SEDUCED BY SOUND: AUSTIN, 100 Musicians on Why They Make Music Even if you hung out in every bar, dive and dance hall in a town for the last 40 years, you wouldn’t capture the musical influences, history and “feel” of a place as well as this book tells it. Part history, part interviews with music makers, SEDUCED BY SOUND: AUSTIN is far more than a cheat sheet for the vast array of talent that inhabits this “live music capital of the world.” It tells the story of the Austin music scene, in the words of the people who lived and made it, in a way no narrative history... Read More
Record Cleaning: Tima’s DIY (Ultrasonic) RCM – followup #1
Record Cleaning: Tima’s DIY (Ultrasonic) RCM – followup #1 I am very pleased with tima’s DIY RCM thus far. See Tima’s DIY RCM. The USC tank and filter system continue to operate nominally. I’ve settled on a cycle that clean five or six records at a time. That includes: i) warming up the tank water to 34° C (93.2° F) which takes about 40 minutes, ii) running a stack of records through the cleaner for 15 minutes at roughly 60% power, then running for 6 minutes at roughly 80% power, iii) and lastly letting the records air dry. The Beijing Ultrasonics 10L unit is much... Read More
SIDEBAR ON DIY ULTRASONIC LP CLEANING
SIDEBAR ON DIY ULTRASONIC LP CLEANING I’m delighted that a “pro” reviewer, Tim Aucremann, (better known as “Tima” in audio circles) agreed to address the topic of DIY ultrasonic LP cleaning in a new featured article on TheVinylPress.com. For those of you with long memories, I had published an introduction to DIY ultrasonic cleaning some time ago, with the promise of a more in-depth look. Although I had done a fair amount of research preparing to set up a DIY ultrasonic cleaning system here at TheVinylPress, the project was waylaid by our move to Austin. Tim’s piece... Read More
Sonics vs. Music on LPs
Sonics vs. Music on LPs With apologies for the “click bait” title, I had an epiphany the other day playing the main system for a visitor. I usually try to find music that is both interesting and well recorded. There is no shortage of such records, but as I find myself plunging deeper down the rabbit hole of obscurities, lost bands and forgotten albums, I realized how much of a gap there in sound quality between some of these musical gems and the spectacular sound you get on the great audiophile quality records. Ideally, you’d get both— interesting music and lifelike... Read More
Gone to Texas
Gone to Texas I’m long overdue in publishing new material at The Vinyl Press. My mini-travelogue of our journey from New York through the Deep South was part of our transit, a road trip of relocation to Austin, Texas. We landed in Austin on February 1, and with a pretty good sense of the real estate market here (great for sellers, ugly for buyers), we set out with our broker to find a place that appealed. My original intention was to buy something in an international modern vein, but that didn’t happen for a number of reasons. Our “new” house in Austin is circa the 1880’s and... Read More
From the Gulch to the Delta
From the Gulch to the Delta- On Pawn~ in Asheville, N.C. We are down in the Gulch, Nashville’s newest “hot” urban enclave, bubbling with fashionable boutiques and trendy nightspots. Our trip from Virginia was uneventful, if wet; the views along the higher ridges were hampered by fog. With a brief stay-over in Winston-Salem, a quiet town of old architectural gems (and one of the best café lattes ever, at a place called “The Hive”), we landed in Asheville. This is a vibrant city nestled into the Blue Ridge Mountains with the charm of the south but a distinct culture all its own.... Read More
The War of Fog
The War of Fog -Adventures in Audiophile Moving. For forty days and nights, we’ve been packing boxes and squaring away our Hudson River home for sale to the new owners: roughly 12,000 records have gone through my hands recently; a few thousand left a while ago, and are now in the hands of a friend who returned to vinyl; as many were handed off to a wholesaler who dealt with the listings and shipping (none of the really rare stuff got sold, so you didn’t miss a thing). The wholesaler came back a couple weeks ago to take another 2,000 records out of here. That left me with about 6,000... Read More
Songs in the Key of Wonder
Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life In spite of his considerable talents, a vast body of commercially successful recordings spanning the decades and enduring recognition from the time he first appeared on Motown’s Tamla roster as “Little Stevie Wonder” at the age of 11, I still think Stevie Wonder is vastly underrated as a composer and performer. His maturation as a gifted writer and musician not only helped redefine the sound of “soul” and popular music in the ’60s, but led to a period of deeper, more introspective music in the ’70s... Read More
Opening the Door to Comments!
Opening the Door to Comments! When this site launched, it did not include any facility for user comments. I didn’t want to bother moderating comments, and had enough work just assembling content. But now, almost two years into publishing TheVinylPress, I’m willing to experiment a bit, so some articles will now include a comments feature. If you want to post a comment, you will have to register. (Registration and login links are at the bottom of the page in the “black bar”). Initial comments may be put into a queue until you are validated as a user. And, at least... Read More
Record Reviews: The Obscure and Familiar
Record Reviews and Capsules: I’m long overdue to write some short pieces on individual albums. I like to write longer essays and articles, but those take time: to research, obtain interviews and edit. As a result, my coverage of individual records has suffered recently. No more! I haven’t given up the long-form piece – several are in the works, along with a few practical articles on ultrasonic cleaning and record flattening. In the meantime, many record reviews (or capsules—really just a “quickie” review to bring the album to your attention) are now coming your... Read More