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Everything posted by A Lark Ascending
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good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
Yes, I've worked that out! Beyond the covers and side lengths, I've no nostalgia for vinyl. All I recall was the heart in mouth moment of playing a new LP, waiting for the first clicks, the wow and flutter, the inner groove distortion etc. Probably not an issue for those with expensive turntables but it always bothered me greatly. I embraced CD with open arms. I know others don't have my sensitivity to those imperfections (as I don't have much sensitivity to variations in bit rate or whatever influences digital sound quality). -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
But the reason train travel changed was because the competition - air and car - overtook it. CD overtook LP because, on balance, it had more advantages than disadvantages for most people. What was lost in artwork, the two sides was more than compensated to most listeners by its portability, flexibility, greater resiliance and, above all, lack of any form of surface noise. The same will determine the future of CD/downloads - if the advantages outweigh the disadvantages the switch will be made. It didn't happen from CD to SACD because the promised outstanding sound quality was not significantly important to most listeners, quite content with the very good sound quality of CD. I think downloading is offering a whole host of advantages that will ultimately see CD swept away. Which won't stop us looking back with longing at the things we will lose and won't stop some listeners continuing to hunt down CDs as they now hunt down used vinyl. I'm sure there are people who still use typewriters in the developed world, prefering them over a word processor. But for the world at large the idea of buying a typewriter does not enter their thoughts. I think the same will happen with CD. (Incidentally, I'm still locked enough in the old world to burn my downloads to disc and make a cover for them! The idea of playing them off a computer or a squeezebox doesn't calculate in my head yet (though I use an ipod!) I'm sure that makes me rather old fashioned). -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
I suspect most can't...I know I can't. I can tell a poor MP3 from a good one as I can tell a poor CD transfer from a good one. But as a rule I hear no difference - maybe if I had an expensive system I could. Mine, like most people's is quite modest. I can't see industry hanging onto CD for long just to please a small group of audiophiles. I can see someone somewhere licensing some recordings and making CDs as they now make vinyl for a small market or as they once made direct metal master discs to serve a small customer base for whom 'the best possible sound' mattered. I think most people are happy with very good quality sound. Most of the downloads I've heard recently fall into that bracket. The maths and graphs may say that this or that is lost but that is of no consequence if you don't hear it. -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
??? Good point! -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
I think you might be right - though the difference lies not so much in what we'd like as in what is there. There is no shortage of new shopping 'malls' springing up in the UK. But every one has the same stores and dedicated music shops are not part of the equation. If there is a record store it tends to be one of the big chains - HMV, Zavvi - who can afford the rents. Two years ago I would not have believed anyone if they'd told me I would be buying almost exclusively online and increasingly by download. Record shopping was a major recreational activity for me! The fact that I have completely changed my pattern is a result of two things: a) Sheer disappointment when visiting record shops in Nottingham. Sheffield and beyond. b) Trying to find copies of the 3 Chandos CDs of John Ireland's piano music, long OOP, a couple of years back. I stumbled on the Chandos download site where they had their entire deleted catalogue available. Now if there is anything going to test my patience its a dodgy recording of classical piano music, but these three came through effortlessly. My fear of downloading was overcome. And joining E-music got rid of the final doubts. I had a few disappointments in the early days. But I only have two gripes now. Every now and then I'll download something where tracks flow from one to the next and, despite using the gapless function there's a tiny pause. Doesn't happen much but when it does it's maddening. The other is having the libretto for an opera recording. I can live without most packaging but I do like to follow the storyline of an opera - impossible without a libretto even if (especially if?) it's in English. Actually there's a third factor which is more a consequence of the first two - I'm relishing the time I've regained on a Saturday to do things instead of shopping! Listening to music is one thing that has benefitted. -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
When I was in Truro in the summer I was disappointed to see the one up from the Cathedral (beyond Smiths)...I think it was called Solo or Opus...had gone. It was there two years previously! However, in Exeter a few days earlier I'd noticed the shop in the same chain was on its last legs (a whole floor cleared, just a scattering of CDs in the upstairs part). The Classical shop opposite was still going. Nottingham had a fabulous classical shop until about two years ago - I believe it was a front for a mail order company, Europadisc. The mail order firm still advertises in Gramophone but the costs of keeping a shop open were clearly prohibitive. Interesting that the places classical shops seem to survive are the more quaint, university type towns - Cambridge, Oxford, Bath, York. Sheffield had a couple that really struggled, moved premises and then vanished all together. Not enough old fashioned dons in Sheffield! I imagine 'Record Collector' in the Broomhill suburb of Sheffield still survives - it balanced new with used discs and had a substantial jazz and classical section, though there didn't seem to be much of a system to what they had. It was in the heart of student bedsit land so did well from that market - are students still buying CDs? *********** My own town - Worksop - is a small market town. When I moved here in 1991 you could buy CDs in Woolworths and Smiths; there was a chain store called Our Price which, although not wonderful, was no worse than the HMVs in the big cities now. There were a couple of rock/pop independents. And, best of all, a music shop that majored in musical instruments and sheet music but also had a good classical CD collection. All that survives is Woollies and Smiths stocking the top 20 albums and TV advertised things; and the out of town supermarkets stocking much the same. -
Recent Down Loads And Additions From E - Music
A Lark Ascending replied to Soulstation1's topic in Miscellaneous Music
Well...to add to the Black Saint/Soul Note feast, a vast swathe of ECMs just landed on e-music UK. They put some up in Aug but then removed most of them. Some more appeared in September but since then nothing. Today the number of albums jumped to 162!!!!!! Though I'd love to know how they are labelling them - rather than attributing them to the leader they seem to be randomly named after one player on the disc. Jack de Johnettes New Directions is by Eddie Gomez it would seem! Not a major issue but makes finding them a bit harder. How about Jarrett's 'Sun Bear' concerts in 13 downloads!!!!!! I recall when this was an unattainable luxury because of cost in the late 70s! -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
I don't subscribe to any 'deserve to die' thesis. I loved record shops in their heyday. I do feel the are economically unviable. The market for physical product will be twofold: a) Roughly the 25+ age range who are avid music enthusiasts, a small proportion of that total population. b) Those in the 25+ age range who have only a little interest in music and tend to buy the big sellers; buying a CD out of a rack remains an easier way of acquiring the odd recording if the mysteries of downloading or online purchasing are too much. CDs will continue to be made as long as group b) are demanding them - but they can be distributed from supermarkets. In much the same way as you can still buy film for cameras because people like my mum can't understand how you can take a picture any other way. Given the business practices of the majors in recent years I cannot see any effort being expended to satisfy group a) (that's us!). ***************** As for condemning, any criticism of physical stores here is as nothing compared with the regular assertions levelled at download quality (in the last few days I saw 'crappy MP3s' stated as a fact). This, ignoring the rapid strides being made technologically in creating downloads. It reminds me of those who continue to deny the quality of CD next to vinyl because they heard some lazy transfers in the 80s. Things have moved on. I suspect any difference between a CD and a lossless download falls into the world of sticking your CDs in the fridge or colouring the edges with marker and convincing yourself they sound better (whatever happened to reversing polarity, by the way?). It's one thing to say you like the feel, packaging of a CD and the experience of buying it in a store. But there is often a subtext that this is a better way of acquiring music that will consequently survive once the current fad passes. In my view, it's sad to see a much enjoyed way of acquiring music pass; but I look to the new opportunities opened by the new ways. Travelling by car clearly misses out on many of the experiences of travelling by stage coach; but it also offers new possibilities. It means the staging inns must adapt or close; but that is the nature of change. ***************** I wonder if fighting for the survival of record shops and physical product will actually help musicians. It forces them not only to pay to record and process those recordings but then create the physical product, store it and then somehow distribute it. The download route eliminates much of the latter, allowing musicians to get music out more easily, more cheaply and closer to original recording date (think of the Dave Douglas live recordings of two years back). It means a vast sea of recordings, not filtered in the way they were when a recording contract was required with a label. But that might have interesting repercussions. Instead of being obsessed by the idea of getting the 'best of' current music, we'll all filter for ourselves, finding our own personal areas (be they local or in someone elses locality). Ten years ago many of my new jazz recordings were from the standard Verve/Blue Note etc stable and mainly American. Today I'm more likely to follow up on local musicians, Italian musicians, Australian musicians. Not because they are better but because I have discovered a world I like there - and I discovered that world via the new technology. -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
Also worth remembering that with each passing minute a few more people will arrive in the world who will only ever know downloads and a few more who recall the older way of doing things will depart. The 'good old days' of the record shop will have as much meaning as the days when everyone sat round the box watching two channels and therefore the nation had a shared experience at work the next day. In other words, in the minds of the new generation, the ramblings of the aging, sentimentally romanticising their past. We all have our memories of the old way of doing things and understandably mourn the way an ever faster world is sweeping them away. But that will be an irrelevance to all but a handful of the generation growing up now (there will always be a few who are attracted by the older way of doing things). What matters to me is being able to hear the music - be it the legacy of the past or new things currently appearing. If it isn't cursed with skips, jumps, flutter, wow, rice krispie noises, muffled sound etc then I'll take it in any way it comes. The record store are ceasing to provide that where I live - the online stores and, increasingly, the download stores and musician sites are. I'll retain my fond memories of going record hunting on a Saturday; but am happy to adapt to the more flexible new model. -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
There was far more jazz released in mainland Europe than the UK in the 70s/80s. My LP copies of 'A Love Supreme' and 'Africa/Brass' plus several Miles discs from the mid-60s were imports. I remember going to the FNAC store in Brussels in the mid-80s and being stunned by the availability of records I'd only seen as sleeves in coffee table books. Bought the Miles Blackhawk 2 LP there (and 'The Shape of Jazz to Come' in Berlin - again, never seen (at that time, I'm sure it had a release in the early 60s) in the English provinces, though I imagine there were import copies in Mole, Rays and HMV Oxford Street from time to time). So maybe the sea of plenty owed more to a wider release policy - mainland Europe has always been more welcoming to jazz than the UK (ask the UK's musicians!!!!). In 1997 I drove to Austria and South Germany. I recall the most amazing first floor CD shop in Munich, almost hidden from view. A huge floor of jazz and classical where I could easily have spent vast sums. Even more extraordinary were a couple of supermarkets...yes supermarkets...out of town in Vienna where I picked up newly released Kenny Garrett, Bill Frisell and Tomasz Stanko discs. As for the riches you mention in London, well yes, there were some very good shops. But London is atypical of Britain as a whole. I'd only get up there once or twice a year at most. Out in the provinces things were much more sparse. I have to stress that I'm talking with regard to shops selling new releases. I've never haunted second-hand record (or book) shops - being a history teacher I hate old, used things!!!!! I think there are still second hand record shops operating here - it's the ones selling new things that have all but vanished. -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
My experience in record shops of pretty limited interaction - everyone is burrowing away looking for their own choice of CDs, no different than people hunting down their provisions in a supermarket. Yes, I've known shops where I've got to know the owner and had a nice chat - but it's hardly the norm for most buyers. You are also forgetting that by purchasing online rather han trawling the record stores we might be reducing isolation and increasing social interaction. The time liberated from hunting for records can be used reconnecting with family and friends. I don't spend a fraction of the time searching for CDs online than I used to spend on a trip to town on a purchasing hunt. -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
I agree with MG - I don't think I'm anywhere close to being done with exploring. Even in what might initially seem like the small world of jazz there's still lots of leads unexplored. The 'That Devilin' Tune' discs demonstrate wondrous worlds I've hardly touched. Then there's the endless arrival of new music (which I appreciate is not to everyones taste). And then there's all that stuff beyond jazz. I find those journeys much easier to set off on under the new web-based approaches than they were in the days when I bought from record stores. The breadth of my listening was greatly enhanced by web-based buying c. 2000. Downloading is only opening more possibilities. It's hard to move away from a way of life that has given us so much pleasure. But anyone seriously interested in continuing to explore music beyond the immediately popular is going to be forced into the new model very quickly. But I'm sure most of us who lived for some time in the days of record shops will leave them behind with some sadness. Why not use both stores and online sources? Well, I did in the early 00's. But in the UK the stores have all but disappeared. The main ones that up until a couple of years back carried some things of interest (HMV, Virgin [now Zavvi]) now focus purely on the big selling records. There are a handful of specialist shops - mainly classical - which I would use but the nearest is a two hour drive away. The only dedicated jazz shop I know outside London is a good five hours away in Bath (which also has two good classical shops). The nearest cities to me - Nottingham and Sheffield - no longer have shops that carry anything beyond the obvious in the jazz/folk/world/classical area. There are a few independents left but they are almost exclusively pop/rock based. I don't think the UK ever had stores with the sort of jazz selection that I recall seeing in Paris, Brussels, Munich or Berlin....let alone New York! But in the 70s/80s even relatively small towns often had a record shop that had an interesting selection (dictated by what was in print in the UK). I recall buying a lot of jazz from Syd Booth's in Mansfield, a town that didn't even have a book shop! And in the late 80s/early 90s when the megastores stared opening as CDs took off they often started with substantial jazz sections (I recall a new HMV in Leicester that had endless wonders for a year or so). But that has all scaled right back. I just see it as an age that has now passed. The irony is that there is more music available more readily than ever before in my life. -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
I agree with MG - I don't think I'm anywhere close to being done with exploring. Even in what might initially seem like the small world of jazz there's still lots of leads unexplored. The 'That Devilin' Tune' discs demonstrate wondrous worlds I've hardly touched. Then there's the endless arrival of new music (which I appreciate is not to everyones taste). And then there's all that stuff beyond jazz. I find those journeys much easier to set off on under the new web-based approaches than they were in the days when I bought from record stores. The breadth of my listening was greatly enhanced by web-based buying c. 2000. Downloading is only opening more possibilities. It's hard to move away from a way of life that has given us so much pleasure. But anyone seriously interested in continuing to explore music beyond the immediately popular is going to be forced into the new model very quickly. But I'm sure most of us who lived for some time in the days of record shops will leave them behind with some sadness. -
Should be interesting. Back in the late 70s/early 80s when I was first getting to know jazz I regularly made the treck to Mole (King's Cross Station was my route back to the frozen north Midlands). I picked up import copies of things like 'Miles Smiles' and 'My Funny Valentine' there at a time when only a fraction of the Miles catalogue was domestically available in the UK. Hard to imagine now!
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Why don't record companies print cds on demand?
A Lark Ascending replied to Popkin's topic in Re-issues
It all depends how many people want an 'on demand' printed CD rather than a download. I suspect the numbers will be few and will decrease as time goes on and as downloading becomes increasingly accepted. The 2009 Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music (and whatever you think of it as a guide, it's hardly renowned for embracing the faddish) has a couple of pages at the front covering downloading and reassuring readers that downloading will not stop their chickens laying eggs or their cows giving milk. I'm pretty convinced that any 'on demand service' will be a transitional stage whilst those suspicious of downloads are gradually won over. The future lies in high quality downloads with high quality album art available as a pdf or something similar. For those who can see beyond the scare stories the future is already here. What's not to like about this from a small scale company that revolves around a single group?: http://www.gimell.com/recording-The-Tallis...lliam-Byrd.aspx Still has a CD option - but I wonder for how long. Maybe the one thing that might keep the physical CD alive is the need to have something to sell at gigs. But even then it would be pretty easy to sell a card with credit to buy the download when online from the home store. Would solve the musician's problem of having to bring boxes of CDs to gigs. -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
Ha! They were clearly following the example of BBC Radio 3! Surprised they didn't have restricted opening hours on the jazz section, limited to late at night! However much we may regret the passing of a way of delivering recordings that has been part of our lives for a long time, I'd say the new model is far more conducive to diversity and specialist interest. -
good riddance to record stores ?
A Lark Ascending replied to michel1969's topic in The Vinyl Frontier
I loved the 35 years I spent trawling round record shops on a Saturday. I did find a few knowledgeable and helpful people working in them - but more often than not they had little specific knowledge. But I don't bemoan the demise of record shop as it has become in the UK. More a DVD shop with a couple of racks of mixed 'specialist music'. There are a handful of more specialised shops left in the UK (mainly classical) - and I read recently that the chap at Rays has been let go by Foyles. I'm not sure if that means the shop too. The upside of the revolution for me (apart from the instant availability and cost savings of the new model) is that I no longer spend ages getting to town centres and then spending money on parking, cups of overpriced coffee and impulse buys. I have more time to listen, read, garden etc - and am spending far less money whilst buying much the same amount of music. If I'm typical of the once avid music shopper, then it's no wonder the record stores are dying. While I can agree with some of the sentiments of the linked article I hate the way it is written - it becomes not so much a consideration of the issue of the end of the record shop as a puff piece for the website. How many records we've reviewed (and how many I've written), how wonderful we are. I'm probably very old and very British but I come from a world where it is for others to tell you how good you are. I've noticed this bragadoccio on other sites too. Might work for selling cornflakes (Kellogg's are the best) but grates in what purports to be a serious article. -
Some big hitters escaping from the likes of Columbia...
A Lark Ascending replied to A Lark Ascending's topic in Re-issues
I know, no need to act like a schoolteacher. But he is a schoolteacher. Any more smart comments like that and I'll be ringing your parents. -
Why don't record companies print cds on demand?
A Lark Ascending replied to Popkin's topic in Re-issues
Whilst respecting that there as a great deal of genuine analysis and debate going on in discussions about different versions, you also find a fair bit of posturing. 'Karajan? How can you possibly prefer Karajan to the sublime Klemperer version?' Heads into angels dancing on heads of pins country very quickly. Though I suspect it keeps the classical record industry afloat, endlessly issuing new Beethoven cycles, reissuing old Beethoven cycles or resurrecting historic Beethoven cycles that have never been heard on disc before. The good thing, however, for the ordinary record buyer is that there is such a glut of the standard repetoire on disc that it can now be had very cheaply. I bought a 'Ring' cycle in the early 90s - couldn't afford the ones that got the most stars but even the one I got cost an arm and a leg. Today you can get a Ring cycle for thruppence. -
Some big hitters escaping from the likes of Columbia...
A Lark Ascending replied to A Lark Ascending's topic in Re-issues
Thread title says 'from the likes of Columbia...'. -
Why don't record companies print cds on demand?
A Lark Ascending replied to Popkin's topic in Re-issues
Yes, that's interesting. When I was buying classical records, there were only two pieces of which I had two versions. The Rodrigo guitar concerto, of which I greatly preferred the Narciso Yepes version to the Bream, and the Bloch violin concerto, and liked the Menuhin version a lot more than the Hyman Bress version on Supraphon. But I couldn't tell which was actually BETTER, just that the ones I preferred felt better to me. But it didn't make me a fan of HMV or Decca. Hm, my wife's got the Yepes somewhere. Think I'll dig it out if I can. MG I agree completely. I rarely buy more than one version of a classical work. Where I have (especially when moving to CD and going for a more modern version), I frequently end up seeking out the one I first heard. Very hard to hear past what I first heard as the way the music should sound. Totally subjective of course. I can understand how the perspective will be very different to a musician working from a score. I buy more than enough records as it is without getting sucked into 'comparing Furtwangler with Norrington with Ozawa' syndome (I might turn into David Mellor*!!!!!!). I'd rather go in search of a piece or compoer I've never heard before. [* "Since leaving politics, David Mellor has become a highly successful broadcaster and journalist. An avid record collector (his CD collection is estimated to be 30,000 plus)..."...and you thought we needed addiction therapy!] -
With most music, painting, literature etc it then requires the brain to disrupt those patterns and defy the expectations set up by them. If jazz is about anything its about the notes landing where you don't always expect them. There's a line in Humphrey Lyttleton's 'Best of Jazz' where he talks of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith instinctively avoiding symmetry. I think you get that to varying degrees in most 'artforms' but I'd say it's one of the distinguishing qualities of jazz...and a reason why smooth jazz is so unsatisfying to the seasoned jazz listener.
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Some big hitters escaping from the likes of Columbia...
A Lark Ascending posted a topic in Re-issues
I'm not wanting to start up the Euro/US copyright wars again, but in the new Jazzwise I notice Discovery records have slated for Jan 2009: Ellington - Black Brown and Beige Ella - Ellington Songbook Miles - Porgy and Bess Miles - Milestones Cannonball - Somethin' Else Sun Ra - Jazz in Silhouette. and a number of other famous recordings from '57-'58. -
Why don't record companies print cds on demand?
A Lark Ascending replied to Popkin's topic in Re-issues
I'm not sure that's true - I think you do find brand loyalty in classical music. Especially to smaller companies which operate in a specific field. A label like Lyrita does have a dedicated following of people who will take a chance on an unknown name on the label because of the experience of the quality and nature of the other Lyrita records they've heard. Maybe if Lyrita recordings had broken onto the dance floor (Acid-English-Cowpat?) it would be as well known as Blue Note!!!! I'm often drawn to Hyperion recordings, for example, by the house style of the packaging. Which is as distinctive as Blue Note. The pdfs at Hyperion allow that element of the whole package to be passed on along with the music. The one big difference between classical music and jazz is that (for copyright lifetime at least) Kind of Blue only appears on Columbia; whereas Mahler 6 turns up all over the place (though not Karajan or Bernstein's Mahler 6). -
Why don't record companies print cds on demand?
A Lark Ascending replied to Popkin's topic in Re-issues
Very true. The information can be had by googling round a bit, but its good to have it all printable. I've used Chandos, Naxos and Gimell a lot this year for classical music downloads and they provide high definition covers and pdfs of all documentation (most of which, frankly, I don't use). I downloaded a couple of Hyperion discs today from iTunes. Although there's no cover or notes there, the Hyperion site has a high definition copy of the cover plus a pdf of the liner details, notes, any libretto etc. Example: http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/notes/67599-B.pdf I get the impression that there are people in the classical companies who both love the music and can see the future in downloading in a quality way. With jazz it seems that either the people in charge don't care about their assets that much or, where they do, have not clicked on to the potential of downloading as a quality route for distributing music.