Monthly Archives: July 2008

The Vixens of Vinyl

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I love vintage album covers. My favorites include any of the misguidedly cheesy “erotic” album covers by Mystic Moods Orchestra or any of the swinging bachelor pad album covers. Now I have stumbled across this book, The Vixens of Vinyl, and I have to say, it is essential coffee table reading for anyone who shares my strange fixation on vinyl album covers, people in outdated sexy costumes with too much eye makeup. In this book, Benjamin Darling collects the finest array of decidedly pre-feminist album art from Esquivel, Martin Denny and other vintage bachelor pad artistes. This one’s 132 pages worth of raging hormones, nonstop racy artwork featuring models with too much hairspray.

They Could Have Been Bigger Than EMI

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Oh, damn! What a great concept. This book is a labor of love put together by Joachim Gaertner, who is responsible for the late, great Germany-based Get Happy!! Records. This label released a CD by Crevice, a Texas-based psych/experimental group I performed and recorded with from on and off from 1997 to 2002. I have many fond memories of Crevice and will always have a fondness for Get Happy!! Records…but that’s not the reason I’m posting now.

In its second edition, They Could Have Been Bigger Than EMI is a collection of discography info on defunct indie labels that released vinyl. This massive, 567-page book has information on more than four thousand labels, with thousands of images. Want to know all about Stiffwick? Unicorn? Crass Records? Green Fez? Small Wonder Records? It’s all here. For the record–I have NOT read this book yet, but I am totally excited by the idea of it. What an amazing accomplishment!

These days Joachim Gaertner runs Pure Pop For Now People, his small vinyl label and mailorder. I’ve not heard any of the groups on his roster except for the great-sounding S/T, but I am sure the others sound equally delicious. I am very happy to see him still at it after all this time and doing it on vinyl to boot! Check the book out, drop him a line at the PPFNP site to get ordering info.

Dawn of the Dead/Zombi OST Vinyl

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Goblin is one of those scruffy dog groups you either love or hate. Horror movie buffs in love with Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Joe D’Amato and other Italian fear-flick directors are often total fanboys of Goblin. Me personally, I love the excessively dated sound of the 70s and early 80s soundtracks by this group, especially the bizarre mix of acid rock guitars and 80s techno synth riffs.

This album is great–it’s all over the map and has some extended sounds you only heard for a few moments in the actual film. There’s at least one totally misguided and wrong cut on this piece of wax–which somehow makes it all the more endearing for the music that DOES work.

The Dagored album is on 180 gram vinyl and the fold-out sleeve is fun. I love the grainy stills from the movie, especially the back cover with all it’s splattery 70s zombie blood flying everywhere. Aim for the head, youze.

I lust after all the albums in the Dagored back catalog. One look at the cover art for these albums will tell you why. I own many of them on CD, but it’s just not as much fun. Just look at that cover art for Revolver and The Beyond… you can’t tell me these wouldn’t be a joy to play on a turntable while gazing at those covers and foldouts.

While hunting for Dagored (i was hoping to order direct from them, but alas they seem only to have archives available for viewing-no shopping!) I discovered a lovely, seemingly ancient site chronicling a series of Dawn of the Dead soundtrack releases. Worth a look.

The World’s Most Expensive Record Needle

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It’s not OFFICIALLY the world’s most expensive record needle, but at 10K, the Clearaudio Goldfinger is squarely in Donald Trump territory. Sold by NeedleDoctor.com, the Goldfinger is 16 grams of pure gold, with a boron cantilever. Are you going on one knee for some sweet, sweet DJ? Don’t waste your cash on one of those useless finger trinkets sold in shopping mall diamond shops, get this bit of precious metal instead. It’s functional, it’s beautiful, and it probably sounds like nothing on earth. Too bad it costs nearly as much as you’d get selling a kidney. What’s the first thing you’d play after scoring one of these? For my money, it would have to be the More Beer album by FEAR.

Just kidding.