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Vinyl takes center stage again

This week I review four interesting vinyl releases from Sony/Legacy following Record Store Day on Nov. 25.

There were a slew of novel records released this year by many companies as the popularity of vinyl records continues to increase. It seems the tradition now is to release records that have never been on vinyl or rare reissues. As interest in Record Store Day increases, many of these short-run pressings are bought and are hard to find after that.

— Alice in Chains — “Live Facelift”

It seems this live album is connected to the band’s first real release, as it was recorded live in Seattle in 1990. No longer available in any other format, I don’t ever remember seeing this before, so I believe its a rare gem reissued only for Record Store Day. It’s not to be confused with the band’s initial release “Facelift,” which was recorded in the studio and its earliest “official” release.

This was recorded two years before the band’s massive-selling breakout album “Dirt,” released in 1992. “Facelift” was the record that got Alice in Chains noticed, when the band’s sludge-like morphing of metal, punk and “stoner” rock it hit a nerve with young music fans tired of the same old pop song and dance. The breakout hit from “Facelift” became one of the band’s signature songs, “Man in the Box.”

The live document is well recorded with several early songs, including “Man in the Box.” This is where it all began for one of the most influential bands of the 1990s grunge era. It reminds me of the glory days of indie releases on northwestern regional labels like Subpop.

— Bob Dylan — “The Real Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert”

Sony was kind enough to send me both the double-LP and CD of this document from one of Dylan’s most cathartic eras.

Dylan’s European 1966 tour with what would soon be called the Band — without Levon Helm on drums — was a shock to the system for fans who hadn’t yet caught up with the “electric” Dylan. The results were concerts full of back-and-forth between Dylan and the audience, most of whom sat politely through his solo acoustic portion of the show, only to turn into raging idiots calling Dylan every name in the book when he picked up his electric guitar.

The entire tour is documented on the 36-CD release by Sony of Dylan’s entire tour. What’s really interesting is the show previously released by Columbia in 1998 as Volume 4 of Dylan’s long-running official bootleg series billed itself as recorded at the Royal Albert Hall. The only problem is this — although extensively documented upon its initial release it was later discovered the album wasn’t recorded at the Royal Albert Hall at all. In fact, it was recorded in Manchester, England!

Oops. My slip is showing.

How this happened and who discovered it, I don’t know. It could have been a keen-eared executive or even a fan with a bootleg of the “real” Royal Albert Hall show. I do understand how it could happen, because even though most of the dates on the tour were taped by Columbia, it seemed the tour was fairly brisk and chaotic with lots of late nights, traveling and various substances being used and abused in copious quantities. It would have been easy to misplace or mis-label the show tapes, especially with the set list for each show being virtually the same or close to it. That happened a lot with all record companies back in the day as tape reels got stored in enormous vaults.

Anyway, the show is superb, with the acoustic set showing Dylan at his A-list best, with wonderful readings of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” “Just Like a Woman” and an especially potent “Desolation Row.”

The tapes distort somewhat for the electric portion of the show, but Dylan is rocking defiantly hard on “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Ballad of a Thin Man” and a simply ferocious version of “Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat,” a song that poked slight fun at the hippie/hipster crowd, but here Dylan — perhaps spurred on by the catcalls — does the song with a vengeance.

I’m delighted to see Columbia/Sony corrected the show, but I’m even more delighted with the box set of the entire tour. This is the Holy Grail for Dylan fans, as it doesn’t get any better than this.

— Run DMC — “Christmas in Hollis”

This reissue by one of the founding fathers of hip hop is a strange item in the band’s catalog. Re-released as a picture disc, it seems this originally was a short-run record released in 1991 for various charities, including those devoted to mental health.

I’ll be honest here — although I’m well familiar with the song “Christmas in Hollis,” I haven’t listened to this record, mainly because I’m a little hesitant to play records with picture discs. I’ve seen them ruined by bad turntables, and although mine is fine, I consider these more collectible than anything else. I guess that’s all I really have to say about it, except this novelty record still is available on Amazon as of this week.

— South Park — “Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics”

OK — I’ll admit I love this album! Basically this is for fans of the long-running cartoon show “South Park,” a show known for going out of its way to offend just about everyone. Politically incorrect as can be, unless you watch the show I can’t even tell you who Mr. Hankey is except to say it’s kind of gross.

No matter. It’s a guilty pleasure, and the album chronicles all the worst of the “South Park” Christmas songs in one big, funny package.

Even some of the song titles are taboo here, but they include “Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo,” “Swiss Colony Beef Log” — one of the most popular — and “Christmas Time in Hell” credited to Satan, the Dark Prince, which is my personal favorite.

I know — this is bad. But it’s supposed to be satire, so it’s also very funny. I really have no defense except I’m a big fan of dark humor. Like “South Park” the show, you’ll either love it or hate it, and I don’t blame you. But for “South Park” fans this is really a lot of naughty fun.

I’ll let you decide.

(Mark Miller is co-editor of Weekender.)

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