Monthly Archives: January 2012

Strange Wax Vinyl Documentary

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I admit it, I’m a sucker for a good documentary. Strange Wax is well-shot, a visual candy store for vinyl lovers, to be sure.



Lovely to watch, isn’t it?

My major complaint with most of the vinyl documentaries I’ve seen over the past year and a half is that the filmmakers all seem compelled to spend an inordinate amount of time discussing why vinyl is superior to digital. This is completely unnecessary and really sounds like a sales pitch. But that doesn’t spoil my enjoyment of this production in the long run…

And while I’m feeling feisty, additionally vexing to a nitpicky writer/editor is referring to more than one record album as “vinyls”. People! “Vinyl” is both singular AND plural.

–Joe Wallace

WTF Records: Country Moog by Gil Trythall

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I was prepared to laugh Country Moog: Switched-On Nashville out of court as the most wrong-headed silly concept I’ve encountered in ages. But then I heard the Moog-i-fied cover of Folsom Prison Blues Johnny Cash. This could be the most brilliant piece of musical Dada EVER.

On some of these tracks, Trythall manages to make them sound nearly authentic in terms of having a C&W vibe–Foggy Mountain Breakdown nearly fools you into thinking there’s a real violin (sorry, fiddle) playing. Almost. The version of Floyd Cramer’s Last Date wouldn’t be that hard to translate–it sounds almost out of place here because it’s so…normal.

The version of Gentle On My Mind wouldn’t sound odd at all on an Italian Star Wars rip-off movie soundtrack…but I can’t help going back to that cover of Folsom Prison Blues–worth the price of the entire record.

This is a WTF album of the highest caliber. Country Moog — Switched On Nashville can’t be dismissed, it demands to be heard in all it’s effing bizarre glory. VCP is an awesomely mutated accomplishment!



The $650,000 Turntable

gear, Media, Soundtracks

I am told that this Dereneville VPM turntable, by AV Design Haus, is priced at $650,000. Deutchmarks or dollars? Does it even matter?

Is this the most expensive turntable ever built? If it’s not, it probably was at one time. But with all that fine, precision German-built analog attention to detail, can it really compare to the ultra-high tech wonder that was my first record player ever?

Really, no amount of $650,000 high-tech inventiveness could ever create the thrill of discovery comparable to what I had as a kid plopping down this Power Records vinyl (see below) down on the Close ‘n Play and hearing the psuedo-Morricone Italian crime soundtrack music blasting out of those crap speakers.

I realize now that the music on the following clip was the gateway drug for my now-insatiable soundtrack collecting obsession when it comes to Morricone, Stelvio Cipriani, Piero Umiliani and others. Strange that you can pin down a lifetime of music obsessions to a single, very obscure record heard as kid:



P.S. The story on the Batman: Stacked Cards vinyl is HILARIOUS. Listen all the way to the end to hear Batman ruminating that a frontal lobotomy could return The Joker back to “normal society”! Hell, yeah–let’s save time and bother and lobotomize EVERYBODY!

–Joe Wallace

WTF Records: Cerrone 3 Supernature

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No, I haven’t got a damn CLUE what’s going on with this album cover. But isn’t that the best part? Trying to guess what was going through the minds of the people responsible for this is half the fun! See if you can guess what kind of record this is by looking at the album cover–no fair researching it on Google you cheaters! Is this 70s-era hard rock? Experimental farm animal acapella? Brian Eno-inspired ambient drones with an emphasis on medical jargon?

Nope. Wrong on all fronts. Take a listen to this via the clip below and marvel at how totally disconnected that cover is when viewed  while listening to the actual music. Whaaaaaaat?