Columbia

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Record Store Day 2017-issued 2×7” set by Alice In Chains. Over the last few years in particular, Record Store Day has really seemed to cater to a “collectible” market over a market wherein fan interest is the focus. That has proven to be a little frustrating; because of it, record stores get glutted by people one day a yearhoping to score something they can resell – not necessarily something they can...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Record Store Day Exclusive Release pressing of Alice In Chains’ Live Facelift 12” EP. While readers may be familiar with parts of Alice In Chains’ new Black Friday/Record Store Day release, Live Facelift, it’s nearly guaranteed that they don’t know the whole thing. They may know some of the songs – like the performance of “It Ain’t Like That” because it was the song which was playing in the background as...

Artist: Mike Watt Album: “Ring Spiel” Tour ’95 Label: Columbia/Legacy/Sony Music Ever walked into a record store and, digging through a vast and vastly disorganized bin of CDs, come across a genuine treasure of the sort that no one ever expects to find? That was the feeling which overtook me when I opened my copy of “Ring Spiel” Tour ’95. Now, I’m familiar with plenty of the back story behind that period of time in Mike Watt’s life; the bassist...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2016 reissue of the BLACKsummers’night LP by Maxwell. On a superficial level, leaping around an artist’s catalogue can be confusing in a variety of ways; there can be a disconnect in the continuity of the artist’s development and that may mess with the perceptions of their catalogue as a whole. Such a phenomenon is absolutely true of Maxwell’s songbook – when the singer’s started with Urban Hang Suite in 1996, his...

Artist: Jack White Album: Acoustic Recordings 1998 – 2016 (2CD) (Third Face/Third Man/Columbia/Sony Music) Over the last twenty years (yes yes yes – it’s hard to believe that it’s been so long), Jack White has worn many hats. In that time, he’s been a punk and indie rock-identified pop star, a blues and folky troubadour, an opinionated artist of music and opinionated record label owner, and an innovative composer who has reinvigorated the blues almost single-handedly – causing young audiences...

It has been said so often now that most fans (even the newest, least tested ones) can take this as a fact: David Bowie always rocks hardest and best when he’s making a grand artistic statement. The years have proven that as factual but, as Station To Station, Tin Machine, Earthling and, now, Blackstar illustrate, the singer goes that ever-so-important extra step and ascends to a whole other creative echelon when even his biggest supporters are left pretty sure that...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Record Store Day-pressed reissue of Earthling by David Bowie. Leave it to David Bowie to wrap a perfectly tongue-in-cheek idea in populist medium and make a celebration of it. That is, of course, precisely what the singer has done in licensing Earthling for a fresh vinyl pressing now, almost twenty years after the album was originally released. Confused reader? Let me clarify it for you: when Earthling was first released in...