Malachi Lui

Shortly after their 1970 sophomore album Fun House’s release, Detroit proto-punk legends the Stooges played the Goose Lake Festival in Jackson, Michigan, 80 miles west of Detroit. Intended to be a Midwest Woodstock of sorts, with acts like the Small Faces, Jethro Tull, and Chicago (among many more) the 3-day festival drew 200,000 attendees over a stifling weekend. The environment became tense; in this LP’s liner notes, Jaan Uhelszki writes of 500 people attending the Open City LSD bad trip rescue tent, with countless others also being stoned on PCP masquerading as cocaine. Still, the festival itself was well-organized. Bands played on a rotating stage, were limited to 45-minute sets without exception, and a six-foot fence and trench blocked performer/crowd interaction.

(Review Explosion is a recurring AnalogPlanet feature covering recent releases for which we either don’t have sufficient time to fully explore, or that are not worthy of it. Curated by AnalogPlanet contributing editor Malachi Lui, this is the second RSD2020-centric Review Explosion, the first of which is found here.)

Last weekend, the second 2020 RSD Drop occurred in physical stores and on some online outlets. I didn’t find any titles terribly important to me, so here I am still reviewing records from the initial August RSD Drop. Onward we go…

Today (September 21), record club Vinyl Me, Please formally announced the latest in their VMP Anthology box set series, The Story of Herbie Hancock. Bernie Grundman cut all-analog from tape where possible, GZ pressed the eight albums over 11 LPs on 180g black vinyl and packaged in tip-on jackets. The set retails for $349 and includes a “deluxe” booklet. Curated by Hancock himself, the chosen titles are: Takin’ Off (1962, all-analog), Maiden Voyage (1965, AAA), Head Hunters (1973, AAA), The V.S.O.P. Quintet: Live Under The Sky (1979, digitally recorded), The Piano (1979, AAA), Future Shock (1983, AAA), 1+1 (1997, digitally recorded), and River: The Joni Letters (2007, digitally recorded). Live Under The Sky, a 1979 Japanese CBS/Sony Master Sound live album recorded digitally, is newly re-sequenced and amended at Herbie Hancock’s request. The box set shipping this winter is housed in a two-piece box hand-numbered to 1500 units.