Category Archives: Bands/Artists

B-Sides Favorites Backyard Tire Fire Return to Studio With Steve Berlin

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Ed Anderson

It was only last August that Bloomington, IL bar-rockin’ band Backyard Tire Fire released their fantastic The Places We Lived which I reviewed here.

Ed Anderson, his brother Matt and Tim Kramp are heading back into the studio in late February with Grammy-Award winning producer Steve Berlin who is also a member of Los Lobos whose last album The Town and the City was reviewed here. Berlin found out about BTF when they opened for Los Lobos last October. They dug Tire Fire’s show so much they invited the band to sit in on the encore! The following week Berlin reached out to talk to the band about the possibility of producing their next record! Berlin said about BTF, “Great songs, great playing and great guys. I’m really looking forward to the recording sessions… In my opinion they are one of America’s best young bands.” I agree.

I think the matching of Berlin to Backyard Tire Fire should be a winning combination.  As with previous efforts from Backyard Tire Fire, the next album will be recorded in a studio, to tape and completely analog. This means that they’ll be pressing vinyl like the did on their last record, I’m sure. The sessions will take place at Type Foundry Studio in Portland, Oregon with Jeff Stuart Saltzman engineering.

They guys recorded a couple of songs for Daytrotter last year that will end up on the album, “Food for Thought” and “Ready or Not.” A couple of really great songs even in their minimal form for Daytrotter.

Click Here for the Daytrotter page for Backyard Tire Fire.

Backyard Tire Fire is on tour starting this weekend through a stop in Iowa City opening for JJ Grey and Mofro on Sunday, February 8th. There’s a gap in the tour dates until March 13th in which they will have been in the studio. Iowa gets three stops through May, so that is pretty cool. I still haven’t made it to the Redstone Room, maybe by April 30th the snow will have subsided and I can make it down there.

January 30 & 31 / Louie’s / Bloomington, IL
February 3 / Bluebird / Bloomington, IN*
February 4 / Downing University Center Theatre / Bowling Green, KY*
February 5 / The Intersection / Grand Rapids, MI*
February 6 / The Magic Bag / Ferndale, MI*
February 7 / The Dame / Lexington, KY*
February 8 / Industry / Iowa City, IA*
March 13 / Chicago Street / Joliet, IL
March 15 / Mountain Stage / Charleston, WV
March 19 / 40 Watt Club / Athens, GA**
March 20 / Emerald Lounge / Asheville, NC**
March 21 / Gottrocks / Greenville, SC**
April 2 / Locals Only / Indianapolis, IN***
April 3 / Southgate House / Cincinnati, OH
April 4 / Barley’s Taproom / Knoxville, TN
April 10 / Mojo’s / Columbia, MO
April 11 / Off Broadway / St. Louis, MO****
April 14 / Wisconsin Public TV / Madison, WI
April 16 / Gerstle’s / Louisville, KY**
April 17 / Hangar 9 / Carbondale, IL**
April 18 / Double Door / Chicago, IL**
April 23 / 7th Street / Minneapolis, MN
April 24 / High Noon Saloon / Madison, WI
April 25 / Green Room / Sheboygan, WI
April 26 / Brown Baer / Elkhart Lake, WI
April 30 / Redstone Room / Davenport, IA
May 1 / Nutty’s North / Sioux Falls, SD
May 2 / Vaudeville Mews / Des Moines, IA

* Supporting JJ Grey & Mofro
** Co-bill with Bloodkin
***Co-bill with Steepwater Band
****Co-bill with Pokey LaFarge

Wendy & Lisa Wave “White Flag” – First Album in Ten Years

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On December 7th, the notorious duo of Wendy & Lisa self-released the digital version of their latest album White Flags of Winter Chimneys. In the ten years since their prior effort Girl Bros., the two have busied themselves with a bunch of production, side work and notable soundtrack work like NBC’s “Heroes” and HBO’s “Carnivale.”

From now until March 2009 Wendy & Lisa’s website has an exclusive digital download of the new album in various formats. After that it will be available via your favorite digital outlets like iTunes, Amazon and Rhapsody.

The reason you should order it now is that you have more options for how you want to receive the album. For $9.99 you can get a 320 Kbps mp3 download of the album with digital artwork and bonus tracks. The highest bitrates you’d be able to get from iTunes, Amazon and Rhapsody is a respectable 256Kbps. You also have the option of getting the album delivered in lossless FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Compression) format if you don’t want compression for $9.99 as well. This is a deal since a lot of places that provide lossless downloads charge a couple of bucks more for it. This download has five bonus tracks, too. One is a home demo of the sweeping “Niagra Falls” track from White Flags. The other four tracks are home demos from the 1990’s.

As if that wasn’t enough, you can also order the CD version for $12.99 (+ $3.00 shipping) which you can choose to get 320Kbps mp3’s or FLAC. The CD comes in a 6-panel Digipack.

For the audiophile fans or collectors of Wendy & Lisa there is a Deluxe package which gives you an 180g vinyl pressing of White Flags done in nifty splatter-blue vinyl plus you get the CD and your choice of 320Kbps or FLAC download! All for $39.99 (+$10.00 shipping).

Whew! It’s pretty obvious that Wendy & Lisa have been paying attention. They are self-releasing this album and providing tiered options for people to purchase. Frankly, the pricing is about right as well. This approach seems to cover the interest of any fan from casual to collector.

The digital downloads are available right now for any of the purchases and the CD’s and Deluxe packages will ship in March.

The album on my first listen seems to remind me of an updated shoegazer sound of bands like My Bloody Valentine or some of my favorite 4AD bands like the Pale Saints or Lush. Lots of layered sounds and a wide-range of dynamics. At times it reminds me of David Sylvian or maybe Radiohead.  Certainly not the sound of the artists who worked with Prince during the 80’s– but a very current sound. Admittedly, I hadn’t been following Wendy & Lisa’s career closely since they left the Revolution, but I plan to do some more listening to this album and try to go back an catch up with where they’ve been. 

Click Here to visit Wendy & Lisa’s website where you can order White Flags of Winter Chimneys. They are also streaming other tracks from the album in an embedded player.

Click Here to read my interview with Wendy & Lisa.

Umphrey’s McGee Mantis Countdown to Release

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Mantis Deluxe Boxes

As the rest of the world anxiously counts down to the swearing in of a new President and the promise that brings, a small percentage of the world is also watching the countdown clock to Midnight tonight for the release of Umphrey’s McGee’s new album Mantis— at least the digital version available for download to everyone who pre-ordered it. The download was offered to all who pre-ordered so that even if the US Mail failed to deliver the physical orders, everyone could listen to it tomorrow in some fashion.

The pre-order for Mantis kicked off on October 27th and ran until December 6th at Midnight and– based on the amount of orders received– 9 “Levels” of exclusive bonus content would be made available to everyone who pre-ordered. This is in addition to the bonus material that will be made available using the CD as a key after the release to everyone who buys one!

The pre-order came in two flavors– a Deluxe Boxset and a regular CD order. Both flavors would have access to the pre-order bonus material, but the Deluxe Boxset– which was limited to 500 initially, and expanded to 1000 when the first 500 sold out quickly– was going to include an audiophile 180g pressing of Mantis and a DVD of video content including the 10-year documentary “UM10” the band put together for their NYE 2008 shows, plus some other goodies from their online store and some other things they picked all housed in a box the band signed. The CD was $20, but the Deluxe Box was $50. Frankly, the box is the better deal if only because of the vinyl and the DVD, but the “personal” stuff the band threw in would really make this a collector’s dream. Of course, there were people bemoaning the “devaluation” of their copies with the additional 500. It’s still very rare, so it will be valuable either way, if that is the concern. Whatever, I’m opening mine and playing the record.

From a logistics standpoint getting these packages to everyone who ordered was a feat in itself. The band and their assistance would have had to work backwards from the release date (tomorrow) and take in to consideration where in the world these packages had to go. Adding to that was the fact that today is a government holiday in the US, so no deliveries would happen today.

Mantis Order Shipping

Of course, this caused some folks to get their orders early– which was a source of much consternation on the umphreaks board, but allowed us to hear what goodies were in the boxes! Based on the “I JUST GOT MY MANTIS IN THE MAIL!!!!!” thread on the board (aka “The Bort”) people are getting

  • Mantis CD
  • guitar picks from the band
  • a guitar string that was used at a show from last year that has a tag with the date played.
  • a recipe from a member of the band: so far we’ve seen a Ryan Stasik baked brie, and a smoked rib from Andy Farag. Both sound fantastic, frankly.
  • a “Mantis” poster (folded, sadly– I’ll have to see if I can order a rolled one)
  • “UM10” DVD
  • A letter signed by the band.
  • A photocopy of a set list construction “worksheet.” This is generally handwritten and shows how the band goes through working on their setlists complete with crossing out songs.
  • The 180g vinyl version of Mantis.
  • Two “Mantis” postcards.
  • Tootsie Rolls
  • One set of “Mantis” iPod skins for Nano or Classic (no iPhone or Touch, unfortunately).

Talk about a labor of love! Keep in mind there is also all of the pre-order bonus material and whatever they unlock beyond that!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a gesture this big from a band to its fans. I’ve only been a fan of UM in the last year, and there are a lot of reasons that I like what this band is up to– a lot of it has to do with their approach to their music and the fact that they are as much fans of music as they are musicians. The fact that they have a very good grip on using their fanbase and the Internet as a way to promote what they’re doing and making the extra effort to make something like an album release special, is pretty great, too. Many bands could take a page from this band’s playbook. Of course it helps to have a rabid fanbase that would support this kind of effort.

Bort member Tim Hara had provided some great pictures of the band signing the Deluxe Boxes to the board. He very graciously allowed me to re-post the pictures here.

Umphrey's McGee Signing Mantis Deluxe Boxes

Umphrey's McGee Signs the Mantis Deluxe Boxes

Umphrey's McGee Signs the Mantis Deluxe Boxes

The band also is doing an eBay auction to benefit their favorite charity UStorm. The cover art was designed by Mark Blanchette who surprisingly creates his montage photographs the old school dodge and burn method. There is a very informative posting on the band’s blog here. As a result he is able to control the serialization of his work to ten copies. The eBay auction is for one of those 10 prints framed along with a sheet with the band’s autographs.

I was one of the lucky few who got in on the second 500 Deluxe sets, so I’m anxiously awaiting the deliver of it– to eat the spoils of victory (the Tootsie Rolls) while dropping the needle on the vinyl version of Mantis!

Click Here to view other pictures Tim Hara took of the signing. Thanks Tim!

Stay tuned for “Sexy Unboxing Pictures” of my boxset to come.

Cracker Reaches for Inhaler and new album in May 2009

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I apologize for the headline on this. It gets tricky to come up with better headlines than “New album.” Cracker announced today via their website and Facebook that their new album to be called Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey will be released in May of this year, which likely means that the building list of tour dates are gearing up for an album tour! It will be cool to hear new songs from Cracker.

Additionally, Cracker has posted a video for a new track from Sunrise called “Hand Me My Inhaler” which is a short and punky affair, and showcases the fancy guitarwork of Mr. Johnny Hickman.

Click Here to see if Cracker is coming to a stage near you!

Frank Zappa – Hot Rats Re-Released on 200g & 140g Vinyl 1/23/09

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Via the e-mail blast from Acoustic Sounds, it appears that there will be two pressings of Frank Zappa’s 1969 post-Mothers of Invention album Hot Rats coming out on 1/23/09. The releases will be handled by Classic Records with a 140g and 200g pressing. According to the Classic Records page on the release, it was mastered from the original analog master tape under the supervision of Zappa’s wife Gail by Bernie Grundman.

This comes as a blessing to the Zappaphiles and audiophiles as apparently the remastering that was done when Zappa moved his entire catalog from Reprise to Rykodisc in the late 80’s he took the opportunity to make new mixes of his catalog. Never content to leave things alone he in some cases created new versions of the songs. The additional length afforded by the compact disc allowed him to make longer versions as well. Unfortunately, the 1986 mastering technology for digital was very new and the result were recordings that sounded different and apparently worse than the originals.

This is apparently the case with Hot Rats. So, this pressing gives people the chance to hear how Frank intended the album to sound in 1969, anyway. Debatably he may have preferred the work he did in the ’80’s, but we won’t know.

My familiarity with Zappa’s catalog kind of starts and ends with Joe’s Garage as it’s the only one I own. When I was following Phish I became familiar with “Peaches en Reglalia” as they covered it frequently in concert. This prompted me to seek out Hot Rats, which is the album that song is from. Hot Rats is pretty well regarded as one of the albums someone should listen to when starting to get into Zappa. Certainly it’s a bit easier to stomach for the average listener than some of Zappa’s mammoth catalog as it doesn’t have any of his trademark scatalogical humor or political views. In fact this album only has one song with vocals and that is the bluesy “Willie the Pimp” with Zappa’s friend Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart. When I listen to Hot Rats, I’m pretty amazed that this was recorded in 1969. While it sounds dated, it doesn’t have the late sixties production one might expect. Hot Rats is alleged to be the first recording that uses 16-tracks. The Beatles were recording Abbey Road around the same time Zappa was recording this album and they were using 8 tracks!

Apparently Gail Zappa is using this reissue of Hot Rats to gauge whether there would be interest in releasing the rest of the catalog on audiophile vinyl. Based on the chatter on the boards, I think this release will be very popular!

Click Here to order the 140g pressing of Hot Rats from Acoustic Sounds ($24.99)

Click Here to order the 200g pressing of Hot Rats from Acoustic Sounds ($32.99)

Tortoise to Release 6th Album on 4/21/09; Langerado ’09

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Tortoise

Per Stereogum in an article interviewing Doug McCombs, Tortoise is in the studio working on their follow-up to 2004’s It’s All Around You. Well, I guess you could say they are still in the studio working on the follow-up.  Tortoise has been working on the follow-up for three years in “fits and starts” at McEntire’s Soma Studios in Chicago.

The band has been playing at least three of the tracks from the new album on tour since their unannounced appearance at the Thrill Jockey 15th anniversary shows in December of 2007. The article makes references to the temporary song titles that have shown up on setlists like “Korg” and “Prepare Your Coffin” which we’ve seen called “Coffin.” We’ve also heard a track variously known as “Glowstick” or “Glow.”

According to McCombs, although the album to him sounds sonically a bit like Standards, the band has implemented smaller arrangements than the last two albums. Apparently there are only a couple of sessions left to record including adding some string arrangements (!!). The album may also include vocals. Following the release of April 21st the band will kick off a “proper tour.” This April 21st date is corroborated at Pitchfork’s Guide to 2009 Releases.

Tortoise was recently announced as part of the Langerado Festival lineup on 3/7/09. Set in Miami, Langerado promises to be a really good festival based on this year’s lineup which includes Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Umphrey’s McGee, Dashboard Confessional, the Pogues, Snoop Dogg, and Death Cab among it’s current list of 58 musical acts to play over three days. With the wealth of tapers at Langerado, I’m hoping we get a good recording of that set.

Upcoming Show: Curumin at CSPS in Cedar Rapids 1/26/09

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This might be as close as a Quannum artist will get to Cedar Rapids…

While touring Brazil, Chief Xcel of the formidable Blackalicious fell in love with the locally released Achados e Perdidos and quickly signed Luciano Nakata Albuquerque who performs under the moniker Curumin (KOO-roo-mean). Achados e Perididos with its pan-continental mix of salsa and funk was re-released on Quannum in September 2005 to critical praise– quite an achievement for an artist who sings primarily in Portuguese!

In October, 2008 Curumin released the much-anticipated follow up JapanPopShow— the title of which is a nod to his split Spanish and Japanese heritage. JapanPopShow picks up where Achados left of with its strong samba-soul vibe and warps it with the heat of afro-beat, dub and experimental funk with refreshing spritzes of tropicalia. At times it reminds me of Air or Gilberto Gil in it’s easy casual feel. The Quannum collective jumps in to lend a hand on some of the tracks– Herve Salters from Honeycut, the Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel from Blackalicious and Lateef. Frankly a brilliant and original album. I especially dig Curumin’s testament to his love of 45RPM records “Compactu.”

So, Cedar Rapids will be warmed with Brazil’s ambassador of samba soul in the dead of winter on Monday, January 26th at Cedar Rapids own CSPS! The show starts at 8PM and tickets are $13 in advance and $16 the day of the show.

According to his press releases, Curumin typically tours with a couple of musicians and each took the stage armed with an MPC sampler providing live beat manipulations combined with live instrumentation. Curumin also switches between live drums and cavaquinho which is like a ukelele.

Don’t sleep on this, folks– it promises to be a head-bobbin’ evening.

Click Here to visit the Facebook Event for Curumin at CSPS.

Click Here for more information on the show

Click Here for Curumin’s MySpace Page which has streams of some of his tracks.

Click Below to download “Compacto” (personal favorite)

JapanPopShowCurumin
“Compacto” (mp3)
from “JapanPopShow”
(Quannum Projects)

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Winston to Release Second Guaraldi Tribute Love Will Come – The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Vol. 2 September 2009

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While I was researching the Charlie Brown’s Holiday Hits part of the last In The Bins, I was exchanging e-mails with Derrick Bang who among other things is an uber-collector of Peanuts and is part-time curator of the fivecentsplease.org website that is essential to Peanuts collectors with its wealth of information. Derrick pointed out that George Winston— who himself is a collector of Vince Guaraldi— is going to release a second volume to his critically-acclaimed 1996 release Linus & Lucy – The Music of Vince Guaraldi titled Love Will Come – The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Vol. 2 and is slated for release in September. This isn’t exactly timely information as this release has been announced since before Winston’s summer tour, but I hadn’t seen much mention of it prior to my conversation with Bang.

Linus & Lucy has the distinction of being the first place some of Guaraldi’s compositions would be heard outside of the TV Series. Tracks like the beautiful “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (aka “Thanksgiving Theme”) would have languished in vaults if it wasn’t for that release. Winston provides very detailed liner notes about each which shows the care and consideration he gave to this tribute to Guaraldi.

Since 1996, we have seen a number of notable releases as it applies to Guaraldi’s television work. The aforementioned Holiday Hits, and Guaraldi’s son David has curated two releases of  Vince Guaraldi and the Lost Cues from the Charlie Brown Television Specials. Both of these are available on cdbaby.com, and well worth the $15 if you are a fan of this music.

According to the programs used for Winston’s summer and winter tours Love Will Come will include the following tracks (with supporting information from Bang’s Cues List:

  • “Air Music” aka “Surfin’ Snoopy” from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1966) among other shows included on Holiday Hits.
  • “Rain, Rain Go Away” from “Charlie Brown’s All-Stars” (1966)
  • “It Was A Short Summer Charlie Brown” from “It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown” (1969)
  • “Woodstock” (I’m not sure which song this would be since there aren’t any songs just titled “Woodstock” but there are a few that have “Woodstock”in the title including “Snoopy and Woodstock” and “Woodstock’s Dream”)
  • “There’s No Time For Love” from “There’s No Time for Love, Charlie Brown” (1973) included on Lost Cues Volume 1
  • “Be My Valentine” aka “Heartburn Waltz” from “Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown” included on Holiday Hits and Lost Cues vol 2 (1975)
  • “Love Will Come”from “You’re in Love, Charlie Brown” (1967)
  • “You’re Not Elected Charlie Brown” from “You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown” (1972)
  • “Little Birdie” from “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (1973) among other shows included on Lost Cues Volume 1 and 2.

While this list is impressively only a list of rare Guaraldi TV cues, I’m sure we can expect some tracks from Guaraldi’s non-Charlie Brown releases on here, as Linus & Lucy did (notably “Cast Your Fate to The Wind” which was Guaraldi’s first big hit).

Calexico “Live from Austin, TX” DVD of 2006 Austin City Limits Show Out 1/20

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Photo by Gerald von Foris

Photo by Gerald von Foris


I was pretty happy to hear about this release. Back in 2006 during their Garden Ruin tour, Calexico taped an Austin City Limits show– part of which was aired with part of a Sufjan Stevens performance. As much as I like both acts, I was disappointed that Calexico didn’t get a full hour. On January 20th, this is fixed as New West is releasing as part of their “Live from Austin, TX” series the full Calexico performance from Austin City Limits expanding the show from the seven tracks aired to 15!

Tracklist (I’ve included whether each was originally aired and what order):

“Convict Pool”
“Across The Wire” (originally aired as 1)
“Cruel”
“El Picador” (originally aired as 3)
“Sunken Waltz” (originally aired  as 4)
“Not Even Stevie Nicks” (originally aired as 2)
“Stray”
“All Systems Red”(originally aired as 7)
“Sonic Wind”
“Alone Again Or”
“Roka”
“He Lays In Reins”(joined onstage by the Iron and Wine) (originally aired as 6)
“Guero Canelo”
“Letter To Bowie Knife” (originally aired as 5)
“Crystal Frontier”

This is a nice mix of (at the time) old and new songs. With a catalog like Calexico’s it’s interesting to see which tracks the band chose for their set at ACL, and which tracks ACL chose to air. Considering that “All Systems Red” from Garden Ruin is about the frustration of second Dubya election, it’s sort of fitting that this DVD is released at the Inauguration of President Obama.

B-Sides in the Bins #39 – What I Got For Christmas! (12/24 & 12/25)

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Stevie Nicks - Crystal Visions 180g 2 LP

2008 was the year of new vinyl for me. Between my 40th birthday and Christmas I ended up with some cool pieces for the collection. Likely, my family is breathing a collective sigh of relief as I think I was a bit difficult to buy for when someone would get my name from the gift exchange drawing. Since I don’t really buy that much new vinyl for myself– I tend to stick to used– pretty much any title that they would like, I would probably like, too. I got a couple of CD’s as well. I keep my Amazon wish list up-to-date which is pretty helpful for gift selection as well.

Jurassic 5 – J5 Deluxe Re-Issue (2 CD, 1 DVD, Decon DCN65, 2008) (gift) My daughter got me this from my Amazon Wish List. I totally forgot about this release, so this was a nice surprise! The J5 Deluxe Re-Issue is a reissue of the first Jurassic 5 album from 1997. The original album was released on Interscope and had apparently been out-of-print since 2004 and held up due to contractural disputes. The original album is here along with a second CD full of hard-to-find and previously unreleased stuff. The DVD has a movie from J5’s first world tour, some concert footage from Brixton Academy and the “Concrete Schoolyard” music video. Nice to get back to this– I stopped listening to J5 after Cut Chemist left and they released Feedback, which was not great. When the hell is 2na going to release his solo joint?

Vince Guaraldi – A Charlie Brown Christmas (3 CD Collector’s Edition Tin, Madacy Entertainment TC2 53161) (gift) This was a stocking-stuffer. A festive metal tin holding two Fantasy CD’s– The 2006 remaster of A Charlie Brown Christmas with the bonus tracks, and Charlie Brown’s Holiday Hits which has some of the songs from Christmas, but has songs from A Boy Named Charlie Brown, the wonderful “Thanksgiving Theme” from the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, “Great Pumpkin Waltz” from “It’s The Great Pumpkin,” and others. The third disc is the David Benoit Jazz tribute  40 Years – A Charlie Brown Christmas with some notable assistance from The Rippingtons, Chaka Khan, Dave Koz, Brian McKnight, Toni Braxton and Vanessa Williams. A neat collection in a tin that shares the artwork with the 2006 Christmas release, which used the original 1965 artwork. Unfortunately, the liner notes for Holiday Hits don’t do a good job of explaining where the songs that aren’t from Christmas and A Boy Named Charlie Brown came from. A little digging turned some information up. Special thanks to Vince Guaraldi’s Peanuts Song Library at fivecentsplease.org which is the insanely comprehensive Peanuts site.

Tracklisting for Charlie Brown’s Holiday Hits:

1. Joe Cool (2:03) apparently not the version from “He’s Your Dog Charlie Brown.”
2. Surfin’ Snoopy (1:09) from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” where Snoopy is decorating his doghouse (1965)
3. Heartburn Waltz (2:36) from “Be My Valentine Charlie Brown” (1975)
4. Track Meet (2:37) from ? (this song and the next one don’t seem to be in the TV cue list but seem to have been recorded at the same time.)
5. Camptown Races (2:22) from ?
6. Oh, Good Grief (1:56) actually “Schroeder” with Lee Mendelson’s son Glenn’s sixth-grade class singing.
7. Charlie Brown Theme (4:19) on A Boy Named Charlie Brown, but included in a bunch of the specials.
8. Schroeder (1:50) on A Boy Named Charlie Brown
9. Charlie’s Blues (1:20) from “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (1973)
10. Great Pumpkin Waltz (2:26) from “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” (1966)
11. Thanksgiving Theme (1:59) from “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (1973)
12. Linus and Lucy (3:03) from A Charlie Brown Christmas
13. Christmas Time Is Here (vocal) from A Charlie Brown Christmas
14. Christmas Time Is Here (inst.) from A Charlie Brown Christmas

Mudcrutch – Extended Play Live! (12″ EP & CD,  Reprise 516850, 2008) (gift) In a similar fashion to the Mudcrutch LP, this EP came with a “full dynamic range” CD. This means that the CD isn’t suffering from the compression that a lot of releases have today. Mudcrutch was the band that Petty along with Heartbreakers Tom Leadon, Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell were in before Tom formed the Heartbreakers in 1976. Rather than succumb to fans requests for releasing Mudcrutch’s “lost album” Tom brought the band back together and recorded a new album which used some of the original tracks recorded for Shelter records. This live EP is made up of songs recorded over three shows in April and May of 2008. I need to go get the Mudcrutch album, too.

Various artists – Music from the Motion Picture Pulp Fiction (LP, MCA 0008811110314, 1994) (gift) This is the first of the new “Back to Black” pressings I have– at least the first with that identified on it. Looking at the Back to Black website, it would appear that the new Police Live album is a Back to Black as well. 180g vinyl in the original packaging– which doesn’t mean a lot since it wasn’t a gatefold cover or anything exciting like that. I wasn’t aware that this soundtrack had been on vinyl originally. One of my favorite movies and certainly soundtrack with its fun blend of surf tunes and 60’s songs. Mastered by Steve Hau at Future Disc Systems.

Stevie Nicks – Crystal Visions… the Very Best of Stevie Nicks (2 LP, Reprise 100363-2, 2007) (gift) All I can say about this is… “wow!” Everything about this release is an audiophile’s dream: 2 180g LP’s in lined paper sleeves housed in a gatefold with beautiful artwork and very flattering photos of Stevie at various points in her career. In addition, there is a 1-page sheet with the credits that is in the pocket with the first LP which also includes Stevie’s notes on each song! The compilation draws mostly from her very successful solo career, but also has some choice Fleetwood Mac tracks. Again we get “Silver Springs” which was rescued from certain obscurity during the Dance tour and album and has been restored to every pressing of Rumours since. We get a recent live version of “Rhiannon” and the 2005 clubby remix of “Dreams” (which apparently has new vocals). We get a couple of live tracks performed with the Melbourne Symphony including “Landslide” and a nine-minute “Edge of Seventeen.” The album is bookended by two versions of “Seventeen”– it opens with the original album version from Bella Donna, and closes with the live version. Although the live version is longer and involves the symphony, it really isn’t dramatically different than the orignal song since it has drums and electric guitars. Half-Speed Mastered by Stan Ricker, Plating and Pressing at R.T.I.