Monthly Archives: January 2012

WTF Album Covers: Rodney Carrington King Of The Mountains

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Never mind how appallingly, redneckity-sexist this album cover is. Forget about how stupid the album cover concept might be, and dispense with all your well-founded objections over it being simple-minded and flat out DUMB. Just for a second.

See if you can guess what kind of a record this is just by looking at that idiotic “please laugh at my jokes” expression on Rodney Carrington’s southern-fried face for a moment.

That’s right, kids, Rodney Carrington is perched on a woman’s breasts in order to sell his particular brand of “comedy”, which seems to entail a sort of sub-Jeff Foxworthy redneck-in-the-city schtick, complete with an “aw, shucks” delivery in the most contrived tractor pull accent he can muster.

And to make things worse, he’s a SINGING comedian, too. Oh, lord, please kill us all now in a torrent of nuclear fire so that we never, EVER have to endure another listen to this crap. It’s not just funny, it’s offensively not funny. As in, these jokes are so stupid you’ll actually get offended that someone is trying to sell an album full of them.

Here’s a direct quote: “”The zoo is so dayumm boring, they need to make it more exciting…take a Slim Jim, stick it in the ayuss of a death row inmate and haive heyum rum thraw the lion cage widdowt geddin beeyut.”

Effing HILARIOUS, to somebody somewhere, probably. But not anywhere near an area with a population greater than three.

Don’t get the wrong idea–we’re not in favor of whitewashing comedy in favor of an all PC landscape free from anything that might be “wrong”. Transgressive humor is funny because, well, because it’s not supposed to BE funny. But there’s a big difference between pushing boundaries and brick-in-the-face DUMB, which really gets the hackles up for certain writers who discover these things while idly surfing the internet for bizarre recordings.

The Turntabling Collection: Latest Vinyl Titles for Sale

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The Turntabling Collection is our ever-growing curated vinyl record collection–some of which goes up for sale to finance the site and help our fellow vinyl junkies fill holes in their collections. Here’s the latest, and don’t forget that every time you buy vinyl from The Turntabling Collection, you’re not just buying rare, hard-to-find, or just plain cool vinyl records and CDs–you’re also helping to keep Turntabling alive and kicking. Thank you for your continued support!

Various – Aquarius Rock: The Hip Reggae World Of Herman Chin-Loy (Double vinyl LP)

A double LP compilation of reggae sounds including Augustus Pablo, Herman, The Aquarians, and many  others. There’s a definite obsession with dub and reggae round the Turntabling office and this record is two slabs of awesome.

 

Sound Dimension Mojo Rocksteady Beat (Double vinyl LP)

Soul Jazz presents Sound Dimension doing two albums worth of rock steady reggae. If you know Soul Jazz, chances are good that you’d be willing to take a chance on this unheard and unseen–as we did. The Sound Dimension are described as the overseas equivalent to Booker T and the MGs or The Funk Brothers–they did the same kind of daily grind studio session work. Hear them in top form here…

Billion Dollar Brain Original Soundtrack Vinyl LP

Richard Rodney Bennett’s soundtrack for the Michael Caine spy thriller. Some people are completely into this soundtrack, while others are completely unaware of it. It’s a bit overly symphonic in places, but the tracks Anya and Love Scene are Morricone-esque enough to get the attention of Maestro fans, and that’s good enough for us! Nice stuff indeed.

Francesco De Masi Inglorious Bastards Soundtrack Vinyl LP (Quel Maledetto Treno Blindato)

This is NOT the soundtrack for the Quentin Tarantino movie Inglorious Basterds. Instead, what we have here is a sealed, new reissue on Get Back Records of the ORIGINAL movie Inglorious Bastards, directed by Enzo Castellari, with soundtrack music by Francesco De Masi. Italian soundtrack lovers, here’s a treat for you!

Again, when you buy from The Turntabling Collection, you’re supporting the site directly, so thank you for choosing Turntabling. There is much more to choose from, these are just some of the latest additions.

Ernest Tubb Record Shop, Nashville Texas

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Some landmarks are as much about preserving the mystique and furthering the legend of a place or person as they are about anything else. Nashville’s Ernest Tubb Record Shop is definitely tops in both of those departments.

You might not know a damn thing about Ernest Tubb, but by the time you leave the record store you’ll have gotten a quick education about the man and his work in the era when the music industry supported “both kinds”, country AND western.

For those new to Nashville, it becomes clear that Broadway is the street where a good chunk of country tourist attractions are located, including the Ernest Tubb store. It’s kind of hard to miss once you get near 417 Broadway:

Once you get inside, you enter a world of 100% pure country music, nostalgia for “the good old days” of AM radio, those huge microphones, and ten gallon hats. It may be Ernest Tubb’s record shop, but it’s hard not to think of the other crooners when you see the decor. Gene Autry springs instantly to mind; the ghosts of Dale Evans and Roy Rogers are hard to shake in here.

Almost as if store organizers know this is happening, there are constant reminders all over the store about Tubb and his work.

You wouldn’t be wrong in thinking of this place as a sort-of museum for music as enjoyed in the pre-internet, AM radio era. It’s fascinating to think about what these recording artists would make of today’s totally decentralized music landscape as compared to the “only game in town” type environment they worked in so long ago.

One interesting sign of the times–the Ernest Tubb Record Shop doesn’t have a staggering collection of records.

Compact discs far outnumber the vinyl, or at least that’s the impression you get looking around the shop. There’s only one section of vinyl records to browse through, and the official site pushes the CD format very hard. No vinyl at all mentioned on the front page. For vinyl junkies this is practically sacrilege, but perhaps it’s more about what the tourists want.

And what they likely want is some souvenir of Ernest Tubb without having to lug around 12 inches of vinyl all day.

So the Ernest Tubb Record Shop might have a bit of a misleading name for vinyl purists and collectors, but really the store isn’t set up for the vinyl junkie. It’s all about the Cult of Tubb.

If you’re into the mystique, the myth making and the ghost of a music genre that doesn’t really exist like that any more, this shop is definitely a must-see. You won’t need a TARDIS to go back in time here.

–Joe Wallace

PS: I regularly update the WTF Records Facebook page with bad records and news of progress on the WTF book. Why not join me there? You can also get snark and vinyl obsessiveness by friending me on my personal FB page. which doubles as the Turntabling FB presence.