Record Store Day 2015

I guess what I've heard so often really is true: nobody cares about record shops and vinyl LPs anymore. 

As evidence of this sad fact, please see a few photos from Record Store Day at one of the five record stores in my little village. This particular store only sells vinyl (with maybe quite literally a few dozen cassettes and CDs thrown in). 

I got there around 4pm and the owner told me they had been wall-to-wall crowded with customers since opening at noon. I didn't bother going to any of the other record stores because I didn't want to fight the crowds looking for their Kate Bush picture disks. There were two live musical acts and a surprising amount of wine and cheese on offer as well.

So many vinyl releases are planned for RSD each year in the US that pressing plants are booked up solid for the first four months of the year. I've read several articles this year featuring independent label owners bewailing this fact and saying that they cannot release or repress any LPs until May every year. 

I think I should  take this opportunity to mention that the name of this blog is a direct reference to a delightful record store in East Lansing, Michigan: "Flat, Black and Circular" (FBC) opened in the late 1970s and still is in existence. I used to visit there pretty much every single day (as well as the now-gone Wazoo Records) back in the 1980s.

And, to cap off this post, a beautiful video courtesy of the AACM Library in San Rafael, CA.

 

Ali Akbar Khan + John Handy + Zakir Hussain live at the 1972 Berlin Jazz Festival (1972-11-03)

Here is an over-the-air FM recording of a performance by Ali Akbar Khan and tabla maestro Zakir Hussain together with alto sax player John Handy. These three, together with a few guest musicians such as guitarist Bola Sete released two LPs in the 1970s on the MPS label.

Some people will enjoy this sort of material and some won't. Likely you know which camp you are in. For what it is worth, the FM capture is pretty good for being 43 years ago.

This was downloaded from a fairly well known torrent site devoted to live music of all sorts. If one were to Google the word "Dimeadozen," I am sure that one would run into their site pretty quickly.

The original text file (with some editing by me) is as follows:

John Handy & Ali Akbar Khan

November 3, 1972

West Berlin, Germany

Track List (1:02:22):

1. Unknown - 23:34

2. Unknown - 11:58

3. Unknown - 16:11

4. Unknown - 10:37

Musicians:

John Handy - alto saxophone

Ali Akbar Khan - sarod

Zakir Hussain - tabla

Source:

pre-FM

Lineage:

pre-FM reel >? >DAT >HDD via coax to Midiman Audiophile 2496 @48 kHz >CoolEdit Pro 2.0 >CD Wave >Trader's Little Helper >FLAC (level 6, ASB)

I feel that I should point out that the text file claims this to be a "pre-FM" -- that is, a direct dub of the tape that was recorded at the concert and then played on the air. It sounds more like a regular FM capture to me, although it may simply be that there are a number of analog generations (cassette copies of cassettes being traded among collectors) as represented by the "?" in the lineage. There was some static which was carefully removed in Audacity and overall I am fairly happy with the resulting sound.

A youtube video featuring the complete John Handy album featuring Ali Akbar Khan and entitled "Karuna Supreme." 

And this also.

Karuna is usually translated as "compassion" and I think that is close enough to what it means that I don't feel like splitting hairs about it.

16 bit, 44.1 kHz FLAC file (389 MB)

320 kbps mp3 file (142 MB)

Kartick and Niladri Kumar - Where Tradition Meets Innovation [Magnasound Cassette C4HI0066] (1989)

Kartick Kumar is one of Ravi Shankar's most senior disciples and a very talented (if under-recorded) sitarist. His son Niladri appears on this cassette as an eager 18 year old with plenty of promise. He seems to mostly be doing fusion and such these days.

The first side of the cassette suffers from excessive brightness and a quite noticeable volume disparity between the left and right channels. These issues had to be (very reluctantly) addressed with EQ and normalization of both channels independently in Audacity. Otherwise the listenability of the side would be minimal. Side 2 is much better, with a fuller and more balanced (in right to left terms) sound.

Many Magnasound releases seem to be available on Amazon.com as mp3 downloads; I encourage anyone interested in these to pursue those. There is a website for Magnasound which seems to promise more activity in the future -- I hope there can be some CD reissues in the future.

Also posted here is the oddly charming advertisement included with the cassette -- see below.

Equipment used in transfer: 
Cassette Deck: TEAC W-890
Pre-amplification: Vintage refurbished Pioneer SX-780.
Recorder: Edirol R-09HR at 24/44 resolution

Software: Audacity to normalize both channels separately and EQ the first side (reduce high frequencies) as well as convert to 16/44.1. xAct was used to convert to FLAC and mp3

mp3 file (320 kbps)

16bit, 44.1kHz FLAC file

24bit, 44.1kHz FLAC file