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Keith Carlock
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 01, 2007  |  0 comments

Eager anticipation turned into bitter disappointment early as Steely Dan played its final Beacon Theater (NY) concert last night (June 13th 2007). Opening tunes can’t be counted upon for greatness, as the band warms up and the mixer dials in the sound, but unfortunately, last night’s thin, sizzly, musically disjointed opener set the stage for an evening of thudding, overblown drumming, and an excruciatingly thin, sizzly, sibilant vocal mix on Donald Fagen’s clearly fatigued voice.

Obviously, drummer Keith Carlock is a talented and energetic drummer, but his playing last night had very little to do with Steely Dan’s slinky, insinuating sound, and much more to do with a Heavy Metal concert.

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Features
We'll Get It Wrong In The Mix
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 31, 2010  |  0 comments
I wrote this article, originally published in Music Connection magazine, back in 1985 after becoming increasingly disgusted with and alarmed by the deteriorating sonic quality of new releases from familiar artists. Little did I realize then that 1985 was a 'golden age' of good sound compared to what most pop and rock recordings sound like in 2008! I remain grateful to editor Bud Scoppa for giving me the platform to spout a then unpopular view in a magazine read by Los Angeles engineers, artists and music business executives.

When The Absolute Sound's Harry Pearson announced he was looking for a new popular music editor, I applied for the job by sending him this article. He liked it enough to give me the job. That gave me an ideal platform from which to advocate saving the vinyl record and extolling its unique set of virtues, sonic and otherwise.

Watching the LP section at the huge Tower Records on Sunset shrink by the week, never did I imagine that in 2008 the LP would be back and Tower would be gone. —Michael Fremer, 1/15/08

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Features
Long-Awaited The Doors Vinyl Box From Rhino Arrives
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 30, 2010  |  1 comments
The long awaited faux lizard skin clad, seven 180g LP The Doors box set has finally arrived, two years late, at a higher than originally announced cost, and for now (May, 2008), in very short supply.
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Features
New Orleans Culture at a Tipping Point Part 1
Roger Hahn  |  Jun 30, 2009  |  0 comments
On Saturday morning, April 26, 2008 an overcast and moderately humid day in New Orleans, a small group of neighborhood kids organized an impromptu 'jazz funeral' to commemorate the recent death of a loved and respected local track coach.
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Features
The Doors and The Elektra Records Sound Part 2
Matthew Greenwald  |  Apr 30, 2010  |  0 comments

MG: Jumping back into some old groups that you recorded, Brazil 66....

BB: I really loved that time. That was for Herb Alpert, who was the producer. I prefer Brazil 66, the first album, over Equinox, sonically, because that was another case where it was done on four-track, tube all the way. Also the fact that it was all new to us and it was a big sound, I really liked it.

MG: Was that done at Gold Star Studios?

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Features
Special Limited Offer: Jim Marshall Autographed "Publisher's Copies" of The Tracking Angle Issue 13
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 31, 2008  |  0 comments

Legendary photographer Jim Marshall recently said that of all the magazine spreads that have used his images over the years, the one appearing in The Tracking Angle issue 13 was one of a “handful” of the finest ever.

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Features
Goin' Home: A Tribute to the Art of Tributes
Roger Hahn  |  Jul 31, 2008  |  0 comments

What’s not to love about Goin’ Home, the all-star tribute to New Orleans’ own Antoine “Fats” Domino, sweet-voiced and rhythmically inspired proponent of the Crescent City’s great R&B tradition?

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Features
New Orleans Culture at a Tipping Point Part 2
Roger Hahn  |  Jun 30, 2009  |  0 comments

New Orleans' second-line parade culture and Mardi Gras Indian culture share a number of attributes.


Both emerged as casually formalized neighborhood practices in the post-Reconstruction decades of the late 19th-century, with Indian imagery likely influenced around that time by the popularity in the U.S. of traveling 'Wild West' shows.

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Features
New Orleans Culture at a Tipping Point Part 3
Roger Hahn  |  Jun 30, 2009  |  0 comments
While the corruption-and-reform message that would dominate post-Katrina rebuilding was being crafted in the arena of national politics—delivered through the combined strategies of federal inaction and rabid crime enforcement—the tourism industry in New Orleans emerged as the second gatekeeper of post-Katrina message delivery, energized by a void of local political leadership.
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Features
"It's a Vinyl World, After All" DVD Now Available!
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 30, 2009  |  1 comments

Can DVD number 2 match the first? Video being shot at RTI last August

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Features
New Orleans Culture at a Tipping point Part 4
Roger Hahn  |  Jun 30, 2009  |  0 comments
This is part 4 of Roger Hahn's epic musical and cultural look at New Orleans, post Hurricane Katrina. Parts 1 through 3 have been on musicangle's home page since this past summer. The final and fifth part of the piece can also be found on the current home page. Parts 1-3 are available by searching the musicangle site—ed.
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Features
New Orleans Culture at a Tipping Point Part 5
Roger Hahn  |  Jun 30, 2009  |  1 comments

This is the 5th and final part of Roger Hahn's "New Orleans Culture at a Tipping Point." Part 4 is on the home page. You can find Parts 1-3 elsewhere here by searching the site—ed.

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Features
I Blew My MTV Audition
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 30, 2009  |  0 comments
Back in 1980 or so, in Los Angeles, I had a disastrous try-out to be one of the original MTV VJs. I had no idea what the content was going to be, but having been on the radio and having done stand-up, I figured why not try out? By the time I wrote the article below, which appeared in Los Angeles music magazine "Music Connection" the week of April 12th-25th 1984 (25 years ago!), MTV had gone from pretty bad to much worse. So I wrote this arbor of sour grapes that I thought you might find amusing now that MTV is no longer about music.-Ed.
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Features
New Orleans Music Festival Turns 40 Part 1
Roger Hahn  |  Apr 30, 2010  |  0 comments

Our Man in New Orleans, Roger Hahn reports from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival 2009. You'll think you went!

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Features
New Orleans Music Festival Turns 40 Part 2
Roger Hahn  |  Apr 30, 2010  |  0 comments

Our Man in New Orleans Roger Hahn concludes his report from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival 2009 and meditates on its future. You'll think you went!-ed.

New marketing trends had begun to establish an exploitable connection between highly educated consumers with gobs of disposable income and their fascination for the aura of “authenticity” naturally connected to the “roots” music world.

Corporate leaders began to understand this, too. In 1996, one of the world’s largest software vendors, Computer Associates, began holding its annual trade show in New Orleans and by 1998, had specifically connected attendance at the trade show with a Jazz Fest hospitality tent on festival grounds, spawning an unlikely influx of logo-bearing, polo-shirted Computer Associates employees.

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