A Collection of New Vinyl for the Audiophile – November, 2014

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming. The program I had planned before the Beatles took over my life with their cuckoo mono recordings. I’ve also allowed my life to be taken over at different times by the musicians we’ll be looking at this month. Specifically, we’re talking about Bob Dylan and Widespread Panic.

Mobile Fidelity has been releasing most of Dylan’s earlier work in various formats over the course of the last couple of years. The only title I’d jumped on before now was Blood On The Tracks because somehow I didn’t own that one in any format at all. The MoFi version includes a single pristine platter cut at 33rpm. Now, we’ve got Desire on double 45rpm vinyl to contend with. I don’t have an original for comparison, but my ears are pretty ecstatic about what’s going on here. And Desire is far from my favorite Dylan title.

That’s not to say that it’s not great. Because it is. I have a couple of minor qualms about his vocal delivery in spots on this one, but I won’t get into specifics because I’ll just sound like a weirdo fanatic if I do. (For the record, I am a weirdo fanatic; I just try to keep it within the confines of my own head without foisting it on an unsuspecting public.) With all of that out on the table, Desire includes “Isis” which is one of the simplest, most interesting compositions that I’m aware of in the pop music canon. This, for me, is Exhibit A when it comes to Rock and Roll storytelling. And it’s surprisingly straightforward for a guy like Bob. In fact, Desire is composed mostly of story songs, and many of them are presented without the smoke and mirrors that he so often used to camouflage messages and meanings. “Joey” tells the story of renowned gangster Joe Gallo. “Hurricane” is a plea for justice as it relates to boxer Ruben Carter’s wrongful conviction. (Desire was released in 1976, Carter’s conviction was overturned and he was released from prison in 1985. Bob was way out in front of the curve on that one, I’d say.) Dylan shares songwriting credit with Jacques Levy on seven of nine Desire tunes which is interesting to me as I’m not aware of Dylan soliciting the lyrical aid of anyone else on that level over the course of his entire career. Maybe it was Levy’s influence that gave the writing a more direct feel. Who knows? We do know that Emmylou Harris is all over Desire and that she’s especially shiny on “Mozambique,” and “One More Cup of Coffee.” (I guess Big Jack White is a Desire fan as he’s covered both “Isis” and “Coffee” with the White Stripes and others.) Finally, Allen Ginsberg provides us with an “essay” to ponder that’s printed in the album’s gatefold. If you can decipher it, shoot me an email. I’d love to get to the bottom of it all.

I’ve been listening to Desire for years, but I’ve never heard it like this before. I’d never really heard it at all, I guess. The fiddle was more nasal than even Dylan’s voice on the CD version I’ve had all this time. The bass was flimsy, and the entire affair too sharp and harsh. MoFi, obviously, has fixed all of that. Thank goodness. I may have been wrong. Desire may be one of my favorite Dylan albums, after all.

(This album was purchased at MusicDirect.com.)

I lied a little bit. Not entirely. I also have MoFi’s The Basement Tapes in addition to Blood On the Tracks. But Basement isn’t technically a Dylan record. It’s by Bob Dylan and the Band. MoFi did their number on the Band’s essential releases too, and now we have Before The Flood to add to the Dylan and the Band catalog. Not only have I never owned Before the Flood in any format, I’d not even heard it before buying the MoFi version. Chew on that for a second. There are actually a few Dylan titles that I’m still unfamiliar with. I’m saving them for when he stops recording. Doesn’t look like that’s happening any time soon so I might as well dive in. These Flood waters are plenty warm. There’s just one damn thing that gets me about this era…

Sometime after the Band’s self-titled second record, they discovered the synthesizer. And went nuts with it. I wonder how they feel about it in retrospect. Because it stands out like a whore in church to my ears. I just can’t imagine what they thought it sounded so great. I chalk it up to the novelty of the instrument in that era. Stevie Wonder made it work. And Garth Hudson played it well enough, but it just doesn’t fit the scene as far as I’m concerned. Kinda like a solid line in a Jackson Pollock painting. Nothing wrong with it, per se, it just doesn’t fit too well with what’s happening around it. Any old way, this record was culled from 1974 performances, and the Band’s material covers side two and most of side three. Dylan’s material makes up the rest. I’m always up for hearing Levon Helm sing, and he does a bit of that on Flood. For fans of the Band, I’d say there are stronger performances available out there (including MoFi’s take on Rock of Ages which is slightly less synthesizer saturated, and obviously The Last Waltz which isn’t saturated with anything besides baddassedness). For Dylan’s part, he was at his hollering, yelping best on Before the Flood, but I still feel like there are better live performances out there. To me, Flood sounds like the players were having to work overtime to get their sound across in really, really big rooms. (The bulk of the songs that made the final cut were recorded at the Forum in LA. I just got back from seeing a show there. Managing the acoustics in that room would be challenging now. They did a hell of a job getting these songs documented in ’74.) There’s a lot of detail in these grooves, but not tons of depth. By now, we’re all familiar with the way Dylan changes up the progressions in his songs, sometimes in ways that render them almost unrecognizable. But this version of “Watchtower” may have turned some heads at the time even if it’s the Dylan version that most of us are familiar with today. I bought a cassette bootleg documenting this tour off a NYC street vendor in the early ’90’s. The MoFi sonics are clearly better, but the bootleg had more energy. I’ve not found anything too revelatory in this package, but I’m glad to have it in my collection. “Highway 61” is a blast.

I noticed that this is not a MoFi “Original Master Recording.” I can’t tell that the sound has suffered because of it, but this is not the magical experience that MoFi can provide. If you’re running out of room on your record shelf, you could probably sit this one out. I’m keeping mine.

(This album was purchased at MusicDirect.com.)

Now, we get to the goods. Sometimes, it’s tough to get up the energy to buy records that you already have perfectly fine copies of. But Highway 61 Revisited is a different animal, and I only had a mono reissue (as part of the stellar mono box set by Columbia from a couple of years ago) so I was able to justify the added expense and the poor use of record shelf real estate. If you could see the size of my apartment, you would know why I’m so obsessed with managing available space. In this instance, having multiple copies of the same record is perfectly acceptable. Again, this is not an “Original Master Recording.” That tape is “lost,” however that happens. The historical importance of this record can’t be overstated, and I’m pretty comfortable knowing that I have two sonically superior copies to choose from. Normally, I’d go mono every time, but this MoFi stereo version has a lot to recommend. It’s a monster.

“Like A Rolling Stone” starts side one, and I like to imagine dropping the needle on that one for the first time in 1965. I’d have been as confused as the next guy, but I like to think that I’d have been on board after first listen. From there, the titles may get slightly more obscure for the casual fan, but never less impactful for the musical landscape of the time. “Tombstone Blues,” “Ballad of a Thin Man,” “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” the title track, “Desolation Row!” I mean, we might as well mention “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry,” and “Queen Jane Approximately” while we’re at it. That just leaves “From A Buick 6.” Nary a week song in the lot. If we were talking about prize fighters, we’d be dealing with the strength and ferocity of Mike Tyson with the speed and precision of Ray Leonard. A side by side comparison shows that MoFi’s stereo version is airier and livelier than Columbia’s mono reissue. That’s not a knock on the Columbia take. That one has plenty of detail and a fine ’60’s sound that I really appreciate. It just shows what the MoFi folks are capable of even when they don’t have access to the original master. They still have access to what must be some amazing mastering and cutting equipment because this double 45rpm offering is everything that I’ve come to expect from them. There was a time when I’d get a little nervous about a dirty rocker on the MoFi platform. But they seem to have figured out how to liven up these titles without taking the spirit out of them. I’m not convinced that I won’t reach for their version more often than the mono variant. And that’s kinda crazy. There’s just so much more three dimensionality in this stereo version. And, of course, the records are flat black, dead quiet. The 45rpm presentation might fatigue the casual listener as those sides come and go pretty quickly. It feels like you’re always getting up to flip one, but the effort is well worth the payoff in my book. And this is coming from someone that cleans every side before every listen. Effort, indeed.

I probably won’t go back for the earliest Dylan titles in this series. I’ll stick with the monos that I got in the box. But I intend to get the MoFi titles that weren’t part of the mono box. That includes New Morning. And I’ll likely go back for Bringing It All Back Home which is almost as essential as Highway. Maybe I’ll rent a storage space when the Basement Tapes box is released by Columbia later this month. I’d rather do that than not have it, I reckon. High times for Dylan fans.

(This album was purchased at MusicDirect.com.)

I first heard Bob Dylan sing as part of the “We Are The World” contingent. I thought something was wrong with my stereo. The first time I heard Widespread Panic play, it was at a little venue in my home town of Augusta, Georgia called the Post Office. I was sixteen years old and it was the first time I had seen live music in a venue that small. Up until then, I’d only seen arena shows. I’ve never gotten that hook out of my mouth. That night, quite literally, changed my life forever as I’d go on to see Panic an embarrassing amount of times in some faraway places with friends that I’m fortunate to still have today. Panic also turned me on to a ton of other bands that I might have taken forever to find on my own. I can point to WSP as the reason that I first heard Traffic, the Meters, Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit, Black Sabbath, R.L. Burnside, and Bloodkin amongst a hundred others. Now, WSP is releasing their first four long players on vinyl, most for the first time. This could be big.

I worked in an independent record store when I was fourteen, and I remember seeing Space Wrangler on our shelves, but I wasn’t ready for it yet. Later, I bought a sealed original copy at an in-store signing in South Carolina, and I’ve kept it in pristine condition since. It might be one of the most valuable albums I own as it was signed by all four original members plus Sunny, the percussionist that would complete the classic quintet lineup until JoJo joined on keys a few years later. The first thing I noticed about the reissue was the dull nature of the album artwork. As if you’re looking at it through the bottom of a shot glass. The back cover photo is different too. Sonically, the differences between the two are minimal, but the reissue may have just a bit more depth and bottom end. The original was pressed on one of the thinnest discs I own, and it sounds a little thin too, but I don’t think that’s a function of the record’s weight. That’s just the way records were recorded at the time. We’re talking about 1988, for the love of Pete. We were lucky to have a band whose members were playing real instruments in front of real people for the thrill of it all without the aid of hairspray or sequins or assless chaps. And the songs still hold up. To a dyed in the wool WSP fan, they would become a major component of the proverbial soundtrack of our lives. “Chilly Water” was a rocker unlike any I’d heard with Mikey Houser’s patented feedback leads and JB’s gut bucket vocals. “The Take Out” is still one of the niftiest little instrumentals that I’m aware of and illustrates the deceptive musical genius that Mikey brought to the band during his lifetime. Most exciting for me is the fact that the new version includes four extra tunes that were never available on vinyl as they were only later released as part of a CD reissue. One of those songs is “Holden Oversoul” and that’s still one of my favorite Rock and Roll songs ever. Houser was the guy, and the evidence of that is painted eloquently all over the Space Wrangler canvas.

These discs are heavier than the original record, but not necessarily “better.” There is some surface noise to contend with whereas my original is dead quiet. The extra songs necessitated a second disc, and I wish they’d taken the opportunity to house the records in a gatefold with maybe some extras on the inside like essays, photos, show posters, whatever. They did not, and I feel like that was a missed opportunity since they obviously weren’t attempting to recreate the original’s artwork. Still, I can give my original some time off while I listen to the latest, and I’m excited to have those extra songs in the proper format for the first time ever. I feel like I’m sixteen again. But I’m not.

This is the one that did it. This is the album that spanned my time in late high school to the time I left home as a college undergrad. If it were possible to wear a CD out, I’d know about it because mine would have given up the ghost after the 5,000th play. Over the course of one summer. If my friends and I were in a car, this was in the tape deck. If we were at a party, in a patrol car, or in a hole in the ground, this was playing. This is technically Widespread’s self-titled release, but we all know it as “Mom’s Kitchen” since the album photography in the CD booklet was shot at the Soul Food restaurant of the same name. That restaurant has been closed for years (I only got to eat there once) and two of the other local faves from that era are extinct too (including Weaver D’s as popularized by REM). Apparently, album artwork is also extinct because none is included with this release. I don’t get it.

Here’s the thing: this record was recorded by Johnny Sandlin in 1991. It sounds flimsy. Always has. I’d be surprised to learn that any tape was used during any part of this process. Even then, I knew that this record sounded unlike any I’d ever heard before. It’s just so sterile and flat. I’d give my left leg to be able to go back in time and dirty it up a bit. But the songs are the thing, and I still love them all. WSP got lumped in with all of the other Jam Bands of the day, and that’s not an inaccurate portrayal of what they were doing. I just think they were doing it a lot better than any other of the others and with much more substance. The relentless bongos, drum rolls, the occasional slap bass accents – none of that bothers me, even now. I heard the band play “Walkin’” until I was blue in the face, but it’s still as catchy and infectious as ever. Many fans grew wary of it because there was just no room for the band to stretch out within its framework. The same could be said about most songs on “Mom’s,” actually, but the players always found their spots during “Pigeons,” “Mercy,” “Rock,” and “Proving Ground.” That last one, especially, has stood the test of time with a crescendo that will singe your eyelashes if you’re not wearing protective goggles. But tunes like (Bloodkin’s) “Makes Sense To Me,” “Love Tractor,” “Weight of the World,” and “The Last Straw” (my fave) all hover around the five minute mark (excepting “Makes Sense” which is shorter). I think that’s been historically overlooked. Panic wrote songs. With beginnings, middles, and endings – no noodling and wanking involved. Those five minute tunes all have a purpose, they never lose direction. By the late ’90’s/early 2000’s, Panic had refined their technique to the point of perfection. They rarely missed in a live setting and seemed to signal each other via musical ESP. And this record documented the solid foundation that they’d developed to build all of that upon. It’s the real thing.

I’m not sure how much could be done to liven this recording up. It’s like some of Springsteen’s work in that sense: great songs, sorry sonics. But “Mom’s Kitchen” has the benefit of nostalgia on its side, at least for me. I won’t hesitate to pull this one out every few months for a trip down Hazy Memory Lane. The two discs are quiet enough. No gatefold and less artwork than was included with the original CD. That’s silly. Some would argue that the songs are too, but I stand by them. I’ve been doing that for 25 years now. What a long strange trip and all that business…

(This album was purchased at MusicDirect.com.)