Vintage & Vinyl Listening Club:David Bowie Heroes Kittery, Maine

A friend of mine, Laura Pope, has started a Listening Club to raise funds for the non-profit performance hall known as the Dance Hall in Kittery, Maine. It is an old 1920's Grange Hall in immaculate condition with its original stage. Laura came to me asking for vintage equipment to borrow for this kick-off Listening Club event on Sat. Nov 16. For years a friend and I had been kicking around the idea of a community radio show that we'd call Vintage & Vinyl, reflecting a common pastime of ours where we play vinyl and drink wine, all the time talking about both. We gave the name to Laura for her fundraiser. Laura had already decided on the 1977 David Bowie Heroes album as the vinyl of choice for her event. This past Tues. night, that audiophile friend of mine, another, an audio tech and I packed up a bunch of my equipment and some more of theirs and spent the evening doing our first sound check with it all at the Dance Hall. None of us had any experience providing a stereo system in a room 40 x 40 with an additional stage.We set up my best speakers, a pair of Allison Ones and Threes (1978), my 120wpc JVC JR S501 receiver (TOTL from 1978) and my friends massive 1970's era Kenwood speakers. We had a lot more than that with us but this is what it came down to with a speaker selector box and (an old Technics TT just for this sound check). The A3s went in the front corners of the room off to the side of the raised stage, the A1s on the side walls a bit less than halfway down the room and the Kenwoods were buried in the back cavern of the stage (and still they dominated a lot of the time). We wished we had an alternative to the Kenwoods just because they are so efficient compared to the Allisons and can get loud. But I have to tell you we impressed ourselves that night. The final configuration came from hours of listening and moving things around and experimenting and it ended up really sweet! What blew me away though, was when those A1's really showed their strength on Side 2 of this album. If anyone is familiar with this, most of the 2nd side is all instrumental. The 2nd song, Sense of Doubt, is a dark piece of music using very low notes from a synthesizer (Brian Eno) and the lowest keys of the piano. Wow! Those A1s can go low! I'd never heard anything like it through a speaker. The next song, Moss Garden, is a spacy, meditative piece with a plucked Japanese string instrument, very low sounding gongs and cymbals and more broody synthesizer. That song runs non-stop right into the next, Neukoln with Bowie playing these single, near dissonant notes on sax, all just brillant through the A1s and 3s. That song moves seemleesly to the last song on the side, The Secret Life of Arabia, a melodic, uptempo that begins with and is driven by rock drums, very dramatic coming from the As again. The evening will be hosted by DJ Bradley Jay of WBCN fame, who personally knows Bowie and Steve Morse, the enduring Boston Globe arts writer and rock and roll teacher at Berklee College of Music. And yes there will be 2 great wines for sale, that I chose just for this album, along with a couple of tables of vintage audio equipment for sale. Oh and Dave from vinyl nirvana is providing one of his beautiful, restored Thorens to play the pristine 1977 copy of Heroes for that night.
Here's a link to the event and more info about it, maybe some of you might attend!?
https://www.facebook.com/events/290045244467963/

We can be heroes . . . just for one day?

That sounds like a very cool event. I hope it Is well received and supported.

Sounds like a blast. If I were closer I would be there. Wine and vinyl a win win.

That's a great idea. Saw some interesting info about the hall on line.

Thanks but there must some people closer to Kittery, Maine who think this is cool too!

I'm closer than Meggy, and I think it's cool! :scratch2:

jhoyt said:

I'm closer than Meggy, and I think it's cool! :scratch2:

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LOL, yes but I meant who will also attend!

The evening's audio system will be powered by an original JVC JR S-501, JVC’s top of the line offering in 1978 with a conservative 120 watts per channel rating. No one could say JVC was copying anyone with this knob-less, all push-button and slider design weighing in at over 70 lbs. It is a 'Direct Coupled' amplifier, thus no ‘coupling caps’ on its outputs. This means a number of high quality sonic benefits: reduces ALL types of distortion, wider bandwidth (0-100kHz), improves transient response (makes for much more ‘solid’ hitting and ‘tighter’ notes) and eliminates ‘colorization’ (smearing) of the music.
There will be three sets of speakers arranged throughout The Dance Hall: 1978 Allison Ones; 1977 Allison Threes; and 1970s Pioneer CS99As.
The Allison speakers were designed by Roy Allison, one of the original designers of the modern loudspeaker and partners in the original Acoustic Research (AR) company. The Pioneers were built to win in the monster speaker wars of the ’70s and considered one of the best from that era.
The turntable spinning the pristine, vintage LP will be provided by Dave Archambault of Vinyl Nirvana in Exeter, one of the country's most respected and sought-out restorers of one of the most coveted turntable brands ever made. It is a restored Thorens TD-125 in a custom wood base. This was Thorens’ top-of-the-line player from the late ‘60s to early ’70s. The tone arm will be a new SME M2-9 and the cartridge an Ortofon 2M Black. I know, I know -- a lot of superlatives. But that’s what we're going for.

I can remember going past it countless times on the way into the shipyard. You are doing good!

Great idea, and it sounds fun! When you guys play Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica I will drive up from Marblehead!!!

Sounds like a great idea and I hope you do it a couple or three times to give it a chance. BTW, my niece's name is Laura Pope as well. :scratch2:

Here's the Poster

As a major collector/fan of graphic ephemera, let me tell you that that is one fine poster! Who designed it?

There is a 12" 45 of Heroes...sung in German (Helden). You could throw it on as a bonus!

Too far away but good luck. Sounds cool.

Urchinn said:

As a major collector/fan of graphic ephemera, let me tell you that that is one fine poster! Who designed it?

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Thanks!! Poster artist is Matt Talbot; his name is on edge of poster along with his web site.
He works as a designer at Brown & Company Design in Portsmouth, NH.

Me and the wife are going to try and make it. Can't say positively, but we'll give it a try.

krisjay said:

Me and the wife are going to try and make it. Can't say positively, but we'll give it a try.

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YA!!

The Vintage (Wines) matched to the Vinyl

Here's the wines we'll be serving that night to go with the album- Cash Bar for the non-profit Dance Hall:
Laurenz and Sophie Singing Gruner Veltliner
White wines from Austria are really hot right now so not only do I love this Gruner but also how it tied into Bowie’s years in Berlin where Heroes was recorded. It shows focus with a concentration of apple, lemon-lime and white pepper flavors and a crisp finish. The winemaker’s daughter, Sophie, said it made her feel like singing when she tasted it.

Passion Has Red Lips by Some Young Punks
Chosen to exemplify the attitude of the music in a wine glass, pretty much 50/50 Shiraz/Cab sourced from the famed McLaren Vale of Australia. The Shiraz gives warmth and roundness, while the Cab lends elegance. With aromatic layers of red berries, pungent herbs and fresh flowers leading to juicy plum and cassis flavors with a hint of spiciness, this is a rich, silky, yet gusty wine- like the music. The name of the wine and the label come from the original pulp fiction novel, Sin on Wheels.