Video Vinyl: RCA's CED System

It's been just about 30 years since we've seen the last of a format called CED. Capacitance Electronic Disc, as it's more formally known, seems s strange subject for a blog about records. But once you learn what a CED is (if you're not already familiar), it'll all make sense.

CEDs work the same basic way that records do: a diamond stylus reads the grooves on a disc and translates the information into audio (and in CED's case, video). There are two differences: first, the grooves are much smaller on a CED (over 9500 per inch) so it spins much faster (450 RPM as opposed to 33 1/3 or 45). Also, CEDs are in plastic caddies for protection. The player extracts the disc from the caddy for playing. To watch the second side of the disc, you put the caddy back into the player to get the disc back, then flip the caddy over and insert it into the player again. Put the caddy back into the player one final time at the end of the movie to retrieve the disc again and store it until the next time you watch. It's a quaint system, even by early '80s standards.

That could be one of the reasons it only lasted three years. CED was intended for original release in the mid '70s. A change in the top at RCA, the company that invented CED, coincided with the need for further testing and research, and the confluence of events held CED's relesase back until early 1981. By that time, families were fighting over whether their first VCR should be VHS or Beta. That was another thing: you could record on a VCR. You could only play a CED.
It didn't help matters that at the exact same time RCA was working on CED, MCA was doing its own disc-based thing with help from dutch electronics conglomerate Philips. It was called DiscoVision. First demonstrated in 1972, DiscoVision beat CED to the market by three years...and stayed viable until the after the advent of DVD in the mid '90s. You know it better as LaserDisc...the format that gave us Karaoke.

RCA closed the book on CED in 1984 after losing a reported $500 million on the venture. Not two years later, RCA was merged with GE and sold off bit by bit. Today, the TV operations of RCA are part of South Korea's ON Corporation. The rest of the brand is owned by Audiovox.
There's still a contingent of groovy CED collectors out there, and I count myself among them. I don't have the biggest or best collection, but I do have one of the last CED players made and a few dozen movies to watch on it....when I'm not spinning vinyl the other way.

For more than you ever thought there was to know about CED, spend an hour or two (I'm serious - there a LOT there) at Tom Howe's glorious CED Magic site. You'll find complete lists of every player made and every disc produced. There are notes from those present at the creation and even a forum full of people who still keep their machines going.

The Kings Were There: Not Always Better The Second Time Around

Sometimes you're best to leave well enough alone. Canadian rockers The Kings learned that the hard way. After their breakout success with The Kings Are Here and its hit single This Beat Goes On/Switchin' To Glide, the foursome decided to cut a second album. Unfortunately, when they did, they followed Murphy's Law to the letter.

Figuring they had a good thing going, they stuck with the producer of their first album, Bob Ezrin. Ezrin had done a lot of good things for The Kings, as he had for Pink Floyd before them. Unfortunately, by the time Amazon Beach came around, Ezrin was doing things for a lot of others too, so another producer, Charles Harrison Kipps, came to fill in some of the blanks. Or attempt to. A lot of decisions Kipps made were unmade by Ezrin - and those unmakings were not always approved of by the band.

On top of that, Nimbus 9, the studio in the Toronto suburb of Yorkville where the magic was captured for The Kings Are Here had closed. Scarborough's Phase One had a lot less appeal mainly because of its location. The combination of studio and producer resulted in a product that The Kings' US label, Elektra, were less than confident about. But they pressed on, citing loyalty to Ezrin for putting them on the map.

Not even the cover of Amazon Beach escaped scrutiny. The Kings, on their page, said one of the proofs featured an image of what they thought was "over the hill biker chicks on some bad dope had taken over the city."

Despite the struggles, Elektra released the album and its single, All The Way. All The Way was a victim of Bob Ezrin's tinkering. It started out with a "playlet" of a guy going for a run on his motorcycle - something "more at home on a Pink Floyd record."

Clearly not The Kings' finest moment, Amazon Beach was never reissued. I guess it's more out of respect than anything that I don't post any tracks here. So I suggest reading the album's entire story - or better yet, listening to and even buying their other, better albums - at thekingsarehere.com.

Gradually Going Tornado

Might as well. I mean, we've had just about everything else here in the northeast, as weather goes. We're getting even more tonight and possibly lots more this weekend.

Anyway, remember that series of early '80s rock I told you about? Well, here's the first of the rest of it.

Here's a little '80s prog from Bruford. Bill Bruford, that is. He's a drummer who's played with the likes of King Crimson and Yes. This album is the last he did with his own group. Jeff Berlin played bass, and on keys was Dave Stewart. No, the other Dave Stewart, not the one from The Eurythmics. On guitar, The Unknown John Clark replaced Allan Holdsworth from Bruford's two previous albums. All About Jazz has a nice piece that sums up Bruford's history. You can find this album and its forerunner, The Bruford Tapes, at Bill Bruford's very own website, billbruford.com.

Before there was Lena, there was Inga. Inga Rumpf came from Hamburg, Germany. She got her start as a member of The City Preachers, a folk-rock outfit, who became Frumpy after a change in drummers. Frumpy morphed into Atlantis, and a few years later, Inga gave us this solo album on RCA. Along with a few originals, Inga gave us a couple of interesting covers: Love Potion No. 9, Roxanne, and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' Break Down.
Though she never really made a dent here, Inga's still as popular as ever back home in Germany. In fact, she's going on tour in March. Her site, ingarumpf.de has all the details - in German, of course.

I have the press kit on this one, so I can cheat a little. Jerry Moss, the "M" of A&M Records, signed Burning Rome to his label the same day he signed The Human League in 1982. The deal-sealer was 22-year-old lead singer Vicki Thomas, who A&M's Dave Anderle claimed was one of three women born to sing rock & roll. The other two? Janis Joplin and Bonnie Bramlett. That's some company. MMicky Shine (the extra M is his), who you can hear on Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True album and some Tommy Tutone and Huey Lewis songs, got tapped for drum duties. Rochester's Ron Murray is on bass, and Steve Dougherty rounds things out on guitar.
So what happened that this was Burning Rome's only album? Mmicky said in this interview that A&M gave the album "no support" and the album didn't do much. To remember it by, here's the video for Once Over.

What A Tangled Web We Weave...

Not often do I find the entire discography of a band without even trying. Apparently I did just that yesterday with these finds:

Spider has an interesting history. Lead singer Amanda Blue, drummer Anton Fig, and guitarist Keith Lentin started out in South Africa as a band called HAMMAK in the early '70s. After a few years of playing the Cape Town scene, forces (like college) convened to split the band up for a few years, but they reunited in New York and added bassist Jimmy Lowell and keyboardist Holly Knight to become Spider. As Spider, the band recorded two albums - these two - for Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman's Dreamland label.

Chinn and Chapman, as producers, gave the UK lots of hits, but here in America, are best known just for Sweet's "Little Willie" and Exile's 1977 country crossover "Kiss You All Over."

Dreamland Records didn't last long. In fact, monster label discography site Both Sides Now lists just seven albums ever released on Dreamland - and these Spider albums were the first and last, in 1980 and 1981.

After Dreamland, Spider found new life in 1982 - as well as a new name: Shanghai. Along with the new name came new keyboardist Beau Hill, and new record label Chrysalis. At the time, Chrysalis was riding high with hits by artists like Pat Benetar and The Pretenders. Unfortunately, Shanghai didn't ride the wave of success that its labelmates did, and the band ceased to exist by any name after just this album.

But fortunately, most of Shanghai are active to this day. Amanda Blue is not just involved in music..she's also a photographer and writer as well as a Core Healer with her own practice. Anton Fig, of course, has been busy most nights with a little project called The Late Show With David Letterman. Beau Hill and Keith Lentin have been busy as producers. Holly Knight's been busy writing for music TV and movies. Jimmy Lowell was last heard in a Canadian group called Fast Forward, which, like Shanghai before it, lasted just long enough for one album.

LINKS FOR FURTHER LEARNING
amandablueleigh.com
antonfig.com
keithlentin.com
beauhillproductions.com

Meet The Press Releases

Two thrift stores, numerous finds - and many, many dollars saved at one of them.

I hadn't planned on going to the first thrift store, but what the hell - it was right there and I was too late to get to the 75% off sale at the other store in town. But what do you know - there was a 75% off sale at this one for items with white price tags. Just by luck, all the best vinyl had those white price tags. $60 worth of early-'80s rock I'd never heard of wound up costing $15.

But this was not just any early-'80s rock I'd never heard of (lay off, I was like 5 when most of it came out). Most of it was early-'80s PROMOTIONAL albums with press kits! It's almost like they expected some vinyl blogger to buy it and write about it like he knew what he was talking about. Some of these albums desreve their own posts, so check back every few days as I post them. Let's get right to the first:

Blowing in from New York City is a Hurricane Jones album from late 1981. This "hot new senation" (typo theirs) comprised Hurricane (real first name Melinda) and a few studio musicians from the legendary Sigma Sound in Philadelphia. TJ Tindall from Philadelphia International Records got them together. Noted engineer Eddie Ciletti gave them their sound. A Schenectady (NY) Gazette review in the press kit notes, "Hurricane Jones, the singer, has a flexible voice, a sure way with a yip and the ability to break a phrase, a la Janis Joplin."