Vinyl

[Trollheart]

Next one up is someone nobody has heard about, but who was one of my crushes, and favourite female artists, around the 1980s.


Welcome to the Cruise - Judie Tzuke - 1979

Judie Tzuke (the "t" is silent, so her name is produced Judie. And her surname is pronounced "zook") is an English singer and songwriter, best known, if at all, for her hit single "Stay With Me Till Dawn", and this is her debut album, from which that single is taken. Unlike the previous album, in my opinion anyway, there's barely a poor track on this. Everything from soft group A capella (with a bit of cello) to island music and hard(ish) rock to (urgh) disco, including three lovely ballads, I was very impressed by this, as well as her second album (not quite so much by the third and fourth) and have been a fan of hers ever since. I got to see her live in Dublin and was lucky enough to arrange an interview with her. Lovely lady - so much shorter than I had thought she would be! The album's cover is odd, produced by those well-known graphics genius Hipgnosis, though what it's meant to convey I don't know.

While the back cover is simple enough and is a continuation of that on the front, I always felt the dress she wears makes her look like she's pregnant, but again what do I know? Judie is one of those artists who, like Rory Gallagher and Gary Moore to name but two, always has her face on her album covers - I don't think I can think of one where she's not on it. She's a great songwriter, and shows, certainly showed at the time, that deep lyrics and clever songs were not just the pervue of male songwriters. All songs on this album, and most of her others, are written by her and her future husband, Mike Paxman, who also plays guitar and piano.

The inner sleeve of this album is much more interesting. You get pictures of both Judie and Mike, and all the lyrics reproduced on the sleeve. Got to love that seventies hair style! 

And the album itself, released on Elton John's Rocket Records label.

[Trollheart]

Last one is in some ways the most eclectic of a very non-eclectic bunch.


Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (1977)
Up until the release of So, the ex-Genesis frontman and founder always titled his albums the same, just his name, so the first four are generally known either by the order they came out in - Peter Gabriel I, II, III and IV (also named Security in the US, don't ask me why) or by their subject. This one, therefore, is also known as Car. Because he's in a car, duh. If you were a Genesis fan and expecting Genesis-lite or a continuation of such from Gabriel, you were in for a rude surprise. Gabriel's solo material features all the different directions he wanted to go in with Genesis, but could not. So very little of this album could even be called properly progressive rock. It has, of course, his first big hit, "Solsbory Hill", and later favourite "Here Comes the Flood" (though for live performances he has turned this into a soft piano ballad, and I prefer the more forceful and dramatic version here). He also tackles almost barbershop in "Excuse Me", heavy blues in "Waiting for the Big One" and some sort of mad doomy style thing in "Moribund the Burgermeister." Gabriel's albums would always be unpredictable, and this was where he set out his stall.

It's clever, I feel, how he doesn't open his eyes until the inner sleeve, and when he does you get quite a shock.

Almost looks like he's an alien or something.

I always loved "the famous Charisma label", on which Genesis and other prog bands were released, with its bored-looking Mad Hatter logo. When I were a lad, Charisma was what you looked for when seeking out quality prog.

[Janszoon]

Björn J:Son Lindh—Bike Voyage II (English title: A Day at the Surface) (1978)
This album cover is some serious truth in advertising: stoned flute music. I'm a little embarassed to admit I tracked this album down because one of the tracks is used in a recent Apple ad that I like, but it's turning out to be a great album. It's very 70s in all the best ways—it's funky, it's trippy, and it's beautifully complex.

Here's the song from the Apple ad:

[Janszoon]

Harry Nilsson—Pussy Cats (1974)
I love Harry Nilsson, but something you have to embrace as a fan is that his career was extremely hit-or-miss. Some of his albums are absolutely amazing and some are real duds. Pussy Cats falls somewhere in the middle. It was produced by John Lennon during a time when he and Nilsson were pretty high/drunk all day everyday. Nilsson even damaged his vocal chords during a screaming competition with Lennon at this time and it's very noticeable in some of the tracks on this record. All of that said, the best moments of this album are pretty great and I was pretty psyched to find a copy of it for fairly cheap.

One of the big standout tracks to me is his version of Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers to Cross". I love the original, but Nilsson takes the heartbreak to another level:

[Buckeye Randy]

First off, Son of Schmilsson by Harry Nilsson is a desert island disc for me.

Second, anybody going to Record Store Day for limited release vinyl on Saturday, April 12?

https://recordstoreday.com/SpecialReleases

Several on the list that I'm interested in; The Dictators, Jethro Tull, Nick Lowe, Queen, Todd Rundgren, Teenage Bottlerocket, Sweet.  Initiation by Todd is most interesting for me.  The original release was over an hour of music crammed on a single piece of vinyl.  This limited release is two LPs.

From Wiki about original release in '75: "At over sixty-seven minutes, Initiation is one of the longest commercially-released LPs. Due to a plastic shortage, in order to keep the album on one vinyl LP, Rundgren had to limit and EQ the master so the bass response was rolled off to keep the grooves small enough to cut onto a single disc; he also had to speed up the first half of Side One ("Real Man" to "Eastern Intrigue") and speed up the entirety of Side Two to eliminate 2-3 minutes from each side (5). The album's original inner sleeve included a note which stated: "Technical note: Due to the amount of music on this disc (over one hour), two points must be emphasized. Firstly, if your needle is worn or damaged, it will ruin the disc immediately. Secondly, if the sound does seem not loud enough on your system, try re-recording the music onto tape".

[Trollheart]

I love that that warning would make zero sense to anyone under 20 or so today. Needle? Why would you need a needle to play music? Did people knit while they listened to albums back in the day? And what's with this tape thing? Did they have to stick them back together after they broke? Oh, and don't even talk about stylus or cartridge!  Man, I'm old! 

[Janszoon]

First off, Son of Schmilsson by Harry Nilsson is a desert island disc for me.

That's a good one. Knnillssonn is mine.

Second, anybody going to Record Store Day for limited release vinyl on Saturday, April 12?

https://recordstoreday.com/SpecialReleases

Several on the list that I'm interested in; The Dictators, Jethro Tull, Nick Lowe, Queen, Todd Rundgren, Teenage Bottlerocket, Sweet.  Initiation by Todd is most interesting for me.  The original release was over an hour of music crammed on a single piece of vinyl.  This limited release is two LPs.

I didn't see a lot on this year's list that jumped out at me, but there is a SunnO))) EP that I've never heard of before. That could be cool.

[Buckeye Randy]

I didn't see a lot on this year's list that jumped out at me, but there is a SunnO))) EP that I've never heard of before. That could be cool.

I've gone to these a couple times and it's great how the line starts shortly after midnight.  I'm not there at 3AM but I am there early enough to wait outside and have great conversations.

It's much like concert lines at GA shows, plenty of knowledgeable people to pass the time with.

Best purchase was a couple years ago, a live album by Sparks. There were 1000 copies available and my store scored two of them and I got one of those.