Big Picture Big Sound

Vault Vinyl - You may have read my rambles about the joys of Wolfgang's Vault (WV) before but know that I do it for the good of you, dear readers. Disclosure: I am NOT an employee or affiliate of the company; I am simply a big fan.

You audiophiles out there should take heed since they have started pressing exclusive vinyl of select shows. Well, let me be specific : two shows exactly thus far.  But they are legendary shows and I can vouch that at least one of them sounds terrific. I gave a friend a gift subscription to WV and in return I got a spiffy 180-gram pressing of a 1959 Thelonius Monk concert that sounds wonderful.

Now at first pass you audiophile snobs out there may be wondering why anyone would want an LP seemingly made from cruddy MP3s.  Well, while I do not know for certain, I feel its a safe to bet that WV is more than likely using their original master tapes -- which they own and made the MP3 streams from -- for pressing these audiophile grade LPs. 

So fear not.  Sign up. For $50 you get a free record -- they are currently promoting a 1978 Van Morrison concert from the Bottom Line in NYC, again on vinyl! -- and access to all this great music and you get a free download of a concert each week.  In 10 weeks you'll have earned the $50 value just from the free downloads of some amazing shows.  Just this week I downloaded a Pink Floyd concert from 1987 at the Meadowlands in NJ -- a tour I saw back in the day, so it will be nice to hear this performance.

• Learn more about WV's vinyl dealio

Zappa Holy Grail #1 - O.M.G. It is finally getting an official release! Amazon has posted a DVD pre-order for Frank Zappa's legendary TV show called A Token of His Extreme, recorded on August 27, 1974 at KCET in Hollywood. Featuring the legendary "Roxy-era" version of The Mothers of Invention (including George Duke on keyboards and Chester Thompson on drums) the DVD reportedly will include stereo mixes produced by Frank Zappa with Kerry McNabb at Paramount Studios in 1974. It was mastered into sonic goodness by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering back in 2009. A Token of His Extreme comes out on June 4th… for just $10?  Really? That is what it says up on Amazon. No word as to whether it will be out on Blu-ray -- lets hope so with a remix of the music into discreet lossless 96/24-quality (or higher) 5.1 surround (please, thanks!).

• Read more about (and pre-order) this Zappa treasure

Here is a teaser clip Eagle Rock has put up on YouTube featuring a fun song from the DVD.

Cheese Sea 5.1 - While we're on the fringes of musical entertainment news, I must mention that 90s quirky progressive (funk punk rock yadda yadda whatever) band Primus gets its Deluxe Edition due in fine form with a new remaster and a 5.1 mix (on Blu-ray Disc!) of Sailing The Seas Of Cheese. This album was big during the early '90s alternative music revolution, bringing some much needed edge to an increasingly predicable and bland post-MTV era. The album's restoration was personally overseen by band leader Les Claypool. The deluxe set includes three exclusive, previously unreleased bonus tracks, including two live recordings from Primus' 2012 3D Tour and a Bassnectar Remix of "Here Come The Bastards."  Blu-Ray audio options include: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound (96kHz/24-bit), PCM (96kHz/24-bit), PCM Stereo (96kHz/24-bit).  This should be tasty.  I'll be trying to get my hands on a copy of this 'un…

• Order it from Amazon.
  

Just Say Roar! - ROIR, the once-upon-a-time-cassette-only label is having a 20% off sale on everything purchased via their website through the end of May. If you only buy their Blue and Green vinyl double LP of Television's The Blow Up (official live recordings from 1974) you will be ahead of the game, but there is much more there at the site and the label. If you are a fan of punk and alternative music, you'll probably find some goodies at the ROIR website.

Size Matters - Especially when it comes down to reducing the space your CD collection is taking up around the house. Reality is, the Compact Disc is not so compact when it comes to storage, especially if you have a lot of them. Some of you have given up your modest collections, ripped them to your hard drive as MP3s and gotten rid of your originals. Others, like me, have SO many CDs that the prospect of ripping thousands of CDs to a drive is just not feasible.  Also, there are a lot of us out there who simply (a) like the physical media the (b) convenience of being able to pick out a disc versus spending hours at the computer managing digital files, back up drives, etc.  But many of us live in apartments where space is at a premium. What's a geek to do?

Well, there are some neat solutions. I have ordered thousands of these nice simple and inexpensive plastic sleeves from Jazzloft.com which let me save all of the CD's art -- booklet and tray card -- while reducing the space take up by the clunky jewel box by more than 50%.  Sure, there are some other brands out there doing similar things with fancier sleeves, additional protective liners and so on.  But if you are careful (and I usually am) with your discs, these simple sleeves work very well.  And at 15 cents per sleeve, they won't cost you more than the value of the disc to purchase.  Check out their site, read some of the customer comments and see what kind of quantity discounts you can get. If you order 1000, you get 5% off. Its very fair.  Here is a video showing exactly what the sleeves look like and how they work:

Ok folks, that is all for now. Until next time, remember Music Matters!