Week 20

Why does vinyl sound better than CD? Listening to vinyl makes it feel more "real" if that's the way I could describe it. The mixes are closer to the true sound of the recording. You can certainly tell a subtle difference when listening, but it's tough to say exactly what it is, so here is ONE scientific explanation that I thought was interesting: Is the sound on vinyl records better than on CDs? That helped me understand the differnces a little better! Grab your board and ride this week's sound waves (5/17-5/23):

John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers - Bare Wires
Grateful Dead - Grateful Dead (aka-Skull & Roses) (vinyl)
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Green River (vinyl)
Goo Goo Dolls - Gutterflower
Oakley Hall - Gypsum Strings
Counting Crows - Hard Candy
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers - A Hard Road
Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker
The Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty
Gosling - Here Is…
North Mississippi Allstars - Hernando
AC/DC - High Voltage
Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited

CCR was a band I knew about through hearing my Dad talk about them, but until I got into music heavily never explored. The first thing I bought by them was Chronicles Vol. 1 (aka - greatist hits) and loved it. I never owned an actual album until I started my vinyl collection. Listening to Green River as it was originally intended was a treat. Discoverng music from a classic band beyond greatest hits is like the feeling you get when you find forgotten money hidden away in an old book. It's been there all along waiting for you to discover it, you need to simply open the right page.

Oakley Hall is a Brooklyn band currently on local Durham label Merge. They have sort of dropped off the map as they don't have any recent tour dates anywhere in the area and haven't updated their website (they made a small update and mentioned themselves how out of date their media is). The band has had a few lineup changes over the years, but Patrick Sullivan and NC native Rachel Cox have been the core of this Americana/folk/country rock band. The album featured this week is my favorite release of theirs - Gypsum Strings - featuring my personal favorites Living In Sin In The U.S.A. and Lazy Susan. For those of you that like a fiddle in the band, Claudia Mogel offers a nice dosage throughout, but visit Second Guessing for a full dose.

Counting Crows' Hard Candy features a collaboration in writing with Ryan Adams as well as the huge commercial success of the Joni Mitchell cover Big Yellow Taxi. I am partial to the hidden track version of BYT instead of the overdubbed Vanessa Carlton version which charted the commercial success. I haven't listened to much Counting Crows, but liked what I heard here beyond the known commercial hits.

Another band from this week that has dropped off the planet is Gosling. These guys are super talented and churned out some terrific songs on Here Is... which was their "debut" after a full name change (sans a lineup change from Loudermilk). These guys actually toured with Motley Crue before the name change, which I found to be most curious given their old sound and new sound don't really fit the Hair Metal mold. Anyway, Here Is... an awesome album from a band I am sad to see no longer in the scene.

My album of the week is Hernando. Yes, I am biased toward the North Mississippi Allstars because of the baddest slide guitarist I've ever seen in person - Luther Dickinson. This last album is perhaps the most complete sounding record NMA has released. It's full of AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix guitar licks while keeping true to the roots of the Mississippi-country-blues. My favorite track from the album is I'd Love To Be A Hippy, sung by bassist Chris Chew. The song was actually co-written by their father Jim with Champion Jack Dupree. It's an amazing slow blues tune that always gets the crowd pumped up.

It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock N' Roll) is easily my favorite AC/DC song. How cool is the bagpipe/guitar solo!? Yes, bagpipes!! In addition to being a one of the baddest frontmen of any band, Bon could play a mean set of pipes. High Voltage is the blueprint of AC/DC albums.