The Moles - Untune The Sky

The Moles' Untune The Sky, one of the great lost albums of the 90s, has been reissued as a limited edition 2 LP set by Kill Shamen records. The set looks to be a straight reissue of the Flydaddy CD that was released back in 1999 that included the entire 1991 LP, plus the 2 X 7" single that was released on Ringers Lactate in 1992.

Untune The Sky was almost impossible to find in the U.S. upon its original release, and the Ringers Lactate single was not much easier to come by. I did find a copy of the single, but then I was working at Kim's Underground at the time, and I bought one of maybe three copies that came in (the other two no doubt also snagged by employees).

This is an essential release for fans of retro 60s psychedelic pop, as well as devotees of Kiwi pop (though the Moles hailed from Australia). Even at this early stage in his career, bandleader and primary songwriter Richard Davies had a sharp ear for melody. The production and arrangements are less elaborate than those of his seminal duo Cardinal or his solo work, but they have a certain ragged charm missing from his later work.

"Bury Me Happy" the lead off cut from the album (at least on the reissue) to my ears has much in common with the experimental indie-pop of New Zealanders like The Clean, while "What's The New Mary Jane" takes Davies' pop-psych songwriting to the next level. It takes cojones to nick a title from Lennon-McCartney, but The Moles pull it off. Great as this version is, it compares unfavorably to my memory of Davies performing the song live with the Flaming Lips as his backup band.

If you don't have a turntable, the Flydaddy CD can still be found used and I highly recommend it.

Resplendent/Downey - Respondent EP

Resplendent is (was?) the moniker used by Michael Lenzi of Number One Cup and The Fireshow to release his solo music. So far as I am aware, the last release under the Resplendent moniker was the 2007 Respondent EP, a collaboration between Lenzi and Mike Downey. Lenzi recorded the basic tracks and Downey remixed them. Lenzi describes the collaboration as follows:

In the beginning of 2005 I played my one and only show under the name of Resplendent. I had a band of 4 people consisting of Derek See (guitar), Pat O’Connell (guitar) and Joe Adamik (drums).

I was a bit discouraged after that and decided I needed to take a break. Perhaps that would revive me. It did temporarily and I set about recording an EP called Spring. I thought that I would release it under the name of Michael Lenzi, thus retiring the Resplendent moniker.

I came up with 3 songs which I recorded in a few weeks in my home studio Plastic Skull. I promptly shared them with a few people and forgot about them. My desire to make music vanished.

I did however share them on my website. That is how Mike Downey heard them. He contacted me and we talked about a collaboration but it fizzled on my end. I just couldn’t get the music going again.

He plugged away on his own and sent me a remixed track by email. It was awesome. He went ahead and did the other two tracks from the EP. I loved them so we decided to release the collaboration. This is it.

All my tracks were recorded using my two samplers: the AKAI MPC 2000 XL and the Roland DJ-70. I recorded them on a 1/2″ analog 8-track machine. Mike did his remixing, editing and additional recording in early 2007 at his home studio Funkis & Svettis in Stockholm using an iBook and Ableton Live.

I hope we haven't heard the last of Resplendent, because the music lives up to everything that is implied by the moniker. You can download the entire EP for free (legally) here. I highly recommend it.

Free MP3 From Richard Thompson's Upcoming Dream Attic Album

Richard Thompson is offering a free MP3 download of "Big Sun Falling In The River" a track from his upcoming album, Dream Attic. It's an album of new songs, but in order to capture the energy of his live shows, the bulk of the performances on the album were recorded live at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. The album is scheduled for August 31st release on Shout Factory.

The track list for Dream Attic is as follows:

1. The Money Shuffle
2. Among the Gorse, Among the Grey
3. Haul Me Up
4. Burning Man
5. Here Comes Geordie
7. Crimescene
8. Big Sun Falling in the River
9. Stumble On
10. Sidney Wells
11. A Brother Slips Away
12. Bad Again
13. If Love Whispers Your Name

Happy Birthday To Me

I've wanted a to own a copy of Public Image Ltd.'s post-punk masterpiece, Metal Box, for the last quarter of a century or more, ever since I bought and was captivated by the music on the inferior U.S. double disc 33 rpm version entitled Second Edition. So as a birthday present to myself I finally bit the bullet and bid on a pristine copy on eBay from a reputable seller. Unfortunately, the album must be shipped from the U.K., so it will be a few weeks before I finally have the 3 X 45 rpm metal encased LPs in my grubby hands.

Despite my years of record shopping, I do not think I have ever seen Metal Box in a record store. Maybe I saw it on the wall at Orpheus Records in Georgetown at some outrageous price once. I'm looking forward to finally hearing this album the way it was meant to be heard.

LA Times Says Cassettes Are Making A Comeback

Have you heard the news? The Compact Cassette is making a comeback. The revival of interest in the lowly cassette tape documented by August Brown in the LA Times appears to be a modest, fringe phenomenon, but a real one nonetheless. Pitchfork noted the same trend in more detail back in February. I have been known to wax nostalgic on the topic of the mixtape on occasion myself.

We've been reading stories about resurgent interest in vinyl records for years now, so it was probably only a matter of time before the cassette started making a comeback as well. People tend to think of the CD as replacing the LP, but the picture is more complicated than that when you consider the often forgotten fact that from the early-80s through the early-90s the cassette was actually the dominant music format for both home recording and pre-recorded music. Pre-recorded cassette sales passed up LP sales sometime in the early 80s, and it was not until 1993 that CDs outsold cassette tapes in the United States. The compact cassette had about a decade of extremely robust sales, so it is not surprising that there would be a revival of interest in the format approximately 20 years after its decline began.

The good news is that my boss (evidently unaware of the cassette's impending resurgence) recently gave me his Nakamichi RX-202 cassette deck, so I will have something really nice on which to play the "outré noise-rock" currently being released exclusively on cassette.


I'll try to post some thoughts about what this resurgence might be about later.

College Radio Project - Posters

I've been searching through my own personal archives to see if I still have any interesting curios or artifacts from my college radio days. Stuffed away in a file labeled "Nostalgia," I found a few 8.5" X 11" posters that I had used to promote my radio show. I would typically give names to my radio shows in the tradition of John Peel's "The Perfumed Garden" and other underground radio shows of the past, and put up posters around campus to promote the show. One semester I named my show "666 Minutes" (a nod both to MTV's "120 Minutes" program and the Dark One), other names included "The Crypt Of Terror" and "The Tina Yothers Experience" (in tribute to the Family Ties actress).


I used to hang these up around the campus HUB building, and they would tend to get torn down fairly quickly. It seemed some at the college did not appreciate my way of promoting my radio program. Eventually a rule was passed that anything hung on the walls of the HUB had to first get a stamp of approval from the Director of Residence Life. I never sought the stamp of approval (as I doubt it would have been granted, and I didn't want some official stamp mucking up my posters). So my posters would get torn down even faster than before, and I would see how quickly I could put more up. It became like a game to me.


At one point during my Junior year I was called into a Dean's office to hear complaints from three of college's more socially conservative students about my posters. Someone who was not a fan of my work had kept a file of some of my more lurid promotional efforts. I must admit, the complaining students were actually very nice and extremely sincere in their criticisms. They let me know that they were concerned I was promoting suicide and possibly satanism with these posters. I remember one of them earnestly telling me she was very disturbed to see the number of the beast being used at her college. The Dean was careful to let me know that no one wanted to "censor" me, but that she did want me to hear how what I was doing was making some students feel.


I thanked the students for bringing their concerns to me, then told them in the nicest way I could that I thought they were sheltered and if they bothered to walk five blocks off campus they would see a hundred things more disturbing than my posters. I also told them that part of being an adult was learning to deal with viewpoints different from their own. I remember also telling the Dean that while I appreciated these students concerns, I did not believe they were a representative cross sample of students at the college and represented an extreme minority viewpoint. That was the last I heard about it.

My friend Mike who was then Station Manager (I was Music Director at the time) had been required to attend the meeting with me, though he let me do most of the talking. He told me afterward that he was amazed at my ability to keep my cool and advance rational arguments in my defense without backing down. Frankly, I was a little surprised by my ability to do this myself. I think before the meeting Mike considered me a bit of a goofball, but I earned his respect that day. He had been grooming someone else to become Station Manager when he stepped down because he didn't think I was "serious" enough to do the job. But when he did step down at the end of that semester he insisted that I take over the job.


For the most part, these yellowed-with-age posters look incredibly juvenile to me today. The "666 Minutes" one strikes me as particularly sophomoric, but then I was a sophomore in college when I created it, so I have an excuse. In retrospect, I must admit that I was just as sheltered as my more conservative classmates, albeit perhaps in a different way. Some of the students at my college came from extremely conservative, religious backgrounds and it was hard for me to see these posters through their eyes. It still is. But today I am better able to sympathize with those who see the world differently than me, and respect those who hold beliefs different from my own. I spoke the truth when I told my classmates that part of being an adult was "learning to deal with perspectives different from your own," but it was a lesson I had yet to fully absorb myself. I didn't appreciate having to meet with those students at the time, but in retrospect I consider it an important part of my education, and I think the Dean was quite wise to have called the meeting.

I'm looking to collect recollections and artifacts from others relating to college radio. If you have any artifacts, curios or stories relating to college radio you can send submissions to me at wpbilderback [at] gmail.com.

College Radio Project - Call For Submissions

A recent story in my College's alumni magazine got me thinking a bit about the time I spent in college radio. The article featured some nice quotes from my friend David Brower, who preceded me as the station's Music Director and has since gone on to become the Program Director at WUNC, a public radio station in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Thinking about this made me decide to embark on a modest project for this blog. I'd like to collect and publish some of my readers' memories and anecdotes from their time in college radio.

I'm looking to document peoples' experiences, so you can send me amusing stories about your time as a College Radio DJ, or simply memories of listening to a college radio station. Maybe you want to tell me about the time you got a phone call from a death row inmate who just had to hear "The Rainbow Connection" one more time. Maybe you have a story about the time you were so stoned you didn't notice "Dark Star" had been skipping for an hour and a half. Or maybe you want to tell me about the time you heard a College Radio DJ create a weird sound collage by mixing together bits of "The Rainbow Connection," "Dark Star" and the theme song from The Six Million Dollar Man, or the time you heard They Might Be Giants' "Don't Let's Start" five times in an hour via your local College's airwaves and thought you would go insane.

Did you learn anything from your experience? Can you place your memories in some broader social and/or political context? It doesn't matter to me, so long as you can remember it. I'm interested in stories from any time period, from the present day back to the 60s and beyond. I can publish the stories anonymously (with names changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty) or with full attribution depending on what you are comfortable with. All I ask is that the stories be true (or at least based on real memories). So please don't send me your screenplay about the rebel College Radio DJ who fights the power, sticks it to the man and refuses to back down by playing the music of Live Skull and Pussy Galore. Submissions can be as short or as long (within reason) as you like. You can send submissions to me at wpbilderback [at] gmail.com.

To my regular readers, I've installed some magic buttons at the bottom of this post that allow you to share it via email, your own blog, twitter, facebook and even google buzz (yeah, I know). Please consider using one of these methods to help spread this call for submissions beyond the confines my normal loyal readership.

chisel - if you believe in christmas trees

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists have a (relatively) new album called The Brutalist Bricks out on Matador. Leo can be (and has been) accused of repeating himself. He's stuck pretty closely to his power-pop/punk formula over the years. And after twenty some years of music making he has yet to pen a rock opera or record an album with the Brodsky Quartet. What he can't be accused of is failing to make catchy, passionate music, and the Brutalist Bricks is no exception.

Anyway, the new album got me in the mood to revisit the music of Leo's old mod/punk revival band, Chisel.

I have a very vivid memory of seeing Chisel live with Slant 6 and (I think) Blonde Redhead at a club in New York City's meatpacking district called The Cooler. This was probably early spring of 1995, but don't hold me to that because I'm going strictly from memory here. I'm pretty sure The Cooler shut down a long time ago, but during the 90s it was one of the better indie music venues in the city.

The Cooler, as its name implies, was located in what used to be a giant walk-in freezer. This made for a very interesting atmosphere and really crummy acoustics. With walls made of highly reflective aluminum it is a wonder the club sounded as good as it did. Anytime I saw a show at The Cooler I couldn't help but think about the animal carcasses that not so long ago were the venue's primary occupants. Occasionally an image of Frankie Carbone at the end of Goodfellas would pop into my head. The club was always getting busted by the cops for some violation or another, but I don't remember any problems that night.

Leo and his band mates Chris Norborg and John Dugan put on what I remember as a very tight and energetic show that night, although admittedly my memory of the evening has gotten pretty hazy over time. Later that year Leo would prove he had excellent taste in music beyond the relatively limited mod/punk universe by covering Cardinal's "If You Believe In Christmas Trees" and releasing it as the b-side to their "the o.t.s." single on Darla Records.

Fables Waveforms

It's been a while since I posted any waveforms here, but with the controversy over the mastering of the 25th Anniversary Edition of R.E.M.'s Fables of the Reconstruction, I thought I'd give it another crack.

The first waveform is a screen shot of the track "Cant Get There From Here" taken from my needledrop of the original 1985 LP. (For technical details, see comments).

"Cant Get There From Here" (1985 LP Needledrop)

The next waveform represents the same song taken from the original 1985 IRS/MCA CD.

Some have criticized me in the past for comparing waveforms taken from LP needledrops to those taken from CDs. The argument against doing so is that the manifold noise and distortions inherent to LP playback make any such waveform comparisons invalid. But as you can see below, the needledrop and CD waveforms look remarkably similar. In terms of dynamic range, I found less than 0.5 dB difference between these two tracks, so whatever distortion LP playback adds to the picture here, it is of a low enough order not to have a tremendous impact on the track's dynamic range.

"Cant Get There From Here" (1985 IRS/MCA CD)

That is not to say the two tracks sounded identical. While similar in terms of dynamic range, to my ears the CD track sounded somewhat thin and bright compared to the LP sourced track. This is not to say that the CD sounded bad, but to my ears it lacked the depth and fullness of the needledroped track.

Finally, we come to the remastered 2010 version of "Cant Get There From Here." As expected, the remastered version is louder than the other versions, around 8 dB louder on average. With an average RMS value of approximately -12 dB, this is hardly the most compressed remaster I have seen (that distinction belongs to Iggy Pop's remixed Raw Power, which averages around -4 dB). For a more reasonable point of comparison most tracks on the recent Deluxe Edition of Exile On Main St. average around -10 dB.

"Cant Get There From Here" (2010 Capitol Remaster)

So, how did the remaster sound in comparison to the other tracks? Well, most obviously it was louder. A lot louder. I had to turn my stereo way down when switching to the new remaster. In order to precisely match sound levels I needed the help of my computer. Once I matched levels and compared tracks it seemed the remaster had a slightly hollow sound compared to the other tracks, and tonally I thought it was brighter than either the older CD or the LP. I also noticed that Michael Stipe's vocals seemed to be boosted slightly in relation to the instruments. The remaster did not sound bad, but I did prefer the two earlier versions.

It's been my experience in listening to compressed remasters that the most regrettable consequences of compression only reveal themselves over time, not in quick back-and-forth comparisons. As I have noted before, heavy compression tends to take a sense of excitement out of the music, resulting in albums that do not hold up to repeated listening.

So while the remastering of Fables could have been worse, it also could have been better. A lot better. Ironically, in 2010 if you want to hear a really good sounding digital version of Fables Of The Reconstruction, you'll have to digitize your old LP.

Newsweek Calls Out R.E.M.'s "iPod Ready" Fables Reissue

I was very surprised to see the so-called "loudness war" get a mention in Newsweek, where Seth Colter Walls criticizes the recent 25th Anniversary deluxe reissue of Fables Of the Reconstruction for having been mastered too loud (Shiny Happy Remaster?). Colter Walls rightly points out that the atmospheric Fables is not the sort of album that particularly lends itself to today's pumped up, super-compressed mastering aesthetic.

Having compared the remaster to my original LP, I agree that the remastering was louder than it should have been, and I definitely preferred the sound of the original LP. (I have never heard the original CD, so I can't offer any insight on that). That said, I also thought the differences I heard were more subtle than is often the case with contemporary remasters, and this album is far from the worst remaster I have heard. As I noted in my original post, "I suspect only the very pickiest of audiophiles would seriously object to the sound quality of the remaster." It seems I was wrong about that, as Colter Walls clearly does not consider himself an audiophile but nonetheless had serious issues with the sound quality of the reissue.

There are a couple things I would take issue with in the article. First, I disagree with the author's contention that recently remastered CDs are typically the safest bet when looking for good sound, and Fables represents something of a special case exception. In general, I have found that the more recent the remaster, the more likely it is to sound bad, although there are enough exceptions that I would hesitate to take things on anything other than a case-by-case basis. Second, I'm not so sure that the increasing loudness of CDs can be so tidily pinned on the iPod. After all, the iPod does feature a "sound check" function that normalizes the volume of all songs on it without effecting dynamic range (although I have no idea how many people use it). Beyond that, the movement toward louder CDs predates the iPod, it's just that we've seen a steadily escalating situation.

For what it's worth, here is my take on why we are seeing louder and louder remasters: There is a strong incentive for labels to produce remasters that sound "different" from what has come before. And making a release 6 or 7 dB louder than previous CD issues will give a lot of people an initial "wow" factor if they don't understand the need to carefully match volume levels in order to make a valid comparison. If you compare the exact same track but only turn the volume up, 9 out of 10 people will immediately say the louder version sounds "better" even if there is no difference at all. So a louder remaster can initially "grab" the listener and give him or her a false sense that what they are hearing is "better," when really it is just louder.

With careful work and using the best current analog-to-digital converters and other equipment it is certainly possible for today's mastering engineers to create remastered CDs that surpass the sound quality of CDs produced ten or twenty years ago. However, if the original CD was well done (not a safe assumption) the improvement in sound tends to be subtle, and not the type that will hit you in the face immediately. To hear the improvement you'll need a decent stereo system and have to know what to listen for. But let's face it, that describes a tiny percentage of the possible market for a reissue like this. It's so much easier for a record company to just to make a remaster louder. Most people (music critics included) will hear that difference instantly and assume it is a change for the better.

In other words, you can fool most of the people all of the time, and the the rest will just complain about it endlessly on blogs and internet discussion boards in such an arrogant and dismissive manner that the rest of the world will assume they are the equivalent of coffee connoisseurs who will only partake of coffee beans that have been crapped out by animals.

That's the unfortunate reality, and I don't see any way around it. I try to educate on my site, but I think that can only help at the margins, and maybe help people who already understand these things to make an informed purchasing decision. So it's good to see the problem being addressed by someone outside the confines of blogs and audio discussion boards, and I hope Colter Walls continues to listen carefully and draw attention to this problem.

It has come to the point with CD reissues where I pretty much just ask myself if I am willing to pay the price of admission for the bonus tracks, because I assume in the end I will not like the remastered sound as much as what came before, especially if I have a decent copy on LP already. The 25th Anniversary reissue of Fables of the Reconstruction is hardly the worst offender in the ongoing loudness war, but there is no doubt in my mind that it would have sounded better had the mastering engineer applied less compression than he did. Perhaps with journalists like Seth Colter Walls drawing more attention to the problem we can have reason to hope for a better sounding deluxe reissue of Lifes Rich Pageant.