Buffalo Nichols New Vinyl Thursday

Vinyl Underground

December 29, 2021

By ll_7th_heaven

It’s Buffalo Nichols New Vinyl Thursday at The Vinyl Underground at 7th Heaven. Check out this week’s list of new vinyl arrivals:

Adele- 30

Adele- 21

Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughan – In Session

AC/DC- 74 Jailbreak

Buffalo Nichols – Buffalo Nichols

Beyoncé – Homecoming: The Live Album (140 Gram Vinyl, With Booklet)

Billie Eilish – When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (Colored Vinyl)

Billie Eilish – Dont Smile At Me (Colored Vinyl)

Bob Marley- Best of Bob Marley

Brigitte Fontaine – Comme a la Radio

Caetano Veloso – Caetano Veloso

Childish Gambino- Awaken My Love

Childish Gambino – Because the Internet

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio – I Told You So

David Bowie- Hunky Dory

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio – I Told You So

The Doors- Waiting For The Sun

Fleetwood Mac- Rumours

Guster – Keep It Together

Harry Styles – Fine Line (Gatefold LP Jacket, Poster, 180 Gram Vinyl)

Hot Mulligan – I Won’t Reach Out to You (Pink Colored Vinyl, Extended Play)

Houndmouth – Good For You

Jah Wobble – Metal Box – Rebuilt In Dub (Blue Colored Vinyl, Bonus Tracks)

Janet Jackson- Rhythm Nation

Jimi Hendrix- Are You Experienced

Jimi Hendrix – Experience Hendrix: The Best of Jimi Hendrix [150 gram Vinyl]

Jason Isbell- Live from Alabama

Jason Isbell – Something More Than Free (180 Gram Vinyl, Deluxe Edition, Digital Download Card)

John Prine – Fair & Square (Green Colored Vinyl, Indie Exclusive)

The Jesus Lizard – Goat (Bonus Tracks, Deluxe Edition, Remastered, Reissue, Digital Download Card)

Kacey Musgraves – Star-Crossed (Colored Vinyl)

Kevin Ayers – Joy of a Toy

Kendrick Lamar- Good Kid, M.A.A.D City

Leon Bridges- Gold-Diggers Sound

Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

Lost Dog Street Band – Homeward Bound (Gatefold LP Jacket, Remastered)

My Morning Jacket – My Morning Jacket (Orange Colored Vinyl, Yellow, Gatefold LP Jacket, Indie Exclusive)

Miles Davis- Bitches Brew

Mastodon- Hushed And Grim

Morphine – Cure for Pain (Gatefold LP Jacket, 180 Gram Vinyl, Deluxe Edition, Brick & Mortar Exclusive)

Morphine – Good (180 Gram Vinyl, Gatefold LP Jacket)

Michael Jackson – Dangerous (180 Gram Vinyl)

Michael Jackson – Off The Wall (Picture Disc Vinyl LP)

N.W.A.- Straight Outta Compton

Neil Young – Homegrown

Ozzy Osbourne- Blizzard Of Ozz

Olivia Rodrigo – Sour

Pet Shop Boys – Yes (2017 Remastered Version)

Pink Floyd- The Dark Side Of The Moon

Prince – Purple Rain (Picture Disc Vinyl LP)

Portishead- Dummy

Queen – Greatest Hits I

Roscoe Mitchell – Dots / Pieces For Percussion And Woodwinds

Rush – 2112

Weekly Review:

Rush’s backs were to the wall when it came time to record their fourth album. Just two years earlier, the
Canadian trio had debuted with an album heavily indebted to Led Zeppelin and Cream. Subsequent
albums found the band’s sound expand, but still failed to connect with an audience.
After turning in two lengthy progressive numbers on their third album, Rush pushed all their chips to the
middle of the table on 2112, pinning their future on a 20-minute dystopian epic based on the writings of
Ayn Rand. And it worked.
“2112,” the song, gallops out of the gate with a lengthy overture before Geddy Lee’s helium vocals
introduce the priests at the temple of Syrnix. Feel free to get lost in the plot, but the music is focused
and compelling enough to keep the listener’s attention on its own merits.
After fulfilling Rand’s objectivist dream on side one, the flip side is a comparatively lean run of five songs
that all come in at under four minutes. Opening cut “A Passage to Bangkok” is the soundtrack of a train
voyage around the globe to sample local strains of cannabis. The jaunty narrative “The Twilight Zone” is
an homage to Rod Serling’s television show. “Tears” is a rare ballad in the Rush cannon. Album closer
“Something for Nothing” brings Rand’s philosophy back around with the chorus “you can’t get
something for nothing/you don’t get freedom for free.”
Rush had hinted at these heights on earlier albums, but achieve greatness on 2112, setting the stage for
more prog-rock masterpieces to follow. No 1970s hard or progressive rock library is complete without
this. -Joel Francis

Sam Cooke – Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964

Sam Cooke – The Best Of (140 Gram Vinyl, Download Insert)

Sly & the Family Stone – There’s A Riot Goin’ On (Gatefold LP Jacket, Red Colored Vinyl, 150 Gram Vinyl, Anniversary Edition)

In the Buddhist tradition it is often stated that time is not linear but cyclical. Even though Sly & the Family Stone’s masterpiece: “There’s A Riot Going On” was released in 1971, the overtones of this record can be heard in more recent times of American History.

In 1970 the United States was going through a great transition. With continued engagement in the seemingly pointless war in Vietnam the flower power, Hippie movement was wilting on the vine. The optimistic civil rights movement was slowly giving way to the more militant ideologies like those held by the Black Panther.

To some degree Sly Stone himself was a mirror of the time. With the success of the album Stand! and a recent break out live performance this funky little soul band from San Francisco had become a world wide sensation.

Unfortunately, drug addiction would accompanying Sly’s success resulting in such erratic behavior it would resulted in drummer Gregg Errico’s departure in early 1971. It also affected Sly’s ability to perform and produces, resulting in a Greatest Hits release in 1970, and releasing just one new single in eighteen months: “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).”

Unlike the more positive upbeat vibe of Stone’s past albums Riot takes on a much darker and cynical tone. It’s still funky as hell but the sounds are more bristly and spacey.

The majority of the Instruments were played by Sly himself in a studio that he built for himself in Sausalito, California known as The Plant. He also recorded at at his mansion, home studio in Bel Air. Rumor has it a lot of the vocals on Riot were recorded on his back in bed.

Drumming duties were predominately taken care of by the presets on a Maestro Rhythm King MRK-2 drum machine which Stone preferred for its other worldly sound. At the time this was almost unheard of. Amongst other things, Riot was one of the first popular US releases to have drum machine in it.

For the hit single “Family Affair” Stone enlisted several other musicians including Billy Preston, Ike Turner, and Bobby Womack instead of his bandmates.

Songs like the opening track “Luv N’ Haight” sound like Stone going through some kind funkadelic birthing labor. Between moans squeals, discernible lyrics are difficult to make out. It is said this is also partially due to the amount of overdubbing and revising he did.

In an interview with Jonathan Dakss, Stone explained the album’s controversial cover concept, stating “I wanted the flag to truly represent people of all colors. I wanted the color black because it is the absence of color. I wanted the color white because it is the combination of all colors. And I wanted the color red because it represents the one thing that all people have in common: blood. I wanted suns instead of stars because stars to me imply searching, like you search for your star. And there are already too many stars in this world. But the sun, that’s something that is always there, looking right at you. Betsy Ross did the best she could with what she had. I thought I could do better.” – Major Matt

Sturgill Simpson- Sound & Fury

Sun Ra and His Arkestra – Omniverse

Weekly Review:

The word Omniverse has several different popular definitions: “A number of supposedly co-existing universes… All potential existence; known and unknown… ALL things existent in any dimension and universe in the entirety of what is.”

The album Omniverse was recorded in New York by Sun Ra and his Arkestra in 1979. A limited run of the album was released that year on his own Saturn Records with hand- made a artwork on generic cardboards sleeves.

If you’re at all familiar with his work the first thing that probably pops into your head when you hear the name Sun Ra is a guy directing an aggressive free jazz ensemble dressed in a flowing robe and some kind-of elaborate shiny head piece exploring big themes about outer space and other dimensions.

Omniverse captures a smaller, more intimate Sun Ra Arkistra. The opening track, “Place Of Five Points,” is a Monkish style piano piano excursion clocking in at a modest four minutes and fifteen seconds.

Track two, “West End Side of Magic City” featuring tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, is a more bustling piece. One can almost feel the energy of passing cars and people people scurrying along the sidewalks on their way to work.

Magic City is a nickname given to Sun Ra’s home town of Birmingham, Alabama, was derived from its unique soil which contained three necessary elements to make iron: limestone, coal, and iron ore.

The following three tracks (“Dark Nights In a White Forest,” “Omniverse,” & “Visitants of the Ninth Ultimate”) were never performers live to anyones knowledge.

“Dark Nights…” is a more expansive, exploratory piece , introducing some excellent spaced out muted trumpet work by Arkistra stalwart Michael Ray.

The title track, “Omniverse,” was also a borrowed title for a definitive book about Sun Ra, including many photos and play bills published in 1994 by Hartmut Geerken and Val Wilmer. The track floats along from one free verse to the next, perhaps suggesting a world of parallel universes to be a place of peace and solace.

Not until the final track, “Visitants of the Ninth Ultimate,” do we get a taste of some of the more free aggressive style that most people might associate with Sun Ra, yet the smaller size of the ensemble allows the listener to remain focused on each instrument as it weaves in and out of the sonic fabric.

With dozens of singles, over a hundred full length albums comprised of well over a thousand songs there are many places for a listener to discover the work of Sun Ra. Omniverse is a great place to start as its natural progression as an album moves from what one might consider more accessible, modal, pieces into the more free otherworldly style he is best known for. – Major Matt

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

Tom Petty – Wildflowers & All The Rest (Remastered)

Taylor Swift – Evermore (Green Colored Vinyl, Deluxe Edition, Bonus Tracks)

Tesla – Mechanical Resonance (Blue Colored Vinyl)

Weekly Review:

Long before it was an electric car, Tesla was a hard rock band from Sacramento, Calif. The quintet
landed in the already crowded mid-‘80s hair metal scene with a debut album that proved they could
write radio hits, but also had something of their own to say.
Mechanical Resonance is split, with the radio-ready songs on the first side and the more interesting,
expansive material on side two. “Comin’ Atcha Live” apes Van Halen before turning into Motley Crue,
while “EZ Come EZ Go” and “Rock Me to the Top” are just as cliched as their titles.
It’s not until the six songs on side two that Mechanical Resonance starts generating enough electricity to
justify its cover. “Modern Day Cowboy” is a continuation (and improvement) on Bon Jovi’s steel cowboy
motif. The ballad “Changes” stands out from its almost classical piano introduction. An acoustic cover of
Ph.D.’s “Little Suzi” foreshadows the band’s success with acoustic hits “Love Song” and “Signs.”
Tesla’s debut album is half of a good record. Side one will rarely be touched, but ‘80s rock fans will wear
the grooves out of side two. -Joel Francis

Van Morrison – Astral Weeks

Various Artists – A Tribute to Pink Floyd: Return To The Dark Side Of The Moon (Red, Black, Blue ,Colored Vinyl, Bonus Track)

Various Artists- Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix 1 (Original Soundtrack)

Yola- Stand For Myself

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Which records, tapes, and CDs are your favorite local artists buying? On this episode of Record Shopping with Shuttlecock, we head to The Vinyl Underground at 7th Heaven with recently reunited alt-rockers Frogpond to do some digging. Tune in to find out what they copped. Follow @ShuttlecockMag on social media and visit www.ShuttlecockMusic.com. Grab a t-shirt, button, or magazine from www.ShuttlecockMag.BigCartel.com to support the channel. Make sure to like, subscribe, and share.

Turntables! We got ’em. From starter tables to audiophile, and everything in between, we have you covered. We are honored to once again be carrying a full line up of the award winning, top of their class, made in America, U-turn Orbits! We have all the colors- including the high performance walnut and maple. Get here fast for best selection. Get yours today!

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Enjoy the music and we will see you soon. Your loving Vinyl Underground at 7th Heaven staff:

Sherman, Gordon, Cat, Matt, Dylan, Doyle, Heather, Dave and Lain

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