Mages to play at Hymie’s, today at 3pm

January 28, 2012 in Events, Photos, Songs | No comments

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(“The Earthling Anthem” by Mages)

As a person too worn down to assume the best, my first reaction to a song like “The Earthling Anthem” is surprise – nobody really writes songs like that anymore, do they?  In fact, Mages do.  They have a full-length album and a five-track follow up EP (from which I took “The Earthling Anthem”) of positive, uplifting music.

The EP, Magestic, is not all sugar sweet chamber pop, although its best moments are.  “All Amounts” surrounds Amy O’Connor’s soaring voice in a lush arrangement that would have fit comfortably on the Brian Just Band’s debut disc (a favorite around here last year).

“Don’t Hang Around” is closer to the singer-songwriter tradition which fit the first Mages disc.  It also implies deeper influences in rootsy rock and country, with riffs that would sound like Crazy Horse if they were played on electric guitars.  You can hear Mages covering another 70s influence, the Band, in a video posted here.

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(“Don’t Hang Around”)

“Cold, Cold, Cold” (might have sold better last winter than this year) is a foot-stomper that recalls earlier rock/traditional hybrids like Levellers (does anybody remember Levellers?), not to mention awesome local bands like Chokecherry.  “Cold, Cold, Cold” promises to be a barn-stormer and I hope they’re planning to play it today.

Mages will play at Hymie’s today at 3pm.  We will not have any live music next Sunday, 2/5, because it’s Superbowl Sunday.  Don’t wanna watch the game?  Don’t wanna go record shopping?  You should go bowling.  I’ll bet Memory Lanes is totally empty during the fucking Superbowl.

My favorite Etta James record

January 27, 2012 in Photos, Songs | 1 comment

When Etta James passed away last week at 73, I was surprised to see obituaries (like this one from the New York Times which our local fish wrapper ran) suggest she would be best remembered for her 1960 recording of “At Last”.  If you look at the chart performance of her singles it was one of her earliest hits and her second best-selling record (“Tell Mama”, the first of several comeback singles, hit #23 on the US pop charts in 1967 – her biggest hit, believe it or not).  “At Last” is a beautiful song, and probably one of the best ballads Chess Records released during its peak years, but it’s not the first Etta James song that comes to mind, if you ask me.

I guess I was surprised “Something’s Got A Hold on Me” wasn’t more revered as pioneering hard-rocking soul.  I suppose in the context of her post-Chess career it’s less representative than “At Last”.  My favorite Etta James song is certainly not one of her most famous – it’s not even included on compilation discs like The Essential Etta James – although it did pretty well as a single when it came out in 1964.  Here it is:

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Mismatches

January 26, 2012 in Photos, Playlists, Songs | No comments

At any given time there’s at least a hundred thousand LPs in the shop for your browsing pleasure.  100,000 records you can take to the listening station and sample (this is, assuming an average album length of thirty-five minutes, just over six and a half years worth of listening entertainment).  If I were you I wouldn’t bother with a record store that doesn’t have a listening station.

Fortunately for Laura and I, few regulars fail to put the records they’ve played back where they belong.  That’s good because it’s hard to keep everything in order, given the size of the shop and the nuances of it’s layout and our organization of the browsers.  Still, from time to time, records wind up in the wrong place (hopefully it’s not the one you’ve been looking for).

Sometimes the wrong record is in the jacket, and some of the mismatches make you think…

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Of course, this is a little more conceptional than what we usually do here at Hymies Records dot com.  I mean, you have to put it together.  Eric Carmen is singing about being “aaaawwwwl by myself” and Jackson Browne really is all by himself in a crowd.

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Less of a “thinker”.

 

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If you think this one was offensive (Tiny Tim died of a heart attack on stage, here in Minneapolis in 1996) then you should probably skip the next couple…

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Man I wish I had ten dollars for every time some know-it-all with a copy of the ultra-rare discontinued “flames” jacket came into the shop demanding a fortune – Yeah, ten bucks would be perfect because that’s about what they should sell for.

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Actually, in his defense what Phil Spector said to the limo driver was a little less definitive than the Misfits lyrics.  He said “I think I’ve killed someone.”  See, there’s some ambiguity there.

 

Cool looking classical records

January 25, 2012 in Photos | No comments

I loved my parent’s record collection.  The jackets were all so much nicer than mine, and the they were always way more organized than mine (they were all facing the same direction).  They were also nearly all classical records (the others were the sorts of things I now see a couple times a day in grocery bags, milk crates and wine boxes that people bring in the front door – Doctor Zhivago, My Name is Barbra, etc).

There’s so many cool looking classical records.  Sure, some of my all-time favorites are boring like this Budapest String Quartet recording of Beethoven’s Quartet no. 15 in A Minor (positively one of the best records in my collection).

It’s all there:  Daunting title and numbers, old guys in tuxedos, review from a magazine you’ve never seen in your life.  The only thing that’s missing is a frumpy bust of Beethoven – that would make it really boring.

Of course, by 1951 when they made this (their second) recording of Beethoven’s 15th, the Budapest String Quartet really didn’t have to catch your eye to sell records – They were rightfully regarded as tops by classical connoisseurs.

I don’t know if the boom in crazy cool classical covers really represents the desperation of mid-level performers, I think it’s more likely a response to expanding competition.  I do know that there were some amazing talents recording during the 1950s and 1960s, both on the records and in designing the jackets they came in.

My favorite classical covers are dark and sort of spooky, like this recording of Beethoven's "Appassionata" and "Pathetique" sonatas by Arthur Rubenstein.

Another well-known cover, a painting by Gray Foy that captured Dukas' suite "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" – made famous in the Disney movie "Fantasia".

Jackets for Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" are reliable sweet (it is also often paired as here with "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". This RCA Red Seal is a digital recording. The jacket sets a larger image on the inner sleeve framed by a die cut jacket.

Recordings of the great modern American composer William Grant Still's works are rare, but not as rare as the winged rhinoceros on the cover of this album.

I suppose this album of harpsichord music by Bach and Haydn was packaged to entice listeners caught up in the Indian classical music fad of the late 60s. Harpsichordist Anthony Newman's own pieces at the end (Chimaeras I & II) are pretty freaky. The composer/performer himself promises in the liner notes they "should be experienced bty the listener on many psychic levels – from the literal to the subconscious." Heavy.

Saint-Saen's "Dance Macabre", the most famous of his tone poems, probably didn't appeal to the deadheads who accidentally bought this recording by Pierre Dervaux and the Orchestre de Paris. It is a geniunely macabre piece, intended to capture the song Death himself plays on the fiddle, accompanied by his footstomps on a tombstone.

Jackets for Gustav Holst's "The Planets" are usually pretty sweet. This one is also hilarious and a little raunchy (she's really sharing altogether too much, um, atmopshere down there). Sir Adrian Boult recorded one of the best "Planets" in 1954 (with the London Philharmonic). This 1961 re-recording is good but not astronomical by any means.

 

Naked chicks are always a good choice when designing record jackets. This version of Scraibin's "Poem of Ecstasy" also includes especially lurid liner notes.

Thank you for sharing your comment. It will be forwarded to the appropriate department.

January 24, 2012 in Photos, Songs | No comments

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A song for the haters today.

The album that broke Valdy into the American market

January 23, 2012 in Canadian imports, Photos, Songs | No comments

Haters north of the border might dismiss him as the poor man’s Gordon Lightfoot, but Valdy’s 1975 album See How the Years Have Gone By is full of gems, from his first hit “Rock n Roll Song”…

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to the kickass “Truckers Song”, good as “Six Days on the Road” for rig rollin’…

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See How the Years Have Gone By was the first Valdy record released in the US – the tracks were re-recordings of highlights from his first three albums with a Los Angeles session band (notably William “Smitty” Smith on the keyboards and Jerry McGee on guitar and dobro).  This is glittery, fancy Valdy.  Sell-out Valdy.

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God, I love it!

T-Shirts

January 22, 2012 in Photos | 1 comment

So if you’ve been in the shop lately or you were at our Winter Record Sale at the Triple Rock on Saturday night (what fun!) you probably noticed our newest T-shirts, which are the first black T’s we’ve made.  The day after Jeremy, our kick-ass T-shirt guy brought them in (he works for records!) Lisa the mail lady brought another T I’d been waiting and waiting and waaaaaaaaaiiiiting for…

 

Sweet!  Hymie’s Deli in Merion, PA is one of the best delis in the Philadelphia area, not so far from the one-time site of Bryn Mawr’s Main Point coffee house where awesome live recordings by Springsteen, John Prine, and others were broadcast on WMMR only to be bootlegged and enjoyed by successive generations.  Hymie’s – the other Hymie’s – is known for it’s pastrami and if you read their menu you’ll probably want to have breakfast there.  In fact, don’t click on that link above if you’re don’t want to become hungry in the next couple minutes.

When I heard about Hymie’s Deli I sent them one of our T-shirts and a little note.  Months later I finally received another in return (they had to wait for their new ones to be screened).  And now I have a favorite T-shirt.

And that got me thinking about the T-shirts that you see on records.  I thought of a few favorites…

John Denver

Lynyrd Skynyrd. Yeah, they all died. Sad.

Cover of the Suicide Commandos Make A Record – "Fridley Girls Softball"

Another local group – Nato Coles and the Blue Diamond Band.

 

Okay, the rule about wearing your own T-shirt is suspended when you're band is so freakin' awesome that you're the Clash.

Craig Degree – inside a Crosby/Nash album.

The Turtles

 

 

George Carlin's "Toledo Windowbox" T-shirt – two sided!

“Just one more story, please…”

January 20, 2012 in Storytime | No comments

Well, since I’ve created a new category for posts called “storytime”, I might as well post another story.  Today’s is “Jack the Giant Killer” and it’s told by Andy Griffith:

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Hey don’t forget tonight is Hymie’s Winter Record Sale at the Triple Rock Social Club.  Live music by Nick Mrozinski, Papa John Kolstad (with Tommy Ray!), the Cactus Blossoms, the Brass Kings and the Flying Dorito Brothers.  Also music from DJ Truckstash and Lonesome DJ Dave, and – of course – HALF PRICE RECORDS from the shop!!  Doors at 5pm, music at 6 and all night long!!

The shocking Truth of Truths

January 19, 2012 in Photos, Songs, Storytime | No comments

 

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“Overture” and “Creation” from Truth of Truths, a 1971 rock opera based on the Bible produced by Ray Ruff.  Not just spiritually enlightening, Truth of Truths boasts occasional kick ass prog rock passages a la Iron Butterfly and soul pop in the 5th Dimension vein.

In fact, the primary drawback of Truth of Truths is in it’s casting.  Yes, the voice of God is none other than Jim Backus, the voice of Mr. Magoo.  Thurston Howell III is your almighty Creator.

You were created in His image.

 

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Last minute changes to our Winter Record Sale at the Triple Rock

January 19, 2012 in Events | No comments

Alright, good news or bad news?  There’s not really any way to sugar coat it, so I’ll just tell you:  Spider John Koerner can’t play at our sale on Saturday.  There was an unexpected family emergency this week and he had to travel out of town.

The show must go on, and it’s still a great bill with an early set by Papa John Kolstad (now moved to Spider John’s slot at 7:30, and a trio of great late sets starting at 10 by the Cactus Blossoms, the Brass Kings and the Flying Dorito Brothers.

And to fill the empty space at 6 o’clock we’ve invited Nick Mrozinski to join us!

Also, we’re very excited that Papa John has invited blues pianist and singer Tommy Ray (brother of the late Dave Ray) to join him, keeping the Triangle Bar spirit of the night’s early sets alive.

The Triple Rock is a great venue and we’re thrilled to be hosting so many great acts there – DJ Truckstash will be joining me to duel honky tonk on the tables, and everyone here is working hard to get together tons of records that will all be half price!

Our sympathies are with Spider John right now, and I think everyone will understand that he can’t make the show on Saturday.  We are going to work to arrange a performance here at the shop some this spring to make it up to you all,

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