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Monday, March 06, 2006

SURFACE NOISE vol. 1

I spend a goodly amount of blog acreage going on about LP's. I've decided to put all that under an umbrella called 'Surface Noise'.

Chris brought over a pile of records. I noticed he had been listening to his white vinyl edition of Luna's 'The Days of Our Nights'.



He said the white vinyl sounds a bit off. I have a green vinyl edition of Raven's 'Crash Bang Wallop' EP. I couldn't tell you how the colored vinyl sounds, it's buried under all that Raven.

Crash! Bang! Wallop!

My brother Fred and my nephew Josh gave me a new 200 gram vinyl edition of the Arctic Monkeys record 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not'. Despite the unfortunate title, I like the record. Much like a number of recent Brit rock bands, The Arctic Monkeys stand on the shoulders of The Clash, The Jam, and The Gang of Four. I'm fine with that. Good shoulders.



I like the Arctic Monkeys record, and I'm listening to it for the third time - all the way through. This sort of thing rarely happens. The last time I listened to a new band with any regularity it was The Streets, and I believe Fred already made that connection.

I gave Sabbath 'Vol. 4' a spin. This would be the 180 gram vinyl edition I blogged about last summer. George came in while it was on. "This is Sabbath", he declared. The undeniable groove of 'Supernaut' was filling the room. "Yeah, the Robots are into this."



Robot friendly or not, 'Vol. 4' is just an amazing slab of heavy.

Chris and I listened to a good bit of 'Signals' (Rush), 'Only Life' (The Feelies), 'The Boy With The Arab Strap' (Belle and Sebastian), 'Doggystyle' (Snoop), 'The Slider' (T.Rex), and "Rock and Roll Animal (Lou).

There's something about the immediate tangebility of Vinyl. You pull out the disc, place it on the turntable, put the needle down. It puts the listener in the process in a way that cd's and mp3's don't. It's like driving a standard vs. an automatic transmission. There's no comparison.

Comments:
Yeah, that pretty much nails it. There's a visceral thrill to vinyl that digital just doesn't have.

The fact that the music is, somehow, stored in those tiny grooves is more remarkable to me than a CD, which is just a computer flipping a switch (on/off, on/off) 88,200 times a second.

I do have other colored vinyl, and now that I think about it, none of it sounds so hot. I wonder if it's something inherent in the colors, or if my colored vinyl has just been crappy...
 
I remember somebody having a picture disc of Iron Maiden's 'Trooper' single. The sound on that was poor. I think the molecular make-up of black vinyl is superior in density or something.
 
I've got a hot pink Bananarama record somewhere. I think it's Cruel Summer with a B side of Robert DeNiro's Waiting. You just made me have a really cool sense memory.
 
That's silly Tony. They don't live in Atlanta. Bananarama live in a posh flat on Portobello Road with closets full of overalls, Chuck Taylors, and black rubber bracelets.
 
...lots of black rubber bracelets, under the couch, in the shower drain, the place is lousy with 'em.
 
glad you like the Arctic Monkeys

they are not making here in the US like the made it in the UK

probably a good thing

my favorite track is When The Sun Goes Down

i love it when the guitars kick in

i am a sucker for that kind of thing
 
I've done some research on colored vinyl, picture disks, and sound quality... post coming soon.
 
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