Album Reviews

In 1964 while working for Canada’s National Film Board (NFB), filmmaker Gilles Groulx set out to make a documentary about winter, but instead used his then $75,000 budget to create Le chat dans le sac (English: The Cat In The Bag), an art house film about two lovers in early-mid ‘60s Montreal. An avid jazz fan as well, Groulx (through Jimmy Garrison) contacted John Coltrane to soundtrack the film. Coltrane agreed, and Groulx supervised the session at Rudy Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliffs, NJ studio. Instead of composing new material for the film (which he hadn’t seen), Coltrane, at Groulx’s request, re-recorded some of his older compositions such as “Naima” and “Village Blues,” after which Groulx, master tape in hand, drove back up to Montreal.

You know what they say about audiophiles: only interested in what sounds good, music comes in distant second place or they repeatedly play the same few records, etc. You’ve heard the bad raps. Yet here’s a box set of vintage (read “old”) recordings digitized and processed that’s brought more inquiries into my inbox than many so-called “audiophile” recordings.

2012 wasn’t all that long ago and culturally not that much has changed, yet from that year to the September 27th release this year of the 50th anniversary edition of Abbey Road is how long The Beatles made records.

Another IGOR review??? Yes.

My initial plan was to follow the original 3500-word review with a later update on the vinyl edition’s sound quality, but plans change. I got a bit of exclusive information from Jack White about “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?”, which I reported on, but even more happened with this LP. As advance copies of IGOR’s CD edition circulated, word spread that Tyler quietly dropped a physical-only (vinyl, CD, and cassette) “bonus track” entitled “BOYFRIEND.”

Memphis based "garage rocker" Jack (Yarber) Oblivian, formerly with Johnny Vomit & the Dry Heaves among other groups, recently released this adrenalin charge on Black&Wyatt Records and someone (I don't know who) sent it my way thinking I might like it even though the sound is, let's say "primitive" (no top, not much bottom, just some stuff in the middle) in a good way (some recorded to 4 track M.C.I.) but all of it purposefully squashed in a way that sort of reminded me of Don Van Vliet ("Sweet Thang"), but maybe that's because in some ways the performances did too, though it's far more punk-rocky and less bluesy.

Counseloring at Camp Ma-Ho-Ge near White Lake, N.Y. the summer of 1968 was, in the summer of 1969, my ticket to drive to the back of Max Yasgur’s farm traffic free and without delay. I knew the back roads—not that I thought I’d need to use them when we set out for this music and arts festival we’d seen advertised all spring and summer on the walls of the New York City subway system. How could we not go? The advertised line-up was almost too good to believe.