A Happy New Year!

We're at the end of 2008 and our Best of 2008-lists are way overdue, right?
Wrong! We don't do lists. We're too busy enjoying the music.

Juste time enough to say that our Album of the Month for January 2009 will be from a female artist, a living legend. And the record is from the early 70's. Tune in to Radio Dupree January 1 to hear tracks from it.

Have a Happy New Year!

Oh, and since we're here and now; Happy Birthday to Donna Summer, 60 today!

(Heard her fine comeback album Crayons from 2008 yet?)

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Added goodies from Walter Becker!

Announced in the newsletter to all subscribers is a brand new version of the bonus track Circus Mony Dub, given away for free!

Get on over to http://www.walterbecker.com and fetch it. And while you're there why not sign up for the newsletter as there's more to come in 2009... :)

Radio Dupree hommage to Lars Hollmer

As a hommage to Swedish prog music veteran Lars Hollmer, who passed away on Christmas Day, Radio Dupree has picked a bunch of songs from different eras of Lars' carreer. All tracks already spinning on our playlists.

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* Dundrets Fröjder
A long grooving instrumental from the successful 1973 album Måltid by the group Samla Mammas Manna.
* Profession Är Amatörens Lim
A song with lyrics about writing a song for mum. From the 1978 album Schlagerns Mystik by Zamla Mammaz Manna. Didja notice the changed spelling of the group's name?
* Antsong
An Eino Haapala/Lars Hollmer composition from the 1981 album Zamlaranamma, by the group von Zamla.
* Boeves Psalm
Lars' song to his beloved uncle Bo-Evert. Hollmer's only hit record. From the album XII Sibiriska Cyklar released in the early 80's.
* Andra Ikarien
From the 1999 CD Kaka. Here they went back to the old way of spelling...Samla Mammas Manna.
* AKA Session
From Sola, a solo CD by Lars Hollmer.

Swedish musician Lars Hollmer dies

Swedish keyboardist, composer and member of the legendary group Samla Mammas Manna has died at the age of 60.
Hollmer was one of the formers of Samla Mammas Manna, a group that had its own place in the Swedish progressive music in the 70's.
In the early 80's Hollmer released Boeves Psalm, which turned out to be his most well known composition (almost by accident). It has been covered by several other artists.

God Jul! (*)

(*) That's "Merry Christmas" in Swedish.

And as Santa in Sweden delivers the gifts in person on Christmas Eve already, we're in the middle of the festivities here at Radio Dupree. Outside the snow is fluffy, plentiful and white (as you can see by the pic included in this post).

Just one thing to add, and that's a Christmas recording from 1968. A favorite. The Rotary Connection and Silent Night Chant. Click that link to hear in on another blog.

God Jul!

Donald Fagen on SHM in Japan January 21, 2009

Here's a link to an online store announcing the availability of The Nightfly and Kamakiriad as Japanese SHM discs. Branded "Limited Release" and with a release date of January 21 2009, the SHM discs are supposed to reflect the CD players laser thanks to the Super High Material pressing, and end up playing better than ordinary CD:s. Result: Better sound!

At least that's what we've been able to dechiper after visiting these two links discussing the pros and cons of SHM:

Link 1

Link 2

We mentioned SHM December 2 when it was announced that Walter Becker's Circus Money was going to be released as a SHM CD in Japan December 17. Anyone ordered, heard and compared that to your average, ordinary CD yet?

A new Zappa birthday bundle

The Zappa Family Trust releases another Frank Zappa Birthday Bundle available through iTunes. Just as its predecessor it features some rare FZ tracks along with some stuff by Dweezil etc.

Tracklisting:
01. Dancin’ Fool (Disco Version) 6:18
02. More Trouble Every Day 5:48
03. Gorgeous Inca 3:25
04. Ancient Armaments 4:09
05. America The Beautiful 3:35
06. You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch 3:12
07. Saturday Girl 2:50
08. Alice 5:12
09. Espanoza 3:26
10. Dumb All Over 5:46
11. Twenty Small Cigars 5:59
12. Lacksadaisial 5:44
13. Dirty Love 4:04

Donald Fagen on Jean Shepherd

I can't say I've seen the movie A Christmas Story from 1983, but apparently Donald Fagen (and a whole lot of other Americans) have. In an article titled The man who told a Christmas story Donald writes about the man behind the movie; Jean Shepherd. A guy who worked on the radio and Donald used to listen to back in the day.
A great read, even if you haven't seen the movie ;)

Weekend music (XMas gift?)

Warren Zevon - Preludes from New West Records on Vimeo.

Sensational Lumpy Gravy snippet on zappa.com

The release of the extended Lumpy Gravy/We're Only In It For The Money project we have mentioned earlier has been delayed. Meanwhile zappa.com offers a sneak preview that we urge you to check out since it is so cool.
Only 30 seconds but the sound seems soo much better compared to the old Lumpy Gravy album!
http://zappa.com/whatsnew/index.html

Steely Dan tribute album from Naked Lunch

It's been quite some time since we wrote anything about Steely Dan covers or tribute bands. Along comes an email from Carsten (thanks!) alerting us to the fact that Texas tribute band Naked Lunch released a CD full of Steely Dan songs December 5.

The album's titled Dark Companions and has bass player Chuck Rainey guesting on Kid Charlemagne and Roger Nichols involved in the mastering of the record!

Naked Lunch has been around for 10 years, and examples of how it sounds can be heard on the MySpace page and the video below.
http://www.nakedlunch.net/
http://www.myspace.com/nakedlunchtx

32 year old album cover censored in the UK

The cover in question. Covered by a mini version of the
alternative version of the cover ... just in case.

Censorship of the internet and who decides what should be stopped or not is being discussed in the UK today, after it became clear that up to 95 % of internet users in the UK can't read about the German heavy metal group Scorpion's 1976 album Virgin Killer on Wikipedia.

The Internet Watch Foundation has for the past 12 years worked at protectng the public from illegal material online through a constantly updated blacklist that internet service providers in the UK can choose to use or not.
According to a BBC blog post the album cover image had been referred to the IWF by a member of the public. After consultation with the police it was assessed as "a potentially illegal image" and put on the banned list that is given to internet service providers, who then block the page.

The cover image is widely available elsewhere, and regardless of what you think of the picture of a naked girl, the photo has not been judged illegal. But it has been blacklisted together with all the text on the page in question, and apparently the internet service providers have no separate check up of new pages/sites added to the IWF blacklist. They just implement it.

Read more over at the BBC .

Mats and Morgan back in their old home town

Yesterday (Dec 4th) the masters of Swedish fusion returned to their old home town Umeå for a gig at the local jazz club. The place was sold out (of course) and the lads gave the audience their all, including some exotic dancing.
Keyboardist Mats Öberg and drummer Morgan Ågren are probably most known for their short collaboration with Frank Zappa, but they have managed to form a carreer with their own (very own) music. They grew up in Umeå in the north of Sweden, but moved to Stockholm in the 1980's. They recently played some gigs in Montreal, Canada, but returned to their childhood area for a concert on December 4.
The Mats & Morgan Band is nowadays narrowed down to a trio, with Gustav Hielm of Meshuggah on bass, but Morgan's brother Jimmy turned up with his guitar on the last songs which brought relief. The boys altered between soundscape-like music and their 100 % energy music-music.
But the show also provided some humorous elements. All of a sudden all the guys on stage stopped playing in the middle of a song and started cheering and screaming or performed a strange dance with bizarre choreography while playing.
Radio Dupree's reporter could only recognize three songs out of maybe fourteen or fifteen that were performed but the last encore was Paltsug, fer sure!

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And from their Tourbook DVD we present as Weekend Music the little ditty Propellerhäst (Propellerhorse):

Madeleine, Walter and Larry...

Just like on Half The Perfect World from 2006, Madeleine Peyroux has worked with producer Larry Klein and Walter Becker on her new one titled Bare Bones. It will be released March 2009.

Becker, Klein and Peyroux wrote Bare Bones and You Can't Do Me for the album. Full track listing and a bit more on the album here.

And as a reminder here's Larry, Walter & Madeleine's collaboration I'm Alright from Half The Perfect World:

Walter Becker "Circus Money" - Japanese SHM Edition!

Since the first version of the album was released June 10 this year, the words "more to come..." has raised the curiosity of visitors to walterbecker.com.

That phrase has been expanded to "Bonus Tracks, Extended Plays, Dubs, Remixes.... and more to come! This page should help you keep them straight."

July 14 saw the arrival of the European version with one new track, and in addition we can now expect a Japanese SHD release on December 17.
No extra songs if this page on the Japanese HMV store is telling the truth, it is comparable to the European version with the bonus track Dark Horse Dub.
But the SHM (Super High Material) pressing might tempt a fans to buy this the latest incarnation of Circus Money.

More on what SHM is can be read in these discussion threads:

What is this new SHM-CD?

SHM-CD format: Hype Or Hope?

And a big thank you to Scott for the news alert!

Tech news: How to kill your vinyl collection!

Do you have a few vinyl records at home? Singles, EP's, LP's... That stuff? And maybe you haven't played them in years thanks to getting rid of the record player.
We at Radio Dupree are seriously thinking about replacing our current studio equipment with this little machine; the so called Vinyl Killer:


More examples on YouTube and here's a link to a Japanese manufacturer of the car/record player. Apparently it does work as it's named; kills vinyl.

By the way; The Radio Dupree homepage has been updated!