Another record store closed. Yesterday the IC Press Citizen reported that Real Records in Iowa City already closed since Jan 31 will shut down forever end of February. Although Craig said that he had other things going on with being a Grandparent and working at KCCK on his gig and lecturing at schools on music, he simply didn't have time to continue to maintain a record store. Sounds like he will take his inventory to the internet after March 1. Real Records has been part of my bargain hunting experience with the original location next to the old Sweet Living Antiques Store then moving downtown Iowa City across the ped mall till 1998 when he took six years off and based it out of the Haunted Bookstore site. Last year he had a 50 percent off used CDs which some were from his inventory and he got tired of having it store up space. Managed to find some forgotten gems such as Best Of Bobby Goldsboro, The Jive Five United Artists Years and some Poco stuff on One Way including Blue & Gray. I was kinda hoping to get down there one more time but cold weather and lack of transportation I couldn't make it. Only Record Collector remains last record store standing in Iowa City.
The lack of quality music and crappy cd sounds and downloading from the internet has pretty much killed off the music stores that I used to get in the car and go to. Last year at this point was the last day of the Coral Ridge FYE store and year before that Hastings in Ames got out of dodge. To which the music lover has to deal with a lackluster and lesser CD selection at Best Buy or Wally World. For the past eight years of music blogging, I have seen lotta well known stores go out of business or set up shop in the internet world. Used to be we had at least 7 or 8 good music stores in town, now there's only 7 or 8 music stores in this area and most you have to drive to. Craig Kessler mentioned that when he did a lecture at a school, he asked the kids if anybody bought a record and was greeted with blank stares. And only a few bought a cd. But the majority of them downloaded a song off the net.
The music era we knew and loved enough to truck down to the store for New Release Tuesday is done. While the music blogs tout more people buying vinyl records what they don't tell you is that the number sold isn't that great even if you lived within driving distance to a record store. Vinyl is nice but it is twice more expensive than the actual CD but the sound is better and not OVERrecorded as a CD nowadays. But I can only go to Madison three times a year at most and if gas prices go higher that's going to be less. Looks like we going have to take our chances of what's new at Half Priced Books, the only saving grace in a era of no music stores.
Best Buy did have some new music that they actually had and Teddy Thompson-Bella (Verve Forecast) might be Thompson's last shot for that label. Four albums on Verve/Universal is considered by far one of the longest tenure at a major label and each album he has gotten better with the 2008's Piece Of What You Need his high water mark. Teddy comes from a great music mom and dad with Linda and Richard Thompson but while never having the sardonic wit that his dad's songs are, nor the sweet irony voice of his mom, Thompson is more in tune with Rufus Wainwright in his vocals. In fact Take Care Of Yourself he sounds like Rufus on the high end yodeling as he fights along with the strings for attention. While All Music and others have called Bella Thompson's best, I think it's less consistent than Piece Of What You Need but rather a compromise of his 2004 Separate Ways emotionalism along with the pop savvy of Piece and while high priced Producer David Kahne adds strings and polish to the songs, the murky and bassy over recording of Bella is painful to the ears. Still if there was such a thing to Album Radio or the now defunct triple M format Thompson would get a well deserved hit with Looking For A Girl and country radio would benefit from The Next One. But since the major label's promoting of new music is nil, this is basically sink or swim without Universal's help. It's a shame really. Teddy Thompson has been one of the few reliable new artists (meaning artists that recorded from 2000 onward) of the past decade that managed to stay on a major and have a following enough to do that. Bella, while not as strong as Piece Of What You Need is a good enough album to justify the reviews of it. It's too bad that Kahne decided to overshoot it by the bad mix. Grade B
Motorhead-The World Is Yours (EMI 2010) The one constant you get with Lemmy is that it's no bullshit 3 chords and rock and roll. The World is Yours is no different but on this album it sounds like Lemmy is getting a tad bit bored with this roar. He's kept the same producer/recorder for the past 5 albums and on this Cameron Webb adds a bit more mud to the mix and burys Mikkey Dee's drum so far back in the mix that you think that Dee was recording from the web and not Phil Campbell who did his guitar work via the net. Technology today is wonderful. Although there are some things worth listening again (Get Back In Line, Rock & Roll Music) the rest of the album roars by like a train in the night. You hear it but you can't recall much of what you just heard. But I still give it a B minus simply of the fact that Lemmy remains true to the power of 3 chords and rock and roll. But unlike Motorizer or Kiss Of Death, I don't remember much of what I heard. Maybe I am stone deaf.
Half Priced Books continues to get them in the used two dollar bins. This big find was the complete 4 CD Eric Clapton Crossroads (But without the big book but I suppose I can live without that) for 8 bucks and the CDs were in fine shape. Also for two bucks was Quiet Please, The New Best Of Nick Lowe (Yep Roc 2009) which starts at What's So Funny About Peace Love & Understanding from the Brinsley Schwartz days up to his last album At My Age. It gives a better overall picture unlike Basher which half that album came from 2 albums Pure Pop For Now People and Labour Of Lust and the half from the other five Nick Lowe Columbia albums. The Yep Roc, spreads most of the Columbia albums around, adds some Rockpile and Little Village numbers to boot and his Reprise Party Of One album before concluding with his Upstart/Yep Roc output. Shows Nick going from Stiff Rocker to Pure Pop number to Soul Pop (via help from Paul Carrack) to eventually a middle of road rock/country that contradicts his Rockpile years. Not to say it's a bad album, it's as complete as you can get but it does leave off key rocking tracks (Now And Always, Teacher Teacher, Love So Fine) in favor of more brooding solo stuff such as Endless Sleep and You Make Me which moreorless tells even back then Nick Lowe was looking more toward a easier groove than the all out punk pop of So It Goes or Heart Of The City. With each of his albums of the 90s growing mellower and me being less interested, Quiet Please shows Nick doesn't have to rock out anymore, he can be comfortable in the country/pop of his later years.
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