33-and-a-blurred

 Hey, it's Record Store Day! Yeah, whoop! To me, every day is record store day. I appreciate the organisers' efforts to boost the profiles of both vinyl and the ever-dwindling tally of record stores, but I've never fancied camping out with all the opportunistic chancers and having to fight them for the limited vinyl releases that always seem to be on eBay within five minutes of leaving the store. These people are no better than ticket touts. How about leaving the Record Store Day releases for real fans! There's nothing wrong with selling on your surplus vinyl, but denying a true music lover the chance to own a special slab of wax from their favourite artist just so you can make a quick buck strikes me as pretty scummy behaviour. At the other end of the marketing scale there are plenty of legit sellers on eBay who could use a few lessons in maximising the sales potential of their wares.

When I'm browsing the vinyl listings on the 'Bay, I'm often left dumbstruck by the way some of the vendors present the items they have for sale. I've collected a random sample of godawful, genuine photographs from ebay listings over the last week or so to illustrate my point.

This vendor deserves credit for managing to photograph his Neil Diamond LP from the window of a speeding train...

 

What are you selling, records or home furnishings?..

 

 

Turn off your flash, for crying out loud!..

A selection of LPs possibly photographed under the influence of alcohol. I searched in vain for a similarly blurry copy of Foreigner's Double Vision. That would have been too perfect! 

The lack of focus in this shot can't disguise the huge tear in the sleeve...

Bob Dylan, blurred and jaundiced...

You'll be surprised to learn that none of these albums achieved a sale.

Amish Mush-Muff Miff

Although a feature of many a Dickensian gent's fizzog and a perennial favourite of Amish men, the beard-no-'tache ensemble makes no sense in the 21st century. Nor did it make any sense back in 1973 from whence comes Painter's eponymous LP.

Surely the fiddliest part of shaving is negotiating that tricky undulating bit between nose and lip. If I was ever to grow a beard you could be damn sure that my top lip would feature a luxuriant welcome mat. To wilfully go to the effort of keeping just this part of your mug shorn must surely point to a thoroughly misguided stab at making a fashion statement (by the looks of that shirt I'd say this guy's a serial offender). Why not shave off your eyebrows or wax just one bollock? - it's just as non-sensical. You might have guessed that I'm not a fan of this man's ginger chin strap. Perhaps it's there to hold his urine-hued Aviators in place. Clearly, rose-tinted spectacles are not the only ones that dupe people into believing that things look better than they really are.

For once, my purchase of an obscure 1970s album occured in spite of, not because of, the facial hair being flaunted by the band. The presence of a drummer revelling in the name Bob Ego (Bob Ego!) was reason enough for me to ignore the coppery jaw muff and check out this slab of wax. The usual, ever-present, blue collar, hard rocking influences are all over this Canuck twelve incher: BTO, April Wine, Prism and Chilliwack. I'm delighted to report that Painter more than hold their own in this illustrious company. Back in the day, they even succeeded in squeezing a Canadian top twenty single out of the LP in the form of West Coast Woman. See what you make of the couple of tracks here. They're getting plenty of turntable time chez Shelf-Stacker.

Apparently, guitarist Danny Lowe (I can't shed any light on whether he's the one with the orange chin minge, I'm afraid) stumbled upon and helped develop an early form of surround sound called QSound, described in the sleeve notes of Roger Waters' Amused To Death LP as "a new audio technology producing a wider, more natural sound field". Okay weird beard, you're forgiven: I love that album!

A very grudging 5 out of 10

Leaf Hound's Mushroom & Eel Pie

I dragged myself to the Eel Pie Club in Twickenham on Thursday night to catch a set by Leaf Hound, a band perhaps better known for the ludicrous price that their debut album sells for on eBay than for the music contained in the grooves. On the rare occasions when the original Decca LP turns up on the auction site, it can fetch in excess of £4,000. Even the Akarma reissue from 2003 can command a sum of £50 with the wind behind it. Having, some time back, conceded that I was never likely to stumble on an original in a charity shop amongst the James Last and Paul Young LPs, I had, myself, plumped for the Akarma reissue.

Leaf Hound: fun guys.

Once the dust has settled after the stampede to proclaim Leaf Hound the greatest band that never made it, it will become clear that Growers of Mushroom, although a superb album with intimations of brilliance, falls somewhat short of the greatness that has been bestowed upon it by those looking for a lost masterpiece to stand shoulder to shoulder with the best of Zeppelin or Sabbath. You need to look to Captain Beyond's debut for an album that scales those dizzy heights. By all accounts, vocalist Pete French had already jumped ship to front Atomic Rooster by the time Growers of Mushroom saw a UK release, so perhaps the band members themselves weren't entirely convinced of the LP's ability to launch their careers into the stratosphere. Having said all that, it would be hard for any album to live up to the hype that has surrounded this LP. I'm sure that if I had stumbled on Growers of Mushroom without any prior knowledge of its existence or reputation, I would be considerably more evangelical about its potent, Psych-tinged, Proto-Metal stew of Led Zeppelin and Free.

 

In a live setting, despite looking like a bunch of random blokes who met at a bus stop, the current incarnation of the band does a great deal to convince that maybe, just maybe, the spores of greatness were sown with that debut LP. I've yet to hear the band's 2007 follow-up album, Unleashed, but on the evidence of the band's live symbiosis, it's entirely possible that it builds upon and seamlessly picks up from where the debut LP left off, despite the intervening years. The Eel Pie Club's ambience leaves a lot to be desired, with the stage as bright and unimaginatively illuminated as a branch of Homebase, but good musicians can transcend the limitations of their environment, and so it was with Leaf Hound. Bass player Pete Herbert had me shrugging off my initial reservations (founded purely on his lumbering, grease monkey appearance) and had me singing his praises for the duration of the gig. With a man as dexterous and musically attuned as Herbert on the bass, there is never a moment when the sound needs fleshing out with a second guitarist or a keyboard player. His playing gives Luke Rayner the freedom to weave his Hendrix-inspired magic. Pete French's seasoned-old-pro demeanour suggests a man who doesn't feel the need to showboat, who's happy to share the spotlight with his bandmates. For me, the only weak link musically is drummer Jimmy Rowland whose lack of subtlety grates at times, particularly during the sustained and unimaginative bludgeoning of his crash cymbals. Perhaps he had an off-night as I can't recall singling him out for criticism on the previous occasions that I've seen the band.

I guess Pete French's pre-song chat puts to rest any thoughts that he might have a loft-full of copies of the original LP squirreled away to boost his pension. Careful kicking yourself with those cowboy boots, Pete!

Flat-Pack Record Collection

I seem to remember that when I bought my Expedit shelving at IKEA, the assembly instructions warned against overloading the shelves. IKEA's own website states that the maximum load per shelf should not exceed 13kg. I reckon that a foot-and-a-bit of vinyl weighs significantly more than that: somewhere in the region of 20 kilos in my estimation. Funny then that IKEA are pursuing those vinyl heads who haven't yet discovered Expedit shelving for themselves with some keenly targeted advertising which seems to ignore their own warnings.

Shelves by IKEA, cardigan by his Gran

Does this mean that when my shelves collapse, destroying my priceless record collection, that it will be IKEA's fault, not mine for ignoring the maximum load warning? Perhaps Record Collector magazine will soon feature adverts for lawyers offering DJs and crate diggers a no-win-no-fee suit against IKEA for mis-selling of their flat pack furniture. After all, the PPI lawyers are going to need to find another ambulance to chase before too long.

The internet is full of photos of record collections housed in Expedit shelving. Amongst them are a few which look like they've been on the business end of a wrecking ball. I take some comfort from the fact that all of these collapsed shelves appear to have been owned by unfortunates who failed to decipher IKEA's assembly hieroglyphics and stood their shelves up the wrong way, allowing the full weight of their precious vinyl to bear down, not on the shelves themselves, but on the tiny bits of dowling holding the shelves' dividers in place - the record collecting equivalent of sawing through a tree branch while you're sitting on it.

The one occasion when having a shit turntable paid off.

BRAD - Islington Academy 10/02/13

Perhaps, being February, it's a bit early to be making nominations for gig of the year, but I can't believe that anyone will better the peformance I saw last night at the Islington Academy. I've been a fan of Brad since their first album, Shame, came out in 1993 (can it really be twenty years ago?!) and never dared to hope that they would play the UK. Finally getting to see them was most definitely an emotional experience. Pearl Jam are a good band, but they're simply not in the same league as Stone Gossard's funky, soulful, rocking side project. Apologies for the grainy iPhone photos, but perhaps they capture some of the atmosphere of last night's gig.

I didn't shoot this YouTube footage myself, but I was standing about three feet from the guy who did, so this is pretty much how I witnessed the gig. It should give you a feel for the band's performance and the audience's enthusiasm. I just love the soulful fragility of Shawn Smith's voice and the way Stone Gossard's guitar solo escalates. Immense!

I'll hold my hand up and admit that this post has nothing to do with vinyl (I don't even own any Brad on wax), but hey, it's all music, right?!

http://www.bradcorporation.com/

Audio Technica AT95E Cartridge

I recently installed an Audio Technica AT95E cartridge in the tonearm of the Technics SL1210 in my second system: the latest move in an ongoing struggle to find a cartridge that doesn't make me want to scuttle out of the room into the welcoming arm of my Linn Sondek. I had always believed everything I read about how the Audio Technica carts are glassy and shrill in the top end - not a sound that I wanted to inflict on my ears - but the sub-thirty quid price tag on the AT95E and the following it seems to enjoy amongst budget-conscious audiophiles persuaded me to give the cart a chance. What an inspired decision that has turned out to be!

Mrs Shelf-Stacker has now completely abandoned any pretence of appearing even vaguely interested in my hi-fi. She likes much of the music that comes out of the speakers, but the tune is all that matters to her, not the quality of reproduction. A micro-speakered iPod dock, her iPhone, a musical greetings card or, God help me, the piece of crap, black plastic, stacking 'hi-fi' system that she provided as her dowry, it makes no difference: she is incapable of distinguishing between the sonic qualities of a decent hi-fi set-up and these instruments of torture. She's happy just so long as they're rattling with the effort of farting out The Number Of The Beast or For Those About To Rock. You know that look you see on someone's face when they are singled out for attention by a slurring drunk on the Tube? That's the look that crept over my wife's facial features when I began to explain my enthusiasm for the Audio Technica cartridge. So, I'm sorry, I'll just have to tell you about it instead.

My second system, for many years, consisted of a 1990s-era Marantz PM-44SE amplifier (now the heart of the kitchen system, banging out Peppa Pig CDs and the like), a Marantz CD player, a Technics SL-1210 MkII turntable with stock arm sporting a procession of cartridges (Shure, Stanton, Ortofon) and a pair of Wharfedale Modus Eight floorstanding speakers. The Marantz amp combines clinical iciness with a complete absence of tone controls, ensuring that some CDs can scalp the unwary at fifty metres. The Wharfedale speakers were surprisingly punchy all-rounders but with the build quality of an Ikea wardrobe. They served me well, but I shed no tears when they left to be replaced by a truly wonderful pair of Ruark Prelude speakers which have clearly been created by otherworldly craftsmen.

Hankering for a more analogue-friendly system, I experimented with an older, aluminium-fronted Marantz Model 1050 amp before falling for a Quad 44 pre-amp / 303 power amp combination. The fact that Pink Floyd supposedly used Quad 303s in the studio during the recording of Dark Side Of The Moon was enough to pique my interest. Their robust, Cold War, Eastern Bloc, utilitarian, nuclear submarine instrumentation-evoking appearance just adds to the appeal.

The stock arm on the Technics was long ago discarded in favour of an Origin Live-modified Rega RB250 tonearm, but still I couldn't get the sound I wanted from my vinyl. I was left completely unmoved by the highly-regarded Ortofon 2M Red cartridge which seems designed to mimic the cold, soulless, perfunctory aloofness of CD. Even a vintage Ortofon Turbo MC1 moving coil cartridge left me scratching my head and wondering if perhaps I was simply expecting too much of my Technics turntable. Years of tinkering have taught me that a component that sounds pedestrian and lacklustre in combination with one set-up can come alive elsewhere. My beloved B&W DM14 speakers sounded dire hooked up to Marantz amplification, but sang when teamed up with my Audio Institute valve amp, so perhaps the 2M Red will, in turn, find its perfect partner somewhere down the line. What I do know is that the Technics is a joy to listen to now that it has been mated with the AT95E.

Where is the harsh, glacial reproduction that I was expecting? The sound is beautifully balanced: a clear, revealing top end recreates subtle variations in cymbal tones that were completely ignored by other cartridges, whilst the bottom end has bass extension and an analogue warmth and richness that has been hitherto lacking. The mid-range lacks some of the detail of the Ortofon MC15 Super MkII cartridge installed on my Linn Sondek, but I wouldn't expect it to match the performance of a significantly more expensive cartridge. Shure's Trackability Test Record will put any cartridge through its paces: the Audio Technica can't cope with the bass drum low-frequency trackability test, but the sleeve notes on the Shure LP state that it would be "a near miracle that any cartridge could successfully track" that test. The Ortofon MC15 aces it, but it is an exceptional cartridge.

In the real world though, away from the unrealistic demands of Audio Obstacle Course test records, the Audio Technica tracks well and, with the limited hours I have put on it, doesn't seem to provoke sibilance or inner groove distortion. Straight out of the box the cartridge is a doddle to set up and performs superbly even before it has had a chance to run-in. The bottom line is that I am finally able to sit back and enjoy listening to records on the Technics deck without comparing it unfavourably to the Linn Sondek. Thirty pounds well spent!

From Spitalfields To Soho

On Friday, while Mrs Shelf-Stacker was distracted by an impending playdate for our four year-old and one of his house-trashing, midget accomplices, I snuck out to investigate the record fair at Spitalfields Market. These fairs take place on the first and third Fridays of the month, days when I am ordinarily unable to find the time to head east and rummage, so thank the sweet baby bejesus for the festive holidays! Initial signs weren't too promising when I headed into the market, surrounded on all sides as I was by stalls selling nothing but women's clothes and jewellery. I very nearly turned on my heels and headed back to Liverpool Street Station, but I'm glad I perservered as, beyond the seemingly impenetrable maze of frocks and blouses, a sizeable corner of the market had been colonized by blokes with trestle tables and crates full of lovely vinyl. I'll apologize here for the lack of photos of the market. The truth is that the digging sickness fell upon me and the tunnel vision and singleness of purpose that this engendered caused me to forget all about recording any images of my outing.

Vertigo Swirl at 12 O'Clock!

More often than not, despite finding something to warrant the effort of schlepping across London, record fairs are insultingly over-priced affairs staffed by misanthropic old farts bemoaning the turnout, the weather, the state of the music industry, yada yada, whilst getting misty eyed over memories of punters fleeced and collections pillaged. Okay, so there was still a bit of that, but the mood was playful and the thoroughly reasonable prices suggested that a lingering shred of Christmas cheer had prompted a Scrooge-like transformation in the sellers. On one stall, with a sign declaring that everything was £5.00, I felt I had to check that I was understanding correctly: could I really have an original US pressing of The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour LP complete with 24-page colour book for five measly squid? How about a Reprise steamboat label copy of Family's A Song For Me complete with lyric insert? Sold! I hoped I could ride my luck and get another stallholder to part with a pristine, Vertigo swirl copy of May Blitz's debut LP for the tenner burning a hole in my pocket. Sadly not, but the £200 he was asking for still seemed like a bargain. I resisted the temptation to run to the cashpoint.

It's funny the people you bump into when you're on your knees rooting through crates of mildewed LPs. The tunnel vision lifted long enough for me to notice a familiar face alongside me, one belonging to the one-time basement-dwelling salesman at the sadly defunct Cheapo Cheapo Records. I was still too gripped by the sickness to go through the usual social niceties of finally getting around to finding out his name, but I recognised him, he recognised me, we bemoaned the weather, the state of the music industry, yada yada and fell back into our respective tunnels. As expected, he's selling vinyl online now, the landlords of Cheapo Cheapo having taken the opportunity presented by the proprietor's death to impose a hike in the rent to £75,000 per annum - I'm pretty sure I heard that right - which, unsurprisingly, they were invited to shove up their arses. It seems you can't blame iTunes and Simon Cowell for the death of every record store!

Having amassed a haul which included the aforementioned Beatles and Family LPs as well as The World Is A Ghetto by War, Broken Barricades by Procol Harum, Painter's self-titled effort, Two Fisted Tales by The Long Ryders, Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage Acts II & III, Capital City Rockets' sole LP, Blackjack's debut and a The Left Banke compilation on Bam-Caruso Records, I remembered the wad of Music & Video Exchange vouchers languishing in my pocket.

The Music & Video Exchange (forever The Record Tape Exchange in my mind), offers the choice of a piddling amount of cash or a more generous quantity of their own toy town Monopoly money when you offload your unwanted records on them. After a recent visit I discovered that Camden Town's Music & Video Exchange had closed down, so figured it was time I exchanged my play money for vinyl before their remaining stores go tits up and I'm left with a wallet-full of expensive, dog-eared arse wipes. To cut a long story short, a post-Spitalfields trip to the Berwick Street Music & Video Exchange in Soho revealed it to be looking decidedly forlorn. As usual, the staff behind the counter seemed to be competing to see who could inflict the most unpleasant, unlistenable, tuneless music on their customers and one another. This stuff can't even claim to be avant garde and envelope pushing. I can happily lose myself in Trout Mask Replica, Reign In Blood or a spot of Sun Ra, but give me strength, where do they dig up this charmless filth? Perhaps in the bargain basement, which looked like it had fallen victim to a spot of fly-tipping. Anyone who ever dreamed of working in a record shop should visit the bargain basement at the Berwick Street branch of The Music & Video Exchange and you'll skip to your mundane job on Monday morning with a song in your heart and a smile on your face, grateful that dreams don't come true. What a toilet! I left empty-handed.