There were a select few of us weirdos on my campus into electric Miles. Same kids who liked Keith Jarrett and Weather Report, mainly my art school and music school cohorts. However, I remember one of my friends who literally threatened to break Big Fun into pieces if I played it in his presence again.

Last edited by Chipper (2016-05-28 07:38:39)

I saw Miles Davis in Washington somewhere around 1986-87, I forget where exactly. The Warner, maybe. Not a stadium, or a really big place. It was unbearably loud. The band set up a pretty stiff groove. Davis was dressed up like an intergalactic pimp, and he mostly just shifted around, staring at the floor. Occasionally he'd make a "BLAT!" noise on his trumpet, or poke at a keyboard. The show started and then it stopped. The musicians left the stage, the lights came on, and that was it. We looked at each other and someone said "For five bucks we could have gone to the 9:30 Club and heard somebody who was alive." Very disappointing, to say the least.

Unlike, say P-Funk at Constitution Hall somewhere in this same time frame. Spaceship and everything, and infinitely more fun.

This thread got me interested in the 70s side of my collection again. I'm currently addicted to Ram (Paul & Linda McCartney).

What I notice with many of my pre-1980 slabs of vinyl--almost anything, in fact, pressed between 1955 and 1980--is how well-preserved the vinyl is. When I was a very young kid, I played my old Beatles and Stones on some truly junky, horrible "record players." The so-called styli were more like nails. And yet, these LPs still sound almost free of noise. Makes me think the quality of vinyl pressed back in the day must have been of superior quality.

The me-decade gets a lot of bad press, but I enjoyed most of my time enduring the era of lime-green leisure suits, elephant bell bottoms, and rainbow flip-flops.

Last edited by Chipper (2016-05-30 08:04:18)

Iowa. Just a high school and college kid. LPs were, like, all of $4 USD or so until around 1978. Records were sold all over the place, not just in the record stores, but drug stores, department stores, the local diner. Heaven.

Yeah, 80s vinyl was the worst.

For the record, so to speak, I never owned a leisure suit or elephant bell-bottoms. However, I did fancy some rainbows flip-flops with my 501s in the summertime.

Last edited by Chipper (2016-05-30 08:24:00)

Oh, yeh, RCA vinyl. Like a thin sheet of plastic, almost. Terrible. Even the 60s and 70s stuff was thin.

No reggae collector here, Bop. I have Marley's Live album, though, which I adore.

Back in the day I bought a few pre-recorded cassette tapes out of curiosity, and I thought they were horrible compared to my LPs. However, I did home record a lot, and I occasionally still do if I want to be particularly careful about preserving a rare or "special" LP. I can make home-recorded tapes of LPs, CDs, and radio broadcasts that sound far, far better than any pre-recorded cassette I've ever heard.

What about 8 track cartridges? I had a player in my car in 1974 and the sound was terrific. Playing Marvin Gaye-What's Going On was a sure way to score with the ladies.