Where Music Meets Technology
I was sad to learn of Paul Allen’s passing today.
We visited the Experience Music Project (MoPop) several times in Seattle in past years. Paul Allen’s affinity and love for Jimi Hendrix was always evident.
I know they’re jamming in heaven right now.
Excuse them while they kiss the sky!
I was surprised to learn of another international record store event that is celebrating its 5th anniversary, Cassette Store Day.
The reason for this escaping my grasp is due to the fact that audio cassettes are out of sight and mind for me as a music collector. I don’t have a music playing system in my home or car that features that audio option. But I’m glad to see that people still enjoy, collect, and listen to cassettes.
Cassette Store Day was created in 2013 by a group of record labels based in the UK. BBC Radio 1 DJ Jen Long collaborated with Steven Rose of Sexbeat Records and Matt Flag of Suplex Cassettes to establish a day to dedicated to the undying format.
According to Long, although Cassette Store Day was inspired by Record Store Day, the intention of CSD is focused on celebrating cassettes rather than supporting shops – whereas the latter is the main goal of RSD.
The first Cassette Store Day was observed on 7 September 2013. More than twenty eight shops, including Rough Trade in London, participated by stocking special limited edition cassettes, with some stores hosting live performances.
Cassette Store Day confirmed that they would continue into a second year. California’s Burger Records, who were quick to jump on board, now currently organize all North American releases and will continue to do so this year. Balades Sonores in France and VSI from Japan both return, with Nasty Wizard Recordings in China officially joining as hosts and Blak Hand Records taking control of UK releases.
Over the years bands such as Motörhead, Ramones, Julian Casablancas, Pixies, The Flaming Lips, Courtney Barnett, Green Day and Muse have all released tapes through Cassette Store Day. Most importantly, CSD has been a great way to highlight the unsigned talent and create a place for underground music, whichever the genre, to circulate through events in record stores, radio shows and gigs on the day.
Please click through the link to your participating country to join in on Cassette Store Day 2018!
Got a question? Feel free to email: cassettestoreday@gmail.com
A beautiful rendition of the Jefferson Airplane folk rock song, “Comin’ Back to Me” from the Surrealistic Pillow album, written by the late Marty Balin.
Marty performing with his band at Jorma’s place in Pomeroy, Ohio 2014.
He goes to prepare a place for us.
Comin’ Back to Me
The summer had inhaled and held its breath too long
The winter looked the same, as if it never had gone
And through an open window where no curtain hung
I saw you
I saw you
Comin’ back to me
One begins to read between the pages of a book
The shape of sleepy music, and suddenly you’re hooked
Through the rain upon the trees, the kisses on the run
I saw you
I saw you
Comin’ back to me
You came to stay and live my way
Scatter my love like leaves in the wind
You always say you won’t go away
But I know what it always has been
It always has been
A transparent dream beneath an occasional sigh
Most of the time I just let it go by
Now I wish it hadn’t begun
I saw you, yes, I saw you
Comin’ back to me
Strolling the hills overlooking the shore
I realized I’ve been there before
The shadow in the mist could have been anyone
I saw you
I saw you
Comin’ back to me
Small things like reasons are put in a jar
Whatever happened to wishes wished upon a star?
Was it just something that I made up for fun?
I saw you, I saw you comin’ back to me
Songwriter: Marty Balin
Comin’ Back to Me Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
I received an e-mail from Richard M. Houghton, the author of the book I posted about recently, Jimi Hendrix – The Day I Was There. He was letting me know that he had signed copies of that book available. He also informed me that he was starting his Led Zeppelin The Day I Was There book. He was accepting stories from fans. So I decided I would document my Led Zeppelin concert experience for inclusion in his next book.
I have been meaning to create a concert and memorabilia database, blog site so what better opportunity to kick it off with this blog post 😉
Led Zeppelin
Madison Square Garden
New York City, NY
The Day I Was There
Led Zeppelin first occurred to me as music phenomenon when I was a senior in high school in 1968. I hung around with a group of friends and we were passionate about rock music. We would meet in the cafeteria before school and at lunch to discuss who we were listening to on WNEW-FM radio. We devoured Rolling Stone magazine cover to cover.
A member of our discussion group had friends in England. They had told him about Led Zeppelin. He raved about this new supergroup which was creating a stir across the pond in the fall of 1968. Led Zeppelin did not release their earth-shattering album Led Zeppelin until January 1969. It was everything I had heard about and more. I took that album with me everywhere. I played it relentlessly on my hi-fi system and in art class at school. Lots of people borrowed it from me.
I wanted to see Led Zeppelin live in concert after bonding with their first album. Progressive FM airplay stirred that need even more. On July 3rd, 1969 on the way home from The Fillmore East in the East Village, New York City after a Jethro Tull/Jeff Beck concert I bumped into two friends from high school. We rode the subway from Astor Place to Grand Central Terminal to catch the train back to Connecticut.
They were psyched about having seen Led Zeppelin at The Filmore East a couple of months earlier. I listened intently as they talked about sitting in the balcony with binoculars studying Jimmy Page’s guitar mastery. They watched his hands the entire show as they both played guitar in a band. They were knocked out by his musicianship and urged me to see Led Zeppelin if I ever got the chance. I made a personal commitment to make that happen.
Eight years later that became reality. I purchased tickets at a Ticketron ticketing terminal to see Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Led Zeppelin had booked a six-night engagement at this famous venue, June 7, 8, 10, 11, 13 & 14 ,1977. I scored tickets for Saturday evening June 11th.
I recall that my sister-in-law drove us from Norwalk Connecticut in her Volvo. Travelling by car to the Garden added to the excitement of the evening. There is a thrill in witnessing the streets and atmosphere of New York City at night. The lights, the people, and the stores. We parked at The Garden and joined our fellow Zep freaks as we headed into the venue.
I was handed this pin by a Garden employee. I refer to it often in my pin collection. WPLJ-FM 95.5 was one of two major FM rock stations in New York City in the mid 70s.
Our seats were fantastic for $10.50 each. We sat on the left side of the band as they faced out into the audience. We had a great view of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Bonham. John Paul Jones was tucked behind Bonham so we couldn’t see him as well.
Led Zeppelin proved to be everything I knew and felt about them in concert. My visual recollection of their performance centers around a couple of songs in their 21-song set list.
Set List:
The Song Remains the Same, (The Rover intro) Sick Again, Nobody’s Fault but Mine, In My Time of Dying, Since I’ve Been Loving You, No Quarter, Ten Years Gone, Battle of Evermore, Going to California, Black Country Woman, Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, White Summer ~ Black Mountainside, Kashmir, (Out On the Tiles intro) Moby Dick, Jimmy Page solo, Achilles Last Stand, Stairway to Heaven, Heartbreaker.
I remember being tired that night and starting to drift off to sleep in my seat (I know who falls asleep at a Led Zeppelin concert?). They had played several acoustic numbers seated at the front of the stage. I snapped awake after Black Mountainside as I witnessed Jimmy Page kicking a three-legged stool as it slid fast behind him under Bonham’s drum kit. He grabbed his double neck guitar launching us into “Kashmir”. It was a powerful moment that swept me along for the ride. Ever since then “Kashmir” has been my favorite Led Zeppelin tune.
“Kashmir” was followed by the greatest drum solo I ever saw. John Bonham played “Moby Dick” with drum sticks, his hands, and the Gong. I have seen a lot of great drummers in my 49 years of live concerts. But no one has impressed me or reached me with their drumming skills like John Bonham. I realized after he passed away why Led Zeppelin did not want to reform without him as Bonzo was integral to their sonic experience.
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The evening ended with the encore of “Stairway to Heaven” which is the classic Led Zeppelin hit. Hearing Robert Plant’s voice echo across the sea of people in Madison Square Garden as the huge disco ball cast its light on us was breathtaking to witness. His hair was golden as was the memory.
I’m always reminded of this concert when I see this rock t-shirt being worn. It’s a shirt I must add to my rock t-shirt wardrobe.
The first ever National Album Day(UK) takes place on Saturday, October 13th, 2018. The entire British music community is coming together to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the album format.
National Album Day UK Ambassador Alice Cooper, said:
“It would be very hard for me to do something that didn’t follow the album format. It’s hard for me to simply write twelve songs. It’s in my nature to connect them somehow.
“It’s really neat that this post-millennial generation is buying albums again. I’m from a period of time where the release of a new album was an important thing: you stood in line, you bought it, you invited a bunch of friends, you opened it up, and there was a smell to the vinyl. You checked out the sleeve to discover who was on it, who wrote it. You placed the needle down – it was a ritual.”
At 3:33 (r)pm on October 13th people will be encouraged to stop what they are doing, sit back, relax and play an album of their choice in full from start to finish.
Let it be known what album you chose by using the hashtag #NationalAlbumDay and handle @AlbumDayUK.
The book Led Zeppelin by Led Zeppelin is a definitive 400-page volume which includes previously unpublished photos, artwork from the Led Zeppelin archives and contributions from photographers around the world.
If ordered before October 9th, an exclusive 19.7 x 27.8in poster (pictured below) will come with your pre-order from reelartpress.com or from selected independent retailers. To see the list of participating stores, click here.
The Reel Art Press video should increase your excitement for this unique music book.
Rosanne Cash is set to release her first new album in nearly five years, She Remembers Everything, on November 2nd.
In the wake of the latest tsunami of survivor stories, Cash has had to contend with the fact that much of what she hoped would change across her lifetime really hasn’t. It’s a reality that is reflected in her deliberate embrace of women’s narratives on the new album.
“There is a woman’s real life, complex experiences and layered understanding in these songs,” Rosanne says. “I could not have written them 10 years ago—not even close. Time is shorter, I have more to say.”
Rosanne has released two songs from ‘She Remembers Everything;’ the haunting title track, and “Everyone But Me,” an exquisite mosaic of generational grief and reckoning.
In addition to the ten-song release, a deluxe version of ‘She Remembers Everything’ with three bonus tracks will be released digitally and as a limited edition casebound book CD.
Fans will also have the option to purchase a limited edition box set entitled the ‘She Remembers Everything Memory Box,’ which will include personal letters of correspondence signed by Rosanne, and exchanged between her and T-Bone Burnett, Elvis Costello, Sam Phillips, Joe Henry, Tucker Martine, and John Leventhal; an exclusive Rosanne Cash Live at SFJAZZ CD, recorded in 2017 and featuring Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams; ‘She Remembers Everything’ pressed to pink vinyl; the deluxe casebound CD with three extra tracks; and a digital download redemption card.
The box will also include a copy of ‘Bird On A Blade’ (UT Press), a new book of lyrics and illustration by Rosanne Cash and Dan Rizzie, along with an 8” x 10” printed lithograph featuring an original Rizzie illustration from the book.
You may Pre-order Here.
Of Mountains & Printing Presses
The goal of this new editor is to make adding rich content to WordPress simple and enjoyable. This whole post is composed of pieces of content—somewhat similar to LEGO bricks—that you can move around and interact with. Move your cursor around and you’ll notice the different blocks light up with outlines and arrows. Press the arrows to reposition blocks quickly, without fearing about losing things in the process of copying and pasting.
What you are reading now is a text block the most basic block of all. The text block has its own controls to be moved freely around the post…
… like this one, which is right aligned.
Headings are separate blocks as well, which helps with the outline and organization of your content.
Handling images and media with the utmost care is a primary focus of the new editor. Hopefully, you’ll find aspects of adding captions or going full-width with your pictures much easier and robust than before.
Try selecting and removing or editing the caption, now you don’t have to be careful about selecting the image or other text by mistake and ruining the presentation.
Imagine everything that WordPress can do is available to you quickly and in the same place on the interface. No need to figure out HTML tags, classes, or remember complicated shortcode syntax. That’s the spirit behind the inserter—the (+) button you’ll see around the editor—which allows you to browse all available content blocks and add them into your post. Plugins and themes are able to register their own, opening up all sort of possibilities for rich editing and publishing.
Go give it a try, you may discover things WordPress can already add into your posts that you didn’t know about. Here’s a short list of what you can currently find there:
A huge benefit of blocks is that you can edit them in place and manipulate your content directly. Instead of having fields for editing things like the source of a quote, or the text of a button, you can directly change the content. Try editing the following quote:
The editor will endeavor to create a new page and post building experience that makes writing rich posts effortless, and has “blocks” to make it easy what today might take shortcodes, custom HTML, or “mystery meat” embed discovery.
Matt Mullenweg, 2017
The information corresponding to the source of the quote is a separate text field, similar to captions under images, so the structure of the quote is protected even if you select, modify, or remove the source. It’s always easy to add it back.
Blocks can be anything you need. For instance, you may want to add a subdued quote as part of the composition of your text, or you may prefer to display a giant stylized one. All of these options are available in the inserter.
You can change the amount of columns in your galleries by dragging a slider in the block inspector in the sidebar.
If you combine the new wide and full-wide alignments with galleries, you can create a very media rich layout, very quickly:
Sure, the full-wide image can be pretty big. But sometimes the image is worth it.
The above is a gallery with just two images. It’s an easier way to create visually appealing layouts, without having to deal with floats. You can also easily convert the gallery back to individual images again, by using the block switcher.
Any block can opt into these alignments. The embed block has them also, and is responsive out of the box:
You can build any block you like, static or dynamic, decorative or plain. Here’s a pullquote block:
Code is Poetry
The WordPress community
If you want to learn more about how to build additional blocks, or if you are interested in helping with the project, head over to the GitHub repository.
Thanks for testing Gutenberg!
I’ve conducted research on The Beatles for a Teach Rock lecture I am building. I keep uncovering books from authoritative authors. It’s amazing what I have unearthed thus far and what remains to be discovered.
A key vantage point about the lads is a two-volume series about the influential Fifth Beatle, Sir George Martin by Kenneth Womack.
Kenneth Womack is a world-renowned authority on the Beatles and their enduring cultural influence. His latest book project involves a two-volume, full-length biography devoted to famed Beatles producer Sir George Martin. The first book in the series is entitled Maximum Volume: The Life of Beatles Producer George Martin (The Early Years, 1926-1966). The second volume, Sound Pictures: The Life of Beatles Producer George Martin (The Later Years, 1966-2016), is to be released tomorrow September 4th.
The first book of a two-part series, Maximum Volume traces Martin’s early years as a scratch pianist, his life in the Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War, and his groundbreaking work as the head of Parlophone Records during the 1950s, when Martin saved the company from ruin after making his name as a producer of comedy and spoken-word recordings. In its most dramatic moments, Maximum Volume narrates the story of Martin’s unlikely discovery of the Beatles and his painstaking efforts to prepare their newfangled sound for the British music marketplace. As the story unfolds, Martin and the band craft many number-one hits along the group’s progress towards The Ed Sullivan Show and such landmark songs as “Yesterday” and “In My Life”—Beatles tunes that bear Martin’s unmistakable musical signature.
As Martin and the Beatles create one landmark album after another, including such masterworks as Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (The White Album), and Abbey Road, the internal stakes and interpersonal challenges become ever greater. During his post-Beatles years, Martin attempts to discover new vistas of sound recording with a host of acts, including Jeff Beck, America, Cheap Trick, Paul McCartney, and Elton John. Eventually, all roads lead Martin back to the Beatles, as the group seeks out new ways to memorialize their achievement under the supervision of the man who came to be known as Sir George. Now, more than 50 years later, Martin’s singular stamp remains on popular music as successive generations discover the magic of the Beatles.