Black Friday Record Store Day Titles Worth Considering

not the greatest Black Friday ever but still.....a few that are amazing!

Bad Brains "Live at The Bayou" (Time Traveler Records)

Zev Feldman's new Time Traveler label gets off to a hard core punk bang with Bad Brains Live at the Bayou a double record set covering two concerts July 14, 1980 and March 15, 1981. The Black hard core quartet was more than punk, but it was that plus deep rhythmically skilled dives into reggae, and even a cover of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid". If this doesn't get your adrenaline rushing you're tapped out! The sound is spectacular mono, with vocalist H.R. (Paul Hudson) appropriately up front and in your face and the others well behind but well recorded with great drum sound. Excellent dynamics and crystalline high frequencies help create the appropriate sense of "live" and lots of excitement. The group covers their self-released "Pay to Cum", "At the Movies" and other familiar to fans BB classics. As some of you may remember I was involved in a Bad Brains greatest hits album Banned in D.C. Bad Brains Greatest Riffs (Caroline 5830490) where I transferred vinyl on tracks for which no other source existed. Was fun being part of punk/hardcore history and now there's this! Gatefold jacket and archival quality anti-static inners.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Seek & Listen Live At The Penthouse (1200)

One of two Resonance RSD Black Friday titles. Kirk is in fine and often humorous form in these Penthouse recordings from September 8, 1967 and September 15, 1967. Kirk is on tenor, flute, stritch, manzello, flex atone, siren, whistle, vocals and etc. according to the gatefold jacket. There's a great full sized booklet with annotation by James Carter, Chico Freeman, Steve Turre, Adam Dorn, and Dorthaan Kirk. Even if you don't have the Kirk essential classics on Atlantic, Mercury and other labels like We Free Kings and Rip, Rig and Panic you can dive in right here and catch the talent and the humor Kirk brought to the stage. He does originals and standards including an "Alfie" unlike Rollins' and "Ode to Billie Joe". Side two ends with a raucous, celebratory and flat out silly "Happy Days Are Here Again". Kirk was a showman, a musical comedian and of course a serious musician. By this time the Penthouse had improved its recording system so that this one mastered by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab in glorious mono sounds very good, with a nice instrumental balance unlike some of the earlier released recorded at the venue. It's a party to which you and 1199 others are invited to attend.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Vibrations In the Village Live at The Village Gate (1200)

First what a great story! The engineer was Ivan Berger, who many reading this know from Audio Magazine and maybe on Facebook. Our friend speaker manufacturer Jeff Joseph contacted Zev Feldman about these tapes Ivan had that he'd recorded at The Village Gate November 26th and 27th 1963 a few days after President Kennedy's assassination. I'm writing this on November 26th 62 years later! These are sonically superb Village Vanguard stereo recordings that would get a 10 if I was giving to ratings for these RSD titles. Ivan talked the talk and walked the walk. There's a three dimensional stage and everything plus of course Kirk is in a fine New York state of musical mind backed by Horace Parlan, Melvin Rhyne, Henry Grimes, Sonny Brown and Jane Getz (yes, that one) on various tracks. Matthew Lutthans knocks this one out of the sonic park and even though the annotation is repeated on the other Kirk release this one's a must have. If you're buying one Kirk of the two this is the one for sound and sophistication, the other one for sheer musical fun so....

I hope to have more up here before RSD but I'm publishing it as I go....