LATEST ADDITIONS

Extra, extra, read all about it: Jethro Tull's seminal March 1972 album Thick as a Brick is soon coming our way in a 50th anniversary 1LP half-speed master in its original newspaper packaging on July 29, via Parlophone.

I discovered New York’s Grizzly Bear in a most typical way, for me — over the in-store PA system at Amoeba Music here in San Francisco. When their in-store play got to the band’s then-big hit — “Two Weeks,” from their May 2009 album Veckatimest — I realized I had indeed previously heard the song’s distinctive, earworm-inducing, millennial-whoop-flavored signature hook. Soon enough, I started collecting the Grizzly Bear catalog on vinyl. While I’ve enjoyed my 180g Veckatimest reissue, I’ve long suspected there might be more depth tucked away in the recording. Thus, I was excited to learn the good folks at Vinyl Me Please were re-releasing Veckatimest in a half-speed mastered, 45rpm colored vinyl edition.

The second edition of "Making Vinyl" was an even greater success than last year's, which was plenty good. Following Record Store Day founder Michael Kurtz's panel "Record Store Day 11 Years Later", AnalogPlanet.com editor Michael Fremer ran "New Vinyl Plants Fire Up the Presses", which you can watch here. (Photo: Discogs sandwich of Jeffrey Smith and Sean Cannon).

Last Friday, Saturday and Sunday (August 11-14) marked the 15th anniversary of the Hong Kong High End Audio/Video Show held at the gleaming Hong Kong Convention Center. First day's attendance (Friday) was a genuine 11,000. Saturday's was 12,000 and the show organizers told me they expected Sunday's attendance to also hit 12,000. When you watch the video you will have no trouble believing these numbers other than to think they are low!