The First Of Many Vinyl Reviews

Artist- The Flaming Lips

Album- The Soft Bulletin

Year- 1999

Label- Warner Bros

Widely regarded as one of the greatest records of the 90′s. Praised for its adventurous application of synths and organic instruments. The Flaming Lips 1999 release “The Soft Bulletin” was a milestone for a band that had been struggling for almost 20 years and was now near its end.

While dealing with crippling drug addiction and the subsequent departure of their longtime guitarist Ronald Jones, The Flaming Lips managed to find an extreme amount of inspiration via their struggles and misfortunes.

Being not only a dedicated record collector but an obsessive Flaming Lips fan, I was almost jumping out of my skin in anticipation for this vinyl re-issue. The Soft Bulletin happens to fall into a cross-section of albums released between 1990-2005 that only saw about 500 copies pressed on its original run. This all results in one thing. $500 copies being sold on EBAY.

Luckily this truly amazing album was re-issued by Warner Bros mid last year. Specially pressed in Germeny with extra bonus tracks and alternate mixes. Comes packaged in a beautiful gatefold sleeve with all of the original artwork included. Out of the 2,000 or so records in my collection I am hard-pressed to find ANYTHING that sounds better than this coming through my system.

Sound- * * * * *

Packaging- * * * * *

Price- ***

The Perfect Christmas Gift……….. For Me.

Bob Dyaln: The Original Mono Recordings Box-Set

Due for release December 7th of this year is one of the most prolific box-sets ever released. Included in the set are the 9 original Bob Dylan Albums all mastered in their original Mono format. This set will see a very limited run before Christmas of this year and will surely become a highly sought after collector’s piece for decades to come.

Make sure you swing on down to us to pick up your copy of this. While you’re at it, grab me one too.

Jimi Hendrix – NEW ALBUM!?!

Band: Jimi Hendrix
Album: Valleys of Neptune
Label: Experience Hendrix
Release Date: March 9th, 2010

By John Ramacca.

$11.99

After 40 years, a number of ill-conceived posthumous albums, and countless bootlegs, one would almost have to be skeptical of a new album billed as “12 previously unreleased studio recordings — almost 60 minutes of unheard Jimi Hendrix!” The good news is that Valleys of Neptune largely delivers on that promise. Even hardcore collectors will likely be surprised at how much of this album they haven’t heard. But much of this material has been available before in some form, official and otherwise. Although there were tons of posthumous overdubs, elements of these very versions of “Stone Free” and “Hear My Train Comin’” were used as building blocks for the versions on Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning, respectively. Additionally, this version of “Stone Free” was included on 2000′s The Jimi Hendrix Experience box set, the only difference being that Noel Redding’s bass and vocals were replaced with Billy Cox’s bass from a slightly later studio session. An excerpt of the tune “Valleys of Neptune” was released as part of the Lifelines radio program box set but that track (“Mr. Bad Luck [aka Look Over Yonder]“) and “Lullaby for the Summer” (basically an instrumental version of “Ezy Rider”) were all well-known to collectors. However, Eddie Kramer’s fresh mixes make them all sound better than ever. “Fire,” “Red House,” and “Sunshine of Your Love” are obviously well-known tunes, but these versions will most likely be new even to collectors. “Ships Passing Through the Night” (later transformed into “Night Bird Flying”) and “Crying Blue Rain” are easily the rarest tracks here, and may well be surfacing for the very first time. The songs all sound mostly to completely finished; they definitely aren’t just rough demos that got added to after the fact (although Mitch and Noel did do additional recording in 1987 for three of these tunes). Most of the tracks have multiple guitar parts, although Jimi probably would have replaced some of these guitar parts. It’s not that they’re at all bad, but some aren’t perfect, and Jimi Hendrix was a perfectionist. “Crying Blue Rain” feels like just a studio jam (albeit a good one), and “Sunshine of Your Love” goes on just a bit too long with an unnecessary bass solo, but the rest sounds surprisingly finished and complete (and being studio recordings, the sound quality is excellent throughout). While it doesn’t rise to the level of his other studio albums, Valleys of Neptune is a welcome catalog addition from a tremendous talent who died too young.