Showing posts with label vinyl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vinyl. Show all posts

Friday, August 11, 2023

3 Chords & the Truth: The knowing

You have to admit there's one thing about American life that's easier today. It's easier to be a depressive.

That, I think, is a sane reaction to . . . American life today. And all you have to do to get there is pay attention.

But that's not healthy, you might say. You likely are correct. But tell me this: How healthy is it to check out from the world around you, to no longer pay attention, to live in a world faux-sanitized for your peace of mind?

Does balance exist? Where might it be?

These are the questions confronting every episode of 3 Chords & the Truth. And to tell you the truth, they're not easy questions, and it's not easy to do a music program that aims neither to ignore our reality today nor to wallow in it with no respite in sight.

PERSONALLY, I think the root cause of this country's social and political brokenness is some sort of American civilizational collapse. Try "keeping it real" amid a nationwide nervous breakdown while also trying to be somewhat entertaining.

"Keeping it real" could make you a total depressive. Being tight and bright might tend toward delusion, with a certain head-in-the-sand je ne sais quoi. If you live on this side of America's Ironic Curtain, behind authoritarian lines somewhere in a red-state enclave, it helps to do your show from a culture-war bunker.

What does this have to do with a freeform music program, this Big Show, going out over the Internet during troubled, spite-infused times? I suppose both nothing and everything. Your guess is as good as mine.

I tell myself this weekly 90 minutes is a refuge, though not one for delusional thinking. Maybe the better analogy is a sanctuary for what beauty and sanity we can preserve. Maybe it's the audio version of a candle in a dark room.

Whatever it is, I'm certain that 3 Chords & the Truth is better than the prevailing social and political ethos -- at least in many quarters to the right of me -- of burning the motherf***er down, because one's grievances (justified or no) demand it. The nihilism of the "burn the motherf***er down" crowd has no Plan B and no plan for what comes next.

The only thing left, as one stands in the ashes following a conflagration of one's own making, is "Well, f***."

"Well, f***," indeed. Maybe the truth of the Big Show is that all we can do is remind folks of what they're putting the match to -- so much beauty, so little regard for it. I don't know . . . but I reckon that's not nothing.

All I do know is that a country full of mental toddlers really shouldn't be allowed to play with matches. Now here's something to listen to by the warm light of the flickering flames outside as you recall when we were better than this.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Friday, August 04, 2023

3 Chords & the Truth: The music, the aether and you

There's music in the air.

It's the Big Show, drifting across the aether, in the night, into your device and into your soul -- a refuge in dark and stormy times. That is kind of the niche we occupy these days.

If nothing else, the program -- if everything goes to plan and we hit the sweet spot -- can be a reminder that we can be so much better than the times we unfortunately inhabit. America has had moments when we were better than this, and we can be better than this once again.

3 Chords & the Truth music certainly points to that. Once, when we grimaced because a song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, it was because it was just dumb. Now, and we're looking at you Jason Aldean, it's because the hottest song in the land reminds one of the heat coming from a flaming cross.

IT'S BECAUSE one suspects the song would at least sound better in the original German.

The Big Show doesn't play that game. We expect you're better than that. If you're not, I'm pretty sure you are not listening to this particular podcast coming from a Midwestern enclave somewhere behind America's own Iron Curtain . . . the Ironic Curtain.

What the show is . . . is diverse. That's not a popular thing in many quarters in a country teetering on the edge of fascism. What 3 Chords & the Truth is . . . is eclectic. The expectation here is that, like two things being able to be true simultaneously, you are able to appreciate -- and love -- several genres of music at the same time.

And in the same show. We're funny that way.

If you love music, period, and if your mind is capable of expansion, this is the show (and the episode of the show) for you. If not, I'm wagering you never listened to start with -- and won't in the future.

So get ready for another great episode of a great music program. It starts as soon as you click or download.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Friday, July 28, 2023

3 Chords & the Truth: The Big (click) Big (click) Big (click)

A fair portion of the music we play on the Big Show falls into one of two categories -- stuff that's even (crackle) (pop) older than your Mighty Favog, and various records that (click) that (click) that (click) that (click) that (click) that (WRRRROOOOP!) are almost that old.

That's the beauty of 3 Chords & the Truth. That you'd be extremely hard pressed to tell that was the case, that is.

You see, your genial host works magic to make sure that's the case, to make sure even the oldest, scratchiest, snap-crackle-and-poppiest records get new life through audio science. Now, don't go getting a big head . . . you may or may not deserve it.

But the music does. The music deserves to sound just the way it did when it was new. And it deserves to make a good first impression (or 200th impression), so you'll fall in love with it, too (or fall in love with it all over again).

IS THE Brand X program on the radio -- or on the Internet -- all about love? Probably not. That right there is what makes the Big Show different . . . and better.

Sometimes, you just can't do that with a compact disc or download. Sometimes, if you already own the vinyl, why pay again to get the digital? And sometimes, you just gotta do what you gotta do. We're not fanatics here, after all.

I wasn't sure what new to say about this week's episode, being that all of them are pretty decent. So, I just thought I needed to say this. So I did.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Back when country music was

I was of a mind to listen to some country music this evening. So I went back to 1972, and a classic Loretta Lynn album.

On vinyl.

I liked it when I was young, and thin, and had more hair, which wasn't gray, and it sounded exactly like country music when you put on a country LP.
Thus concludes this late-night rant by a nostalgic old man who's just sick of it all.

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

I'm your rumba man


This is a 1956 iPod playing a 1950s iTunes download -- Xavier Cugat's favorite rumbas, to be specific.

And I'm still doing the rumba, baby. I can't seem to quit. If Chris Brown catches us doing the rumba, Chris Brown would just pitch a fit. (With firearms.)

But I can't help myself; it's much bigger than me. If I were you, I'd hang onto a rumba man like me.

NOW, you might ask, what sort of geekery gets a rumba man like me excited? Old LP records, yes. But more than that . . . old LP records in great shape that have price tags on them from a St. Louis record store that went out of business about the time your rumba man was getting in business.

So to speak.

Don't get me started about how to figure out how old a pressing is, or where did the filler songs come from when a record company reissues a 1948 10-inch LP as a mid-'50s 12-inch LP and adds four songs to it . . . because more space.

Just don't. You ain't geek enough.


Well, that's about all for now. File this under Things That Probably Will End Up on This Week's Show.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

I'll build a (vinyl) stairway to paradise


This afternoon's listening was . . . transcendent.

Sarah Vaughan. George Gershwin's very large segment of the American Songbook. Where could you go wrong?

Answer: You can't.

Boy, oh boy, are you in for a treat this week on 3 Chords & the Truth. My dilemma is deciding what to play off this 1957 masterpiece of an LP.

I have a couple of thoughts, but I almost feel like I'd be cheating you by not just playing the whole thing. The problem is that I have lots of other great music, too.

I'd feel like I was cheating you by not getting around to all that, too.


In brief, my dilemma is your gain. That's the Big Show for you.

Be there. Aloha.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Tonight's vinylpalooza


I'm cheap enough that paying $15 for this 1959 stereo release gave me serious pause at the LP bins of an Old Market antique emporium.

On one hand, I'd rather find a gem for a song at an estate sale or something.

On the other hand, the records from this vendor are usually in marvelous playing condition.

On the third hand, a stereo rock 'n' roll record from 1959 -- the mono version of Bobby Freeman's Do You Wanna Dance album came out the previous year -- and from an indie label, no less. That's likely on the rare side, making the $15 price not a rip-off.

I'll say!

BEFORE LISTENING to this early-rock classic this evening, I did a little Internet price checking for the stereo version of Do You Wanna Dance . . . Jubilee 1086 for all you record geeks out there. And the low price I found it being sold for was something like $29.95. The high price (on eBay, of course) was . . . was . . . gulp! . . . $110. I understand a mint first pressing goes for $200.

Mine seems to be a second pressing. Sigh. I coulda been rich.

Now note that amid all this "What's it wurf???" nerd-o-mania, not a word was written about the actual music, which was great despite following the rock-album convention of the day for a hot act. That would be:

SIDE A
  • Cover something.
  • Cover something.
  • Cover something.
  • Original that'll never be released as a single.
  • Cover something.
  • Hit record we named the LP for.
 SIDE B
  • Cover something.
  • Cover something.
  • Original that you'll hear nowhere else. Ever.
  • Cover something.
  • Original that sounds exactly like the big hit on Side 1.
  • Cover something inspiring. Or something.
That is all. Good night, and good listening.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Cool jazz on a hot summer's night

Was anybody better than Billy Eckstine?

Several were as good but none better, I don't think. And this 1959 stereo version of Eckstine's 1958 Billy's Best album makes for fine listening on a hot, steamy Midwestern eve.
 
Hell, it would be just as wonderful on a frigid winter's night on the Plains, too. 

So this was tonight's musical selection here in the Revolution 21 studio here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska, deep into the dog days of summer, with state-fair season still a month away and college football a little further out than that.

UNLIKE many vinyl aficionados, I have nothing in particular against compact discs or good-quality digital audio files. But, damn, there's really nothing like putting an old LP on the turntable, basking in that particular smell of aged cardboard and paper. Nothing like holding the record sleeve in your hands and dreaming of your lost youth . . . or the days when jazz ruled the western world and you were yet a glimmer in your mama and daddy's eyes.

Maybe you can't hold this '50s classic of American popular music in your own two hands, but you can always listen to 3 Chords & the Truth and dream sweet dreams about a culture at its zenith that's just showing off.

Because it could.

iGet taken back . . . and so does the iMac


I'm 18 again. And cool.

This was my afternoon listening -- during which the memories and the cool tunes came flooding back -- before there almost wasn't an episode of 3 Chords & the Truth this week. There almost wasn't a show this week because I finally took Production iMac to the Apple Store last night to get its recalled, big-ass "fusion drive" replaced with a brand-new, not-recalled version of the same.

The original hard drive seemed fine to me, but the email from Apple said they'd determined that my hard drive and others just like it were at risk of the computer version of cardiac arrest. Production iMac would need a transplant.

So as a PC veteran who has replaced my share of hard drives . . . and everything else . . . I was figuring along the lines of bring the thing in, go have cup of coffee, pick the thing up, go home. Unfortunately, while Apple products Just Work, they cannot be Just Fixed. Because cool design, or something like that.


THREE to five days, the verdict was.

"Well, then, I'm sunk. This is my work computer," I appealed.

"Let me check," the Genius Court said.

"There goes this week's show," your host groused during the wait.

As it turns out, the sentence was amended. Twenty-four to 48 hours in the shop, with no credit for time not served.

Under Apple's "good time" law, however, Production iMac was paroled early this afternoon -- a presumably rehabilitated digital audio workstation. (By the way, I can't say enough good about the Mac's "Time Machine" data backup. In less than an hour, the iMac was just as it was before. No hassle, no drama.

Windows boxes are all about the drama. I spent a night and part of a day trying to get our Dell laptop to work and play well with the studio equipment and digital audio interface. It was touch and go.

Actually, it was more like cuss and scratch your head.


But the Mac is back, and I'm not subjecting myself to the W-word anymore.  Not in the studio, at least.

All is well in the world, the Big Show goes on, and you'll get to hear you some Gruppo Sportivo, too.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Tonight's vintage vinyl listening


It's always 1963 somewhere.

Tonight, that would be here in the 3 Chords & the Truth studio here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. For I am the king of all I survey in used-record stores and the Goodwill.

And to tell you the truth, a lot of these vintage LPs, assuming they haven't been abused by teenagers -- and this is one I'm pretty sure wouldn't have been -- sound spectacular. Better than many, many brand-new ones hipsters are paying upwards of 20 bucks for these days.

The moral you can take away from that is this: Sometimes, it is better to be old and cheap than young and hip. Sayeth your Mighty Favog.

Monday, May 18, 2015

Today's listening


This afternoon's LP listening (and digitizing) -- a 1972 British repressing of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's 1970 debut album.

Though manufactured in the United Kingdom, this album was released for the West German market. If you couldn't figure that out from the album number, it would be hard to miss the German price tag . . . in Deutschmarks.

I'M ALWAYS finding stuff like this here in Omaha, a.k.a., Ground Zero, a.k.a., home of the U.S. Strategic Command. If you have an Army or Air Force base in your town, I'd imagine the used-record pickings are equally good.

What would you say the chances are this will show up on some future edition of 3 Chords & the Truth? Me, I'd put the odds at 100 percent.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Found at your local Goodwill


Oh, the things you find at your local thrift store.

Or, in this case, at the Goodwill in North Platte, Neb. That's why it never hurts to hit the Goodwill when you're traveling -- in this case, on an overnight trip last week to west-central Nebraska.

There I found not only this autographed Loretta Lynn LP, but three more of hers as well, two of them autographed like the one above. The cost for the whole stash was about what you'd pay for a large espresso drink at your local coffee emporium.

And if anybody tries to take 'em from me, we're gonna be goin' to Fist City.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Things CDs suck at


OK, I totally bought this LP at the thrift store because of the album cover.

Because CD packaging is really, really bad at this sort of artistic coolness.


IT'S A 1972 release, "Bandstand," from the British progressive rockers Family. If the music is half as good as the album cover, you'll be hearing it on 3 Chords & the Truth.

Also file under "Things a Digital Download Can't Do at All."


That's it for now. Peace. Out.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Vintage vinyl o' the day


You don't have to ask me twice whether I want to buy -- $2.50 . . . cheap! -- some flaming red vinyl.

I almost don't care what's on it, though in this case, I lucked out. It's classic David Rose, from a 1962 promotional album put out by Montgomery Ward in honor of the venerable department store's 90th anniversary.



This was one of nine put out that year by Ward's, which called the special releases the Nine Top Artist Series. Obviously, with artists like Rose and his orchestra, Lawrence Welk, Artie Shaw, The Ink Spots and The Three Suns, these LPs did not represent the Nine Top Artist Series for Teenyboppers.
Click on album covers to enlarge

But speaking as someone who was a toddlerbopper in 1962, I still think it's all pretty jake . . . er, cool . . . er, groovy . . . er, exemplary.

WHAT I ALSO think is pretty exemplary are my memories of great old department stores like Monkey Ward's, as everyone called the late, great company back then. It was one entity of what I guess you could have called the Holy Trinity of Retailers -- Sears and Roebuck, J.C. Penney and Montgomery Ward, founded (if you do the early-'60s math) in 1872.

Ward's succumbed to modernity in 2000 but was sort of resurrected in 2004 as an online retailer by a company -- itself since acquired by yet another company -- that bought the name and intellectual property of the gone-bust giant. Meantime, Sears and Penney's are hanging on by their fingernails, mere shells of what they once were commercially and as cultural icons.

THE MUSIC with which Montgomery Ward celebrated its success once upon a time remains, though. Music, unlike institutions, never dies.

Though time marches on and memories eventually fade, the music plays on. The music plays on.

And it plays on 3 Chords & the Truth. Be there this weekend. Aloha.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Red Roses for a Blue Christmas


Holy Stocking Full of D Cells and Oranges, Batman!

I think I have acquired the Mother of All Baby Boomer Christmas Albums.

If you remember the 1960s -- and I remember almost all of 'em -- put this record on and suddenly it's Christmas morning, you're 6 years old, in your pajamas and tearing into what Santa Claus left for you under the tree.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Kulturkaempfert


A little more night music in the studio. Why do I suddenly want to watch the Big Movie or a game show?

Why am I pretty sure no one under 40 will understand?

Monday, October 29, 2012

Rock-a-bye, baby!


If I'm tossin' and turnin', turnin' and tossin' all night. . . .

And if I kick the blankets on the floor, too. . . . 

Well, then my lovely bride can just blame Bill Black and His Combo.

More likely, though, she'll blame me for making this my choice for before-bedtime listening.

You do know Bill Black, right? Elvis' bass player in the early days?

WELL, this absolute period piece of an instrumental R&B LP is what Black did with his time when Elvis was off fulfilling his commitment to Uncle Sam with the U.S. Army in West Germany.

Listening to this absolute period piece of an instrumental R&B LP is what I do when it's time to go to bed . . . but not quite yet. Night owl that I am.

Yeah, it'll show up on 3 Chords & the Truth by and by. Of that, you can be sure.

Sadly, Bill Black died in 1965 during a third surgery to remove a brain tumor. He was only 39.

Praise God for records and used record stores, where musicians and their music live forever.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Vive la France!


I had a religious experience Tuesday. It involved neither religion nor sex.

Let me explain.

My favorite used-record shop in Omaha is closing, and I’ve made a couple of trips so far to buy everything I could. With all vinyl half off and CDs for a buck, I’m taking the opportunity to buy some vintage jazz by artists I’ve heard of well enough but haven’t really explored yet.

Sunday's haul of old LPs included a French pressing of jazz singer, pop legend and movie-music composer Michel Legrand’s “Chante et s’accompagne,” released in 1965. The American version’s title is “Sings,” but that's one you're not gonna find on iTunes.


ANYWAY, I put the Legrand album on the turntable last evening, and when the needle dropped. . . .

Transcendence. That might be the word for it. The result of it was a middle-age man being blown out of his chair and onto his butt by a rapturous gale of Gallic jazz magnificence.

Lord have mercy on me, I dearly wish I could have such a transcendent experience at Mass every week. But no. In a church that really has no excuse, given 2,000 years of culture, hymnody and all, worship of the transcendent God usually involves descending into the Haugen-Hass fever swamp of dreary dinner-theater ditties and calling it liturgy.

This is why we must take our religious experiences wherever we can find them -- in this case, France, via the used-record bins of a dying music shop. Vive la France! Vive l'Antiquarium!

Et vive M. Michel Legrand, chanteur transcendant.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Bonne anniversaire à moi


Happy birthday to me.

A wonderful three-martini and duck à l'orange dinner on the town with my honey and dear friends.

Kicking back and listening to the 1957 Julie London album I bought from the used-record bins earlier in the day.

No, it wasn't exactly akin to Don Draper's surprise party on Mad Men tonight, with the big crowd of people, hepcats smoking weed on the balcony and the ooh la la burlesque en français. If it were, I'd probably end up, at age 51, having a heart attack just like Roger Sterling did a couple of seasons back.

And -- as the paramedics loaded me into the rescue squad -- I'd be thinking "Well, that was stupid. And I don't even like slutty French burlesque."

No, I'm a quiet roast duck and martinis kind of guy, content to spend the evening with friends and with my new wife . . . of almost 29 years. (No, seriously, I don't think the woman ages. Let's see Draper's trophy wife in 1994, eh?.) That suits me -- just like the '50s jazz on the old record player.

And I don't have to worry whether the rescue squad will let me take my martini to the hospital in a go cup.

Friday, February 24, 2012

A little night music


Ah . . . just a little night music at la maison des disques here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska.
The disque du jour is a 1967 vintage -- a very good year, as it turns out. Especially for LPs that are mash-ups of period psychedelia and blue-eyed Southern soul.

Let's just say that John Fred and His Playboy Band, the pride of my hometown, had it goin' on.

And remember, boys and girls,
it ain't really music if you can't fit it into the grooves of an LP.

God said.