Vintage & Vinyl Fundraiser for The Dance HallKittery, Maine - Patrons of the Vintage & Vinyl Listening Club: David Bowie’s Heroes event set for Sat. Nov. 16 at 7 pm (doors open at 6 pm) will take a musical step back in time to the late 1970s to hear David Bowie’s Heroes, with the help of two Boston heavyweights – WBCN deejay and UNH alum, Bradley Jay, and Steve Morse, the enduring arts reporter for the Boston Globe who teaches a rock and roll history course for the Berklee College of Music.
In a year when music megastar David Bowie released his 25th album, The Next Day, to world acclaim, (the first release in a decade) and was the subject of the sold-out exhibition called “David Bowie Is…” at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, it makes perfect sense that an old school Listening Club would honor one of his legendary albums.
Just like Listening Clubs emerging on both sides of the Atlantic, the one in Kittery features a celeb deejay, who selects a seminal vinyl album that is played for a collective listen on a select component and totally period audio system, followed by a lecture on the subject performer and album.
Conceived and produced as the annual fundraiser for the Kittery, Maine-based arts non-profit organization, The Dance Hall, by career arts writer Laura Pope, the Vintage & Vinyl Listening Club only became possible after she assembled a production team. First, she contacted Bradley Jay, a friend she met at UNH who worked for decades at WBCN, the Rock of Boston, and convinced him to host the event. Bradley met Bowie while working at the famed radio station, and over the years, became an acquaintance. “I knew he would choose a Bowie album,” remarked Pope, who took Bradley to his first Bowie concert, the Station to Station tour, at the Boston Garden in 1976.
“Bowie has infinitely increased the age limit on coolness,” insists Bradley. “Age is no longer a factor in how long a man can be relevant. For me, Bowie isn't just about music, David dispenses self-esteem. He can wear or do anything and make it cool through sheer perceived confidence. And he teaches that lesson to those who will learn it.”
The Boston deejay, who now works as a WBZ talk radio host, produces his WBZ Person on the Street web video program called Jay Talking, and does occasional stints at WZBC and WZLX, then suggested Steve Morse as a second host to talk to the audience about Bowie, his musical gifts and the Heroes album.
"I think old-school listening clubs are a great idea,” writes Steve Morse. “We're all looking to relive albums that really mattered to us, and that also mattered to the culture. This was before rock and pop music got brutally commercialized, back when artists wrote from the heart and not for the charts."
Pope then tapped the audiophile talents of Eliot resident Michele Duval, an avid collector and curator of vintage audio systems, who put together a tech team of Paul Tibbetts from Seacoast Audio Service and Thom Mond of Apsara, to create a vintage audio system that includes an original JVC JR S-501, JVC’s top of the line offering in 1978 with a conservative 120 watts per channel rating; three sets of speakers: 1978 Allison Ones,1977 Allison Threes and 1970s Pioneer CS99As; a restored Thorens TD-125 turntable in a custom wood base, (provided by Dave Archambault of Vinyl Nirvana in Exeter) and a new SME M2-9 tone arm with an Ortofon 2M Black cartridge.
Duval, a celebrated chef, sommelier and event planner, selected a red wine, Passion Has Red Lips, and a white wine, Laurenz and Sophie Singing Gruner Veltliner, to add another layer of “vintage” to the event. A 1970s style poster for the event was created and donated to the Listening Club by Matt Talbot, a designer at Brown & Company Design in Portsmouth who is noted for his poster and album cover art.
The Vintage & Vinyl Listening Club event also includes an Audio Gear sales table, with a percentage of the sales from that buffet of audio gadgets going to The Dance Hall as will funds from a raffle of Bowie-related items.
For tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/464962 or visit www.thedancehallkittery.org
For more information on FB: go to Vintage & Vinyl Listening Club
No comments:
Post a Comment