Record Collections and Current Reflections

It’s been almost two years since I posted here.  Amazing that there is still significant traffic every month to this blog site, people scanning through the photos, brought here by the tags and keywords.  Lots of changes in my life, but one thing remains constant, the LP collection keeps growing.  My back can verify this, because I just moved them.

When it’s time to relax, messing with the vinyl discs and the large-canvas artwork allowed by gatefolds is the ticket.    Besides the specific artists,  I have a group of quirky collections that don’t have much to do with the actual music but make it fun to paw through the bins at used record stores and flea markets.

They are:

==Die-cut Album Covers  (see previous posts below)

==Gatefolds, Trifolds and Multi-Page Covers with full-bleed* photography or artwork

==Worst art direction on an album by a major-label artist  (really bad covers);  I love Nick DiFonzo’s “worst album cover” books.

Here’s the weirdest one:

==45rpm singles with first names in the song title.  (Think “Michelle,”  “Lola” etc).  Stored in alpha order, so anyone can find a record where someone is singing about them or paying them tribute.  Someday I’ll own a high-capacity juke box for 45s,  and guests will be able to pick out “their song”  and watch it queue up and play.

*full bleed = a printer’s term meaning that the image goes right to the edge of the paper; there’s no border or margin

Major Collections (Artists):

==Miles Davis

==Beach Boys / Brian Wilson

==Joni Mitchell

==Jimmy Webb

==Keith Jarrett (this is what I have been focused on lately; he is the inspiration for my own solo piano work)

==Amy Grant

By now you’re thinking that I’m rather schizo-flaky; several of my friends don’t get the Amy Grant thing – quite a juxtaposition to Miles Davis, for instance.  More on this later.

==James Taylor (sentimental favorite)

==Aaron Copland (I’m always finding more LP recordings of his symphonic and piano works)

==Firesign Theater (the “music” of layered, highly-produced media parody)

Also: Little Feat,  Yes, and other LP-era artists, plus CD collections of Sarah McLaughlin,  Cake, and many great new artists that are only on their 2nd or 3rd CD, like Jamie Cullum.

Please feel free to share your collections here, either obvious or odd.

The Hammond Had Lost the Battle to the Ax

Another die-cut notable. Procol Harum’s 1971 album (name it) – guitar manifesto-man Robin Trower’s last with the group. He had made his mark, though. Earlier, the gritty Hammond B3 had challenged the electric guitar’s rock supremacy in hits like “Whiter Shade of Pale” in the late 60’s and early 70’s (think Three Dog Night’s “Try a Little Tenderness,” early Seger, and anything by Lee Michaels), but alas, Hendrix and the horde continued to rule in the end.

Seen by themselves, the die-cut holes look like the shape of something that would come out of your nose (below). But s’okay.

Played on a early 70’s “Mister Hit.”

Dom and Rubens Were There

Ah, la Musette. Petite phono.

NAME THAT GATEFOLD

The music from this gang is cool again. Actually, it never stopped being so. Group updated its name every year.

Primo Die-Cut Effort: 36 Album Covers in One

Bill (his extensive blog is Rock-of-Ages) encouraged me to haul out more elaborate Zep efforts. So…

NAME THAT DIE-CUT ALBUM

What’s the name of the infamous 1975 Led Zeppelin double album, with all the little windows on both sides of the cover? It’s actually 36 different album covers for the price of one…that’s the number of front and back cover combinations you can make by inserting the two inner sleeves and a light cardboard insert (each with people in the windows, printed on both sides). Lots of famous folks, and the Zeppelin boys…profiles, in drag, etc.

Kind of like an interactive Sgt. Peppers cover. Those were the days when they spared no expense for a top-selling rock act.

The buildings pictured are located at 96 and 98 St. Mark’s Place in New York City.

Die-Cut “Thingness”-Sticky Fingers Cover

In print advertising, they say that a direct mailer or a brochure that has a tactile factor, or that gives you something to do with your hands, has “thingness.”

Hmmm. Consider the Rolling Stones 1971 classic Sticky Fingers…with the Andy Warhol cover. Something to play with. Definitely a “thing.” The famous working zipper…the one that tended to dent the album cover on top of it during shipping. The album that many modest record store owners refused to display (not particularly a family-oriented concept).

My wife didn’t buy many rock n ‘roll albums back in those days, but I love her just a little bit more because she captured one of zipper covers….obviously an important part of any die-cut album cover collection.

Stones fans from the early 70s may well have been listening to their LPs on this sharp Panasonic SG-999D turntable/receiver/ amp.

To see this album cover and many other famous ones get violent, check out the 2-minute romp through rock history Battle of the Album Covers on YouTube.

What to Do with Old Tone Arms

My mother-in-law demonstrates how a nice lightweight tone arm, no longer pokin’ them record grooves, can be outfitted to caress the gums, help remove plaque, and prevent gingivitis.

From aural to oral….so to speak. You can tell she’s enjoying herself.

Got any other ideas for recycling old record player parts?
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Arvin Radio-Phonograph – complete with curves.

Also check out Bob Vinyl’s Whole Lotta Album Covers blog. Some great outrageous finds.

Die-Cut Album Covers – Family 2

Here’s the album by “Family” that followed in 1972: Bandstand. Die cuts included a window (TV screen) and the beveled top corners of the cover and the inner sleeve.

Die-Cut Album Covers – Family

The 12X12 art space for LP album covers was a good format for creative die cut and multi-page creations. The 1971 album by the UK prog rock group “Family” presented (pre-digital) morphing faces of the band members on sequential step-cut pages. The music itself is unremarkable (except for a baritone-anchored a cappella ditty called “Larf and Sing”), but the cover is rather cool.

Curvy Tone Arms: Like a Fine Automobile

The tone arm on this 1953 Voice of Music record player (left), as well as this 50’s Steelman BSR record player arm (right), have curvy “hood and fender” appeal. Both are standing by for those Sinatra platters, or some hot BeBop to inspire that horizontal ShBoom up in the guest bedroom.

NAME THAT GATEFOLD

This evolutionary singer/songwriting artist paid homage to an ailing jazz great (bassist, bandleader) in her1979 album named after him. 6-page album cover. Jaco updates the bass in the band.

My thanks for the Voice of Music player photo from a great site for radios and phonographs: Radiophile.

Disco-Tech Pre-Digital

Every 10-year-old girl that was growing up in the 70s, pre-digital, had to have a disco flashing-light record player…I think.

Here’s my tribute. At home, I’ve got a fragile little plastic phono pulsating away, with flashing colored lights, suspended in mid-air, mid-leap, as it were. Flanked by “Flashdance” on the left, “Fame” on the right.

NAME THAT GATEFOLD

Then there’s the most famous of disco records. How deep is your make-up? How high the platforms? One glance and you’ve guessed this one. And to think this innocent lad would end up in Pulp Fiction.

Also see http://www.funtrivia.com/trivia-quiz/Celebrities/Life-and-Times-of-John-Travolta-55431.html