We had some errands to run today and we ended up at one of my favorite spots to buy used records. It’s cool because it’s not really a record store and I don’t think a lot of people know that the place actually sells vinyl, since the store always seems to have some great and eclectic records, usually for around $2. I would imagine that their selection would be much more picked over if people knew about some of the things I’ve found there.

Here’s what I bought this afternoon:

• Blood, Sweat & Tears: Greatest Hits
• David Bowie: Starting Point
• Dire Straits: Brothers In Arms
• Elton John: Honky Chateau
• Elton John: Madman Across the Water
• Jeff Beck: Wired
• Joe Cocker: Mad Dogs & Englishmen
• Procol Harum: A Whiter Shade of Pale
• The Rolling Stones: Hot Rocks 1964-1971
  

I was disappointed by some of the things I saw today, though. They had a copy of Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, but when I looked at the album it had deep gouges going across both sides, like some literally took a knife to the surface of the record; it was obviously unplayable. They were asking $5 for the album, which tells me that someone saw the cover and slapped a price tag on the jacket without looking at the actual vinyl. It was pretty sad.

In 1992 I was one of the guitarists in our high school jazz band and we went to San Diego, along with the marching band, for a large regional or national competition. While there, we went to Sea World and did other touristy stuff around town. After one of the competitions, there were a few bands playing a free show at, I believe, SDU.

We had some free time, so we all went down and watched the show. I remember there was a really mellow Grateful Dead-esque band named Jambay, who’s CD I may still own. One of the other bands was Rage Against the Machine. All the members of the rhythm section of the school’s jazz band were metal heads (as shocking as that might seem) and we were all blown away by RATM as Zack de la Rocha screamed “You’ve got a fucking bullet in your head!” and Tom Morello made sounds with his guitar that were other worldly, using only pedals. Their performance was so raw and vibrant…they had the whole crowd getting into the music and the message it carried.

I was sold. I plopped down the last few bucks I had and bought the cassette they had for sell. Even the black and white cassette cover was crazy; xeroxed stock quotes littered the cover as a background, with “RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE” floating above the stock quotes in bold, all caps sans serif font and rotated at an angle . There was an unlit match, that had been hand taped to the cover, as a finishing touch.

According to the bio on the official Rage Against The Machine webpage, the band recorded, produced, and released the 12 track cassette in 1992. A very impressive 5,000 copies of the tape were sold at shows and through their fan club. Most of the tracks on the tape later became the rough sequence of songs for the band’s self-titled, major label release on Epic records. Three songs on the cassette have never been re-released.

I had an entire home’s worth of stuff sitting in storage for almost a decade. Last year I had all that stuff shipped to me from El Paso. A couple of night’s ago I was going through the boxes, looking for a bunch 4-track recordings I made back in my youth, and I stumbled across this:

The tape still played and sounded just like I remember it sounding on that long bus ride back to sunny El Paso. It’s funny to think that now anyone can slap together some drum and bass loops on their computer, sing a few lines, add some effects, and then burn a CD of their work, all with very little overall effort. Knowing that makes me appreciate this tape just a little bit more.

I’ve been listening to the mp3, “Discipline,” that Nine Inch Nails released on April 22. I think it’s a pretty decent track and it seems to be in line with the recent progression in NIN’s sound since With Teeth was released (not taking the recent release, Ghosts, into account), even if it does vaguely remind one of the band’s first album, Pretty Hate Machine.

“Discipline” isn’t weighed down by tons of samples or prominent background noise like in The Downward Spiral or the textures in some of the cuts on The Fragile. Instead the song is a light mix of vocals (lead and background), club like beats, piano, fuzzed out bass, and some very subtle atmospheric effects which only appear toward the end of the song and are pushed way back in the mix. The track reminds me of the song “Only” from the With Teeth album, in that both have roughly the same beat and that fuzzy and distorted bass line that seems to have become more common in Nine Inch Nails’ songs. With hi-hats signaling every beat, the song sounds like something you might hear in a club, leading me to think that this song has a lot of remix potential for dance DJs.

Surprisingly, the track has a raw and under-produced feel to it — there are a couple of unintentional sounding false starts in the vocals. It’s actually pretty interesting, in my opinion, that it was released (even if it was only via the web) with those quirks, since I’ve always read and heard that Trent Reznor is quite the perfectionist. Maybe now that he’s freed himself from the binds of contractual agreements, he’s loosened up a little bit and feels like instantly sharing his creations, even when there are little, Bob Ross inspired, “happy accidents” in them. I’m all for this, it’s better than the past alternative: waiting years for a single, tightly produced, label “OK’ed,” track.

Overall, this new offering by Trent and company is a pretty straightforward pop song and a nice teaser of what is, hopefully, to come.

Sometimes there are artists and musicians that have a certain intensity and the ability to amaze us with that intensity, even if it’s not necessarily something new and unique. Eva Cassidy was one of those people. She was an amazing singer and musician who passed away before she really had a chance to make it big; she died of melanoma at the age of 33. Fortunately, there were a small number of live shows that were recorded and some studio sessions, that have been released since her passing. In my opinion the best release is the album Songbird.

The album is a series of covers, which can usually be a pretty hit or miss affair, but not in this case. Each song is a showcase of her singing and guitar playing. The album just about covers the litany of musical styles one can think of from standards to modern pop. The songs never sound trite or forced and her voice is soul crushing at times — I mean that in a good way. Check out this audio clip at LastFM of the song “Autumn Leaves.”

Her rendition of “Over the Rainbow” is the best version of the song I’ve ever heard performed; it’s simultaneously haunting and upbeat, that dissonance sets it apart. I’m still blown away that anyone can naturally sound that good without ProTools or vocoders. If you still have doubts, watch this live clip of her perfoming the song:

So if you like bluesy female vocals, with a slight jazz edge to them, check out Eva Cassidy. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

This kind of old news, now that it’s almost April, but the first two Metallica albums, Kill ‘em All and Ride the Lightning, are going to be re-released* on vinyl by Mobile Fidelity on April 15th. These releases are meant to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Kill ‘em All…which is just crazy to think about!

These are new half-speed masters from the original analog tapes. What’s even cooler is that the albums will be released in two flavors: a regular 33 1/3 or “the deluxe” version on 180 gram vinyl, mastered at 45 speed. I’m probably going to try and get the 45s, if not both versions.

Additionally, MoFi is releasing Master of Puppets and …And Justice for All (with some bass hopefully!) sometime in June 2008, with the same treatment.

* There was a box set of all the vinyl Metallica albums released a few years ago that featured all the albums from Kill ‘em All through their self-titled “black album,” but apparently these new MoFi releases are newly remastered.