There is really nothing at all wrong with this album cover that makes it bad, offensive, or excessively silly…except of course for the TITLE of the damn thing. I really wanted Oral in Hawaii, but I didn’t feel like PAYING for it.
Continue reading WTF Album Covers: Oral Roberts In Hawaii
Bored Housewife are a lo-fi punk band from Belfast. This album cover for “Too Horny To Sleep, Too Tired To Wank” is definitely a major winner for the band if they have the following goals:
1. To sell NO ALBUMS
2. To actively encourage people NOT TO BUY THIS ALBUM
3. To show the world just how indifferent they are to their own music.
The philosophy that’s always informed a band’s inclusion into the Turntabling WTF Bad Album Cover Hall of Shame is that an album cover has one important purpose–to sell the music and make people interested in hearing what’s on the record, CD, etc.
Sometimes that’s accomplished by making the album mysterious–a solid color field or deliberately non-representational artwork. Sometimes the artwork is so complex that it takes ages to figure out just what the hell is happening on the cover.
And then…there’s crap like this. I gotta hand it to them, they’ve certainly conveyed that the band doesn’t give a toss. What? That’s NOT what you were trying to say at all? Well, stranger, from a newcomer to your music…
I hate to be the arsehole in the room about stuff like this, I really do. The real tragedy about this particular album cover is that if they had just left off the stick figure and let the cover fly with JUST the grungey cardboard/particle board packaging it would have been 100% more effective.
But I’m just this dumb vinyl junkie, what do I know? Continue reading WTF Album Covers: Bored Housewife
I purchased the Numark Total Control MIDI DJ mixer to see whether MIDI would work for me in my studio setup. Turntabling is all about the vinyl, but I had some ideas for some bizarre dub experiments with high quality MP3s and lots of echo/reverb effects…and I must say, in spite of my early reservations, the Numark Total Control mixer did the trick, and then some.
According to the Numark hype for this DJ control surface, the unit’s 31 buttons, 20 knobs and 5 faders, “send MIDI data from the controller to your DJ software of choice” which in my case was an upgraded version of the included Numark Cue LE. If you purchase the Numark Total Control DJ mixer, I strongly suggest getting the CUE upgrade or better yet, paying for the upgraded Traktor software (a lite version comes with the Numark Total Control).
For new DJs, the most valuable thing about the Numark, aside from the tricks you can pull with the effects that are found in the upgraded versions of Traktor or Numark Cue software packages, is the fact that this DJ mixer is USB powered.
No, you can’t plug your iPhone into it, and you need the laptop and software to make the mixer work. But if you have a collection of high-quality MP3s (hopefully that you ripped from your vinyl collection, heh) encoded at good rates, this makes for a nice compact setup.
In the studio, I personally prefer a combination of vinyl, CD, and digital files, plus the hardware to run in case my computer setup chooses to crap out on me that day. I don’t gig with the Numark Total Control–there’s nothing at all wrong with it, just my personal preference. I’m a bit more old-school, I suppose, and I like the reliability of hardware….but if you want to go all-digital on a budget you could do a HELL of a lot worse than this. It’s a great starter kit for new DJs learning the ins and outs of spinning and earning money from it.
by Joe Wallace
Turntabling readers who are also fans of HorrorHound Magazine will discover a little surprise in issue 26. On pages 50 and 51, you’ll find my article, The Sounds of Argento discussing the Italian Hitchcock’s work with Ennio Morricone, Goblin, and Keith Emerson. It’s the first of a two-part series and I’m very pleased to appear in the pages of HorrorHound, which just celebrated its five-year anniversary.
Issue 26 of HorrorHound hits the newsstand at a great time–HorrorHound Weekend in Cincinnati is November 12-14 and Turntabling will be there with plenty of rare soundtracks, vintage vinyl and many other goodies. Many thanks to HorrorHound magazine for hosting Turntabling–both in print and at the show.
And lest you think I only want you to read HH for the soundtrack info, you should know that issue 26 is crammed full of other goodness including the Psycho retrospective. It’s great to see a modern horror mag that devotes much space to more “modern” films giving Hitchcock his due.
Personally, my favorite parts of HorrorHound Magazine are the regular Video Invasion and Kitley’s Krypt features. Those two alone are well worth the cover price. Grab a copy from your favorite bookseller today and see what I mean.