Towards the end of the 1800s, there were three primary American groups competing to invent technology to record and play back audio.
Alexander Graham Bell worked with with Charles Sumner Tainter and Chichester Bell in at their
Volta Laboratory in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., while
Thomas A. Edison worked from his
Menlo Park facilities, and
Emile Berliner worked in
his independent laboratory in
his home. To secure the rights to their inventions, the three groups sent samples of their work to the Smithsonian. These recordings became part of the permanent collections, now consisting of 400 of the earliest audio recordings ever made.
But knowledge of their contents was limited to old, short descriptions, as the rubber, beeswax, glass, tin foil and brass recording media are fragile, and playback devices might damage the recordings, if such working devices are even available. That is, until
a collaborative project with the Library of Congress and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory came together to make 2D and 3D optical scanners, capable of
visually recording the patterns marked on discs and cylinders, respectively.
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posted by filthy light thief
on Feb 10, 2012 -
19 comments
In summer 2011 The Flaming Lips released collaborative vinyl EPs with Lightning Bolt, Neon Indian and Prefuse 73. The 'starter blob' of vinyl for each disc was assembled by hand using random amounts of different vinyl colors, ensuring that every record would be unique. Here are a couple of
Flickr photosets of the finished products (and a bit of the process) as they came off the presses.
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posted by mintcake!
on Nov 26, 2011 -
15 comments
Dirtbombs' drummer Ben Blackwell has created a
map of Detroit of labels offering "vinyl releases throughout all eras". He also has a
blog and participated in the SXSW panel "How to Make Money With Vinyl" (
mp3) as an employee of Third Man Records.
posted by dobbs
on Nov 19, 2010 -
6 comments
Vintage Vanguard is a Japanese web site featuring the cover art for every Blue Note album ever released. Other labels are featured as well.
posted by dobbs
on Jun 20, 2010 -
18 comments
Pitchfork TV presents
I Need That Record! (one week only),
Brendan Toller's
documentary feature examining the plight of independent record stores in the U.S. Featuring Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Ian Mackaye (Fugazi/Minor Threat), Mike Watt (Minutemen), Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group) Chris Franz (Talking Heads), Patterson Hood (Drive-By Truckers), Pat Carney (The Black Keys), Bryan Poole (Of Montreal), and many more figures of the indie record making/selling scene. Plus the wild animations of
Matthew Newman-Long! (
previously mentioned)
posted by shoesfullofdust
on Apr 24, 2010 -
19 comments
Researcher
John Meyer has devised an objective index demonstrating that mp3s offer far lower fidelity than either vinyl LPs or standard CDs. And yet
this eight-year study at Stanford University shows that prolonged exposure to mp3s leads young listeners to prefer the format. No wonder record producers are despairing.
posted by Paul Slade
on Sep 22, 2009 -
98 comments
The New Creation was born in 1970 when Chris Towers, an unknown guitarist from Vancouver, decided to form a Christian rock group with his mother Lorna as lead singer and their neighbor Janet Tiessen on drums. Scared by reports of the hippie excesses of the Manson/Altamont era, Lorna Towers wrote doom-laden, apocalyptic lyrics for the New Creation's aptly titled album,
Troubled. The band was unpolished, yet somehow captured a unique lo-fi sound comparable to a hybrid of the Velvet Underground and
the Shaggs. The group might be totally forgotten today, if an aging hippie record dealer named
Ty Scammel hadn't rescued a copy from a $1 bargain bin, leading to the
album's rediscovery by collectors of Christian rock and
outsider music.
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posted by jonp72
on Jan 16, 2009 -
23 comments
Audio visual technology changes so fast that if you’re of a certain age you’ve been left holding the bag of cassettes, VHS tapes and vinyl records. What will you do with these AV artifacts if you no longer want to play them? Have no fear; you can have lots of crafty fun with your real audio. You can make a cassette tape
mini journal, a
cassette wallet or
cassette coin purse, or a
mini cassette lamp. If you’re into melting stuff, you can make a sculpture, such as this
skeleton, from the plastic. The tape can be crocheted or knitted into items like
totes,
evening bags,
Barbie halter dresses, or
baby booties.
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posted by orange swan
on Dec 21, 2008 -
11 comments
Happy
Vinyl Record Day, everyone. On this date in 1877, Edison invented the phonograph. To commemorate the date, a blogswarm of 22 of the best vinyl sharity blogs out there have come together to celebrate the legacy of the dominant recorded music format of the 20th century, led by jb of
The Hits Just Keep On Comin' and featuring
Flea Market Funk, Echoes in the Wind,
Funky 16 Corners,
Davewillieradio,
Good Rockin' Tonight,
Py Korry,
It's Great Shakes, (
bonus!),
Ickmusic,
Jefitoblog,
FuFu (
bonus!),
Lost in the 80's,
Three-Sixty-Five 45s,
Underground Vault of Records,
AM then FM,
The "B" Side,
In Dangerous Rythm (
bonus 1,
bonus 2),
You Must Be From Away, Got The Fever,
Retro Remixes,
Bloggerythms and finally
The Stepfather of Soul.
posted by jonson
on Aug 12, 2007 -
34 comments
So you're in the mood for some Christmas music, but you're tired of all the old standards. Not to worry, the web has you covered courtesy of several vinyl sharing blogs. First off, there's
Check the Cool Wax, with the soundtrack to
Rankin/Bass's Night Before Christmas,
Pee-Wee's Christmas Special,
Yuletide Disco,
Western Christmas Songs & Exciting Christmas Stories featuring
Batman, Superman & Wonder Woman. Much, much more inside.
posted by jonson
on Dec 3, 2006 -
28 comments
The Virtual Gramophone. A massive database of early Canadian 78 RPM recordings, now available in mp3 and rm format. Over 13,000 titles available, freely downloadable. Includes
biographical notes on the artists, notes on the
history of Canadian recording, interesting
technical notes on media conversion, a
few videos from the olde dayes, and
podcasts. This collection is particularly strong on Quebecois and Acadien folk/fiddle music. Courtesy of the
Library and Archives Services of the Government of Canada.
Mentioned once before in passing, five years ago on Metafilter, but much improved since them realaudio only days.
posted by Rumple
on Oct 31, 2006 -
18 comments
Will Vinyl Survive? Is vinyl
on its last legs? Or like Gloria Gaynor, will it
survive? Most home listeners chucked out their turntables years ago, but are DJs finally giving in and following suit? DJs face off in a pair of articles discussing the merits of vinyl vs. digital...
posted by bunglin jones
on Aug 24, 2006 -
68 comments
No Condition is Permanent. World music, and African music in particular, often falls into two categories: pleasant and inoccuous, or the fetishized other. Even speaking of "African" music is misleading. Senegalese mbalax doesn't sound that much like Camaroonian makossa.
And I don't say this as some great authority; I'm still just at the beginning of the learning curve.
So come along with me. There's the broad
Benne Loxo du Taccu, the sidebar of
Mudd Up!, the great (and self-explanitory)
African Hiphop,
Stern's Music (this link going to a more accessible Thione Seck),
Aduna (for Francophones— my middle-school French gets me by, but I'm really there for the music),
Du Bruit (more Francophones, with an emphasis on vinyl sharities), and
Worldly Disorientation (which covers all sorts of world music, but has some excellent African stuff).
Have I missed anything great? Recommend it in the thread. I tend to prefer the psychedelic and dubby stuff more than straight folk styles, but that's me.
posted by klangklangston
on Nov 17, 2005 -
42 comments
Vinyl Sharity There's a lot of
exotic*,
odd†,
thrilling‡, and
strangely catchy° music out there on the net. Through
Weirdo Music and Record Brother, I've begun to touch the tip...
And while there's a fairly proscribed etiquette regarding the sharity sites (limited time for downloads, out-of-print only, desisting when asked), I find that
Free Albums and
Strange Reaction have put me off of buying new RIAA albums more than Napster or Kazaa ever did.
(Well, there is
Regnyouth, but the downloading is such a pain in the ass for most of it that I only ever really bother with things that I own on a format that I can't convert like cassette, or that I listen to once and delete, like Interpol).
But where do you go for weirdo music? Anything you've found in digging through these sites that's struck your fancy?
(And if you have sharities to, well, share:
You Send It,
Rapidshare and
MegaUpload are pretty much the gold standard.)
*
From Bellybongo
†
From WM
‡
From Basic Hip
°
From Comfort Stand
posted by klangklangston
on Sep 21, 2005 -
5 comments
