For non-anglophones, the English names of worldwide brands, music bands and other cultural items are both ubiquitous and slightly mysterious.
Here what the English (plus some German, Spanish and Japanese) names of
52 brands/logotypes and
30 musicians/records look like when very loosely and somewhat lazily translated in French. Some extras can be found in the comments
(note: annoying pop-up at the start).
posted by elgilito
on Jan 22, 2013 -
72 comments
Record Shops is a new web site that's attempting to list all record shops world wide. Allows you to rate/review shops you're familiar with and scope out the scene in places you're travelling to.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy
on Mar 18, 2012 -
36 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
Peter Goldmark, developer of
early color tv technology, is lesser known for a cooler invention, the
Highway Hifi – the first recorded-music player for an automobile. The under-dash system played
records provided by Columbia Records which played at 16 ⅔ rpm even when the vehicle was in motion. It was first released with Chrysler models in 1956 but lackluster promotion of the option by both Columbia and Chrysler led to the option being
discontinued before the 60s.
[more inside]
posted by jessamyn
on Oct 12, 2009 -
36 comments
The Folkways Collection is a downloadable, 24-part podcast series that "explores the remarkable collection of music, spoken word, and sound recordings that make up Folkways Records (now at the Smithsonian as Smithsonian Folkways Recordings)."
posted by Miko
on Feb 16, 2009 -
27 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.
[more inside]
posted by jonp72
on Jan 16, 2009 -
23 comments
Legendary record man and music producer
Jerry Wexler died on August 15, at the age of 91. His keen insight, and his deep love and appreciation for the artists he worked with resulted in an extraordinary enriching of American music.
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Aug 17, 2008 -
16 comments
Death were a
proto-punk trio of black Jehovah's Witnesses based out of Detroit back in 1974. They were almost signed to Columbia, but bailed on the label when Columbia wanted them to change their name. Instead, they self-released a 7" which is now
quite a collector's item, influenced as it was by,
“Iggy and Stooges, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper and The Who”.
But the story doesn't end there. Recently, Bobby Hackney, whose father played in Death along with two of his uncles, learned of the band and, lo and behold, his dad found the master tapes for their unreleased full-length in his attic. Is a new chapter in
punk rock history about to be written?
posted by stinkycheese
on Jun 11, 2008 -
35 comments
Today is Record Store Day!What is it about music? It is Love and Passion channeled through a medium that cuts across and through actual definition straight to your soul whether you love Blues, Reggae, Country, Punk Rock, or Quawwali music, your favorite artists take you places you could otherwise never go - and that place is often a place of love and inspiration. -
Marc Weinstein [more inside]
posted by carsonb
on Apr 19, 2008 -
38 comments
20 Biggest Record Company Screw-Ups of All Time from Blender Magazine. "They include MCA Records’ decision in 1989 to pass on a Seattle upstart band called Nirvana while also betting big on “Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz,” the debut album of a hair-metal band called Pretty Boy Floyd."
posted by plexi
on Mar 15, 2008 -
50 comments
WFMU's The Hound has been delighting record geeks for the past few decades with sets of some of the wildest, wooliest rockabilly, R&B, blues, gospel, garage rock, and punk that can be dug out of crates. His site offers
full podcasts, and individual mp3's under the
show links, and organized by
artist, and
title.
Bo Diddley singing to Kruschev! Blues songs about the Kinsey report! The Cashmere's talking about the hop! Brownie McGee singing about baseball's integration! Roughly 4 million variations on 'The Twist!' And that;s just the tip of this glorious iceberg.
[more inside]
posted by jonmc
on Nov 18, 2007 -
12 comments
...In 1924 New York Recording Laboratory decided to expand its reach into that market by purchasing the Black Swan label. Founded in 1920 or 1921 by black entrepreneur Harry H. Pace, the pioneering company recorded everything from ragtime to grand opera, as long as it was sung by African-Americans... Paramount's biggest star was Ma Rainey, a blues moaner who influenced the legendary singer Bessie Smith... Paramount did not neglect male blues singers, who tended to be folk artists in the sense that their music was made initially for the entertainment of isolated rural communities. These included the singers and guitarists Charlie Patton... Blind Lemon Jefferson...
Compliments of the Season from
ParamountsHome--where, among many other things, one can find an online copy of David Evans's biography
Charley Patton in Parts
1,
2 and
3 or look at a picture of
Skip James in 1932, not to mention a view of Paramount's promotion of Patton as the
Masked Marvel. And that is not, as they say, all...
posted by y2karl
on Dec 18, 2006 -
14 comments
"In the monitor booth the sound technician listens to the rehearsal through a loudspeaker, and in cooperation with maestro Ellington, brings the music to its highest sound perfection before transmitting it through the electrical circuits to the recording machine!"
Record Making With Duke Ellington (1937).
[YouTube]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Nov 27, 2006 -
11 comments
'Pavarotti of the Plains' In 1957,
Don Walser stopped recording country music and became a National Guardsman, just as rock 'n' roll took over the airwaves. He stayed with the Guard for 39 years, but around 1990, his performances at Henry's in Austin, Texas developed a following. By the end of the decade, he would sign to
Sire Records, open for Ministry and the Butthole Surfers, collaborate with
Kronos Quartet and be honored with a
National Heritage Award. Walser retired from his music career in 2001 because of ill health. He
passed away on Wednesday at age 72.
posted by NemesisVex
on Sep 21, 2006 -
17 comments
Digital Needle is a virtual gramophone open source program that converts scanned--yes, scanned--vinyl records into audio.
posted by brittney
on Feb 10, 2003 -
17 comments
The end of Vinyl II? Stanton ships Final Scratch, which enables a DJ to manipulate (mix, scratch, cut...) any music on their PC with their turntables. Besides not needing to carry all the weight and bulk of crates of records around, DJs can now skip the expensive and complicated step of cutting their own records in order to play original tracks. Is vinyl going to die for real this time?
posted by badstone
on Jan 15, 2003 -
35 comments
Show and Tell Music - Thrift Store Vinyl. There are lots of vinyl sites out there, but some of the items in this collection had me
floored. And the quantity is just as impressive as the quality -- several pages of unintentionally funny Christian vinyl you have to see to believe. MP3 samples too! Via
BoingBoing, but got lost under a lengthy EFF post (which was also good).
posted by condour75
on Dec 5, 2002 -
26 comments
In an a era where so much music seems overly mechanical
Funk45.com and
Galactic Fractures are terrific reminders that danceablity can be warm and loose and that human-powered music is the funkiest. These sites have what every good music site should have, encyclopedaic knowledge, detailed info, and truckloads of audio that makes you wanna find a good record store and hunt down the 45's yourself. And it's all presented in a way that encourages you to dig deeper. The song
You Got Me Mama by Hayes Ware is a favorite, but there's plenty of great stuff.
requires RealAudio
posted by jonmc
on Aug 31, 2002 -
6 comments
Trouserpress.com is back! After a hiatus of over two-and-a-half years,
Trouserpress.com was re-launched today. The site contains just about all of the band profiles and album reviews from editor Ira Robbins' comprehensive and informative
Trouser Press Record Guide book series from the 80s/90s. Since all but the most recent "90s rock" book are out-of-print, it's great to have this amazing indie/new wave/punk/alt rock music reference available once more.
posted by nstop
on Aug 14, 2002 -
13 comments
Frank's Vinyl Museum is an invaluable resource for those of use who think that there's a thin line between trash and treasure. It's also a great place to indulge your taste in guilty musical pleasures without having to actually buy any of these crappy records at your local thrift store.
posted by MrBaliHai
on Nov 10, 2001 -
9 comments
