Category: Music

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Want!

When I finally get my first full paycheck (which is going to be a while because of the multitude of unpaid holidays I have to endure this time of year as a contractor) and have a bit of wiggle room, this is going to be my first splurge.

I have The Man Machine on black vinyl; in fact, it’s one of the few recordings from my original collection to have survived the purge in the late 80s and remains in pristine condition, but damn…that red version is so sexy. I originally spotted it on Instagram, which in turn led me to Discogs. The pressings aren’t that rare even though they seem to have been limited to distribution in France, but they aren’t cheap, either.

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Jean-Michel Jarre Does It Again

Chills upon hearing the first track. Just like 40 years ago after rushing home with the newly-released Equinoxe.

Once again I am twenty years old, skimming over a vast sea of golden dunes in my landspeeder under a double sun in a wheat-colored sky with the love of my life at my side.

“Not Even Death Shall Part Us” (1978) by yours truly, based loosely on a STAR WARS pre-production painting by Ralph McQuarrie. Yes, I used to paint.

In 1978 as the original Equinoxe was spinning on the turntable I called my friend and mentor Kent and after holding the receiver (yes, Virginia, it was a phone with a wire connected to the wall) up to the speaker I said, “Can you hear that? Landspeeders!” It’s been a long time since a piece of music had me bouncing off the ceiling.

I won’t say Infinity does this—and a lot of the same criticisms I had with Jarre’s last sequel, Oxygene 3, apply here as well—but it’s still a worthy followup to the original work.

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Damn You Discogs

…for once again showing me something I never knew existed and then making it so easy for me to spend money I really don’t have.

I’ve known of Just Blue—and have owned a copy of the Casablanca pressing on black vinyl since it came out in ’79 (one of those that survived the purge)—but I never knew there was also a blue vinyl pressing available on the Vogue label for the European market until a couple weeks ago. Damn you, discogs.com!

And if anyone cares, the music itself is early electronic Euro-disco…

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Blast From the Past

Certain things burn into your memory. This is an ad that appeared in the February 25th, 1978 issue of Billboard magazine. At the time I had just recently purchased Romeo & Juliet and had no idea who Alec R. Costandinos was beyond that and his work with Love and Kisses. But I loved those records, so I was determined to “collect the entire set.”

Even 40 years later I often found myself wondering if I had indeed succeeded in that endeavor. Finding this online I can confirm that yes, I have all of them in my collection—and then some—although when The Hunchback was finally released, it arrived with totally different artwork on the sleeve: