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2014 FOG! Holiday Gift Guide: Music & Audio Related!

Guitar #1711

In Oct. 2010, Otto D’Ambrosio and Julian Lage first discussed the making of a custom crafted instrument– a unique design, perfectly suited to the guitarist’s highly individual style. It took 206 days for D’Ambrosio to make the instrument, entirely by hand, using traditional tools and techniques. From the start of the build to the completion of the project, filmmaker Guy Benoit was there to document every step of the construction. When guitar #1711 was finished, Lage premiered the instrument in concert, before a small and spellbound audience at the guitar maker’s Pawtucket loft/workshop/studio.

Guitar #1711 is an atmospheric film, and the story drifts along with a dreamy grace,” says filmmaker Benoit. “It begins and ends in a workshop– a lonely brick mill. Along the way, D’Ambrosio and Lage take the audience on a passionate journey with their hands, as the luthier builds and the guitarist plays the extraordinary instrument in the making—guitar #1711.”

The DVD edition of Guitar #1711 includes two bonus features; a companion cd and Mp3 music download of the solo performance by Julian Lage, and a learning guide in which D’Ambrosio describes and details aspects of his guitar building technique.

Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever: Deluxe Collector’s Set

Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever debuted on NBC on May 16, 1983, and became an immediate sensation. The highlight that caused the most talk was Michael Jackson’s world premiere of the moonwalk (aka six seconds that changed the world) but Motown 25 had an abundance of buzzworthy moments—reunions by the Miracles, the Supremes and The Jackson 5; the first battle of the bands between The Temptations and Four Tops; and the hottest comedian in the world at the time, Richard Pryor, as host. This Deluxe Collector’s Edition includes a 6 DVD Set with extended version of Motown 25 concert featuring Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Four Tops, The Jackson 5 and others, 14 hours of bonus features, not available anywhere else and an exclusive booklet filled with information about the performers, production materials, and behind-the-scenes photos.

Portable Suitcase Turntable with Matching Headphones

Take your rock and roll show on the road. Long before CDs and MP3s, everyone’s tunes were, quite literally, “in the groove.” Now you can get back in the groove with this cool portable record player. Take it with you anywhere you want to spin your favorite old vinyl classics. It goes from suitcase to spin station in seconds and even has its own speakers. Some cool over-the-ear headphones provide the option of private listening, too.

Ziggy Stardust Sock Monkey

Introducing the Thin White Duke in sock monkey form! Let him magic dance thru your home for just one day…

Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting

This is the second and revised edition of Eilon Paz’s 436-page coffee-table book that illuminates over 130 vinyl collectors and their collections in the most intimate of environments-their record rooms. With a foreword by the RZA, compelling photographic essays are paired with in-depth interviews to illustrate what motivates record collectors to keep digging for more records.

Readers get an up close and personal look at a variety of well-known vinyl champions as well as a glimpse into the collections of known and unknown DJs, producers, record dealers, and everyday enthusiasts. The book is divided into two main parts: the first features 250 full-page photos framed by captions and select quotes, while the second consists of 13 full-length interviews that delve deeper into collectors’ personal histories and vinyl troves.

Bruce Springsteen: The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973-1984

A boxed set comprised of remastered editions of the first seven albums recorded and released by Bruce Springsteen for Columbia Records between 1973 and 1984. All of the albums are newly remastered (five for the first time ever on CD) and all seven are making their remastered debut on vinyl. The seven albums are recreations of their original packaging and the set is accompanied by a 60 page book featuring rarely-seen photos, memorabilia and original press clippings from Springsteen’s first decade as a recording artist.

Acclaimed engineer Bob Ludwig, working with Springsteen and longtime engineer Toby Scott, has remastered these albums, all newly transferred from the original analogue masters using the Plangent Process playback system. The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973-1984 includes: Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (1973), The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle (1973), Born To Run (1975), Darkness On The Edge Of Town (1978), The River (1980), Nebraska (1982) and Born In The U.S.A. (1984)

Let’s Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain by Alan Light

Purple Rain is a song, an album, and a film—each one a commercial success and cultural milestone. How did this semi-autobiographical musical masterpiece that blurred R&B, pop, dance, and rock sounds come to alter the recording landscape and become an enduring touchstone for successive generations of fans?

Purple Rain is widely considered to be among the most important albums in music history and often named the best soundtrack of all time. It sold over a million copies in its first week and blasted to #1 on the charts, where it would remain for a full six months and eventually sell over 20 million copies worldwide. It spun off three huge hit singles, won Grammys and an Oscar, and took Prince from pop star to legend.

Coinciding with the thirtieth anniversary year of Purple Rain’s release, acclaimed music journalist Alan Light takes a timely look at the making and incredible popularizing of this once seemingly impossible project. With impeccable research and in-depth interviews with people who witnessed Prince’s audacious vision becoming a reality, Light reveals how a rising but not yet established artist from the Midwest was able not only to get Purple Rain made, but deliver on his promise to conquer the world.

The Beatles in Mono Vinyl Box Set (Limited Edition)

The Beatles in mono: This is how most listeners first heard the group in the 1960s, when mono was the predominant audio format. Up until 1968, each Beatles album was given a unique mono and stereo mix, but the group always regarded the mono as primary.  The Beatles in Mono Vinyl Box Set is released in mono on fourteen 180-gram vinyl LPs with faithfully replicated artwork, newly mastered from the analogue master tapes.

In an audiophile-minded undertaking, The Beatles’ acclaimed mono albums have been newly mastered for vinyl from quarter-inch master tapes at Abbey Road Studios by Grammy-winning engineer Sean Magee and Grammy-winning mastering supervisor Steve Berkowitz. While  The Beatles in Mono Vinyl Box Set CD boxed set released in 2009 was created from digital remasters, for this new vinyl project, Magee and Berkowitz cut the records without using any digital technology. Instead, they employed the same procedures used in the 1960s, guided by the original albums and by detailed transfer notes made by the original cutting engineers.

Working in the same room at Abbey Road where most of The Beatles’ albums were initially cut, the pair first dedicated weeks to concentrated listening, fastidiously comparing the master tapes with first pressings of the mono records made in the 1960s. Using a rigorously tested Studer A80 machine to play back the precious tapes, the new vinyl was cut on a 1980s-era VMS80 lathe.

Manufactured for the world at Optimal Media in Germany, The Beatles’ albums are presented in their original glory, both sonically and in their packaging. The boxed collection’s exclusive 12-inch by 12-inch hardbound book features new essays and a detailed history of the mastering process by award-winning radio producer and author Kevin Howlett. The book is illustrated with many rare studio photos of The Beatles, fascinating archive documents, and articles and advertisements sourced from 1960s publications.

Albums included in the box set are Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour, Rubber Soul, With The Beatles, Mono Masters (3 LP Set), The Beatles (2 LP Set), Beatles For Sale, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Please Please Me, Help! and A Hard Day’s Night.

Simon & Garfunkel Complete Albums Collection Box Set

The most comprehensive Simon & Garfunkel library anthology ever assembled, The Complete Albums Collection includes the duo’s five studio masterpieces (first released between 1964 and 1970), newly remastered from first generation analog sources, and first-time remasters of The Graduate (the groundbreaking motion picture soundtrack album released in 1968) and the long out-of-print The Concert in Central Park (recorded in 1981).  Albums included: Wednesday Morning, 3AM, Sounds Of Silence, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, Bookends, Bridge Over Troubled Water, The Graduate, Greatest Hits, The Concert In Central Park (2 discs), Old FriendsLive From New York City, 1967 and Live 1969.

Nothin’ to Lose: The Making of KISS (1972-1975) by Ken Sharp with Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons

An indelible and irresistible portrait of the crucial formative years of the legendary rock band KISS and the music scene they changed forever—culminating with the groundbreaking success of their classic 1975 album Alive! and the smash single “Rock and Roll All Nite”

Including original interviews with: Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, Peter Criss, Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, and Ted Nugent, as well as members of Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Rush, Slade, Blue Öyster Cult, Mott the Hoople, Journey, REO Speedwagon, Styx, Raspberries, the James Gang, the New York Dolls, Iggy & the Stooges, the Ramones, Suzi Quatro, Argent, and Uriah Heep.

The Kinks: The Anthology 1964 – 1971

The Anthology 1964-1971 features over 100 songs across 5 CDs, the most comprehensive collection of The Kinks seminal 1960s and early 1970s Pye label recordings ever released. Newly remastered, the box set features rare demos, interviews, alternate mixes, session outtakes, 25 previously unavailable tracks, and extensive liner notes all in a beautiful box set.

This essential release includes many timeless gems including You Really Got Me, Stop Your Sobbing, All Day And All of the Night, Till The End of The Day, A Well Respected Man, Sunny Afternoon, Dead End Street, Waterloo Sunset, David Watts, Autumn Almanac, Days, Picture Book and The Village Green Preservation Society.

Talking ‘Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap by Elijah Wald

From Two Live Crew’s controversial comedy to Ice Cube’s gangsta styling and the battle rhymes of a street corner cypher, rap has always drawn on deep traditions of African American poetic word-play, In Talking ‘Bout Your Mama, author Elijah Wald explores one of the most potent sources of rap: the viciously funny, outrageously inventive insult game known as “the dozens.”

So what is the dozens? At its simplest, it’s a comic chain of “yo’ mama” jokes. At its most complex, it’s an intricate form of social interaction that reaches back to African ceremonial rituals. Wald traces the tradition of African American street rhyming and verbal combat that has ruled urban neighborhoods since the early 1900s. Whether considered vernacular poetry, aggressive dueling, a test of street cool, or just a mess of dirty insults, the dozens is a basic building block of African-American culture. A game which could inspire raucous laughter or escalate to violence, it provided a wellspring of rhymes, attitude, and raw humor that has influenced pop musicians from Jelly Roll Morton and Robert Johnson to Tupac Shakur and Jay Z.

Wald goes back to the dozens’ roots, looking at mother-insulting and verbal combat from Greenland to the sources of the Niger, and shows its breadth of influence in the seminal writings of Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston; the comedy of Richard Pryor and George Carlin; the dark humor of the blues; the hip slang and competitive jamming of jazz; and in its ultimate evolution into the improvisatory battling of rap. From schoolyard games and rural work songs to urban novels and nightclub comedy, and pop hits from ragtime to rap, Wald uses the dozens as a lens to provide new insight into over a century of African American culture.

A groundbreaking work, Talking ‘Bout Your Mama is an essential book for anyone interested in African American cultural studies, history and linguistics, and the origins of rap music.

George Harrison: The Apple Years

In November 1968, George Harrison released ‘Wonderwall Music’. A soundtrack to an art film called ‘Wonderwall’ this predominantly Indian music collection was the first solo album to be released by a Beatle and also the first album on the newly formed Apple Records. George would continue to release albums on Apple (and EMI) through to 1975’s soul-influenced ‘Extra Texture (Read All About It)’ touching on experimentalism with ‘Electronic Sound’, the magnificent triple album ‘All Things Must Pass’, the chart-topping ‘Living In The Material World’ and the, perhaps, less well-known ‘Dark Horse’. This box brings all these eclectic albums together in one set that mirrors 2004’s ‘Dark Horse Years’ box set and will contain a perfect bound book with a DVD.

All albums have been remastered by Dhani Harrison and Paul Hicks and all will be packaged in high-quality card packs and all albums, apart from ‘All Things Must Pass’ and ‘Living In The Material World’ contain newly written notes by Kevin Howlett. The DVD contains a brand new, never before seen video which has been painstakingly overseen by Olivia Harrison and all packages contain new photos many never seen before.

Elvis Presley: That’s The Way It Is (Deluxe Edition)

This 8 CD / 2 DVD deluxe edition of Elvis: That’s The Way It Is features the six complete shows recorded and partially filmed by MGM. All the concerts have been either mixed or remixed and digitally remastered to provide the ultimate audio experience. The original RCA album is expanded with the four single sides from the period, and a selection of “fly-on-the-wall” outtakes from the June Nashville sessions that produced the majority of tracks for the album. Completing the audio section, a separate disc of insightful rehearsal highlights showcases both the hard work and the playful atmosphere that governed Elvis’ relationship with his musicians. It also includes a 80-page, 4 color book that features rare photos, memorabilia, recording data and insightful liner notes.

Finally, two DVDs featuring the original theatrical version (1970) and subsequent re-edited extended version (2000) completes the ultimate overview of this truly memorable event in the career of Elvis Presley.

The Who: Quadrophenia: Live In London: 5-Disc Limited Collector’s Edition

Quadrophenia: Live In London: 5-Disc Limited Collector’s Edition includes the High Definition Blu-RayTM and standard DVD of the concert film, both in 5.1 Surround Sound audio; a two-CD soundtrack of the show; and for the first time, a 5.1 Surround Sound mix of the entire 1973 album release of Quadrophenia on a Blu-Ray Audio Disc. Extras include a 6′ Mod Headlight sticker, a Mod Headlight button, and a book with liner notes and photos, all housed in a 10′ metal container embossed with the movie-inspired, iconic, Mod bullseye logo painted on a Vespa SG scooter headlight.

Filmed on July 8, 2013, Quadrophenia: Live In London features The Who in peak form, performing Quadrophenia from front to back, in its entirety, plus a special set of some of their all-time greatest hits. The film captures the band’s dynamic performance in front of their hometown crowd and features blistering performances of ‘The Real Me’, ‘The Punk And The Godfather’, ‘Doctor Jimmy’ and a powerful performance of ‘Love Reign O’er Me’. With HD screen backdrops, archival footage and today s advanced technology in sound, Quadrophenia: Live In London reunites The Who with bandmates John Entwistle, for ‘5:15’, and Keith Moon for his signature song ‘Bell Boy’. In addition to their performance of Quadrophenia, the band tear through classic tracks such as ‘Pinball Wizard’, ‘Who Are You’, ‘You Better You Bet’ ‘Baba O’Riley’ ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ and ‘Tea & Theatre’, from their 2006 release ‘Endless Wire’, with the intensity and power only The Who can conjure.

Sub Pop USA: The Subterraneanan Pop Music Anthology, 1980–1988 by Bruce Pavitt

In 1979, Bruce Pavitt moved to Olympia, WA, and began programming a show called Subterranean Pop on local community radio station KAOS-FM. Inspired by Olympia’s guide to independent music, OP Magazine, Pavitt launched a fanzine version of Subterranean Pop, focusing on music with a punk, new wave, and experimental bent. Calvin Johnson of K Records joined the fanzine’s staff in 1980, beginning with the second issue.

Driven by the power of independent thinking, the Sub Pop zine’s particular field of interest was artists from the Midwest and Northwest. Punk and new wave fans in major cities were puzzled, surprised that there were enough bands in those regions to devote a column, let alone an entire fanzine. Even more puzzling was the exclusion of artists like the Clash, Gang of Four, Blondie, or PIL, solely because of their major label associations. Early issues featured impassioned rallying cries for local action that make more sense than ever today, alongside early published artwork by Linda Barry, Charles Burns, and Jad Fair.

From Beat Happening and Pell Mell to early records by the Beastie Boys, Metallica, and Run DMC, Sub Pop was a 1980s independent music bible, written with a diverse appreciation for happening scenes across the USA. In 1986, Pavitt put his ideas into practice, launching Sub Pop Records with the historic Sub Pop 100 compilation and Soundgarden’s first release. While the Sub Pop Records legacy is today legendary, the groundwork and creative wellspring that put Seattle on the musical map is assembled here for the first time.

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