Well, here it is as it sits.
I removed the rear spoke protector as well as the brittle 70s spoke reflectors.
I added a Velo-Orange croissant bag. I put my broken in Brooks B17 honey saddle to good use. I repurposed the ugly chrome bottle cage. I shined it up with Turtle Wax chrome polish and used a Velo-Orange bar mount to mount it to the bars. I am using the cage to carry the stainless steel tea thermos that I also scored from VO.
I then conferred with The Bike Guy, for alternatives to the horrible 70s drop bars and brake levers. he started out by setting me up with some used Bluemels/SKS chromo plastic fenders. We then decided that some old cruiser bars would work, as long as they had a few inches lopped off of each end. I said that I wanted to go with the Tektro inverse brake levers. We looked in some catalogs, but all of the ones that we found had externally routed cables. That was not going to work with the cork grips and the shortened cruiser bars.
The Bike Guy found some internally routed Tektros a few days later in another catalog. He then drilled some holes on either side of the stem to route the brake cables. I have to say, that they make the bike. They are kind of hard to see in the picture above. They look cool, and work very effectively to pull the Dia-Compe centerpulls to achieve maximum braking force.
Today, I swapped out the orginal looking Raleigh racing pedals for some Shimano Deore XT pedals from the 80s. They are lighter, and seem to work great. The bearings seem to have a lot more life in them than the other pedals.
The seating position on this rig is pretty straight up, and the bars allow for a comfortable upright stance as well. I think that I could put 100s of miles on this machine. I am really looking forward to it.
Well, there has been some progress on the Grand Prix that I picked up a week ago.
First of all, I decided to go with some Bluemels/ SKS aluminum and composite fenders. The Bike Guy had used pair that are going on as I type. There is an old taillight alread on there, that I am planning to replace. It looks good as it stands, though.
I put my trusty Brooks B17 saddle on the bike. under the saddle I placed the extremely cool Velo Orange Croissant bag. The build quality n this bag is out of control- Solid brass (not plated) buckles, really nice leather straps and cool retro treated duck cloth. I also removed the brittle 70s reflectors.
I decided to go with some old used cruiser bars. The Bike Guy and I thought that if about 5 inches were clipped from each side, the bars would be perfect. I am going to go with natural cork grips. (I am thinking that a nice layer of Barge cement might be just the ticket for protection.) Salsa brake levers will be a modern, rad touch. To do the conversion, I am going to require new brake cables and cable housings. I chose black for the housings. To finish off the bars, I am going with a Velo Orange water bottle cage attachment as well as VO Moderniste cage.
I will post pics when the bike is back in the stable.
I added the Raleigh Grand Prix pictured above to the stable. I have been getting more into the vintage touring and randoneuring thing lately. I even considered doing the whole 650b thing to my 84 Paramount. Alas, it seemed to be too much work to force the issue with that bike.
I decided to look for a 70s Raleigh and this one came up on craigslist, so here it is. The current idea is to strip all the bs off this bike and then add some velo-orange fenders. I plan to put a bottle cage on the bars as there is not a braze on for that purpose on the frame itself. I am currently undecided on the bars, but I will need to replace those and get some new brake levers as well. I will add the Brooks saddle to this one as well.
This one has the full Simplex kit and also has some Dia-Compe centerpulls. The frame is a piece of built-in Nottingham beauty with gold paint accented lugs. I am dating this one to the mid 70's but that is just a guess at this point.
Should be fun.
One of my all time favorite blogs is Fufu Stew. Vincent The Soul Chef hails from Baltimore and knows how to throw the soul and funk down. His crates are DEEP. Vincent has been an inspiration as well as a constant well wisher and supportive of all of my efforts here at Cratedigger.
I am honored to have him back for a visit in the form of a guest mix. I look forward to meeting up in person at some point to spin the wheels of steel here in the Chicago area or in Baltimore. But until then, let the music play...
I went up to the northern neighbor of our fair state yesterday in quest of some new 45s. By this I mean, I went to Wisconsin and in more specific terms, I went to Milwaukee to a small record show that I go to a few times a year. It takes place in a small bowling alley, that seems to be afraid of turning on the heat. No matter, I found a few sides to heat up the Cratedigger reference system.
Give Me One More Chance Wilmer and The Dukes (aprhodisiac)
The Funky Judge Bull & The Matadors (Toddlin' Town)
I Likes To Do It The People's Choice (Phil LA of Soul)
Clean Up Woman Betty Wright (Alston) A. Toot's hot hand found this one.
C'Mon & Swim Bobby Freeman (Autumn)
Back Street Edwin Starr (Ric-Tic)
A great way to spend yet another cold grey day.
Tracklist:
01 Good Old Music-Parliaments (Revilot)
02 You’re Getting A Little Too Smart-Detroit Emeralds (Westbound)
03 The Whip-Pal & The Prophets (Phil La of Soul)
04 Do The Dirt-The Meters (Reprise)
05 Hooray For The Salvation Army Band-Bill Cosby (Warner Bros.)
06 Jungle Strut-Ramsey Lewis (Columbia)
07 Boo Ga Loo Baby-Tommy & Cleve (Checker)
08 Groove Me-King Floyd (Chimneyville)
09 Since The Days of Pigtails and Fairy Tails-Chairmen of The Board (Invictus)
10 The Baby-Blackbyrds (Fantasy)
11 You Say It-Al Green (Hi)
12 Escape-ism Pt 2&3-James Brown (People)
I would like to give a HUGE shout out to Vincent The Soul Chef for letting me into the kitchen with my Technics and my records. It is a true honor to be among the soul blogging cognoscenti. Many more years of successful digging and blogging to you, my friend.
Also Special thanks to The Colonel for the Bend OR snow action shots.
Head on over to Fufu Stew post haste and check out the latest:
Dig Out!
I found the LP Memphis Underground in a budget section of a record shop a couple of weeks back. It was $.99. How could I pass it up?
Herbie just wails, starting on the first track, which is the title track. Roy Ayers provides a nice accompaniment with his tasteful use of the vibes. At times the guitar provided by (I am guessing) Sonny Sharrock provides an excellent counterpoint. Some nice sustain and distortion rages there.
The cover version of Hold On I'm Coming is interesting as well. Mann takes the vocal lead with his soulful flute. The band behind him builds a strut base from which he riffs. There is a killer drum break with Herbie just going crazy over it. Solid. Towards the end, Mr. Sharrock lifts off into a dissonant orbit. I was not really expecting the track to come unhinged like that. Tons of skronkity, string bending and stretching is in effect.
Chain of Fools starts the second side. More of a swamp feel. When the fuzzed out guitars start to ring of Mr. Ayres vibes, there is a decidedly acid rock feel going on. This LP is from 69, so I guess that makes sense.
The set ender, The Battle Hymn of The Republic, loses me a bit, though. Over all, this is a solid set, and if you have been reading this far, I am sure that you need to get a copy of your very own. I have uploaded a track to give you a taste for what you are in for. Enjoy!
Hold On I'm Comin' Herbie Mann
Above, is a shot of my new Ikea Expedit Record Shelf. Thanks to A. Toots, I now have a wall unit that will (hopefully) hold my LPs. A side benefit is that I will now be able to have all of my 12 inchers in one room. I am psyched!
Putting the large Expedit together is a definite job for 2 strong people. It is pretty heavy and very unwieldy to hoist up on the wall. I also put some bolts into the wall on both the upper left and upper right to hold the unit once it starts getting loaded up with vinyl. The unit itself seems to be very sturdy and judging by all of the shots that I have seen on the internets with Expedits holding other collections, I think that I should be fine.
By the standards of most, I don't have all that many records, but it is always a challenge to keep everything in order.
Also notice my Robt. Williams litho and the Coffy poster on the other wall.
From a recent digging trip, I came up with a stereo copy of Yusef Lateef's Live at Pep's LP. The cover is in great shape, and you know how those Impulse! LPs from the 60s look-- nice glossy covers with sharp color photos. The disc itself was in VG + shape. I was sold.
Since it is an unbelievably dreary Sunday afternoon, it seems like a great time to share some jazz.
The personnel on this set include:
Yusef Lateef tenor sax, oboe, argo, and shannas
Richard Williams trumpet
Mike Nock piano
Ernie Farrow bass
James Black drums.
Recorded June 29, 1964
Also of note, Rudy Van Gelder engineered this disc. Having been a more passive consumer of jazz, I am looking to make it a more active endeavor, and to that point, Mr. Van Gelder seems to show up on a lot of sets that I find pleasing.
Mr. Lateef draws from a wide range of influences and uses the oboe to great effect on this set. Some of the more out there instruments argo and shannas are put to use and end giving a distinct feel to his musical selections.
To that end, here is a track called The Magnolia Triangle from side two of Live at Pep's. That odd tone at the beginning and at the end of the track is produced by the aforementioned argol. Apparently this is a "twin piped reed instrument from Syria." It reminds me of some of the Pipes of Pan type noises that are all over the Master Musicians of JaJouka...
I especially dig on the drum break and the ensuing section, where the trumpets hooks up into the groove.
I thoroughly enjoy this LP, go out and find a copy for yourself!
Download Magnolia Triangle here
Hey All.
Sorry I have been MIA. I have been traveling to pay the bills. but trying to get some digging in wherever my travels have taken me.
I also experienced the loss of my trusty mac book, so that has been a bit of a setback.
In celebration, I have gone deep into the cratedigger vault to assemble a mix of art rock that I call the knockingshop.
I am sure that I will catch some grief for this, but I don't really care. As long as the music is weird, the guitars(sometimes) are loud, and the end result doesn't verge too close to prog, I am pretty comfortable with the genre.
For me, art rock seems to spin around the central hub of Brian Eno. He (or his direct influence) touches many of the tracks on knockingshop. He performs, directs and sometimes produces various items on this sonic menu.
Adrian Belew is another character that has his sonic fingerprints all over the mix. His wailing guitar stylings are a hallmark of artrock as well, methinks.
All of the tracks were gathered from original LPs that I had collected in various crates around the homestead. I had a lot of fun taking a trip down memory lane putting this one together. Hope you dig it.
Here is the tracklist:
cratedigger knockingshop
01 DJ David Bowie
02 Lone Rhino Adrian Belew
03 Third Uncle Eno
04 Man Machine Kraftwerk
05 Worlds in Collision Jerry Harrison
06 Cars Gary Numan
07 Miss Shapiro Phil Manzanera / 801
08 Cross Eyed & Painless Talking Heads
09 Trash Roxy Music
10 Neil & Jack & Me King Crimson
Download here
Old friend, DJ Colonel sent me some of his radio shows. As you might remember from a few months back, I posted a few DJ Colonel mixes. The show below is from his Bend OR radio program.
I don't think that he is podcasting yet, but in DJ Colonel's own words, "Come on daddyo, give dem people what you know they need. peace, colonel."
Here tis:
01 Caution Bob Marley & The Wailers
02 Dub The Line Gregory Isaacs
03 Watermelon Man Baba Brooks Band
04 No Time ft. Military Man Capelton
05 Reggae Fever Steel Pulse
06 Picture on The Wall Lion Inn Jungle
07 Gone Down Dezarie
08 The Killer Jah Stich
09 Ganja Plant Rider 10 ft Ganja Plant
10 Pass De Kahn Abja
11 Effortless Dub Greenstars
12 Free Man The Ethiopians
13 El Pussycat Roland Alphonso
14 World a Reggae Ini Kamoze
15 Hustler Ky-mani Marley
Download here
This time around in cratedigger labs, I mixed it up a bit and there is a mixture of soul, funk and more jazz grooves than I have thrown down in the past.
I have been working on the new gear to get the best sound, so I hope that I was successful. I think I made all the fades...
I call it "Down and Dirty," Dig It!
Here is the track list:
01 Intro Christopher Recordings
02 Here Come The Judge Shorty Long Soul
03 Sho Nuff Jimmy McGriff Sunset
04 A Funky Space Reincarnation Part II Marvin Gaye Tamla
05 Cloud Nine Temptations Gordy
06 Huracan Cal Tjader Crystal Clear
07 Hey Big Brother Rare Earth Rare Earth
08 Party Freaks Pt 2 Miami Drive
09 Hey Mr. DJ Bobby Moore Checker
10 Kufanya Mapenzi (Makin Love) Ramsey Lewis Columbia
11 Got Pleasure Ohio Players Westbound
12 Stop Her On Sight (SOS) Edwin Starr Ric-Tic
This mix was compiled from all original vinyl sources, most of them being the 7 inch 45 variety. The records themselves were found in the bottom of dusty crates in and around Chicago and the northern IL area.
Support your local vinyl destination. F the 'Bay!
Download here
Also, please leave a comment, literally 100s of folks are downloading my mixes, but I am getting hardly any feedback.
Based on the post below, this is a follow up in getting my 1200s set up for success in the sonic realm.
I got a replacement Shure Whitelabel cartridge and stylus in the mail. This package contained some instructions, which helped me set up the turntables correctly, finally.
I put the new cartridge on the right 1200 which had the quieter cartridge as judged by listening the the loud Ramsey Lewis 45 as described below.
The directions instructed me to take the tonearm off the rest, and then crank the counterweight all the way back so that they tonearm is sticking up in the air, kind of like a seesaw with a fat kid on one side. Then, I turned the counterweight so that it was "floating" just above the Material record that I had on the platter. I then set the dial on the tonearm to the zero setting. Next I moved the counterweight so there was 2 grams of force on the tonearm. I then spun the Material LP and it tracked perfectly. It's sonic output was also boosted, so my replacement is deemed a success.
I then set up the left 1200 with the counterweight set up as described above. I tracked a Tangerine Dream LP from 75 and it tracked perfectly as well.
A successful day in the lab, after a 60 mile road trip in the funkwagon in search of more vinyl.
I have been using Shure White Label cartridges that came with the 1200s that I bought a few months back, and I thought that they sounded pretty good. I even spent the money to get some new styli so that I wouldn't be killing my vinyl with worn needles...
I recently upgraded the mixer and over the weekend, I set out to make a mix of some of my recent finds. I hooked up my macbook to my amp, fired up garage band and started mixing.
Listening, and watching the meters in GB showed that one of my tables was much quieter than the other. At first, I chalked this up to the fact of the variety of mastering levels, mono v. stereo etc. So I finished up the mix with the 45 of Makin' Love by Ramsey Lewis. This is a pretty loud and full sounding groove on any day, but on this day it was darn near deafening.
Something was up. I took the record and put it on the right table, and it was definitely quieter. Next I switched the whitelabels from one table to the other. Now the right table was louder, and the left was the quiet one. I then switched the styli from one to the other. That did not have an effect on the Ramsey Lewis 45. The same right 1200 was louder than the left. So I don't think that the styli are the culprits.
One of my whitelabels is more quiet that the other. I verified by listening to the mix that I made, and there was only so much EQ, that I could throw into the mix after the fact.
Early this morning, I ordered another whitelabel. Once I get it, I will match the new with the better of the two cartridges that I currently have.
I thought I would share some thoughts about some recent LPs and tracks that I have come across.
The Chambers Brothers Greatest Hits. The title is a misnomer, of course. I am not a Billboard Hot 100 scholar, but really come on "Time Has Come Today" is the only hit I know of. The set opener "Funky" has a nice short break at the beginning. The LP version of "Time Has Come Today" has a much longer freak out / jam/ break than the 45 version that I have had for years. Look for this break to appear on a cratedigger labs release in the near future, sound pilgrims.
Side 2 contains a track that has much backwards weirdness and sound effects ala "Time Has Come Today" and was a nice treat that I had not heard before.
The name checking the Eric Burdon does on the track Monterey has not aged very well. The music is light as well. Not any of the Gratefully Dead unreleased single swagger is evident. Searh that track out as it has Burdon's growl, backwards guitars like Hendrix, and has that heavy acid sound that Chas Chandler (early Animals bassist, Jimi manager) became known for.
My ears perked up a bit when the stereo effects of "Closer To The Truth" where a blues dirge and and out of tune guitar line and twisted in a most peculiar way.
The hippie acid and horns concoction that M. Burdon brews up on this release is nothing to get charged up about. His acid soaked lyrics suggest a sophomoric obsession with Louis Carroll type topics. I won't be spending much time with this one.
I have been checking out some stuff lately, and to paraphrase good buddy Iowahawk,
"The House Recommends" the following:
Kid Dyno and crew has a great new podcast called Breaks for Days Radio. Check it out. Admittedly, I am not much of a hip hop head, but Kid Dyno put together a cool mix with which I enjoyed expanding my listening palette.
Vincent @ Fufu Stew has a New Year's Mix called Fufu Funk Mix #4 1/2. How deep are his crates? I can't believe the volume and quantity of the mixes that he shares with us all...
DJ Blueprint is continuing his guest mix series at This is Tomorrow. There is always something new there- either a new mix, a dusty 45, or something else cool, such as the list he shares dedicated to all of the music people who left us in 2007. Definitely check this one on the regular.
Scholar at Souled On, has a feature called "Cover My Ass" on offer. Here he shares the history behind a track and then serves up a cover version. The quality of writing here, truly allows Scholar to live up to his moniker. Learn something...
Heavy Soul Brutha Dave has a new mix up called Four Quads per Channel Mix. Dave is pushing a tribute to the 70s with this mix of LP tracks. Check it out.
Support your fellow bloggers!
Hey All,
I was very excited to find a new digging spot out in the hinterlands of northern IL, roughly the area that was hit by tornado action earlier this week due to the extremely warm and unseasonable weather here in the scenic Midwest.
For a 35 mile (one way) trip, I think I may have a new place to hit again and again. This place has tons of LPS and upon leaving, I discovered that they also have a lot of 45s that need to be sorted as well. I shall return with the Vestax portable, hopefully on Saturday.
From a quick visit, I came up with the following:
Beau Brummels Laugh Laugh Autumn
Budgie S/t MCA import
Eric Burdon and The Animals The Twain Shall Meet MGM
Chambers Bros. Greatest Hits Columbia
Bill Cosby Why Is There Air? Warners Honestly, I love Cos' 60's comedy. I am hoping to score some of his funk 45s... Hey Hey hey.
Temptations Cloud 9 Gordy
There is a ton of stuff that needs to be in me crates, there, I can feel it.
I felt that the cratedigger reference system needed an upgrade, especially since I was never a fan of the old mixer, anyway.
I picked the above Vestax online (with free shipping and no sales tax, to boot). I hooked it up the other night, but last night gave its' first real workout.
There is quite a big sonic upgrade over the last mixer. The actual sliders and the fader seem to be of higher quality as well. We will see.
I am considering getting some powered monitors in the upcoming months. This unit has xlr outputs, which should allow for more brick rattling sound.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all cratedigger visitors and regulars.
I think that this blog and my knowledge of music has come a long way over the past year. Thanks for stopping and for all of your input (and comments.)
In thanks, please find the latest mix from cratedigger labs, imaginatively titled dec 24 mix.
I have culled these sides from a variety of real world sources, junk stores, record shops and garage sales, mostly from the Northern IL area, but there are a number of tracks that were rediscovered on a recent trip to SF.
The odd pic above is from a house party during last summer.
Hope you dig. Best in 2008!!!
dec 24 mix tracklist
01 Intro-Shure Brothers
02 Detroit Emeralds I Bet You Get The One (Who Loves You) Westbound
03 Intruders Turn The Hands Of Time Gamble
04 Stereo’s Stereo Freeze Pt. 1 Cadet
05 Meters Sophisticated Cissy Josie
06 Dynatones The Fife Piper HBR
07 Solomon Burke I’m Leaving on That Late Late Train Chess
08 Kool & The Gang North, East, South, West De-Lite
09 Simtec & Wylie Nine Times Out Of Ten Mercury
10 Chi-Lites Being In Love Brunswick
11 Lonette McKee Save It (Don’t Give it Away) Sussex
12 Rufus Thomas The Funky Penguin Pt. 1 Stax
13 Swamp Dogg Do You Believe Elektra
14 King Curtis 8th Wonder Atco
Download here
