The Vinyl Record Guitar

I suppose someone was going to do it eventually…and here it is, a detailed look at the creation of a vinyl record electric guitar, as assembled by Tom Bingham. According to his YouTube post this project wound up taking several attempts before he go it right! Looking at the video you’ll see that it’s not a decorative thing–those are working pickups installed there…and it does get stringed up eventually, too. It looks pretty impressive when it’s all assembled, shined up and pretty. Nice work!

–Joe Wallace

Where’s The Turntabling Collection?

Some have wondered where The Turntabling Collection has been hiding. Since getting back from Cinema Wasteland, the collection has been offline while we worked on a few shows and events; DJing at OhNo! Doom Gallery, creating videos and writing music all has taken a bit of time.

But I’m happy to announce the impending return of vinyl sales to Turntabling–there are some things in the works that should expand the collection and how much is for sale here at any given time.

Selling music here is a fundraising activity for Turntabling–if you’ve ever bought a vinyl record or CD from us, you’ve directly supported the site, and for that we thank you. Over the last three years many, many people have helped us thrive and grow with their purchases and we would NOT be here without you. Stay tuned…there are some important developments in the works in our vinyl and CD department.

–Joe Wallace

WTF Album Covers Kids’ Corner

For some reason, WTF album art gets SUPER, er, WTF-y, when it comes to albums for and about children. Special thanks to BizarreRecords.com for two of these gems which should terrify any and everyone.

Has this guy been arrested yet?

Let’s see if this concept is understood properly. An adult male who has never been married, or is active sexually is going to…teach your kids about sex. Or teach YOU how to teach them. Not only that, the adult male in question looks like a clueless berk who just got out of a minimum security prison for forging postage stamps.

It is NEVER safe to assume that an album cover with a puppet on it is a children’s record. It’s been said before and it’s getting repeated here; if half of the whole point of the ventriloquist act is to do tricks where it looks like the dummy is talking and not the human, WHY DO A RECORD? Never mind. Just revel in the delicious awfulness.

Has THIS guy been arrested yet?

The Passion of the Vinyl

This YouTube clip is outstanding…the annoying thing about it is that there’s no mention of WHERE this awesome record store is located, but a quick bit of research shows it’s at 3770 Denis in Montreal. It looks like a GREAT place to shop for vinyl. You can also get a closer look with another YouTube clip featuring Beatnick Music or check out the Beatnik online shop.

WTF Album Covers: Semargl Satanic Pop Metal

Run that by me again–Satanic Pop Metal? What? Not having heard any of this album, the title brings to mind some kind of unholy combination of New Kids On The Block and Grim Reaper.

It’s unclear what a woman’s buttocks have to do with Satan or pop metal, except perhaps as an overt statement that sexism still sells metal records. Not that album covers have to be nudity-free, not by any stretch of the imagination, but where metal records are concerned, you might just be able to say there’s a bit of a track record of paternalistic nonsense. As in, the metal genre can be as much as much of a testosterone-fueled sausage fest as any college football game.

I can already hear the wails of protest coming from Mom’s basement on this one, but I ask you, my corpsepaint loving metalhead complainers, to please refer me to a SINGLE gay-themed heavy metal outfit that could act as a counterbalance to all this?

Rob Halford doesn’t count–I’m talking about the EQUIVALENT to something along the lines of the above album cover, not just a band that HAPPENS to have a non-heterosexual in it. I’m waiting. An openly gay death metal band would be a huge blast of fresh air here–something unique, at long last! AND actually genuinely rebellious to boot. Maybe there’s a whole army of ‘em and I’m just behind the times? I’d love to know. Seriously.

Why am I on about all this? It’s the same reason I was so totally into the idea of Gangstagrass–hip hop mashed up with bluegrass music. Could there ever be a collision of styles that traditionalists on both sides of these musical fences would hate MORE? How totally awesome–and again, TRULY rebellious and not just a bit of half-ass fakery. But I’m rambling here. This album cover on its own merits is dopey enough without all the subtext. I mean, just LOOK at it…

–Joe Wallace

WTF Album Covers: Keyboards Triangle

There really is NO EXCUSE for how atrocious this album cover is. If the primary, overriding objective of an album cover is to make you interested in purchasing the album, the only thing this little wretched thing is good for is appealing to that fractional amount of music consumers who have a voracious, never-satisfied sexual fetish for knitwear:

Umberto Prophecy of the Black Widow

Umberto is a new obsession for Turntabling, and as usual we’re a bit behind the times as this material has been available for quite some time. If you are a Goblin/Morricone/Cipriani fan and see anything at all by Umberto on vinyl, consider yourself warned–buy it immediately, or risk missing it altogether! This is top-quality stuff, as you’ll soon hear:

WTF Album Covers: Remy Ma Shesus Khryst

It’s quite tempting to say “there are no words” for this stunner of a crap album cover, but any regular reader of Turntabling knows there will be PLENTY of words.

The bottom of this atrocity declares, “Yall bitches workin on yall albums go back to the studio immediately.” With a little luck they’re planning on better grammar and punctuation on their album covers than poor Remy Ma. Never mind the punctuation though, her work reveals her to be one of those monotone mouth-breathers, bragging away over four bars of drum loops and string samples that repeat ad nauseum, with the usual three or four themes (sex, money, I feel good, I love you) on infinite repeat. “Igottanothermouthful/ofrehashednonsense/anotherIwannadoit/cominatcha”.

No, those aren’t the actual lyrics. But they will be soon.

This album cover really only screams one thing–”Me too!’ Sorry, Remy Ma, but Johnny Rotten AND Britney Spears beat you to the crucifixion gag. Your insistence that “bitches…go back to the studio immediately” is advice you should be taking yourself, especially in the art department. Ahh well…if there weren’t shitty album covers, we’d have a lot more scrambling to do in the writing of this blog, now, wouldn’t we?

P.S. It occurs that since the packaging of this product refers to it as a DVD mixtape (what?), it doesn’t really count as an ALBUM cover, per se. So sue me.