991.com Sleevenotes : A Blog about Collecting Rare Vinyl 7", 12" & LP Records, CDs, Memorabilia & Music

Zappa At The Roundhouse

Zappa fans were given the treat of a lifetime this weekend as, for three days, The Roundhouse at Chalk Farm was devoted to the man, his genius & his legacy. With the support of the Zappa Family Trust, the venue became home to thousands of people of like mind. There were a select band of devotees that attended every day, but some people were only there for the concerts & what amazing concerts they were! On Friday, the London Contemporary Orchestra gave a spirited performance of 'The Yellow Shark', preceded by The Roundhouse's own RMC performing a medley that encompassed everything from Edgard Varese to Louie Louie! Saturday saw the crowds out in force for The Mighty Boosh & Frank's son Dweezil's 'Zappa Plays Zappa', who performed note perfect reproductions of a set of Frank's rock work including some pieces that Frank himself never performed live. The evening was enhanced by Moon Zappa taking her daughter Mathilda onto the stage for a family rendition of 'Valley Girl'. Sunday saw a return to the orchestral side of Frank with an amazing performance of both 'Music For Low Budget Orchestra' & 'Greggery Peccary'. With Gail, Moon and Diva Zappa in attendence all weekend, they made themselves very approachable & open to fans questions. Indeed, there were several Q&A sessions with Gail Zappa, various people from 'Team Zappa' to give answers on the technical side & welcome special guests Scott Thunes & Jeff Simmons to supply a musical perspective. If this wasn't enough for you, there was also a room devoted to the showing of every Zappa film that has been made so far, including a preview of a forthcoming Biopic that for now is called 'Zapped'. Illustrations of album covers, quotes, a 'Mixing Room' where you could play with four track excerpts of songs & even Zappa's Crappa. If you are a Zappa fan & didn't go, you missed out. With any luck, the festival was so successful that it is likely to become an annual event - So start saving now !!

Good News

For those of you that have been waiting [and for those of you that so far have missed out], there is a new shipment of the amazing books by Yuri Grishin on the way & we should soon have them all back in stock again.

For those that don't know, Yuri has written & released four incredible books on the great British Record Labels of the last thirty years. Each book is an encyclopaedic reference with label designs, sleeve pictures & interviews with key people that had a hand in the label, making then an essential for the library of any serious collector.

The books available so far are for Island, Harvest, Charisma & the recently published Vertigo, which also includes singles for the first time.

Yuri plans to also publish pocket books in the future for ease of use & also to include any updates to his main works.

As someone that has purchased one of each, I can recommend them !

RTA

Did somebody mention Imelda May ?

Looks like Imelda May's 'Love Tattoo' has taken over from Charlotte Gainsbourg's '5:55' as the top played CD here in the Shed. There's a reason for that - It's darned GOOD!

Like '5:55', 'Love Tattoo' is one of those albums that, if you don't have it already, you SHOULD have it.

As you can imagine, here in the Shed there are daily battles about what gets listened to, as we all have very different tastes. Each of us, of course, is of the opinion that WE like & play the good stuff & what the others play can be dodgy or has to be tolerated. Very rarely, something turns up that we ALL like.

So far [in over five years] they have been :-

1) Jeff Beck Live At Ronnie Scotts

2) 5:55 by Charlotte Gainsbourg

3) Love Tattoo by Imelda May

Don't just take my word for it, grab yourself a copy, or better still catch them live because they are very good indeed.

RTA

A Master at Work

For those of you lucky enough to have witnessed Jeff Beck with the amazing Imelda May band, you'll know what is to come. For those of you that didn't attend the gig, I couldn't put into words any better than this:

http://www.wharf.co.uk/2009/09/review-jeff-beck-with-the-imelda-may-band.html

Mr Beck is still the finest & most impressive electric guitarist on the planet. Not the "fastest", or the one with the best leather trousers or the one who can play the most notes per second but the finest. Pure class.

He can still do with one note what many guitarists fail to achieve in a whole gig [or even career!]. The gig at the Indigo2 saw Jeff revisiting the songs that inspired him to play, aided by the incredible Imelda May band, who didn't put a foot wrong all evening.

If another opportunity comes up to see this combination [or indeed, Imelda May or JB on their own], grab it.  I've seen Jeff Beck more times than I can count & I'm still blown away every gig by something that he does.  A very good night of very good music.

A big thanks to all concerned.

Discovered - The Tridents featuring Jeff Beck acetate

The Tridents were a Yardbirds-esque British R&B group that Jeff left when he joined the real Yardbirds on Tuesday, March 2nd 1965. This recording dates from late 1963 or Early 1964 [at best guess] & features a nineteen year old Jeff & his Telecaster with Ray Cook on Drums, Paul Lucas on Bass & Vocals and brother John Lucas on Rhythm Guitar & Vocals.

It appears that four demo tracks were recorded by the band. Two at Regent Sound & two at Oriole Studios in London - 'Wanderin' Man Blues', 'Trouble In Mind', 'Keep Your Hands Off My Woman' & a Tridents self-penned original 'That Noise!'

Of these tracks, very scratchy & noise reduced to hell & back versions of 'Trouble In Mind' & 'Wanderin' Man Blues' were finally released on the 'Beckology' compilation, having been taken from seriously scratchy acetates.

Originally the plan was for 'Keep Your Hands Off My Woman' & 'That Noise!' to be A sides & 'Wanderin' Man Blues' & 'Trouble In Mind' the B sides.
This acetate pairs 'That Noise!' & 'Wanderin' Man Blues', so this is from Oriole Studios, meaning that the other two tracks were the ones recorded at Regent Sound.

The only markings on this disc are the track titles & The Tridents, hand written in Chinagraph pencil at the centre. When we discovered it, the A side title was quite worn, but the B side was when my heart jumped into my mouth as I realised just what this might be.
It had to be played.

We played it. B Side first as it was the title I recognised. It was exactly what I'd hoped it was - The Tridents with Jeff Beck!
Clear, crisp, full range sonic beauty making the 'Beckology' version sound like it was recorded through a pile of old socks. By the looks of things, this can have been played no more than a handful of times.
The A Side was unknown to me at the time, but turned out to be a chugging R&B number very reminiscent of early Yardbirds. It had obviously been played a little more than the B Side, but even so it was still very clear & crisp.

At that point, I knew we'd stumbled upon something a little bit special.

So, here we have [in amazing condition for a delicate acetate], two Tridents tracks from 1963. One previously unreleased & one released in a C- audio quality where both of these tracks are A/A+. Hellfire, there are CYMBALS on these versions!

Over forty five years old & stored safely away for most of that time until our intrepid archaeologists re-discovered this ancient artifact, possibly unplayed since 1964 [until we played it to see what it was].

Given that the Beckology version was supposedly the best available to CBS/Epic, we can only conclude that no more than two copies of this acetate exist [as far as we are aware]. This is only the second acetate to surface & it is free from any notable marks or scratches, unlike the one owned by Paul Lucas that was loaned to CBS/Epic for the Beckology release. There are some light cosmetic scuffs to some areas of the disc, but because of the fragile nature of acetates this is inevitable & will be caused simply by removing the disc from its paper sleeve. These have no effect sonically, as we can attest to, having played both sides through.

The chances of Paul Lucas releasing his personal acetates are slim to nil, so this acetate becomes effectively a one-off.
In this amazing condition, it IS the best available recording of The Tridents available in the world.

Over the years, seeing many 'rare' & 'impossible to find' items turn up again & again here, you can get quite blasé about things. It takes something like this to remind yourself just why you do this for a living. It's the musical equivalent of finding an undiscovered Egyptian Tomb - And it takes your breath away.

View the acetate here

Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated ...

New year, new blog.

After several months of feeling like my brain is being squeezed through a too small icing bag, with the gentle application of a blow torch from time to time to aid the flow, things are finally looking up.

Looking up around here is also a little different. We are blessed with being on the outer limits of the range of the Greater London Rose-Ringed Parakeet & very noisy b*ggers they are too! Apparently they live up to forty years & seem to be thriving in this country, far away from their native Himalayan foothills.

Being reasonably functional again, I am back to drooling over product exotica, which is my equivalent of nesting, I suppose. If you've not picked them up yet, the 50th Anniversary of Island Records has yielded three limited edition triple CD box sets, all of which are worth having. The yellow Reggae one has been a solid hit here. The pink 'Rock' one also has some gems therein. For some reason I seem to be alone in my appreciation of the green 'Folkie' one!

Some things stay the same - Still a stack of stuff to sort and add with every day popping up a long lost relic from Pinky & Perky to Frank Zappa.

At the moment I am wading through over thirty years worth of 7" singles from the Weston Taylor Collection, which is still producing surprises on a daily basis.

It's good to be back.