Michael Fremer

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Album Reviews
Gene Clark Album That Wasn't, Finally Is
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 11, 2012  |  4 comments
Gene Clark owed A&M an album in 1972 and so to fulfill his contract he did what most artists do in such circumstances: he decided to make one for himself.

Graham Parker kissed off his label with an album called Mercury Poisoning. Van Morrison owed one to Bert Berns' Bang label. Berns had died but Van, who had had a volatile relationship with Bert and was anxious to go to Warner Brothers and record Astral Weeks, handed his grieving widow Eileen an unreleasable album containing the ten songs and the publishing rights thereto. The songs—actually a series of short ridiculous and nonsensical jams— had titles like "Blow In Your Nose," "Nose in Your Blow," and "Ringworm."

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Album Reviews
Acoustic Dead Album Puts You Right On Stage
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 12, 2012  |  9 comments
Who knew vinyl lovers were such Deadheads? The labels doing the reissuing hope you are. There are recent studio reissues from Warner Brothers/Rhino and Analogue Productions and live recordings from Mobile Fidelity and Analogue Productions including this one from AP.

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Album Reviews
ORG Reinvents Heavy Weather
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 13, 2012  |  2 comments
Jazz Fusion may have turned out to be a dead end genre exiled to The Weather Channel's 24 hour forecast, but at its inception arguably with the group Weather Report, the sun shone brightly on its possibilities. How ironic that the jazz offshoot took off with Weather Report and dead-ended on TWC!

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News
Mikey Does Video Podcast With Home Theater's Scott Wilkinson
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 14, 2012  |  6 comments
Mikey cuts loose on the superiority of vinyl on this new video podcast using his unbelievably unflattering MacBook Pro camera. The chatroom digiphiles went crazy!
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Album Reviews
Finally, "Music From Big Pink" on AAA Vinyl With BASS
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 14, 2012  |  3 comments
Who begins a debut album with a dirge-like, mournful song taken at a heartbreakingly slow pace like Richard Manuel's "Tears of Rage?" The Band did on their debut album that didn't exactly hit the pop charts running.

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Ask Mikey
"Ask Mikey" Fires Up With Questions About USB Microscopes, the Quality of Ron McMaster's Lacquer Cutting, Etc.
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 15, 2012  |  12 comments
What is the name of the USB microscope you use? Brand and resolution?
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Album Reviews
Talk Talk's 1991 Sonic Spectacular Gets First American Vinyl Issue
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 19, 2012  |  5 comments
Talk Talk's Mark Hollis may have long ago retired from the music business, but his musical legacy prospers and grows. A near cult-like devotion hovers around the group's records as succeeding generations discover his dense, probing, faith-based cogitations. The intensity and strength of his spiritual commitment was matched only by the forcefulness of his later "spirited" rejection.

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Ask Mikey
DMM or Lacquer? Which is Better?
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 20, 2012  |  6 comments
Dear Mikey: "I was wondering what your opinion of DMM is, I search the analogplanet archives and couldn't see anything one way or another.
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Analog Corner
Analog Corner #2 The Analog Experience
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 12, 1995  |  0 comments
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Analog Corner
Analog Corner #2
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 12, 1995  |  1 comments
I figure two categories of non–analog-owning audiophiles are reading this column (footnote 1)—younger ones who've never heard good or any pure analog; and older audiophiles who may have been pushed out by the bad advice regularly spewing from the pages of "mainstream" stereo magazines in the days just before CD.

Their prescription for playback perfection? Track lightly on a PLL direct-drive turntable (and since all turntables sound the same, any one will do). I swallowed a large dose of that myself during the early ‘70s, marginalizing my listening enjoyment and ruining many of my favorite records in the process.

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