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Zorn List Digest        Saturday, March 6 1999        Volume 02 : Number 610



In this issue:
-
       Re: Bad CDs
       Re: Bad CDs
       Re: Bad CDs
       Golia Septet In Ventura CA
       good cds
       Re: Bad CDs
       Re:caring for bad cds
       Recomm?: V. Golia & Jean Derome/live drum n' bass
       Re: Recomm?: V. Golia & Jean Derome/live drum n' bass
       Re: Bad CDs
       gtr oblq
       Caring for vinyl (was caring for bad cds)
       Re: Bad CDs
       A Few Items FS ...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 10:09:37 -0600 (CST)
From: "Joseph S. Zitt" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Bad CDs

On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, dennis summers wrote:

> kind of cool). And as I mentioned in the previous post, the whole "cost
> scam" has me incensed. Has anyone heard what happened to that suit that
> somebody started against the industry a few years back alleging price-fixing?

As I understand it, the "cost scam" has benefitted artists with small
audiences in an odd way: with people being willing to pay high prices for
CDs that cost little to produce, the break-even point on creating and
selling a CD has dropped quite low. This is why there are so many
wonderful reissues of recordings that were extremely hard to find in their
earlier vinyl releases, as well as an explosion of CD releases of
relatively obscure artists.

Metatron Press was able to put out the first Comma CD for a little over
$2000 for a 500 copy run. For our next one, for which we didn't use a
studio and are mastering ourselves and using simpler packaging, we're
hoping to come in at about half that. Selling our CDs at about $10 apiece
for the most part, this is quite affordable. If we had to deal with vinyl
(not to mention the adding problems and costs of warping, breaking,
shipping, additional packaging material, larger art, etc), this just
wouldn't work. (And no, just going with 7" releases is not an option --
it's a continuous 45 minute performance.)

- - ---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1----------
|||/ Joseph Zitt ===== [e-mail] ===== Human Systems \|||
||/ Maryland? = <*> SILENCE: The John Cage Mailing List <*> = ecto \||
|/ http://www.realtime.net/~jzitt ====== Comma: Voices of New Music \|


- -

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 11:08:46 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Bad CDs

Another solution is to buy a CD burner and make copies of your CD's before the
bad happens.  Same with tapes, they will definitely lose quality over a 10-20
year period.

- -

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 08:51:34 -0800
From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Bad CDs

On Fri, 5 Mar 1999 08:34:59 +0100 (MET)  FJG_Lamerikx wrote:
>
> There are a number of reasons why I will favor vinyl:
>
> 1. I don't have any high-end equipment, and my Technics SL1200 turntable is
>    easily the best piece of equipment I have - this means that vinyl in general
>    sounds better on my equipment than CDs.

Except that putting price on a CD player has almost no return. Even the cheapest
CD player has almost the same quality than the most expansive one (they are
likely to use the same ICs). Like somebody else, I buy the cheapest CD players
(the ones -- harder and harder to find -- without any bells and whistles).

Also, knowing that (and by far) the weakest element of an audio equipement are
the speakers, I have a hard time to understand what an high quality turntable
can bring (if the other parts are not high-end)? If really your turntable is
so good (and I assume that you mean the cartridge), you can go fairly high
in the price of speakers until you can see what your turntable is worth.

> 3. Some of the old music I'm trying to find has not been re-issued on CD. Ever
>    saw a CD release of Les Baxter's "The Dunwich Horror" (I'm hoping that
>    someone now gives me the catalogue number for the CD re-issue...)? Record
>    labels are catching up, but this has only started a few years ago.

I doubt it won't take long until it is available one day. I am totally
puzzled by what has been reissued recently (even the most obscure), to the point
that I am pretty convinced that it is just a matter of time to see everything
reissued on CD.

> 4. A lot of CD re-issues sound terrible, especially when compared to the vinyl
>    originals. This is especially true of the late 80s - early 90s re-issues.
>    Re-issues of the old James Bond soundtracks, for example, are horrible, both
>    in sound and in packaging. What greater delight than to track down an
>    original James Bond soundtrack from the 1960s?

You should ask the movie theaters to play the vinyl instead :-).

But it is true that until you can add a scratch capability to a CD player (though
David Weinstein and Nicolas Collins have been doing great things with CDs),
there is still a major advantage to vinyl over CD (at least from a DJ/artist
point of view).

    Patrice.

- -

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 08:58:46 -0800
From: s~Z <[e-mail]>
Subject: Golia Septet In Ventura CA

Ventura New Music Concert Series Continues

Vinny Golia Septet

Live at Ventura City Hall

Saturday =95 March 6 =95 8 pm

Admission $7 =95 Tickets at the door only

Corner of Poli and California Streets in the heart of downtown Ventura

Vinny Golia, woodwinds =95 Guinevere Mischam, cello
Wayne Peet, keyboards =95 John Fumo, trumpet and flugelhorn
Eric Barber, clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophones
Alex Cline, drums and percussion =95 Steuart Liebig, bass

- -

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 05 Mar 99 12:02:25 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: good cds

What hath I wrought? A whole issue (save 1 post) on my little gripe. And all
more interesting than most magazines would manage on a subject that has been
talked to death. I'm glad I'm back on the list after a 2-year hiatus. It's an
interesting group of people here.

OK, so a few reactions. I've grown to live with the art (except, that is, for
the Pablo Bell Funkadelic covers, which cannot exist on a flimsy piece of paper,
even if it does fold out to almost album-cover size, with creases). And I think
Zorn has been at the forefront of releasing CDs with interesting booklet designs
- -- at least going back to the "Elegy" and "Radio" days. I love Ikue's designs,
but now that I think about it, maybe the booklets have become somewhat
standardized in recent years. But that's another story.

I fully agree that neither vinyl nor digital sounds anything like live music.
While I prefer the detailed reproduction of cds, I also fall into the camp that
believes digital is too separated. It doesn't dissolve into the same wash that
live and analog can (especially on ECM discs, which sound so cavernous they
scare me).

If I have to listen to a damaged recording, however, give me vinyl anyday. I can
still remember skips on "Message to You, Rudy" or "(Just Like) Starting Over." I
was a kid and couldn't afford to replace records, and I hated the imperfections.
But at the same time, they were kind of mine. You knew where they were, and the
music went on. And when you were at a friends, they got the honor of performing
a little conductor-baton move to signal their memorized skip. So much more
palatable than the "whee-[silence]-dit-dit-ditditdit-[silence]" that you have to
manually override on discs.

I think my Yasaone Tone cd is deteriorating, too. But then, I could be wrong.

kg



- -

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 09:16:28 -0800
From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Bad CDs

On Fri, 5 Mar 1999 10:41:43 +0100 (MET)  BJOERN wrote:
>
> PATRICE wrote:
> > I grew up with vinyls and I am happy to get rid of them (as soon as I find
> > the CD reissue). Yes I miss the larger sleeves, but I have no romantic
> > feelings about vinyls.
>
> well, this is a discussion i had with alot of "older" people who grew up
> with vinyl. BUT: nowadays there are lots of better turntables than 20

I am tempted to say that turntable making is becoming a lost art... I don't
understand based on what you can say that they are better now.

> years ago. nowadays people know alot more about how to handle an LP to
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

What are you saying? Records collectors have always been maniac about the
way to handle vinyls. Can you give just *ONE EXAMPLE* of what people are
doing these days that we did not know twenty years ago (about taking care
of vinyls)?

> have it for a lifetime. there is still the easy technology of washing your
> vinyl which in most cases shows excellent results.
> there are alot of LPs i would never ever replace by a cd. for example the
> new rerelease of ERIC DOLPHY`s OUT TO LUNCH sounds so much better than the
> cd version......you will never ever listen to that cd again when you heard
> this new LP-version.

I agree that some CD reissues have been very disappointing, and pale in
comparison to the vinyl (flat sound, no punch at all).

> i think this "i have no romantic feelings about vinyl" thing is just an
> aspect of what you call "blind believing in new technologies", even if in
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I won't comment on that ;-).

What about the following problem (for vinyl addicts):

    How do you feel about all the new records that will never
    beneficiate a vinyl pressing?

    Patrice.

- -

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 12:41:18 -0500
From: David Keffer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re:caring for bad cds

Hello folks on the Zorn-list,

I thought I would add my 2 cents to the discussion
on how to care for cds:
My main complaint with cds is that you can't lick
them to clean them.  Now, I can lick my eye-glasses
clean to optical perfection but I can't lick cds
clean at all.  Licking a cd leaves an unbecoming
and streaky saliva residue that really increases the
esthetically displeasing characterisitics commonly
associated with cds.  Mother cats can lick
baby kittens to clean them, but even if you love your cds
as much as a mother cat loves her kittens, you will only
hurt your cds if you let your cat lick them.  Feline saliva
is no more beneficial to the cd than is human saliva.
At least this has been my experience.

Licking vinyl I have no comment on.  I use
the standard iso-propyl alcohol and felt
combination for vinyl and iso-propyl alcohol
and mascara brush for the stylus.

Now, on to using your vinyl iso-propyl alcohol kit
to clean your cds, because your cd cleaning kit is
out of fluid and you have been too lazy to go out
and purchase more fluid.  Not recommended.  If you smell
cd-cleaning fluid and record-cleaning fluid, they
smell the same.  They should because they are both
90+ percent propanol.  But there are varieties of
propanol (iso-propyl alcohol, n-propyl alcohol) and
there are grades of purity, where somebody might
let a good bit of ethanol or, heaven forbid, butanol
get in with your propanol.  The nose is apparently, not
as sensitive as that smooth transparent surface of
the compact disc.  Permanent streaking may result
when record-cleaning propanol is used in place
of cd-cleaning propanol on a cd.  However, rest assured,
both propanols are better than saliva from any
kind of mammal.

Now, if you are like me, you want a cheap cleaning
fluid.  If you go to your local turntable doctor, he
will try to sell you some real high-dollar unguent
for your records.  Now, believe me, if you smell the
propanol in that little vial of magic record-cleaning
fluid, you find that it smells just like standard
rubbing alcohol that you can buy by the quart in a
pharmacy for about one tenth of the price.  Naturally,
you think to yourself, "Mercy me, I will try to clean
my records with rubbing alcohol," which, by the way,
is also (mostly) propanol.

After many years of using cheap-ass rubbing alcohol on
vinyl, I find no noticeable deterioration of the vinyl.
However, I recommend that you do not use it to clean cds,
for the reasons given above.

Hope this advice helps.

David K.


- -

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 09:49:25 PST
From: "Scott Handley" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Recomm?: V. Golia & Jean Derome/live drum n' bass

For those of you who know Jean Derome's and Vinny Golia's respective
works pretty well, could I get some recommendations?  For those with
time, short descriptions or a links to such would be most appreciated.
I have Derome's LA BETE (?), which I think was written for modern dance.
I love it.  If this atypical of his other work----can this even be
said?----what's the other stuff like?

The scope and ambition of Golia's music, and the personal humility he
seems to project in his interviews, intrigues me.  But o hell: where to
start?


A side note:  there was brief but sincere praise of the first-rate
guitar hero Wayne Krantz amonth or two ago, and recent mention of the
live drum-n'-bass purveyor Zach Danzinger.  Everybody knows that Zach's
top-notch subdivisions can also be heard on two or three Krantz
releases, right?  Good stuff!  (Esp. 2 DRINK MINIMUM, a live record on
Enja).

- ----scott, who went to high school with a fourth-rate guitar hero,
Kenny Wayne SHepherd.  (Alas, Nietzsche would call me a little
man....)


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

- -

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 13:25:42 -0500 (EST)
From: Ken Waxman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Recomm?: V. Golia & Jean Derome/live drum n' bass

I've always been partial to Derome's "Carnets de Voyage", which if I'm
not mistaken has been put together with two other similiar "travel" CDs
on Ambiance Magnetic in a 3-CD boxed set. I'd go for the single CD first,
since Derome's mixture of jazz, rock etc. can be a bit overpowering. I
saw his "Hommage A George Perc" at Victo and it seemed quite impressive
there, but like many live, large orchestra pieces, it may lose something
in the translation to CD (I haven't heard the disc). Speaking of drums &
bass, the only other Derome I have is his trio (Pierre Cartier [b];
Pierree Tanguay [d],Evidence, playing Thelonious Monk's music. It's a
good, minimal interpretation, but it seems overly dry.

Ken Waxman
[e-mail]

- -

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 12:56:12 -0600
From: Craig Rath <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Bad CDs

At 08:51 AM 3/5/99 -0800, Patrice wrote:

>Also, knowing that (and by far) the weakest element of an audio equipement
are
>the speakers, I have a hard time to understand what an high quality
turntable
>can bring (if the other parts are not high-end)? If really your turntable is
>so good (and I assume that you mean the cartridge), you can go fairly high
>in the price of speakers until you can see what your turntable is worth.
>

The main difference I've noticed in turntable quality (independent of the
quality of the other components) is how it handles surface noise and
damage.  The turntable I've had at home for many years is pretty low-end by
most standards, but I haven't been able to justify the price of an upgrade
yet.  Most vinyl that I bought brand new would have irritating clicks and
pops the first time through.  While I was in college, I would take these
same albums and play them on the turntables at the college radio station,
and these clicks and pops were not present there.  I know that the stylus
has a lot to do with the quality of the sound, but the internal workings of
the turntable's drive system, shock absorbtion, etc. has a very large part
as well.

I will still buy vinyl if it is something that is otherwise unavailable on
CD.  I currently have my turntable hooked up through a pre-amp into my
computer and am in the process of turning many of these old non-CD albums
into CD's, a long and painful process.  It takes about an hour per minute
to clean up the clicks and pops from the wav files before they can be
burned onto a CD, but for some albums it's worth the effort.  Vinyl seems
to wear out, whereas I've never had any problem with even my oldest CDs
ever crapping out on me.  I guess the main reason I have for preferring CDs
over vinyl or tapes is the consistent quality, and convenience of CDs.  I
have nothing against vinyl, I just don't have the extra cash to justify a
higher-end turntable.  I do have plenty against tapes, however.

The only CDs I've ever had any major problems with have been a couple of
King Missle reissue discs on Shimmy Disc (whose quality of CDs has
definitely improved over time - compare the Boredoms' Soul Discharge
release with the Ruins' Burning Stone to see how much they improved).  The
King Missle Discs would start getting an annoying popping noise about
halfway through and it would get worse the closer to the end of the disc.
This problem is better or worse depending on the quality of the CD player
involved.



- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 03:09:43 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: gtr oblq

does any1 know anything about this knitting factory cd release featuring
vernon reid, david torn, and elliot sharp? i'm thinkin, w/this lineup how can
u go wrong?


criterion info
http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/vine/9374


"i am beyond their petty, lying morality..."

- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 05:05:53 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Caring for vinyl (was caring for bad cds)

In a message dated 3/5/99 12:42:27 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[e-mail] writes:

<< Licking vinyl I have no comment on.  I use
 the standard iso-propyl alcohol and felt
 combination for vinyl and iso-propyl alcohol
 and mascara brush for the stylus.
  >>

I've always heard that using non-diluted isopropyl alcohol on vinyl is not a
recommended cleaning method.  It eventually breaks down the polymers that aid
in "groove recovery" on vinyl, and in addition leaves a residue of its own
behind.  I've used a 1 to 1 solution of 100-proof vodka and de-
ionized/purified water with my Nitty Gritty (which admittedly, gets little use
nowdays) for 15+ years with no adverse results.

=dgasque=

- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 11:47:40 +0100 (MET)
From: BJOERN <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Bad CDs

>     How do you feel about all the new records that will never
>     beneficiate a vinyl pressing?

that is a very sad thing.... i buy these on cd of course...
but these records will be gone forever in at least 20 years.

BJOERN


- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 08:35:40 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Patrick Carey)
Subject: A Few Items FS ...

Please pardon the intrusion and cross-posting.

I've got some itmes FS that some on this list may
be interested in.  First come, first served ...

Prices are in _US $_ and are POSTAGE PAID within North America.
Shipping on orders outside NA can be arranged.

New stuff/price change with a #
If you don't like the prices, make me an offer.


# C.C.C.C. - "Amplified Crystal" JAP LP (Endorphine Factory) 1993   $14
* C.C.C.C. - "Community Center Cyber Crash - Live In Pittsburgh" US LP
  (RRR/SSS) 1993   $7
# Caspar Br=F6tzmann/F.M. Einheit - "Merry Christmas" GER CD
  (Rough Trade/Our Choice) 1994   $10
# Caspar Br=F6tzmann/Page Hamilton - "Zulutime" AUS CD
  (Rough Trade/Our Choice/Blast First/Sub Rosa - Subsonic) 1996   $10
# David Tudor - "Neural Synthesis Nos. 6-9" US 2CD (Lovely) 1995   $18
# Disinformation - "R & D" UK CD (Ash International) 1996   $10
# Gerogerigegege - "Life Documents" UK 7" (4th Dimension) 1994   $7
# Naked City - "Torture Garden" US CD (Shimmy Disc) 1990   $11
# Naked City - "Leng Tch'e" JAP CD (Toy's Factory) 1992   $14
* Nimrod - "The Mighty Hunter/Lab 36B" CAN picdisc LP (Scratch) 1994   =
$5
* Nimrod - "Nimrod" CAN CD (Scratch) 1996   $7
# Otomo Yoshihide - "Sound Factory '97 - Memory Disorder Vol. 3" US CD
  (Gentle Giant) 1997   $10
# Painkiller - "Execution Ground" JAP 3CD (Toy's Factory) 1995
  $40/make offer [2CD plus bonus "Live In Osaka" disc feat. Eye.  Mint.=
]
# V/A - "Miaow!" UK promo sampler CD (Big Cat UK) 1995   $5
  [Feat. Sch=FCtze, Koner, E.A.R., Oliveros, Nijiumu, Dirty Three etc.]


Thanks for looking.


- -Patrick
[e-mail]
http://www.astro.utoronto.ca/~carey/sofa/sale.html



- -

------------------------------

End of Zorn List Digest V2 #610
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