Monthly Archives: December 2011

Vinyl Road Rage 4

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by Joe Wallace

It’s been a hell of a crazy fall and winter season, culminating with Vinyl Road Rage 4–the cross country indie record store blogging trip/shopping spree Turntabling does at least once a year (this year it was TWO) to find the weird, the wonderful, the rare and obscure at cool indie record stores all over the USA.

Tomorrow, Wednesday December 7, Turntabling hits the open highway once more for fifteen days of record stores and more. I’ll be driving from Chicago to Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, Tulsa, Denton, Norman, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and back up north toward Springfield Illinois and finally back home in Chicago on Wednesday December 21. There will be plenty of updates here on my finds and experiences.

Fifteen days is a long time to be on the road, but there is much to do along the way so I have no doubt the time will fly by like mad.

I am taking an armload of limited edition promotional discs along on this trip. One is a Vinyl Road Rage 4 soundtrack featuring select cuts from the collection that will be on heavy rotation on my speakers during the road trip.

The other is a limited edition Paisley Babylon release called Republican Disco, currently unavailable in any other format or avenue besides my handing them out on the road at record shops and elsewhere. If you’re interested in either of these two limited edition promotion-only discs, contact me (jwallace at turntabling dot net) and I’ll let you know of their availability post-road trip.

With more than 17 record shops to hit along the way and plenty of other surprises in store, Vinyl Road Rage Four should be a very interesting experience. There will be daily updates here, plus video on the Turntabling.net YouTube channel and on my Facebook page.

The madness begins tomorrow–there will be a late update once I get off the road and then it really goes mental from there…join me! And record store suggestions are ALWAYS welcome–drop me a line on Facebook to suggest an addition to the route.

WTF Album Covers: Sensitive, Caring, Clueless

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The latest batch of WTF album covers I’ve discovered runs the full gamut of clueless, offensive, bewildering, and just plain weird. I’ve started sharing stuff like this on Facebook on a daily basis so if you’re into bad album covers, lousy art, and strange records in general why not Like the WTF Records official page on FB? There’s plenty like these with many more to come.

–Joe Wallace

This film was apparently made in 1969 (snicker if you must) and features a decent soundtrack, but that cover! That title! We must remember that in 1969, people had much stranger ideas about what it meant to be “respectable” or “decent”. Apparently, who you chose to have sex with–with regard to not having the same kind of plumbing as you–was really, REALLY important back then. Another argument in favor of the notion, right or wrong, that before the Internet, people were just dumber.

What is this album cover trying to say, exactly? Are those canes supposed to represent something? Or maybe this album is about the risks you take looking for love with a caning fetish? Who knows, but damn. How’d you like to see THIS stern, Charles Bronson-esque face hovering over you in the dark?

Is there a genre of album covers called “Head In A Jar”? I’m still doing research on that. I’ll get back to you. In the meantime, here’s the best example. Remember that old movie, Donovan’s Brain? The disembodied brain that still lived, exerting psychic influence over people to do the brain’s evil bidding? This album cover could be titled, “Donovan’s Dumbass”.

How long did it take anybody to realize just how much this album cover really, really sucked? Was it a gradual awareness like dawn breaking across an autumn sky, or did these people wake up one morning, look at what they had unleashed upon the world, and just start screaming until the ambulances came?

Dust & Grooves Video

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I know I am a bit of a broken record when it comes to the rather amazing DustAndGrooves.com vinyl blog, but Eilon Paz is a true vinyl lover, skilled photographer, and now that he’s branched out into video it gives the whole Dust & Grooves experience a new dimension that’s a quite welcome addition. Great stuff and highly recommended. This particular video features a prog collector in Brooklyn, but I’m hoping for many more clips like this from D&G.


Margaret – The Proglady, featured on www.dustandgrooves.com from Eilon Paz on Vimeo.

This clip is a fun supplement to the full post on Margaret Barton Fumo, vinyl collector extraordinaire.

–Joe Wallace

Weirdness on 45

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Weirdness on vinyl makes the world go round, no better evidenced than by this twang-ridden YouTube clip posted on VintageTVs‘ channel there. This clip was Part One…of a series that deserves many, many entries.



The vocals are, well…damn. Just listen and you’ll also hear the sound of your brain frying.