Tower Records: Where the Good Stuff Was

27 Oct 2015 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

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(via purple clover)

by Charles Paikert

I’m not usually big on nostalgia, but record stores?

Oh, baby.

My first was Walt’s Record Shop on South Salina in downtown Syracuse. I was in grammar school, and that was before malls, when people still went shopping downtown. Walt’s wasn’t even a great record store, but it had a better selection of LPs and 45s than Woolworths or Grants.

If you liked rock and roll, a record store was a gateway drug. Everything was there! You could hold albums and singles in your hands, look at the covers, read liner notes, smell the vinyl. Records were real, tactile objects, which you brought home, put on a record player, heard the pop and hiss of the needle as it hit the disc’s revolving grooves on the turntable and then—bam! loud rock music filled the room before your parents told you to turn it down…

Read more: http://www.purpleclover.com/entertainment/5515-where-good-stuff-was/

Music Matters

24 Oct 2015 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

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20 Weird And Not So Weird Facts About “Weird Al” Yankovic and His Songs

23 Oct 2015 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

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(via mental floss)

by Roger Cormier

Starting with his first professional recordings and appearances on the Dr. Demento radio show almost 35 years ago, “Weird Al” Yankovic has managed to stay on the pop culture map and change with the times, even while so many of the bands and artists he has parodied lost the spotlight. Here are some facts about “Weird Al” Yankovic and his songs.

1. WEIRD AL’S PARENTS CHOSE THE ACCORDION FOR HIM

The legend—verified by Al Yankovic in the liner notes of his 1994 box set Permanent Record: Al in the Box—reads that on the day before Al turned 7, a door-to-door salesman came through Lynwood, California, to solicit business for a local music school, which offered its pupils a choice between guitar or accordion lessons. Because Frankie Yankovic shared the family’s surname and was known as “America’s Polka King,” Al’s parents chose the squeezebox for their son. Al would gradually learn how to play rock n’ roll on the instrument, mostly from Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, playing it “over and over” and trying to play along with it. Frankie and Al weren’t actually related, but the two would eventually collaborate, with Al playing on “Who Stole the Kishka?” on Frankie’s Songs of the Polka King, Vol. 1, and Frankie’s “The Tick Tock Polka” played by Al as a lead-in to Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” on the Alpocalypse track “Polka Face.”

Read more: http://mentalfloss.com/article/57901/20-weird-and-not-so-weird-facts-about-weird-al-yankovic-and-his-songs

Accounting for Taste: The 20 Best-Selling Albums of All Time

16 Oct 2015 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

   albums 3albums 2

(Source: RIAA)

1. Michael Jackson: Thriller (29 million)

2. Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971 – 1975 (29 million copies)

3. Pink Floyd: The Wall (23 million)

4. Billy Joel: Greatest Hits Volume I and II (23 million)

5. Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV (23 million)

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6. AC/DC: Back in Black (22 million)

7. Garth Brooks: Double Live (21 million)

8. Shania Twain: Come On Over (20 million)

9. Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (20 million)

10. The Beatles: The Beatles (The White Album) (19 million)

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11. Guns N’ Roses: Appetite for Destruction (18 million)

12. Whitney Houston: The Bodyguard OST (17 million)

13. Boston: Boston (17 million)

14. Garth Brooks: No Fences (17 million)

15. The Beatles: The Beatles 1967-1970 (17 million)

16. Metallica: Metallica (16 million)

17. Hootie and the Blowfish: Cracked Rear View (16 million)

18. Eagles: Hotel California (16 million)

19. Elton John: Greatest Hits (16 million)

20. Alanis Morissette: Jagged Little Pill (16 million)

Beach Boy Father/Manager Murry Wilson Tries to Ruin Up “Help Me Rhonda” Session

16 Oct 2015 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: , ,

From early 1965. As the Beach Boys record what would become their second #1 hit, a drunken Murry Wilson (father of Brian, Carl and Dennis) offers the kind of unsolicited input that eventually led to the Boys purchasing a fake mixing console that he could man harmlessly.

murryMurry’s “help” mostly seems to take the form of taunts, put-downs, muzzy musical advice, and morale-crushing references to how much better they used to sing–and includes his infamous “I’m a genius too” at 2:09.

Notorious head case Brian comes across as the clear-headed one here. And despite Murry’s request to stop recording, Brian makes sure the tape keeps rolling to preserve their exchange. As a result, we have this audio document of the relationship between the band and the father they ultimately had to fire as manager.

Murry’s presence so marred the recording of  “Rhonda” that the Beach Boys recorded a new version weeks later.

Incidentally, in a vindictive attempt to top his own sons’ act Murry Wilson began managing a cover band called the Renegades, changing their name to the Sunrays. They hit #51 with “I Live for the Sun”.

You’ll Never Guess Who Did the Female Vocals on Positive K’s “I Got a Man”

14 Oct 2015 10 Comments

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

One-hit wonder Positive K’s lone Top 40 entry (#14 in 1993) becomes a more interesting listen when you learn the rapper did both the male and female vocals on the song. It being his debut, perhaps there was no budget for guest vocalists? At any rate, the “female” voice was K’s own, the pitch adjusted with the aid of studio technology.

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