This time, we’ve got audio clips from new arrivals for our Down the Vine update! Thanks Jason!

THE TRUE VINE
3544 HICKORY AVE
BALTIMORE, MD 21211
(TELEPHONE: 410 235 4500)

OPEN:
TUES. – SAT. 12 – 9
SUN. & MON. 12 – 6

hello there,
here’s some blurbs of about 1% of what’s come through our door this week, just to make a few points in space. but first i will mention an upcoming true vine performance:

DANIEL HIGGS
live at the true vine
saturday october 18th
daniel will start at 3:00 p.m. during open store hours
when he will stop, nobody knows
there is no admission charge

LP’S:

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THE FLYING LIZARDS: S/T $12 (virgin records 1979 debut album by david cunningham’s brilliant attack on pop music pop band. features the top ten hit ‘money (that’s what i want)’  which is a phenomenon, in that something so quickly thrown together & intentionally weird could be successful on the american charts. i dont it’s happened since. by the way, the rest of this album is great despite the radio program director’s note for dj’s on my personal promo copy that says “by no means try to play any other track on this record!”)

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BLO: CHAPTER ONE $30 (out of print shadoks issue of their early 70′s album. heavy african funk with traces of psychedelia & hard rock.)

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ZOMES: S/T $12 aisa osborne’s (of lungfish) solo album. the music works with slow repetitive murky lines that feel ancient & homespun. the melodies & pulses of lungfish can be found living inside. excellent late night listening. also available as a cd for $10.

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FOX & COMPANY: S/T: $25 (1977 rare private press album that moves through funky disco rock

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MARGO GURYAN: TAKE A PICTURE $17 (reissue of her 1968 debut album. “love. what does it mean to live between the beginning & the ending of love? where do you go to get to know the reason why a brand new feeling comes to take you away from reason? love. how do you know the things you do you do not only from need. and not from greed. but only from love? love. when do you get to be someone who can give, & live without hurting someone you love? why do we grow & never show the little that we know of love?)

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CHRISTIANA: FINAL CHURCH $12 (an 80′s 12″ EP i’ve never seen before, featuring f.m.einheit of einsturzende neubauten. the cover has been through alot but the vinyl is in good shape. i would recommend this record for dj’s for the first cut entitled ‘suechtig’. funky avant industrial dub…ness.)

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THE ETERNAL RUSH EAST: JESUS CELEBRATION $7.5 (70′s church album featuring kid musicians making songs to help the youth in the desperate battle with narcotics. when they aren’t playing, minister wade akins takes the mic & bores us all to tears.)

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DR. OCTOPUS: PARTS 1 & 2 $14 (atmospheric excursion feat. ju suk reet meate of smegma. beautiful silkscreened jacket art & limited to 333 copies. probably out of print by now)

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SCOTTIE B: FUK DAT $10 (raw scottie b 12″ EP on hardhead records)

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CD’S:

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GILBERTO GIL: EXPRESSO 2222 $15 (1972 reissue of brazilian artist & tropicalia pioneer, gilberto gil. features some of of the most tight fast & funky songs of his career)

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THE CAN OPENERS: IS THE ONE $10 (new megaphone limited release of the can openers third album that took not much time to record but 10 years to release because after all, it’s just time. guaranteed to rub your fur the wrong way & pluck out your feathers.)

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ANDRE POPP & HIS ORCHESTRA: DELIRIUM IN HI-FI $18 (import cd issue of this french arranger’s 1957 album. this works in a similar vein to spike jones but uses tape manipulation to create the wacky disturbances.)

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ERSEN: S/T $17 (finders keepers label. ersen are turkish & this record is from the 70′s & it’s funky & it’s groovy & it rocks & it’s great.)

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JOHN GAVANTI: S/T $14 (early 80′s concept album created by sumner crane of the no wave band mars with help from members of mars & dna. when i had a record shop in frederick in the early 90′s i spent weeks tracking down sumner’s phone # & he gave me a box of sealed copies of the vinyl & i took down all the display records in the store & replaced them with 20 copies of this record. they cost $5 a piece & i never sold one over the course of a few years.)

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ENNIO MORRICONE: IN THE BRAIN (cherry red records compilation of morricone’s psychedelic, groovy, atmospheric, wacky, dark & beautiful sides. i’m so happy this man was born on earth.)

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MODERN SHIT: WILL MAKE YOU ILL $19 (modern shit was a very limited edition cassette from the 80′s that has now been reissued on disc by alga marghen. one driving force behind modern shit is amos who was in the homosexuals. any project that this man has been involved in ends up being incredibly unique & surreal.)

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FROM THE REPAIR SHOP:
karl just finished the vaginanator & it is now for sale fpr $75. he also finished it’s little brother, the kuken 500, for $60. both are modified kid’s keyboards that can do so much more than before. ask to try them out & karl will hook them up for you.

two new instruments are available here now from instrument creator peter blasser. the radio zither & the sidrassi. i will step down now & let peter take the mic.

peter:
Hello my friends. RADIOZITHER is wireless technology, in marriage with a fine wooden casket carved from Pawlonia logs at the Baltimore Municipal Stump Dump. Modeled after the pan-Asian tradition of plank zithers (guqin, gayageum, koto), its form reflects upon ancient heritages. Its function is to transcend traditions through radio, to inspire global thinking physically as well as ethereally.  This instrument sonifies plucks as well as movements between plucks, it is played / meta-played, my friends.

Oil is too sophisticated to burn, said the chemist Dmitrii Mendeleev on examining petroleum. Plastic is a sublimation of oil, and it is key to develop the acoustic resonance of RadioZither. The colorful nylon strings feel like silk, and sound like crystal. The translucent triangle “bridges” are resonant plastic, which prop up the strings and transmit their tone to the body of the instrument. In the words of Carson, “Plastic is a sound”.

Two radio fields envelop your left hand and your right hand. You pluck Nylon chords on a wooden plank. my friends, these two vibrations are multiplied (heterodyned) to produce an electro-acoustic vector.

The antennae are aluminum discs, which give a visual cue to the invisible shape of the radio field.  Each field has three controls:
-volume controls how loud the tone is, my friends.
-modulation lets the other RadioPad twist this one’s shape (NEW)
-tuning sets the general pitch range

The body of the instrument contains two large (louder) piezo-transducers, embedded at strategic locations to relay the acoustics to a preamplifier circuit which also generates an envelope.  When the player does no action, the instrument will be electronically silent due to this envelope. Another way to say this is “the theremins are triggered by plucking the strings”. To counter this “silence based modality” there is a “GrungeKnob” which brings the sound of the electronics up as well as microphonic sensitivity in the cavity. my friends, you can also press anywhere on the body to shape the volume of the theremins.

acoustic demonstration (through Fender Blues Junior)
playing strings with para-plucking (hitting, pressing, scraping)
bass and walking meta-chords
feedback system times radio sounds times space within room with loud Fender amp
listening, my friends, to the new cross-modulations in the RadioPads

Because the each zither is carved from a different hunk of wood, they will all be different, thus you can purchase finished pieces below, or comission a certain style by contacting me.  The current run of 9-stringers ($888) are 56 inches long and about 8 wide. 12 volt transformer included in the USA, my friends.

The SIDRASSI ORGAN has seven pressure sensitive bars, my friends, which you press to express the seven tones within. Use the buttons on the front to scroll each tone through tuning, which then is set to what you choose. There is a master pitch knob, as well as a master modulation knob. There are 42 nodes to touch or weave with wire. When wired, the bars go solipsistic; each one is unique now.  Press a bar, its sound goes left, release it, its sound goes right; it has a stereo influence.  The Sidrassi is an Organ, designed to reflect the glory of god. But it allows exploration of the Devils’ Tone, which is irrational relationships. The instrument runs on transformer (“wall-wart”).”

thankyou peter.
that’s enough for now.
til next time,
love,
jason

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