The demise of record shops

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Pip

Ahah! So long as I know where it is.

No rush, I know where you live. :^)

--
Wounded Uncle Nigel - Podium Placed Ducati Race Engineer as featured in
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Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha Vmax Honda ST1100 wiv trailer

 

While we're on the subject, here are my blues(ish) CDs which get played
most often. In no particular order:

Muddy Waters - Hard Again
Johnny Winter - The Winter of '88
John Lee Hooker - The Healer
Buddy Guy and Junior Wells - Drinkin' TNT 'n' Smokin' Dynamite
Ernestine Anderson - When The Sun Goes Down

I guess I'm still suffering from the yuppie blues revival of the late
eighties.

Any other recommendations?

 

Kind of non-sequitur here but aren't you from the Gloucestershire
area? Do you ever go to the Blues Festival? I went a couple of years
ago when Andy F-L was on and it was a good show. This year I'll only
be able to make the 1st night and was hoping someone might recommend
what's worth seeing.

 

Apart from the two I mentioned earlier, if you like blues-ish rock, apart
from the usual suspects such as Zeppelin, you could check out any /early/
album by Grand Funk Railroad. The Live album is particularly good - probably
the best live album I've heard by any band ever. They can be a bit difficult
to get hold of - I know a man etc. How about some Uriah Heep? Very 'eavy,
Very 'umble, or Demons and Wizards.

Yeah, these aren't pure blues bands, but for me it's best when amplified a
lot.

Alternatively, if you want to stick with yuppie blues, how about Blues Alive
by Gary Moore?

 

A good - and for me, rather expensive[1] - way of finding new and
interesting blues artists is by listening to The Roadhouse blues podcast
at http://www.roadhousepodcast.com/. The guy's a proper blues geek and
while he can only play a small fraction of his collection due to
licensing issues, I've found plenty of interesting artists there. There
are a couple of other decent blues podcasts (Murphy's Saloon and Raven
and the blues come to mind) which are also worth checking out.

Artist-wise, apart from the bigger names already mentioned, a few other
came to mind:

- Omar and the Howlers, which is more dirty electric Texas Blues
- Michael Burks, electric Chicago-style blues. Very, very good
- Luther Allison, one of the guys from the '60s Chicago blues
revival. Later went to live in Paris, played very rock-y, funky
blues.
- Bernard Allison (son of Luther), plays well enough to apparently have
impressed SRV with his skill...
- Lonnie Brooks, more Chicago electric blues

For New Orleans-style piano blues, check out Marcia Ball, although you
may want to go to the source and check out Professor Longhair as well.

Label-wise, for the '80s yuppie blues stuff check out Rounder Records,
they've had a lot of good stuff back then, mostly Texas-based
artists. Pretty much anything on Alligator is worth buying, too, plus
there's a small German label called Ruf Records who pretty much
specialist in Blues and Blues-related music and have tons of good
stuff.

[1] 'cause it keeps increasing the size of my CD collection

 

the times they are a changin' . I haven't been in a "record
shop" (sic) for a few years - I'm more than happy to buy everything
online.

yes, and rightly so.

 

The Karate Kid at his finest.

Also a rather obvious reference in Oh Brother Where Art Thou.

 

For every Robert Johnson, there's a Gary Moore.

 

We'll be waiting: paper is medium far superior to anything else
currently available.

 

None of the music I buy can be found in 'regular' music shops. They
only sell the stuff that is instantly popular and so don't stock
anything that isn't bought by the truckload.

Strangely enough with vinyl making a bit of a comeback some small
record shops look like they will survive - whether this is just a small
fad or a long-term trend is anyones guess[1].

And hopefully will result in the death of the big-4 record companies.
Since nowadays it doesn't take a fortune to make a CD (or even an album
since the trend is not to even make CDs any more) the only real need is
for a) independant music studios that artists can hire and b) marketing
organisations that the artists can use to promote themselves.

Anything that removes the appalling situation where an artist only gets
5% of the money from the sale of one of their songs is a good thing.

Strange? Normal I calls it.

Phil

 

"I want to buy a grampohone."

Aye. Ordered a CD[1] from Amazon 10.30am Friday, it dropped through
the letterbox on Saturday morning at 9am.

Agreed.

[1] Jools Holland - saw him at Hampton Court Thursday evening and it
was superb. Guest vocalists: Ruby Turner & Lulu.

 

I sincerely hope not. Books are marvellous things - you don't need
anything special to read them, apart from light and at least one eye.
There are hundreds of thousands of books still extant that would never
be transferred to any new medium - lack of popular interest, etc.

I can see that some bookshops will go - many already have, as their
customer base changes or vanishes in some places, but there'll always be
a place for specialist book dealers.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

I don't disagree with you. The key word is "currently".

 

Yeah, but you can't grep dead trees. They're heavy and take up a lot
of space, it'd be a bunch more convenient if every book you owned was
available instantly on some easily transported medium that fits in
your pocket and is as easy to read as a regular book.

There are already websites for that kind of thing.
..

 

For `currently' read `currently and for any foreseeable
future'. Screens suck.

 

Interminable guitar widdling. Like a Steve Vai single played at 33rpm.

 

along the way, the 3 escaped cons hook up with a black blues-guitar
player who they find at a cross-roads, waiting for the devil to turn
up.

 

<checks imdb>

Well, he was in My Cousin Vinny, though that was really Joe Pesci's
show.

The guitarist they meet at the crossroads who's allegedly sold his soul
to the devil in exchange for leet guitar skills. Though, consulting the
pedia, it seems that may have been a reference to another Johnson
shirt-tailing the same legend.

 

who mentioned screens?

I reckon affordable, nice to use flexible ePaper is only round the
corner.

 

Never underestimate the army of geeks with scanners. Project Gutenberg
is only the tip of the iceberg.

More crucially, I'm an absent-minded bugger and while I don't mind
losing 7 quids worth of paper and ink, I'd be far more aggrieved at
losing relatively expensive electronics containing files that are so
DRM'ed to the hilt that I can't even lend them to anyone.