Miguel Vasconcellos

Parker Macy's Creme Tangerine. Click here to see more photos of local record shop owners.

​After spending a little time getting to know some of Orange County's record store owners for this week's article on the vinyl resurgence (click here to read it in its entirety), it's apparent (to me anyway) that we're living in a  golden age for the local record shop. There may be novelty involved in the collection of LPs, but there's a lot of value as well--especially with new releases that include MP3 downloads in the sticker price. The added fact of cool cover art and a large tangible object to cherish sweetens the pot.

And now a wider spectrum of music consumers and shop owners know what a select group of sonic geeks have known for decades, the joys of vinyl.

After the jump: Check out an illustrated time line by Weekly Art Director Laila Derakhshanian of some of the key milestones in the medium's history and the numbers reflecting its popularity. More >>

Andrew Youssef/OC Weekly

Ariel Pink: Chill wave?

​Bet no one ever realized that the hipster label "chill wave" started out as a joke on the Internet, and was earnestly followed up by every single blog in America. Thanks, Hipsterrunoff!
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​Girls
Album
Album is a seemingly pill-popping-induced record that has its ups and downs--just like life, and just like pills. Girls are a San Francisco two-piece made up of Christopher Owens and Chet JR White. Now, there's no doubt that Album is made from the churning aftermath of a terrible breakup. But it feels like Owens is singing about his heartache on some sunny Californian beach with a pizza and a bottle of wine. Album shares musical qualities with artists like Elvis Costello, Buddy Holly and Conor Oberst. The production on this record suits the band very well, and works to their advantage. For anyone who's ever been hurt by someone else--which is uh, everyone--this is a must-have record.


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Wow, what a great day to spend your disposable income (even if its not so disposable). After a quick scan of all the new albums that drop today, I have to say that this is probably one of the biggest days for summer releases that you're likely to see. I counted about 20 new sonic gems that include just about every genre (from Deer Tick to Cheap Trick, Dream Theater to Regina Spektor). And with all the incessant touring, promotion and general awesomeness that comes with concert season, some of these bands have even been pushing their presence right in our own backyard.

Bands like Dinosaur Jr., whose album The Farm come out today, are fresh off a packed show last week at Detroit Bar. Rock and roll crooner Pete Yorn kicks off a tour in support of his latest, Back and Fourth, at an acoustic show courtesy of Fingerprints Record Store in Long Beach.

Then of course you have OC/LB's ubiquitous aural provacateur Ikey Owens, whose band, The Mars Volta (pictured), releases their highly anticipated album Octahedron. And yes I did mention Ginuwine in the title of this post (you remember that 90's jam "My Pony" right? How could you forget?). Today marks the R&B icon's first album in four years (A Man's Thoughts) as he reemerges with a national tour to follow.

But seriously, this IS definitely a day to celebrate your love for music by disregarding your cheap, penny-pinching ways for just one afternoon to drop some cash on some new ear candy. Follow me after the JUMP to check out a full list of today's releases, courtesy of Meta Critic (note: The new Roots album How I Got Over is NOT out today). Any new releases I missed? Plug your shit here.   More >>

April 18 is Record Store Day. The National Association of Recording Merchandisers is sponsoring this celebration of "the unique culture of indie record stores all year long" with sales, in stores and other mayhem. NAMBLA, I mean, NARM has the backing of fellow sponsors Music Monitor Network, the Coalition of Independent Music Stores and the Alliance of Independent Music Stores. It has the historical success of Record Store Day 2008, which saw sales spike at independent record stores all across the land. And it has the musical celebrity endorsements of such talent as Chuck Berry, Ziggy Marley, the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, Norah Jones and Sir Paul McCartney, who says, "There's nothing as glamorous to me as a record store. When I recently played Amoeba in LA, I realized what fantastic memories such a collection of music brings back when you see it all in one place. This is why I'm more than happy to support Record Store Day and I hope that these kinds of stores will be there for us all for many years to come. Cheers!" Ben Harper even gave a shout out to a store where I blew all my college loans, Rhino Records in Claremont.

Yeah, Record Store Day has everything going for it . . . except Orange County. According to the online map, we are but a desert of little pop up thingies indicating participating venues.
No Vinyl Solution of Huntington Beach, no Pepperland of Orange, no TKO Records of Fountain Valley. I'm not saying those places aren't holding events tied to Record Store Day, I'm saying they are not part of the NARM's map that shows Fingerprints in Long Beach being the closest store that is. If you have something against Fingerprints (shame on you!) or spending money is all of Los Angeles, your next closest choices are Lou's Records in Encinitas and Mad Platter in Riverside.

The gas to get to one of those should equal about a used disc and a half.

Lou Reed is an asshole—but a very talented, sharp-minded asshole.

Below, hear the rock legend drone on about the inferior sound quality of MP3s during the just-completed South By Southwest in Austin, Texas. I love much of Lou Reed's music (especially that of the Velvet Underground, whose canon is essential), but I sure wouldn't want to live with him. In honor of his notorious prickliness, check out a video of his band doing “Vicious” live in 1974. (I do like Lou as a speed-freak blond—onstage anyway.)

“Vicious”

Richard Devine is one of the most innovative electronic-music producers currently working. He's also one of those go-to guys whom gear manufacturers tap to demo their new products. So here is Devine at the latest NAMM in Anaheim, putting a few Livewire machines (the company's based in Pomona) through their wonky paces. Technology: it's inspirational. (Hey, I recognize those noises—it's how my brain sounds during deadline crunches...)

Robert Levine's Dec. 26 piece in Rolling Stone has been making (sine) waves in audiophile circles and the blogosphere (I will never get sick of typing that word) for its damning indictment of modern recording techniques used by many major-label artists. It's worth the substantial time investment required to read it, if you care anything at all about sound quality in the music you let into your head space.

In a nutshell, Levine observes, many records now (and, really, since the mid-'90s) are being mastered excessively loud to make more of an impact on radio and in the lousy, tiny computer speakers and earbuds through which more and more people listen to music. The dominant MP3 format is compressed and, consequently, details—mainly extreme low and high frequencies—are lost in the process of sound being transferred into digital bytes. Ergo, you get a monotonous sound that lacks spaciousness and dynamics. You get songs that slam you hard for their entire duration, resulting in listeners suffering hearing fatigue. Subtlety vanishes and is viewed as wimpy, to people who champion what's become known as the Loudness War.

The video below illustrates this concept.

Young people who have never experienced music in the analog format probably won't even realize that they're getting sonically short-changed. It's downright tragic.