Monthly Archives: August 2010

Vinyl Road Rage 2: The Journey Begins

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The road rage begins! The Turntabling quest to find cool indie record shops, interesting vinyl, and eye-grabbing album covers good and bad.

The trip started out saying ta-ta to Chicago and getting right over to Indiana for a visit to Michiana Used Music and Media–I’ll be posting reviews of each stop along the way so each individual record shop can get its own 15 minutes in the spotlight. The good, the bad and the ugly will all be here…

The first day ends in Cleveland, with Day 2 headed to Akron, Youngstown and Pittsburgh. Stay tuned for record shop reviews on Michiana Used Music and Media, Blue Arrow Records in Cleveland, Music Saves in Cleveland, and points east.

Vinyl Road Rage 2 Begins Thursday August 12 2010

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I’ve been writing about this for ages, it seems, but the time is FINALLY here. Vinyl Road Rage 2: Chicago to NYC begins on Thursday. The road trip starts with the steeplechase that is getting out of Chicago itself, and the first stop of the journey is Michiana Used Music and Media, which promises used vinyl as well as DVDs and compact discs.

That first stop is only an hour or so outside the city of Chicago, and then a few more hours of driving on the first day to the next stop. I’ll be blogging the entire trip and while the entries may show up at odd hours, rest assured you’ll be taking the trip with me. There will be tons of photos, posts, even some podcasting from the road–a first for Turntabling.

Vinyl Road Rage Two goes all the way to Manhattan, provided there’s no alien abductions or zombie attacks along the way. If you’re digging the posts, please do us a favor and pass them along to your other favorite vinyl bloggers–we’d love to spread the word far and wide about the 12-day trip.

My journey includes a stop at the Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburg in hopes of catching some images of Warhol’s contribution to vinyl. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

And in case you’re interested, here’s a map of the journey. It’s not QUITE complete–there are a couple of vinyl destinations in NYC I haven’t added yet to the itinerary, but it’s more or less the whole thing:



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WTF Album Covers: The Simmons Need the Touch Of God in their Laundry Basket

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Richard Dawkins needs no additional proof. When he says “There is no God” he is looking right at THIS ALBUM COVER by The Simmons, who clearly do NOT have the touch of God helping them to pick out their clothes.

The real burning question about this album cover for me is this; how many sofas had to die to make these clothes? And the gents in this picture are clearly in love with safety orange as a fashion statement. Does ANYBODY look good wearing safety orange in a non-ironic way?

This album is another brick in the wall of evidence that there is actually NO INTELLIGENCE responsible for our wretched existence on planet Earth. If there IS a God, he she or it needs to DO something about the people who put out album in her/his/its name. The fashions are atrocious, and if JESUS dresses like this, I’m buying a one-way ticket to the OTHER place. I can’t in good conscience serve a God who lets its followers go out in public like this. I mean REALLY.

–Joe Wallace

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Blog to Watch: Spy Bop Royale

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Spy Bop Royale isn’t really a blog per se–it doesn’t have daily posts, but the owner, known only as The Mastermind, promises occasional updates when he finds new material. It’s a bummer that this site isn’t a more regular concern, but for the beginning collector (OK, let’s be honest and call them “obsessives”) of 60s spy soundtracks, this site is a gold mine of information.

There is a lot of detailed info on rare, probably now-out-of-print, and reissued sounds related to James Bond films, The Prisoner, The Saint, and film including Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and even The Thunderbirds. If you’ve recently seen Danger: Diabolik and have become hooked, or are looking for a new vinyl junkie obsession to try out, Spy Bop Royale is an excellent place to begin researching titles. And those album covers are delicious…

I do wish I could report that this site, which started in 2002, was more obviously updated (the site isn’t set up like most blogs you’re used to seeing–you have to check out the What’s New section to find out the latest), but The Mastermind IS on top of the news and the site reflects the recent releases of the Jerry Cotton soundtrack from Allscore Media and the recent Prisoner series. This site is lovingly maintained and it’s obvious The Mastermind is a true lover of these sounds from the 60s.


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