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Monday, August 18, 2008

Books and Music on the internet

Today marks a new generation for moneyblows books & music. We are hibernating the moneyblows.com address for awhile, ditching the virtual "storefront" in favor of stashing our stuff in the internet bazaar. The web storefront has become a standard feature of e-commerce, helping us grow our world market. There's a special place in our hearts for the aggregators who host premium services such as moneyblows books & music. We trundle around in America past, giving new life to old flea market treasures. We have been at this for ten plus years now, so we have learned a lot about stopping the advance of old age in collectible books, magazines, and records. We anticipate what someone might want and maybe we have it when they come looking. The internet is great for that.
So, here are links to some of the places you can still find moneyblows books & music, while our legacy address of moneyblows.com is being re-purposed.
http://moneyblows.gemm.com/
http://moneyblows.musicstack.com/
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BooksBrowse?vendorclientid=28647&page=CLIENT
http://www.amazon.com/seller/workbook
http://base.google.com/base/search?authorid=1044995
http://www.moneyblows.net

To our wonderful customers for record styli, we eagerly await your feedback on our new approach to self-service record stylus ordering. Please use this link to browse through pictures, and then just call us when you see the one you want! Here's the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/michael.pellecchia/Needles
And, while promoting a picasaweb album, might as well also point you to album covers we have recently posted:
http://picasaweb.google.com/michael.pellecchia/MusicLPSpecials
Let us know if you like to shop for record styli this way. Moneyblows Books & Music was the first internet only store to enable self-service stylus selection, so we have done our part to get some old turntables rolling again. Viva vinyl.

Friday, August 15, 2008

A story and a side note

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I was sitting around at my brother's record store, in the shadow of the White Mountains, listening to some blues.
"Is that Gatemouth Brown," I asked.
"You're close," said the bro.
"T-Bone Walker."
"Close. next generation. Swingmasters."
"I was gonna guess that."
"You were scared to."
"No bad notes, that's for sure."
The phone rang.
"Yes, ma'am, we'll be right over," my brother said after listening for a minute.
He locked up the shop and we hopped into my 1987 Volvo 240 wagon with the graffiti all over the headliner.
A couple miles down the road past some mountain vistas, my brother pointed, and we pulled into the driveway.
A nice lady came out and Harlan introduced her to me. She led us down the hatch way into a dank cellar.
All around, there were boxes of old vinyl records. She gave us the tour.
"There's these," she said, pointing to some dank mildewy boxes.
"Those over there." We took a peek at the frayed dust jackets of tag sale detritus. Beethoven box sets. Stereo demonstration records. Old 45s.
Squeezing through the cramped aisle of the tiny basement, a light peered from the distance.
Harlan said to the lady, "can I show him that?"
We followed her toward the light. The dank smelly boxes gave way to some tidy shelves. The shelves had records on them. Ones that didn't smell.
The doorway to a little office was creaked open. That's where the light was coming from.
"This was where he worked," she said.
Until he dropped dead of a heart attack while skiing, she went on. Her late husband was pretty close to retiring from his teaching career. This was his lair, where he sold and traded records by mail order. His great hope was to retire, and then spend full time transferring his massive record inventory to the internet for sale at collector prices.
We tiptoed into the brightly lit office. Not a hair was out of place. I looked straight ahead at the shelf opposite me, just above eye level.
I reached for a record album that was displayed up there.
"This!" I hope I didn't startle the lady.
"I used to vacuum the floor to this record!," I said, startling myself.
By way of explanation, I said, you know how loud a vacuum cleaner is. Well, I would play this record even louder than the vacuum cleaner. It changed your whole perspective on mundane household tasks. Made you feel like you were in a widescreen epic film instead of chasing dust mites on the floor.
"And...."I climaxed, opening the box to show the booklet accompanying the record, "the liner notes are by my good friend, Michael H. Price."
This was none other than the rare limited, annotated reissue of The Big Country soundtrack, by the estimable composer Jerome Moross.
You could have heard a pin drop.
My brother Harlan let out a big gasp.
"We were just listening to the Swingmasters Revue," he noted accurately.
I put the record back up on the shelf.
We all looked at each other.
"I guess we better finish this job," somebody said.

#############

Side Note: Moneyblows.com has been down for all of August and our hosting company hasn't been able to get us back up yet. We apologize for the inconvenience

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Digital vs. analog for vinyl record buffs

Analog recording-- which is the source of most used vinyl sold at moneyblows books and music-- can be thought to essentially reflect the Victorian scientific imagination, in which sound is mechanically inscribed, rather than digitally encoded.

By contrast, the pitch, tone color, and loudness of a digital playback starts out as binary numbers intelligible to computer circuits. In other words, the presence or absence of an electric pulse (“1” or “0”) is detected and digitially converted in the original reproduction.

The waveform of the sound, as a human might hear it at this point, becomes a representation of the audio frequency, possibly encompassing more than half a million bits per second. For more than a quarter century now, this torrential bit stream has become audible when a digital recording is played back.

It all begins when a musical waveform is "sampled" at least 40,000 times per second. Each sample represents a point in time as the music unfolds. Then, the height of the sound wave at each of these 40,000 sampling points is numerically expressed. Together, these two factors accurately describe the sound wave so that it can be recorded as a series of numbers.

In playback, those numbers are fed into a device called a digital-to-analog converter which produces voltages corresponding to each number at precisely defined points in time. In this way, the digital signal is reconstituted as a waveform.

Once it is digitally encoded, the music’s fidelity is undisturbed—whether it’s on vinyl or CD, or played via a computer's own file or an internet stream, theoretically makes no difference.

A moment of digital silence—or an analogous very faint pianissimo, is preserved without tape or vinyl noise. An explosion of musical loudness needn’t be intentionally (though expertly) distorted for the putative convenience of the end user, or the delicate constitution of a record stylus.

In a digital recording, bass response is extended from 30 to 20 Hz to encompass the very lowest notes of the musical spectrum. Frequency deviation over the entire range from 20 to 20,000 Hz is reduced from ± 2 db to ± 0.5 db, resulting in clarification of tonal timbres and textures thanks to greater linearity in the crucial overtone range.

Dynamic range, i.e. the maximal span between loud and soft, is enlarged to 90 db, closely approximating the natural loudness range of live music. Distortion at maximum loudness shrinks from the traditional norm of 1% to an amount too small to be measured, resulting in the added clarity of loud passages. Finally, flutter and wow - those marginal wobbles of pitch that cause a sense of false vibrato in some conventional recordings - also reduced from the usual 0.050/0 to the point of unmeasurability.

A vinyl record, though, remains the manufactured product of its Victorian heritage—a representation of the musical waveform in inscribed (actually stamped) grooves. It’s necessarily imperfect compared with computer playback, and presents the listener with a Hobson’s choice of whether one should listen with digital ears or analog ears.

Ears are the definitive equipment for listening. The ultimate choice of digital or analog, I think, is cryptically (though oddly appropriately) laid out in the movie “Pulp Fiction,” when (I’m paraphrasing here) Uma Thurman asks John Travolta, “Do you spend your time listening, or waiting to talk?” Travolta hesitates for a moment and says, “I guess I spend most of my time waiting to talk…. But I’m working on listening.”

In listening there invariably is background noise, whether or not it disturbs the foreground intent. A truism of hearing loss is that the two eventually blend, so that the person suffering some auditory loss will say, “I can’t hear you,” particularly in a crowded room.
Using this standard, I don’t mind listening to the background noise in a vinyl record, until it gets so bad I might say to the music, “I can’t hear you.”

Digital techniques can fix that, too. People buy HD TVs so that can get better resolution of a lousy show. The greatest invention of modern culture, television, is about to be bumped off the analog spectrum as of February 2009. You are already being asked to give it up.

I have VHS tapes and records to play. Judge for yourself who is better equipped-- the digital only consumer, or the one the one who admits the imperfections wrought by Thomas Edison when he lit the known world.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

R.I.P. Bo Diddley




Bo Diddley made page one of the New York Times, Tuesday, June 3, 2008. Both there and on page B1, times critic Ben Ratliff wrote insightfully as suggested by the page one headline, "Bo Diddley, who Gave Rock His Beat, Dies at 79." Here's what we have in our store:

1959 maroon checker single

1957 maroon checker single

La Bamba soundtrack with Bo Diddley on it

Black label Go Bo Diddley on Checker

1958 black label on Chess debut album

It was what we called the Bo Diddley Beat and it does have a sibling resemblance to the Latin clave. The beat can be found in songs from then til now. As a founding father, he was revered by many rock'n roll fans, musicians, and students of popular culture. Like Chuck Berry, he brought a different kind of rhythm/lead guitar to the fore. Here's the times obit from 6/3/08.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Makin' Tracks by The Fivepenny Piece

Like finding a needle in a haystack, sometimes we don't fully appreciate a treasure we have in our online store-- until it's SOLD! I remember never taking a second look at this album, with its early 1970s hairstyles and the group posing in front of a big steam locomotive. Folkies posing in front of trains-- well, it just didn't stand out. Then we sold it and by tomorrow it will be gone; but thank heavens we dropped the needle on this baby!
If you, like me, often wonder how such immense musical genius can go unrewarded by the consuming public, you would like this vintage 1973 album too. And, you might like the group, which does have a website. The group is called The Fivepenny Piece, or just Fivepenny Piece, and the album we have/had is called "Makin' Tracks." The music speaks for itself, and rather than bore you further with my take on it, I will just reproduced the liner notes, by a fellow named Peter Pilbeam:
"Fivepenny Piece, a coin value 5np, which could equally well stand for 'five nice people': Lynda and John Meeks, Eddie Crotty and Colin and George Radcliffe who make up one of my favourite groups. I've been listening to them for a while now and, having heard this, their latest LP, I think it can be described as definitely one for your collection.
Our Fivepenny Piece has three faces, and all are here. For example, Side One begins with Lou-Lay-Lye, words by Colin Radcliffe and music by John Meeks, a combination of talents that occurs throughout any program by Fivepenny Piece. In contrast to this plaintive song, the nonsense lyrics of Land of the Musical Telephone have distinct overtones of Edward Lear. Lynda, with assistance from John and Eddie, sings about Winter Sun and then, again in complete contrast, Eddie holds forth about those ever-popular evening classes where gallons of Homemade Brew are made.
Emerald Dew brings Lynda and brother John together again with thoughts similar to those you must have had on a summer's morning, whereas John's The Old Tyrant bemoans the cold of winter. The tempo quickens with He Willy Nilly, the man who lives in the warm, warm sun and then we are at the end of Side One with The Journeys of My Mind; but don't despair, there's more on the other side . . .
. . . beginning with The Time is Now, in which our three vocalists take an inward look at themselves. A Gradely Prayer is one of three dialect songs included in this album; Eddie takes the solo part. An old Lancashire prayer provided the words, which still make a lot of sense.
The Passing of Today poses a question for all of us as members of the human race, whereas in The Day of the Rain John tells about . . . - but I'll not spoil the end for you. It's comedy time again folks, with a brand new song from our prolific pair, as Eddie complains I'm Henpecked! Last song but one is Rembrandt; it tells how that famous Dutch painter ended his days. Leaving you on a happy note, which is the way Fivepenny Piece always leave me, we have another nonsense song, a catchy tune with lyrics to match in See-Saw Song.
I can't leave these notes without mentioning the sympathetic backing of Colin and George on guitar and bass guitar; to me they help tremendously in the enjoyment of all these songs. Well, there it is, all "homemade brew" (to pinch one of their titles), and if this is your first experience of the music of Fivepenny Piece, I guarantee you'll come back time and time again to this disc and fifteen songs that are different. In this day and age that's saying something!"

A few other quick notes before I send this album out to the lucky buyer: A couple of familiar British musical stars are credited: Kevin Godley on drums and Alan Parsons as recording engineer (along with Dave Fleming.) Producer was Bob Barratt. The front cover photo was taken at the Dinting Railway Centre, Glossop, Derbyshire. The label is Columbia / EMI and the record number is SCX 6536. If you ever see this record in a bargain bin, don't let it escape your clutches!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Record Store Day, April 19, 2008

According to an industry association, tomorrow, April 19, is "Record Store Day," celebrating the fast-fading breed of retailers who sell hard copies of digital music as well as the more specialized product of analog hard copies, otherwise known as vinyl records. Actually, the latter are more than "hard copies," they are actual music reproductions from performances captured on acetate, wire, tape, or more recently, hard drives.
According to an article in a national newspaper, record stores are closing at a record pace. For whatever reason, today's music consumers plug themselves into their digital sources rather than physically engage in playback activities. The most common exceptions to this rule are DJ's, who maintain the culture by spinning records and adding some twists of their own.
At moneyblows books and music, our storefront is complete virtual, but we agree with what performer Regina Spektor had to say recently about record stores: "They have their own art form." Anyone who read the book or saw the movie "High Fidelity" is familiar with the all-knowing record store clerk, who can still be found in big urban centers and strategically located stores such as the Princeton Record Exchange in New Jersey.
Former record store employees are now a big fixture on the world wide web, using their knowledge to sell records all over the planet from their home offices. Where we write this blog from-- in New Hampshire-- the online sellers are often former record store know-it-alls, such as the guy who calls himself "wingo" on ebay. Another longtime online seller, up in Conway, New Hampshire, actually opened a physical location in 2007, a gutsy thing to do in a declining business. Yes, he is struggling to stay open, working part-time at a convenience store selling lottery tickets, since he has figured out what people in his market area really want to buy. Yes, there are a few record buyers, and they know where to go-- to his store on Main Street, in a quaint old building with a brick storefront, and they know he has irregular hours, and they know to make an appointment if they're really serious about buying-- or, more often than not-- selling the records they haven't played in years.
As I celebrate record store day-- our online store does indeed fall into Regina Spektor's definition of an "art form," I think of how record buying began for me. It wasn't record stores! I remember browsing through all the records every week at Birnbaum's Furniture on Main Street in New Britain, Conn. They all had list prices of $3.98 or so-- too much for a guy saving up for a bicycle with his paper route money-- but at least you could see what was coming out from week to week. Then there was Warren's Music on West Main Street-- he is still there, I saw him last week standing like a mummy in front of his cash register, same as in 1962, where the 45 rpms were kept in neat bins, from 67 to 98 cents each, and Warren would shoo you away if you were just browsing. That was a true record store and it was not for the faint of heart.
The affordable records were at Woolworth's, also on Main Street in New Britain. From the 1960s until the 1980s, a half hour spent in Woolworth's could yield any number of treasures from the 99 cent discount bin. This is where I cultivated record browsing; no one at Woolworth's cared how much time you spent in their bins. Then, as downtown New Britain fell victim to white flight, strip shopping centers flowered in the suburbs; just as disposable income began to come more freely to a young teenager with a paper route, a summer job in the tobacco fields, and the occasional garage band gig.
We started our after-school sessions at Sears, the anchor store at Corbins Corner, which had several price points for records, using color codes. Then we moved to the Neisners discount store, which had the kind of stock that Woolworth's had pioneered-- records that were out of date by as little as a couple months.
As indoor malls took over the shopping addicts from strip centers, the creature called a "record store," flowered in the form of chain stores too numerous to mention-- all gone now. Frankly, most of them were boring to a young person conditioned to treasure hunt for records. Their neat classifications and rapacious pricing took all the fun out of record shopping. In the long run, those stores paved the way for CDs.
The next big record store in my life was Record Town in Fort Worth, Texas. It was a family run cubbyhole on the campus strip on University Drive, with a know-it-all owner who would give you an informal Ph.D in popular music, but an unspoken rule was, you had to buy something; he didn't stay in business by either talking or listening. It was there I learned about some of the great Texas artists in jazz, blues and r&b, and later played with the owner's son in the blues band that formed my own playing style on tenor sax.
The family-owned operation couldn't afford too many discounts, though. They specialized in service, getting you anything you wanted in the Schwann catalog if it wasn't in stock. By this time, it was back to Woolworth's, which still held court in downtown Fort Worth. And, you never knew what department store might try a discount record bin for awhile-- the medium was fading fast and "unwanted" vinyl treasures got cheaper and cheaper.
Finally a person has all the records they need. Already having an online bookstore, I added records to it. And, record needles, in honor of the wonderful product line that accompanies records from Warren's to Record Town. You would never find record needles at a discount or department store; the provenance of my own stock is Radio Shack stores which discontinued the items in the mid-1990s.
What makes us stick with records? Things like this: today I have an order for Bob Dylan's album "Self Portrait." A little research reveals that the buyer is ordering from Italy.... a little more research reveals he is buying up every copy of this album he can find.... a little more research reveals that some sellers are refusing to sell to him, thinking he is a scammer because of ordering so many copies....a little more research suggests he is driving up the price of the Bob Dylan Self Portrait gatefold album.....a little more research reveals that..... he's a Bard College art professor working on a sculpture constructed out of these gatefold album covers!
That kind of thing happens more often than you might think in the strange world of record selling.
Even stranger is knowing that probably no one, or certainly a very few, humans will ever lay eyes on this blog entry. In that respect, it makes me not much different from the spectral portrait I viewed last week, standing on the sidewalk on West Main Street in New Britain, Conn., peering through the window at Warren's Music Centre. Standing at the cash register, his hawkish chin and prominent nose in clear profile, staring straight ahead at the wall; it's Warren himself.... waiting for a record buyer.

Friday, April 11, 2008



Ferrari in the news? If you have a Ferrari, you probably make your own news. Ferrari owners, true to their income brackets, are a clannish lot and have long reported their doings in publications not only authorized by Ferrari, but also through owners clubs and the king of all Ferrari publications, Cavallino.

In the bigger world of grand prix motor racing, Ferrari is also a force. Recent "racy" news stories have quoted the legendary Ferrari champion Jody Scheckter, who won the Formula One world driver's title for the marque in 1979.

Perhaps not content for Cavallino to solely report on Ferrari activities in the glossy magazine world, the car company announced in March 2008 that they will partner with Conde Nast to co-publish a quarterly slick beginning at the end of September at the 2008 Paris Auto Show.

That's a nod to the longstanding authority of Cavallino among Ferrari owners, who collect scarce copies of the magazine and have driven back issue prices up continuously for almost a quarter century. In our store we now have some selected back issues from 1984 to 2006. We also offer the Ferrari tribute publication from the Monterey Historic Automobile Races and Ferrari Concours d'Elegance International Meet in 1984. Also, Testa Rossa Number 3 (covering the retirement of Jody Scheckter); and Ferrari Market Letter Volume 31 Number 11 covering the 2006 Mille Miglia.

To see any or all of these items, click the links above or type in "Ferrari" or "Cavallino" in our search box. All the items come from one collector who hasn't owned a Ferrari in a while. Why do some of them seem so scarce? The scarcity derives from so many Ferrari collectors being the "buy and hold" types. Chances are, any of these publications you buy from us today will resell for more in the days and months to come. It's certainly not a promise or even a suggestion, but if past history holds true, scarce copies of Cavallino almost never go down in price. If you would like to compare prices, we suggest going to Cavallino's own website, where they also provide back issues and pretty much set the market price for them. Happy racing!