Author: chris

Fall 2013 Mixtape

It’s Fall 2013 and things are getting weird. It’s been a while since we’ve had a new mixtape around here, and it seems to have gone in a much darker, druggier direction this time. Maybe it’s all the weird Criterion shit I’ve been watching on Hulu Plus. Christ, I saw this thing last night and it kinda made sense to me. This might not be a good thing. As per usual, all of these cuts are from LPs I found digging through 100s of 1000s of dirty old records at the flea markets, estate sales, and thrift shops of southern CT… mastered in pro tools via my trusty Benz Micro cartridge. Where youtube links are available, I’ve provided them below. If you see me, ask me for a copy of the CD…

1. Endle St Cloud “Street Corner Preacher”

2. The Beacon Street Union “Mystic Mourning“

3. Street “If I Needed Someone”

4. Edwin Starr “My Sweet Lord”

5. David Porter “Didn’t Know Love Was So Good”

6. Cymande “Bird”

7. Mandrill “Afrikus Retrospectus”

8. Lonnie Liston Smith “In Search Of Truth”

9. Backstreet Crawler “It’s A Long Way Down To The Top”

10. Lee Clayton “I Ride Alone”

11. The Devil’s Anvil “Karkadon”

12. Dr John “One Night Late”

13. Smokey John Bull “The Mighty Quinn”

14. Potliquor “Beyond The River Jordan”

15. Don Nix “Until Tomorrow”

16. Lucio Battisti “Il Fuoco”

For detailed track information and more of the best album-artwork of all time, click the link below to READ ON…

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Some oddball Guitar Pedals of the 1980s

Post author By chris
Post date 10/10/2013
No Comments on Some oddball Guitar Pedals of the 1980s

I’ve been buying and selling guitar effects pedals for a long time; I currently have maybe 60, and have probably had 300-400 pass through my hands at one time or another. There are just so many of the fkkn things out there that I’m bound to find at least a couple every month for $5 – $10 at the yard sales and flea markets of Southern CT. I also have all the available books on the subject, but even still, there were just so many of these things made that I am bound to be surprised regularly. Here are three interesting units that I have never come across. Above: The VestaFire R-1X digital reverb c. 1988.

Above: Sescom, 80’s maker of some pretty excellent DI boxes, also made a guitar compression pedal in 1981? Probably worth checking out. This thing was crazy expensive at the time, btw, $254 in ’13-bucks. Anyhow, as deep+ wide as the pool of vintage pedals is, can you even imagine how nuts its gonna be 25 years from now, what with the huge explosion in ’boutique’ and ‘DIY’ pedal-craft of the past decade. It’s really taken on folk-art proportions.

Above: The Castle Phaser III of 1981. Goddamn folks loved the shit outta Phase Shift way back when.

Tags guitar effects, sescom, vesta fire

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Yu Brother, I <3 U

Above: best ad ever. “Yu Brother” (what???) of Taiwan introduces their line of microphones and guitar effect pedals in 1981. “From popular to professional type, we have got it all!” Yes you do, brother. This might as well be from another planet.

Tags guitar effects, vintage microphones, yu brother

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1989: The Aspri Reverb is introduced. They are great + you should buy one.

Post author By chris
Post date 10/07/2013
5 Comments on 1989: The Aspri Reverb is introduced. They are great + you should buy one.

Above: the 1989 advert that caught my attention

I’ve said it many times, but pls let me re-iterate: as much as the content of this site may make me seem like some retro-fetish trainspotter, my investigation into all of this old kit is due to the fact that I make my living as a composer and sound engineer, and I am constantly looking for new sources of (inexpensive) inspiration. Because if you have to write and/or record three or four songs per day, the process can be either a chore or a joy, and what can make the difference is the novelty and new avenues that some ‘new’ (to you) gear can offer. Y’all know how much I love spring reverb, so when I spotted this ad for a guitar-mounted mechanical-reverb system in an ’89 ‘Guitar Player’ I searched for an old unit to buy on eBay. There were several, but they were not cheap. And then google told me that they had been re-issued by the original manufacturer! $99 plus shipping later, and a brand-new ASPRI arrived direct from dude in just a couple of days.

First of all, the packing is really spectacular, and in fact won some sort of Quebec design-award (I think it’s very fitting that this thing is from Montreal; if you’ve spent some time there I think you can see the whole kinda clever/artsy/slightly-fantastical vibe of that whole city reflected in the ASPRI).

The ASPRI mounts to any flat-top acoustic gtr in about 10 seconds. it does not contact the top of the gtr at all; just the saddle and the side; and the side is completely padded, so there really is no danger of damaging the instrument. BTW, if your saddle height is VERY high, the I’d imagine that the Aspri won’t work properly; that being said, I have yet to find a gtr that it has not worked on.

So basically what it does: it’s a box of springs that receive their exciting-energy from the motion of the strings; it does this by means of three little stainless-steel feet that effectively become the saddle of the gtr while the ASPRI is mounted. So yes there is some loss of ‘tone’ and volume, but what you get in return is a really transporting experience. Playing this thing, esp. bottleneck style, is really uncanny; it really does turn a living room into a concert hall.

There are a zillion YouTube videos of dudes demo’ing their ASPRIs, so no need to add to that fray; check ’em out if your curious. If you are a dedicated acoustic gtr player like I am, and you’re looking for a new direction, I feel like you are bound to get a couple new songs outta this thing.

To buy an aspri, visit: https://www.aspri.com

Tags aspri, spring reverb

Videos

New Video: PSV006: Create Your Tools, Create Your World

Post author By chris
Post date 10/06/2013
2 Comments on New Video: PSV006: Create Your Tools, Create Your World

A few years back, I wrote a short piece regarding Canadian scholar and author Marshall McLuhan. One of MM’s most insightful observations is that the tools we make (MM was speaking collectively – ‘We’ as a civilization) can indeed help us perform the tasks that they were designed for; but over time they exert a very real and definite ‘pull’ in terms of dictating our behavior. This has a whole range of implications for artwork, culture, and society in general. We are not wholly masters of our tools; we may benefit from them, but we are limited by them as well, and once certain tools are widespread enough, they can exert their own prerogatives, leading our societies and psyches into places that we might not have chosen to go otherwise.

When I first moved to Bridgeport back in 2005, I met an artist who’s work is concerned with exploring this dynamic; this relationship between mankind, technology, and perception. It’s an intensely modern project that’s fueled by an idiosyncratic manipulation of antique technologies, and he offers an especially compelling account of the advantages that await the artist who makes his/her own tools. Click here, or below, to watch the video.

For more about Tom Mezzanotte, click here.

Guitar Equipment

Some Weirdo Amps of The 80s

Post author By chris
Post date 10/05/2013
10 Comments on Some Weirdo Amps of The 80s

Nothing too heavy today, just some oddball 80’s amps that crossed my plane of perception. Above: “Vibration Technology” (catchy!) of Ontario announces their Nova, Deci Mate (nice), Phasor Twin, and Beta Amps in 1981. Best offering, tho, is the “6 Mice Mixer,” which sounds like a real fucking mess if you ask me.

Above: The “Tusc,” an obscure tube-amp from 1982. I feel like I may have seen one of these things, once. Jesus how much money did this guy lose on this operation?

Above: JMF’s “Spectra” line of solid-state amps c. 1981. I actually did own their 1×15 half-stack (or was it a big combo….??) with reverb and phase shift, and in all honesty, it was a really good-sounding solid-state amp. I traded it for (believe-it-or-not) a mint blackface Fender Bassman with a Standel 2×15 cab. Aaaaaaaaand then traded those on for the worst $300 LDC that AKG ever made. What comes around…

Above: the Seymour-Duncan 84-40: 4x EL84 combo amp c. 1989. Looks promising?

….well, that and your circa 1968 graphic design. The EMC B221 amp of 1981. Anyone?

There’s nothing inherently weird about VOX amps, they are rather a staple, but this 1981 advert serves as a good reminder that those things have been re-issued and re-launched countless times by countless entities, so if you are ever offered a VOX amp for sale, be very careful to determine exactly what you are buying. ‘Cos it probably ain’t “what John and George used.”

Tags EMF, guitar amps, seymour duncan, the 80s, tusc, VOX

Synthesizers

Sequential Circuits Synths of the early 80’s

Post author By chris
Post date 10/04/2013
6 Comments on Sequential Circuits Synths of the early 80’s

Above: Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, Remote Prophet, and Poly Sequencer c.1982. Below: period adverts for the Pro-One and Prophet 5. We have a slightly later Sequential Six-Trak at Gold Coast Recorders; it’s sorta SC’s Juno-106, and it’s one of the best deals in vintage analog synths – if you don’t mind the clumsy digital interface. I’ve never used a Prophet-5; they are extremely expensive these days. Anyone?

Tags Sequential Circuits, synths

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Please someone explain this advert to me

Post author By chris
Post date 10/03/2013
2 Comments on Please someone explain this advert to me

I really can’t figure this one out. So there’s a ghost who sings in a band. He (she?) rides a motorcycle and delivers his vocal performance while crouched-down (never a good idea, btw, you can’t get very much breath this way, but whatever).This deceased person entered the afterlife due to, perhaps, riding their motorcycle in the rain? (above)…

…also it looks like maybe an oil-slick was involved? (above)….

… but, primarily, let’s remember that this is an advert for guitar strings (above). Daddario XLs, are, btw, my #1 choice in electric guitar strings and always have been. I’ve purchased maybe 500 or more sets of their XL115, I really do love them. They are all I will use.

Anyhow, S.Hall, whoever you are, if this ad is sincerely an homage to a fallen band-mate who crashed his Suzuki, never to rock the SM58 again, I salute you and mean no disrespect. If not, though, please write in and tell us exactly how this works in terms of advocating for Daddadrio XL’s over the competing brands. Please explain how it represents both the product-benefit and the consumer-benefit. Thanks!

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For previous inscrutable-advert coverage on PS Dot Com, click here…

The 4-Track

The AMR “System 1” 4-track cassette recorder of 1986

Post author By chris
Post date 10/02/2013
27 Comments on The AMR “System 1” 4-track cassette recorder of 1986

Goddamn! Would you look at that thing! Peavey built and sold a small number of these US-made uber-4-tracks in the late 80s. They were referred to alternately as the MCR-4 or the System 1. I have personally never seen one, but I love that tape-machine-overbridge layout… makes me wanna buy a Tascam 234 and a little rack-mount 80s mixer and cart it up like that… I know I poke fun at Peavey quite a bit, but my hat is off to them for this thing. To build something like this in the US in the 1980s must have taken incredible effort. To learn more, check out this thread at Tape Op.

Tags peavey, the 4-track

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‘Tude

Post author By chris
Post date 10/01/2013
No Comments on ‘Tude

Oh stop.

‘Tude. What is it, and why does it matter? ‘Tude, which is, rather reflexively, a “bad-attitude”-driven abbreviation of the word ‘attitude,’ was a charming blend of equal parts arrogance, vanity, and naivete.

Although ‘tude could be found in abundance in many discourses of American culture in the 1980s, it was especially dominant in male rock and pop music-performance. More to the point: if you were a male growing up musically-inclined in the 1980s, this was the dominant image available for you to aspire to. For some reason, the basic idea of being a musician/ writing music, etc., was linked to this silly pout and shitty attitude. Oh and ridiculous outfits, naturally. Personally, it took me about ten years of reactionary lo-fi-indie mewling to bounce back from the damage caused by this nonsense. But, yes, eventually I did get over it, and I now own and in fact like guitars with humbucking pickups.

I am still not sure what the rebellious stance of these fellows was based on. I mean, did they like their jobs or not? Did they like their fans or not? Perhaps they were angry at the government, or some unseen agent? For fucks sake man, you’re a guitar player! You make music for a living! Where is the joy? Why the hostility? I may not agree with the tenets of ‘Punk,’ dude, but at least it’s an ethos. WTF were these guys aiming that vague bitchiness at? Please use the comments session to discuss. Oh and spare the ‘tude, pls.