Fopp shopping on Tuesday, came across this in their ever-expanding vinyl section ('Vinyl Is Killing MP3s' as the stickers plastered around the shop say) because it's so fashionable right now. Fopp are and always have been waging war on the idea of no-space-needed (except on your hard drive) storage, as I know to my cost. The shop's been responsible for many a CD/DVD bargain sitting on my shelves.
A new vinyl LP now costs almost as much as my first weekly wage back when it was the only thing (apart from tapes). I've watched it swing from near-extinction to mass secondhand, cheap availability to where it is now, a mixture of shiny new extravagance, extortionately-priced Indie albums and if you're lucky sensibly-priced s/h.
Miles Davis - San Francisco 1970 on Let Them Eat Vinyl (you can't, otherwise I'd never have sold all those Blue Note albums back when I was on the dole) was only £12 so with reservations I shelled out - reservations regarding whether I actually had these tracks or not. The 'Classic Radio Broadcast' subtitle lead me to believe I didn't have them, although you know what it's like collecting these days, all that stuff on your drive.
Back home I checked, relieved to find the tracks aren't on the Fillmore West dble CD. These tracks are from the extra four-night Fillmore run booked by Bill Graham, probably when he saw how well Davis was going down the with longhairs. Must say it's a novelty putting the needle on a newly-purchased Miles Davis vinyl album. Haven't done that in decades. From the opening of Honky Tonk all doubts (about the sound quality) dissolve as my admiration for The Man, especially this period, rises up once more, flooding my senses, almost, a tingle, a gut feeling, a head feeling as, to coin a Parliament phrase, I 'Let the vibes flow through', this sort of Jazz not only moves, it can remove, dig?
Honky Tonk is such a....groove...sorry, I can think of no other word...that slow burn lit by Michael Henderson's stunning bass and him again on What I Say - ! What can I say? Turns out this night has appeared on a bootleg CD but I don't care, it's new to me. Have you tried keeping up with all the Miles Davis boots? Ridiculous - loads of very poor sound quality too.
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Ekoplekz springs to life again by announcing Cryptik Stepperz yesterday - not new material but who cares when it's this good. He always was if not Above then Aside somewhere, apart from the pack and pushing a unique brand of digi-dub (!). These are leftovers (but some released on a limited cassette) from 2012. Listening again, allowing for his take on rhythm, I do put him Above many others, the common herd. At one point, around the time of these tracks, perhaps, he overloaded us all, coming at every angle with cassettes, split release, albums - too much of a good thing? It's possible, so it's good to be made aware once more, from the distance of his hibernation, how skilled Nick is at blending space-age radiophonics with ruff rhythms...
So much Miles, so little time. Ekoplekz is outside my area of knowledge, but I've been dipping into his Bandcamp page since checking out 'Wronko Riddim'. There's some interesting stuff going on.
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