Tomorrow Is Vinyl Saturday...

 

...and you know what that means: It's an official reason/excuse for yer vinyl-centric EIC to buy more wax! Yes, it's true — the folks who bring us that wonderful annual spring event, Record Store Day, are presenting Saturday, June 20, as the inaugural Vinyl Saturday. Among the day's sweet exclusives are limited-edition offerings from the likes of Wilco, Green Day, Pete Yorn/Scarlett Johansson, and Modest Mouse. So get on out to your favorite rekkid store and do yer vinyl duty. And feel free to look for me at my preferred haunt in NJ, Vintage Vinyl. Happy hunting, y'all... —Mike Mettler, S&V EIC

The Perfect Shield

The Shield remains one of the most seamless shows that has ever aired, period. It never faltered, never stumbled, never even had a "fill-in" or "coasting" episode. For seven seasons, Michael Chiklis's Vic Mackey runned and gunned all over the seediest neighborhoods in L.A. as if his life depended on it (it did), and we were treated to some of the grittiest, most brutally honest law-and-disorder storytelling and envelope-pushing seen on basic cable. (Thank you, FX.)

The final season, Season 7, has just made it onto DVD, and it brings everything to a head with one of the most satisfying — if ultimately unrepentingly tragic — endings to a show ever. The full-frame Super 16 handheld style that was established in the pilot held consistent throughout all seven seasons, giving The Shield a signature look that built upon the documentarian, you-are-there feel of Homicide: Life on the Street. You'll have to adjust your eyes and expectations if you watch these DVDs on a plasma set as I did — and via my Blu-ray Disc player to boot — but once you do (I was duly attenuated by Episode 3), the realism of it all becomes, well, all that more real.

Once again, Sony has ensured a memorable box set, with each of the 12 episodes carrying commentaries from multiple sources; almost every episode of the entire series, in fact, has a commentary like that. And unlike many an empty BS commentary session, each one here is worth your time, due to a) the general camaraderie and respect both the actors and creators have for each other and the work as a whole, and b) the cognizant shepherding of series creator Shawn Ryan. I recently spoke with Ryan about the minutiae of this box set specifically and the greatness of The Shield in general, and we'll be posting that interview here soon. Stay tuned — you'll not see the likes of this one again anytime soon. —Mike Mettler, S&V EIC

Best CDs of 2007: The Ones That Got Away

Our Best CDs of 2007 list will appear soonly in the Feb/March '08 issue (you may even find it posted on the site before that if you dig around some), but I wanted to take a moment and bulletpoint a ten-spot of discs I enjoyed in '07 that 1) didn't get on my personal Top 10 list (also posted) and 2) didn't get a full review either in the mag or on the site. All 10 of these entries are worthy of your time, your ears, and your dollars. (Yes, I said dollars. No stealing now, ya hear?)

1) The Ike Reilly Assassination: We Belong to the Staggering Evening (Rock Ridge Music). I LOVE Ike. Gritty songwriter. Sweaty performer. Knows how to build/bulldoze a groove and stay in it. You may have even heard a song from this album on Dirty Sexy Money recently ("You're So Plain") without realizing it. More good 'n' grimy tunes are coming in the new year, and I'm eager to receive, baby.

Surround & Visionaries

Porcupine Tree mastermind Steven Wilson (holding down the middle position and leaning on the center channel in the accompanying photo) dropped by the S&V offices yesterday for a 2-hour surround-sound listening session with yours truly (at right) and entertainment editor Ken Richardson (at left). Wilson sat in our sound room's sweet spot while I perched in a chair to his left and PTree manager extraordinaire Andy Leff sat to his right. Richardson kept to his feet and acted as the 5.1 mix-master of ceremonies, swapping out a number of benchmark surround mixes for Wilson to listen to and comment upon for a story that will appear in the not-so-distant future. Wilson, one of the most accomplished surround-sound creators/mixers/producers on the scene today, is a charter anointee in a new Visionaries series we'll be introducing in S&V in 2008.

Purple Fudge

How's this for a double bill — Vanilla Fudge and Deep Purple at Radio City Music Hall on Tuesday night (8/7). Or, to be more specific, the original Vanilla Fudge and Deep Purple Mark 8. Either way, it was a must-do event. Local Long Island boys done good, the Fudge totally rode the Wayback Machine during their hour-long set, rightly namechecking late NYC radio legends like Scott Muni and Alison Steele along the way. Thud and thunder kept this set rooted in the halcyon days of 1967 and '68, but I didn't mind. Bassist Tim Bogert piledrove the low end, whirlwind drummer Carmine Appice took a sweet vocal turn on Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready," guitarist Vince Martell tore it up on "Season of the Witch," and keyboardist/vocalist Mark Stein worked that Hammond organ of his all night long. Bogert intro'ed the mythic set closer "You Keep Me Hangin' On" as "the one that bought the house," and then they brought the house down. A total of-era hour of music 40 years gone, but I was entranced.

And then there was Purple.

Cops N’ Bloggers

Saw the last U.S. show of this first leg of the Police's '07/'08 tour at Giants Stadium last night. Having never caught them back during their heyday, this was a must-see gig. (Geez, did I really pay THAT MUCH [take a guess] for these tickets back in February?) Sting, guitarist Andy Summers, and drummer Stewart Copeland put on a muso/chops clinic for about 100 minutes or so, giving us about 19 songs' worth of full stadium singalong bliss. (Paging new contestants for Don't Forget the Lyrics...) I thought the boys were having a good ol' time up there, the show being a little less bloodless to me than it's been to other tour bloggers. Maybe it had something to do with an end-of-tour-leg adrenaline rush. (I coulda done with more audience interaction, though.) I liked that they played vintage instruments from tours past and that they chose not to add any accompaniment (i.e., no keyboardists, second guitarists, sax players, or background singers) to fill out the sound. That decision resulted in some creative intros that didn't immediately give away the song at hand.

The Miller Brothers Band

"He better stop doing that blues shit." So sneered a fairly svelte brunette seated in front of me during the classic-rock two-fer show I saw at PNC in NJ this past Friday (7/27): the Doobie Brothers and the Steve Miller Band. In this case, "he" was Steve Miller and I could not have DISAGREED more with Ms. Buff Brunette. What could have easily been a rubber-stamped going-through-the-motions affair for both acts was instead a quite lively and engaging gig. And all from the seventh row, no less (specifically, Row G, Right Orch Center, the two on the end — for once, the almighty Ticketmaster came through. "If only we could get these seats for every show we see here," was the first thing I said to the Mrs. as soon as we got down to 'em.)

The Doobies opened the show promptly at 7:30 with their 1991 hit "Dangerous." It took a few songs for the crowd, the band, and the overall vibe to pick up steam after that, but when everything started clicking, the whole house was SMOKIN'. While John McFee handled the majority of the solos (even picking up the fiddle at one point!), both Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons came to the lip of the stage plenty of times to peel off some nice 'n' tasty licks of their own.

A La Satellite

If you follow S&V with any regularity, you know that I'm a HUGE fan of satellite radio. So I was quite pleased to see yesterday's reports of the possibility of a la carte pricing plans for Sirius and XM in hopes of pushing the proposed merger through. $14.99 a month would get you "premium services" (i.e., football, baseball, and basketball programming) and 100 channels, and $6.99 would let you choose 50 nonpremium channels between the two services, with each additional channel costing 25 cents. Looks like you'll need (of course) a new radio to do all that, however. And if you're happy with what you've got now, you can stick with it at the current $12.95 rate.

I like the idea. I'd love to pick and choose my favorite channels and receive them on one device. (Let's see, I'll take XM's Deep Tracks, and Sirius' Underground Garage, and...) But as a current subscriber to both services — actually, I have three subs to Sirius and three subs to XM (home, office, car for each) — I'd have to buy a new radio for sure.

Bach to the Future

"It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself." —Johann Sebastian Bach
The bust at left resides in the onsite S&V soundroom (we've got an offsite facility as well). I spent the past day in there absorbing and re-absorbing the 5.1 mix on the MVI of Rush's Snakes & Arrows, which will be posted on the main site at the top of next week. Right now I'm at 1,700 words and I haven't even gotten to the documentary and the other extras yet. (We're nothing but thorough here at S&V...)

BTW, at first post, I had initially ID'ed the bust as our man Ludwig van Beethoven, but eagle-eyed Ken Richardson gently reminded me that it weren't him — it be Bach. Egad, my bad. (Cue Beethoven's Ninth. Er, rather, make that a Brandenburg Concerto. Fugue-in' A!)

Anyway, gotta get back to it. What say you, Johann, old chap? "Bring me a bowl of coffee before I turn into a goat." Uh, okay. Maybe later.... do you take decaf? —Mike Mettler

Traveling Bandburys

How gratifying was it to see that The Traveling Wilburys recently debuted at #9 in the U.S. and at #1 in the U.K. with The Traveling Wilburys Collection (Rhino/Wilbury), a three-disc compilation that includes both of their albums (1988's Volume 1 and 1990's Volume 3) and a making-of DVD? Said albums have been out of print for some time, so clearly there was a demand for the collected works of Lucky/Boo, Otis/Clayton, Charlie T. Jnr/Muddy, Lefty, and Nelson/Spike Wilbury. (That's Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and George Harrison, for the uninitiated.)

I have both of the original CDs — and, naturally, LPs — and also half of the bonus tracks in, shall we say, inferior versions, but it's nice to own all official things Wilbury under one digipak (and/or deluxe edition). And vinyl reissues are indeed on the horizon, something I obviously applaud.