The thread for discussing the amazing Life Is A Problem comp on MISSISSIPPI records

is mcgonigal around still? someone said he was writing a book about mississippi records, of all things. true?

i have brass pins (unlistened to) and the latest abner jay 10 inch which is good blare,
thank you campfire ian, i really didn't know arhoolie would entertain me and it's great news about the yazoo label, everything that was great about those releases were contained in having the lp, yazoo even released some rather drab stuff, like the hokum style blues, but the sleeves are still works of art,
i remeber when people told me vinyl is back, i never believed them, but with groups like Mississippi there is hope, do document and wolf still release vinyl??!
i have some but i was unaware,it'd be a treat to have utah smith or raw gospel like him on lp, i'll have to pester these labels, thanks for the info,peace

schlump, i think the first Secret Museum was being distributed by MS, but not actually released by them. I think they're now exclusively available through forced exposure in the US..

I do enjoy the brass pins collection, but if yer not into ethnic 78s it's not gonna do much for you. I've only listened a few times so far.

Document & Wolf aren't pressing new vinyl, but Arhoolie has or had a lot of their old stock for sale.

thanks for the tip nonetheles,those museum of man sets look dead good, though pricey sums
i've seen the wolf page, they have a section of 53 records for sale with little or no info or pics, i'll have to chase them up, has anyone the group inerane records?, i'm a new poster so i'm unsure how to navigate here, group inernae are a top group

hi there

here's a couple of links to get you started

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/SiteNewAnswersControllerServlet
http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/index.jsp
Introduce Yourselves!

I like group Inerane but my favorite of those is the Bombino one... is that Sahel Sounds comp out yet?

Ishilan n​-​Tenere?, yah, mississippi released it after xmas, yet to listen to it it's in the ''to listen to'' mound
best idea is to order straight from them really

^ it's great; just got it. it's like the mellower side of the Bombino lp

Artist: VA
Title: Last Time Around
Label: MISSISSIPPI RECORDS
Format: LP
Price: $14.00
Catalog #: MRP 002LP
"Part three in Mississippi Records series exploring the rawest side of gospel music (Part one being the Life Is A Problem compilation & part two being the Oh Graveyard, You Can't Hold Me Always compilation) Moving ballads sit side by side with incredibly rocking crunchy guitar workouts. The recordings span the 1950s through to the '80s, but the sound is timeless & consistently soulful like you won't believe. Artists include Precious Bryant, Isaiah Owens, The Hickory Bottom Harmoneers, Boyd Rivers, The Straight Street Holiness Group & many more. We are very proud of this one. Housed in an old school 'tip on' sleeve."

ooooooh
also a p solid 2lp willie johnson thing that i'll probably pick up

is this a mcgonigal comp? he is good at this stuff.

idk (tho i think he is a straight street group stan so maybs), you should check out his last tompkins square thing if you haven't, though, it kills

So:

Thanks for considering joining the Mississippi CSR (Community Supported Record program).

We started this website in order to answer a question I’m often asked whenever I stray from my neighborhood in Portland: "Is there a way I can sign up to some sort of subscription series and get the Mississippi releases as they come out?" After years of resistance for no good reason, we’ve decided to team up with our friend Raf, who runs the excellent website Eggy mailorder, and make this a request we can fill.

If you choose to join, you will receive every Mississippi/Change release as it comes out. You will be guaranteed copies of every release, no matter how limited the pressing. Your records will be shipped immediately upon their release, at the same time that we ship copies to stores all over the world.

temppppppting. though the fact that there's no way to pay online ensures that i won't drunkenly subscribe some night.

Hmmm....

I have always wanted to be part of something like this, except I am far too fickle.

LIFE IS A PROBLEM is still dope though

I mean, Crumb Brothers!

man their sleeves are really next level there

also:

V/A - Irene J'Taime (African acoustic performances - very beautiful)

Michael Hurley - At Home With Driftin' Woods (A full LP of unreleased
songs from his first folkways LP session. Very high quality)

oooooooh.

otm

also unreleased Dead Moon EP, 3rd Rats LP.

The African Guitar Box (5 LPs housed in a pine box with a beautiful
print affixed to it. 200 press. An optional item to your CSR records)

anyone know what's on this and how much it'll cost? if it's actual african acoustic (dry) guitar i'm all over this. kind of wish mississippi had an email contact but i actually understand why they don't. maybe i'll send them some snail mail.

if i send them a check for like $300 what's the chance they'll fuck up and i'll have poured that money down the drain?

my guess is close to zero. also, just call them on the phone. they're in the book.

what are they gonna do when they get more than 200 subscribers? just increase the pressings, I hope.

if anyone in the UK decides to do this I'd be interested to know how it works out as this would be something I would probably do when I have more money to play with

not really any way i can do this but it's great it's happening, & the 'any amount' thing seems like an awesome development, like what a neat thing to be able to control. i want like ten of the records that are forthcoming.

at a slight tangent, does anyone go to/has anyone been to/can anyone offer vague guidance about the montreal store that i forget exactly how but which is allied w/mississippi, maybe being run by the other guy who started the label? it's like a bakery or something.

The Montreal store is located at the back of an apartment that Warren (Mississippi co-founder) once lived in. It's just a little room that still operates as a record store a couple Saturdays every month (in the winter at least). Warren isn't in Montreal anymore but a couple people still man it. Camilla (ex-Sunset Rubdown) used to bring down and sell pastries every once in awhile, though I don't believe she does anymore.
The entrance to the store is in the alley between St. Urbain and Waverly and just north of Bernard (behind the elementary school).

ty for that; I knew I was mangling the details somewhat. gonna check it out, sometime. I was thinking it would generally be a plus for any town to have a local Mississippi stockist, though obviously it's cool that the record club slightly eases the pressure w/that.

Cheap Thrills and Phonopolis both deal with Warren direct and carry all the releases as well. All the shipments come to Cheap Thrills and then are divided up between Backroom, Phonopolis and Cheap Thrills. Every other record store in Montreal goes through a larger distributor.

i got that african guitar box. it is kind of ridiculous, packaging-wise. it is a handcrafted (cheaply and a bit clumsily) box made out of pine, with a little gate you open to access the 5 LPs. the box is made of more or less raw pine--there are lots of splinters and holes, etc. nothing has been sanded down, really. i got a splinter picking up the thing. there is a generic silkscreened image pasted on one side of the box. no information about the title of the collection or anything on the box. track listings are on the individual record labels.

the packaging--down to the white hands playing guitar on the silkscreened image--has nothing to do with the music "inside." it's also very clumsy as it won't fit on standard record shelves and probably would scratch up the sleeves on either side of it if it did. in other words it's not very practical. by etsy standards it's a pretty rough homemade job.

i've only listened to one LP but the music is, as expected, phenomenal. i'm not yet sure--i haven't checked--if it duplicates material elsewhere but i suspect it does. i think it draws to some extent from the hugh tracey archive.

ideally i'd like to keep the music--via MP3 or something--and sell off the package since it's just not going to fit easily anywhere in my apartment and--let's face it--it's ugly. maybe i'll wait a while until these are sold out--i'm guessing there aren't more than a few hundred of these. unless someone devoted their entire month to constructing them.

this illustrates some of the dubious aspects of the mississippi ethos (?) to the extreme. here we have a handcrafted object, nearly a hapax legomena, that deliberately makes obscure what's inside (and no liner notes to help with that). music, no doubt, about which a fair bit has been written (in fact, i know that a number of folks in germany, england, the USA, and elsewhere have written intelligently about this kind of african acoustic guitar music.) as an object it's kind of tacky and ugly. aside from it being so damned odd, the only real pleasure in owning it is just that--being one of the few to own it. but it doesn't (for me anyway) have a lot of aesthetic value in and of itself. i wish someone would just share the music on MP3 or FLAC (seeing as the musicians aren't being compensated anyway) and i can get rid of the box.

big question: how much it cost? if it's less that $75, i figure it's a fair price for a limited-run art object (supposedly just 200 pieces made), however splintery and/or aesthetically dubious. especially if the music is, as you say, phenomenal.

yeah, i don't think it was a rip off or anything... i think it was $65. for 5 LPs + weird wooden box. hey, i'll sell it to you for $500!

j/k

ok so it turns out that as predicted most of this stuff is from various LPs and CDs curated by john storm roberts on the original music label. which of course had liner notes. out of print, but they can be found online, if you know where to look.

mississippi up to their old ways, i guess.

ok these are basically straight bootlegs of the three volumes of "african acoustic" on original music label. why don't they just label them as such? this is pretty rotten.

so i basically own all this stuff.

OK it also has stuff from this on it: http://www.discogs.com/Various-Music-Of-Africa-Series-No-5-The-Guitars-Of-Africa/release/2634480

oh and one side of a record contains this EP by francis bebey: http://www.discogs.com/Francis-Bebey-Pièces-Pour-Guitare-Seule/release/2092180

ok this gets more complicated, i jumped the gun.

also a track from here: http://ghostcapital.blogspot.com/2012/04/abdel-karim-el-kably-sudan-music-and.html

and stuff from here: http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=875

and stuff from this: http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=2721

(so basically it's a mix of stuff from existing LPs and some internet downloads. i guess that's OK. though wouldn't it be nice if they told you where they were from? i guess i'll do that work for you!)

also stuff from this: http://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Nairobi-Sound/release/1446131

and from this: http://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Music-Of-Africa-Series-Musical-Instruments-6-Guitars-1/release/3505638

i guess most people will find this exciting. i have all these records already (all except for the bebey EP, which I might have on MP3).

a track or two from this all-time classic LP: http://www.discogs.com/Various-Africa-Dances/release/2092454

another original music comp that the mississippi box draws from: http://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Kampala-Sound-1960s-Ugandan-Dance-Music/release/1429009

and another one: http://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Sound-Of-Kinshasa-Guitar-Classics-From-Zaire/release/1548676

a few tracks by s.e. rogie that have been compiled a few times... including on his own collection: http://www.discogs.com/SE-Rogie-Palm-Wine-Guitar-Music-The-60s-Sound/master/289054

(btw mississippi put out much of this stuff on a few LPs a number of years ago, such as "love is love.")