Michael Fremer

News
Major Analog Vinyl/Turntable/Cartridge Survey Underway!
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 09, 2013  |  30 comments
Most of us are convinced that the media regularly underreports record sales. It seems that Nielsen/Soundscan's numbers can't possible be correct, nor does it seem likely they have the ability to dig deeply into the sales portals where much of the vinyl activity occurs.
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Album Reviews
"The Dave Brubeck Quartet At Carnegie Hall" Issued on Double 180g Vinyl
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 08, 2013  |  4 comments
By the time the "classic" Dave Brubeck Quartet arrived at Carnegie Hall on February 22nd, 1963 it had "practiced, practiced, practiced" as the old joke goes. The quartet of Brubeck, drummer Joe Morello, bassist Eugene Wright and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond was a well-oiled music making machine.

It was also the world's most popular and well-known jazz ensemble, having toured the world for the State Department and released numerous big selling albums such as Time Out, which sold well in excess of a million copies.

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Analog Corner
Analog Corner #41
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 05, 2013  |  6 comments
It was 9am as the plane touched down at Heathrow, but my brain screamed "4am! Go back to sleep!''—as if the eight hours of slouched-over dozing interrupted by cattle-prodding flight attendants could be called "sleep." Yes, the red-eye is considered by many travelers to be the most efficient way to jet to London, and Virgin tries hard to please, even in the cramped steerage section—but wedged into a middle seat and being a naturally fidgety sort, I found the transoceanic flight a form of water torture I can live without.
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News
ORG Announces Two Roy Orbison Double 45rpm Reissues
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 02, 2013  |  13 comments
ORG today announced a Roy Orbison reissue project that will bring to the 45rpm format Lonely and Blue and In Dreams, two of Roy's early Monument albums.
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Album Reviews
"Thank You Les, A Tribute to Les Paul" Issued on 180g AAA Vinyl!
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 01, 2013  |  7 comments
This loving tribute to Les Paul featuring longtime trio cohort Lou Pallo and others with whom Les played at Fat Tuesdays and the Iridium is musically fabulous assuming you like the timeless "old school" style. And if not, why not? If it's good enough for Keith Richards, Steve Miller, Billy F. Gibbons and Slash, among others who perform here in that style, well hell, then it's good enough for you!

No doubt Les's playing and his technological innovations with guitar and multi-tracked overdubbing affected all of them. But surely his playing hit them more squarely in their young guitarist wheelhouse.

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Album Reviews
Gil Evans's "Out of the Cool" Into the Crapper?
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 30, 2013  |  22 comments
Last winter an old audio biz friend of mine visited bearing a gift: a new Italian 45rpm pressing of Gil Evans' dark, brooding and oh so slinky 1960 recording of Out of the Cool originally issued in 1961 by the then new Impulse! label created by producer Creed Taylor for parent company ABC-Paramount. The album was Impulse! A-4, the label's fourth release.

This reissue on the DOXY label puts the entire album on a single 45rpm record. Given that side one runs almost 21 minutes, I was surprised they squeezed it onto a single side. Sides two's approximately 16 minutes is slightly more manageable with "slightly" the operative word.

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Album Reviews
Bob Dylan's Morose Masterpiece Untangled in Black By Mobile Fidelity
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 27, 2013  |  31 comments
Dylan claims Blood on the Tracks' pained, heartbreaking and often very angry and vicious songs weren't personal confessionals, though he was in the midst of a painful divorce. His son Jakob says they were. Does it really matter if they were about or inspired by his life? He delivers them as if they were very personal as does any great actor, but they are just as satisfying or disturbing thought of as having been inspired by his personal circumstances at the time.

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Analog Corner
Analog Corner #40
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 25, 2013  |  8 comments
Have you noticed how the pace of things "going digital" has increased? There's no escaping it, and television's next. It'll take about 10 years, but then, like abandoned canals, the empty two-lane cement of Route 66, and overgrown railroad rights of way, the analog broadcast pathways will be discarded, handed back to the government for reuse in what will no doubt be a far less glamorous endeavor—garage-door opener or pocket-pager frequencies, perhaps.

Route 66 has made a tailfin'n'Elvis–based nostalgic comeback. So have steam trains, taking railroad buffs on daylong excursions over commuter rails. Last year I took one myself—and I enjoyed every soot-sprayed, purgatory-hot, steam-stinking, smoke-belching minute of it. (I hung out in one of the two open cars: standing room only, no glass in the windows.)

But analog television? Is anyone going to miss it? I doubt it—which is how most people felt about records with the introduction of the compact disc. Remember? People dumped their vinyl like carcinogens, and most haven't looked back with regret. Clearly, from our perspective, that's their loss.

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Album Reviews
"Blade Runner" Soundtrack Delivers Sonic Fireworks
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 24, 2013  |  21 comments
Ridley Scott's 1982 "future noir" classic "Bladerunner" based on Philip K.Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" was a box-office flop when first released. Like "TRON", another flop, it has gained stature over the years, though like "TRON", the movie's visual and sonic pleasures are greater than the storytelling.
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News
The Mothers of Invention "Freak Out!" Vinyl Reissue Straight Poop
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 20, 2013  |  38 comments
According to mastering engineer Chris Bellman, Freak Out! was cut from a digital source.
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