The Big Reveal...

Hey, look! It's the new judges lineup on "American I..."

















...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

from the bookshelf: Record Store Days

I'll admit that I'm not much of a reader, but I've come across a handful of great books about music lately, so I figured I should chip away a bit at this blog's overwhelming dominance on audio and occasionally mention a book I think y'all might like. Here comes the first one...

"RECORD STORE DAYS: FROM VINYL TO DIGITAL AND BACK AGAIN"
by GARY CALAMAR and PHIL GALLO
(Sterling Publishing, 2010)


I was browsing the neighborhood B&N one day, idling in the aisle and talking on my cellphone -- something I almost never do in a store but maybe twice a year -- when I ended my call, nonchalantly glanced to my left, and saw this book staring me in the face. After thumbing through it for less than a minute, I knew I absolutely had to have it. Hey, a thick, attractive hardcover book about music stores, and for only twenty bucks? How could I not snap it up? It took me a couple months to finish reading it (mostly 'cause I'm not in the habit of regularly picking up a book, so I kept forgetting it was there), but I immensely loved every page of it.

"Record Store Days", by Gary Calamar and Phil Gallo, is an illustrated history of how changes over the years in technology, business, and culture, have shaped the evolution of American recorded music retailers, from their beginnings alongside the birth of the phonographic industry a century ago, through their grassroots groundswell and explosion into the mainstream in the '60s and '70s, up to the recent collapse of the mega-stores and the die-off of independents that brought about the creation of Record Store Day, the annual celebration that has galvanized the tenacity between the remaining retailers and their fiercely loyal customers.

What it might lack in atmospheric and enthralling narrative -- though it's well-structured by chapter and does share plenty of commentary and insight by a multitude of artists, record label insiders, and record retail veterans, it reads kind-of like a history textbook -- it makes up for in its snappy layout, which boasts hundreds of rare, exciting, and revealing black-and-white and full-color photographs, as well as some entertaining sidebars throughout. It features a foreword by R.E.M.'s Peter Buck (who, like many musicians, worked in a record store in his youth), and regularly mentions some of the most beloved and influential stores in the country, past and present ... a few of which I've patronized, which makes it all the more fun.

So, whether you're old enough to remember the glory days of record stores, or young enough to not get what all the fuss over them is about, whatever method you use to shop for and discover music, chances are this book will either re-kindle an appreciation for the past, or make you long to dip your toes into a world you might never have explored before ... a world that, in my opinion, every music lover should.

Hanson

HANSON
"SHOUT IT OUT"
(3CG, 2010)


Hanson really had me worried with this one. Everything I'd read about "Shout It Out" suggested I'd love it, so I hurriedly bought it when it was released a few months back, eagerly popped it in and listened ... and for the first time, I came away from a Hanson album underwhelmed. Did the purely incidental fact that they're married and are starting families (consequently bringing attention to the fact that they're getting older) make the album's sound -- decidedly of a more youthful pop bent than pretty much every album since their debut -- seem forced? Because of my nonplused reaction the album went unheard, sitting on my shelf, for several weeks ... until a few days ago. What a difference a month or so makes!

Apparently it just needed time to sink in ... not just the album's subtle charms, but also the realization that musicians don't always need to act their age. Indeed, with the weighty themes and moody textures they gravitated toward on "This Time Around" and "The Walk", and even to a lesser degree on "Underneath", one could argue that it's about time they let loose again. But then, this is Hanson we're talking about, and with the sophisticated sense of melody and structure they've always had and have only refined over the years, they can only make themselves sound so young anymore. The liberal use of a horn section helps, and what says "fun" more than adding a cowbell to the percussion? As if to illustrate the two extremes of the album, my favorites happen to be the syncopated pseudo-Motown bouncer "Give a Little" on the youthful side, and the sumptuously gospel-ish love song "Kiss Me When You Come Home" on the grown-up end. And "Voice In The Chorus" is one of the best anthems I've heard in quite a little while.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you dismissed Hanson as a bubble-gum pop act with their first album and the ubiquitous single "MMMBop" and haven't given them a second thought, you really don't know what you've been missing in the twelve(!) years since. Hanson have yet to fail in delivering a thoroughly listenable album, or in impressing me with their songwriting skills and musicianship, so take it from me: they deserve a listen.

Buy it digitally on iTunes
Buy it on CD from Amazon

Thomas Ian Nicholas

THOMAS IAN NICHOLAS
"WITHOUT WARNING"
(self-released, 2007)


Like most everyone else, I'm always skeptical when I see someone known for his or her acting try their hand at music by releasing an album (emphasis on the word "try"). That's why I hesitated buying this CD when I saw it in the Amoeba racks on my previous visit a couple of years ago, and why I ended up being so pleasantly surprised after listening to it. It turns out that Thomas Ian Nicholas (most notable for his roles in such films as "Rookie of the Year" and the "American Pie" movies) is a pretty darn decent musician and singer, too. Mind you, he doesn't break any new ground or particularly stand out as a musician, but that certainly doesn't mean this album isn't worth listening to.

On his debut "Without Warning", Nicholas delivers a set full of well-written and well-played songs in the tried and true tradition of the pop-rock-oriented "everyman" singer-songwriter. He rocks out like Springsteen on the opener "Wasting My Time", carries a mellower Mellencamp vibe on "Frequency", reminds me a bit of Billy Joel on "How Does It Feel", and gets all John Mayer sensitive on "Cry While Smiling". That's not to say he's entirely unoriginal; one can tell he's giving an honest effort to find his own voice, and even though he doesn't quite accomplish the goal on this album, his obvious potential keeps us interested and assures us that he'll get there in good time.

In my opinion, this album is good enough that it could have been released on a major label. Nicholas is a low-enough-profile actor that he probably would have avoided the "wannabe" stigma that (often justifiably) haunts bigger celebrities with recording-artist aspirations -- but it's probably just as well that he chose the independent route to avoid any questions that he might have used his notoriety to "buy" a major label contract. Apparently I hit something of a stroke of luck, finding this CD on the racks. I've been looking on the web and can only find it in digital form everywhere except on Nicholas' official site ... where, incidentally, his band's latest album is now available (which I actually didn't know until after I had decided to write this post).

Buy it digitally on iTunes
Buy it digitally on Amazon

Out With The Old...

This week I said goodbye to a dear and cherished companion. We had a valued and mutually fulfilling relationship that lasted more than four years. I'll never forget our countless strolls in the sun together, our huddling close under the umbrella in the harsh winter weather, or those cozy times alone when there was nothing else to do because the power went out. She was always there to brighten my days and whisper lovely things in my ear. But your heart need not be heavy, because our breakup isn't a sad one. She's still happy and healthy despite having outlived her usefulness, and was even graciously understanding when she realized I had found a more attractive, intuitive, and versatile model to replace her.

Okay, I hope by now that you realize I'm not talking about a person, but rather about a music player ... specifically, my old Sony NetMD player. When I first looked at MiniDisc players, I was quite fascinated by the concept of being able to carry around five CDs worth of music on a gizmo that was less than half the size of my CD player. Purely digital MP3 players (the MiniDisc used a "magneto-optical" storage system) were a very new thing at that point, and since it was still a year or so before I really dove headfirst into music obsession, an iPod would have been overkill for me -- not to mention the fact that at the time I didn't have a computer that could support iTunes (let alone a bank account that could support buying an iPod).

The NetMD MiniDisc players were the next best thing to the iPod. Users had a choice of two software programs which came along with the player. One was kind-of like iTunes in that you could rip your CDs to your hard drive and then "check" them into or out of a MiniDisc (this odd system was designed to limit copying of any given MP3 file), but I opted for the simpler approach of just putting my CDs in and ripping them one by one directly to the MiniDisc. It was a lot slower than iTunes, and not nearly as elegant a method ... plus, if you only had a limited number of MiniDiscs at your disposal, you had to get out the CD and load it all over again if you had erased the MiniDisc it was on previously.

For its time, it was quite handy and versatile, even though the technology's shortcomings are evident now. MiniDiscs were like CDs in that you could customize their contents and instantly cue up whatever track you wanted; they were like CD-RWs in that you could record, erase, and re-record thousands of times; and they were like 3.5" floppy discs in how they looked and functioned -- the disc was encased in a rugged plastic housing with a sliding aluminum shutter through which the player read the media. Don't get me wrong ... I totally love my iPod and can't imagine getting along without one, but there was something about that clunky old system that I look back on fondly and will even miss in a way. I hope it's happy with its new owner, 'cause for as well as it served me over the years, it deserves to be.
















Oh, by the way ... how do you like my new header graphic? Spiffy, eh?

Steve Appleton

STEVE APPLETON
"WHEN THE SUN COMES UP"
(Sony UK, 2009)


Okay, so I'm flipping through the used CD racks in Amoeba and I come across this Steve Appleton guy. I've never heard of him before, but the cover's got the whole Ryan Cabrera "Take It All Away" thing going on, it's a Japanese import with 17 tracks on it, and it's only $4.99, so I decide to take a chance and stick it in my basket. I shudder to think that I almost got rid of it along with the three or four other items I yanked in my last-minute pre-checkout basket thinning, because I can now confidently call this the biggest and best coup I scored on my whole vacation ... not just because it's become one of my favorite purchases of the year, but also because of how spendy the Japanese version of this CD can get online, unless one finds a sleeper lot on eBay.

Have you ever wondered what a cross between Jason Mraz and Daniel Bedingfield might sound like? Wonder no more. Steve Appleton is a pop singer-songwriter who's got the gift for a killer hook and the agile lyrical delivery of Jason Mraz (if not necessarily his gift for wordplay), and a bit of a vocal resemblance to Daniel Bedingfield. Not only that, but Appleton's song stylings strike a fun and interesting balance between the easy-going semi-folksy pop of Mraz and the drum-and-bass dance beats of Bedingfield. I honestly can't begin to name my favorite songs here, because they keep changing. But at the moment I'm particularly keen on "Seeing Stars", "Funky Joe's" (can't pass up a good saxophone!) and the endlessly hooky title track. Most of the album is upbeat, but Steve shows his softer side toward the end of the album with the jazzy "London, Tokyo, Paris" and the Paul Simon-ish "Seems a Little". And topping it all off is how Steve's adorable British accent comes through regularly in the lyrics.

These are the kinds of things I totally live for -- when an album I pick up on a whim, never even having heard of the artist, ends up becoming one of my favorites ... how can I not love the serendipity of it all? By the way, don't let the forementioned cover resemblance to Ryan Cabrera scare you away; lest you think this is some hack producer's effort to slick-up a cute young blond troubadour for teeny-bopper radio popularity, it should be noted that Steve Appleton wrote, performed, and produced the entire album himself. The UK version of the album is pretty easy to come by, so even though the two Japan-only bonus tracks are worth having, the rest of the album definitely shouldn't be passed up. A lot of people would enjoy this ... and I can think of one person in particular!

Buy the CD on Amazon UK