how long that will take.
As to how the original re-mastering went wrong… It was a mis-communication at the very last stage of the original remastering process done for SPURTS. We had all the tracks tweaked to spec–drawn from the best available originals, made as consistent as reasonable with each other, etc.–when I made the point to the technician that I wanted the CD, as a unit, to play at the loudest practical volume. I just meant that the tracks, as already prepared for the final pass of the mastering process, should fall as close to redline as possible so that when the manufactured CDs played they’d be at least as loud as anything else in a playlist… It was a trivial thing. But the guy misinterpreted what I was saying, and proceeded to add this excessive limiting/compressing to all the tracks, so that the volume within each track would be more consistent and every track therefore would come out louder. At this point I wasn’t paying much attention, because I didn’t think I needed to–everything was routine. It was only months later that I realized what had happened. A huge amount of the life of the tracks had been sucked out. I always hoped and planned to eventually fix this, but as long as the CD was in its original printing I knew it would be a problem, because the company wouldn’t want to destroy those. Also it would cost me a good amount of money (it ended up costing $3000+), not to mention time and effort. Anyway, when I saw that the CD had gone to print-on-demand early in 2013, I realized it had become practical to substitute good re-remastered versions. So that’s when I contacted Rhino/Warners…
For reference, here is how the new CD in mp3s is offered at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Richard-Hell-Story-Remastered/dp/B00GICU8QU/ref=sr_1_2?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&sr=1-2&keywords=%22richard+hell%22
Going to this trouble to make things right with his fans is a) a very classy thing, and b) a smart thing for an artist to do. After all, you want to be known by your best work, your best effort. This was the thinking behind his Destiny Street Repaired, in which he went back into the studio to re-record the original album, which he found deficient because, well, he was deficient at the time. We did not think that move was so successful, preferring the original. But getting The Richard Hell Story with its trove of Neon Boys (AKA proto-Television) cuts, and Dim Star (w/Thurston Moore) songs, not to mention his work with the Heatbreakers and the Voidoids into listenable shape — well, this is pure delight.
Did we mention it was Black Friday and that you do have that list of friends you need to buy albums for, no?
After Saul Leiter
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 50mm Summilux Asph, Leica M, Saul Leiter on November 28, 2013 by johnbuckley100Leica M, 50mm Summilux Asph.
We loved the way Saul Leiter a) shot almost all of his best images in portrait aspect, b) used the frost on windows as something to focus on while the world took shape outside. We thought of Saul this morning, on a cold beautiful day. He was a master, and an inspiration.
The New York Times obit this morning was quite wonderful. R.I.P., Saul Leiter.
This Russian Is Not Pleased A Long Weekend’s Coming
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 35mm Summilux Asph FLE, Leica M (typ.240) on November 26, 2013 by johnbuckley100What happened to the Americanski work ethic. Ah, Thanksgiving. Leica M, 35mm Summilux Asph FLE.
Kevin Morby’s Got His Own Album To Do
Posted in Music with tags "Harlem River", Kevin Morby, The Babies, Woods on November 26, 2013 by johnbuckley100The Harlem River is not the Big Muddy, it’s not the Colorado, it’s not the Snake. By the standards of American waterways it’s something of an afterthought, better known for the highway that runs along it than its noble role separating Manhattan from the Bronx. Let’s put it this way: to most people, its most important aspect is that without it, Manhattan would not be an island. It’s a curious body of water to lend its name to an album as pretty as Kevin Morby’s Harlem River, promising something as pure as the Allagash, though we assure you, you wouldn’t want to drink from it.
But drink deep of this lovely, quiet, sometimes mesmerizing album. The title track is haunting, and would easily be a hit in that perfect world that so honors nine-minute songs. “Miles, Miles, Miles” is a piece of Americana stolen from the after-hours of the Blonde On Blonde sessions. It doesn’t take Cate LeBon to make “Slow Train” that perfect song for a Saturday morning when it rains outside, but it helps.
Morby has a nice voice, and we already knew he was a stellar musician from his work fronting The Babies and playing bass in Woods. The Babies — with their Pixies antecedents and their Brooklyn barroom roots — are not an obvious reference point for a quiet, soulful album like this. So it’s like Woods, right? Uh uh, for whereas the brilliance of that brilliant band is projected like a Titan rocket by the strength of Jeremy Earl’s voice, nothing Kevin Morby does is meant to announce itself. He’s just made a lovely, quiet album we’ll be playing on those rainy Saturdays, on those long car rides, for a long time to come.
Like Ron Wood before him, long, long ago, Morby’s got his own album to do, and we’re glad he did it.
