Vinyl Record Players For Your Automobile

by Joe Wallace
While looking for vinyl oddities today, I stumbled across a collection of photos of record players designed to be installed in a car or truck. Designed for the lover of 7-inch singles, it would be truly awesome to see these come back in a major way. Of course that would necessitate a big industry for the the seven inch single coming back, too…but is that really a bad thing?

Check out the delicious retro loveliness of these players! Some of the images are courtesy of Dark Roasted Blend, while others are from eBay, BoingBoing and other sources. The video, which is first, shows the in-car vinyl player in action…sweet.

Vinyl Vlog

This YouTube series is just now showing up on the Turntabling radar…interesting material, especially that these gents have interviewed a record label owner who was grousing about vinyl as a “Beanie Baby-like” phenomenon. Fascinating stuff, especially when discussing green manufacturing and vinyl production. A really interesting clip from the folks at Vinyl Vlog:

Dust And Grooves In Turkey Part II

Eilon Paz, vinyl junkie and photographer extraordinaire, has another post from a visit to Turkey on his most outstanding Dust And Grooves vinyl blog.

Dust And Grooves is a Turntabling favorite–the photos are outstanding, the vinyl discussions are always interesting, and it’s a real anomaly in the world of vinyl blogging. Turntabling’s tagline includes the idea that vinyl is more of a lifestyle rather than a simple format choice, but it has to be said that Dust And Grooves does a MUCH better job of conveying that notion through pictures and interviews.

The album cover pictured to the left is fabulous–want to find a copy of that for the Turntabling Collection. And that’s another thing that’s truly awesome about Dust And Grooves–the vinyl obscurity factor is very, very high. Every time y0u find a new blog post at Dust And Grooves, you can always count on seeing new albums you didn’t know existed, and that’s a wonderful thing.

–Joe Wallace

Mental Floss Digs Up Dirt on 10 WTF Album Covers

Mental Floss has unearthed quite a bit of gossip on 10 of the most notoriously awful WTF album covers. Some of it’s funny (Jim Post, pictured here, now travels the country doing Mark Twain impersonations), and some of it’s tragic, but it’s all interesting.

The title of the piece, The True Stories Behind 10 Bad Album Covers is a bit misleading–there’s very little “why did they do it?” info here except in a couple of instances, but it is great reading for a fan of WTF vinyl in general.

WTF albums as a “genre” don’t have to merely contain misguided cover art, stupid band names, or bizarre themes–the music itself is sometimes the WTF factor, as is in the case of Elvis soundalike Orion pictured on the right.

Orion got pressed into service by some record company types trying to cash in on the death of Elvis and the “conspiracy” that The King was actually still alive and hiding out from his fame. The whole, true story is funny as hell…until the end when it goes right into tragic territory, and you feel bad for laughing at the earlier revelations.

Then there’s the story of the singer who had no idea his record had been catapulted into the land of WTF fame and fascination until someone contacted him asking about the cover. Only then did the singer–known to bad album cover fans as Ken–had become the stuff vinyl junkies talk about. His record, “By Request Only” has sold on eBay for $100 plus.

The stories behind these albums are all compelling reading over at MentalFloss.com.

Vinyl Blogs Worth Reading: OMG Vinyl

One of the dangers of being a vinyl junkie–especially one that loves old-school Italian soundtrack imports, industrial LPs and old KLF 12 inch singles–is that it’s easy to get lost in back catalog crate digging and forget about the large volumes of equally worthy vinyl being released today.

While nobody has the market cornered on reporting about new vinyl releases, it must be said that OMG Vinyl does a stellar job of covering the new stuff, and the writing is absolutely top-notch.

One of the best opening lines of any vinyl blog posts in recent memory comes from OMG’s coverage of new stuff by Four Tet; “We don’t post about techno 12?s much anymore, not in this economy. However, Four Tet’s Text label is pretty much impossible to ignore, easily releasing some of the best platters around featuring partners in crime like Thom Yorke and Burial…”

OMG Vinyl posts reviews, samples and news on the latest vinyl across a staggering variety of genres including noise, dub, and post-rock in addition to the usual suspects in the indie, hip-hop, garage and psych categories. It’s easy to get hooked on this site, especially when they’re posting new material by Four Tet and reviewing CASSETTE releases, too…recommended.

–Joe Wallace

Dust and Grooves Strikes Again…

One of the best vinyl blogs on the planet (objective, aren’t we?) is the wonderful Dust And Grooves. What’s most excellent about this blog, subject matter aside, is the photography of people and their record collections. Eilon Paz has a great photographic eye and his subjects always look far more artistic than you’d imagine a collection of photographs of vinyl records to be. In short, amazing work.

One of the latest posts at Dust and Grooves features Emek Can Tulus, a record collector based in Istanbul, who had a lot to say about the tactile fun of record collecting in general and about Turkish vinyl in particular. This is some amazing stuff! His collection is nothing short of amazing…and his cat likes it, too. Highly recommended!

Apparently Jeff Bridges Really Loves Bad Album Covers

The Jeff Bridges official site (yes, THAT Jeff Bridges) has a collection of truly wretched album covers. He’s a particular fan of karate preachers, The Handless Organist (need a HEADLESS organist to create a matched set, really) and the I Love My Life guy, who oddly enough does not display this album cover on his own site. (Insert snarky observation here.) Too bad, as it’s a classic.

For those just tuning in, Jeff Bridges is not related to Todd Bridges of Diff’rent Strokes fame, but it would be pretty interesting if he was. Bridges has a singing career in the works and has appeared on more than a couple of stages and TV shows doing his brand of singer/songwriter strumming complete with backing band.

His official site is really interesting–it’s a lot more personal than your standard band page, owing mainly to the hand-drawn graphics and handwritten messages. That’s an awesome touch, and for some reason is a little reminiscent of Daniel Johnston. Don’t ask why, it’s just a first impression thing. And yes, it’s meant as a compliment.

Vinyl Pressing Plants in the USA

Press Vinyl has an impressive collection of vinyl pressing plants in the United States. A couple of the sites that have ceased operations have had their links removed (as far as we can tell) and there was a 404 Not Found in the list (a simple case of a link not working, the actual site is live).

If you’re looking for a pressing plant that does vinyl and want to comparison shop, Press Vinyl’s list is a definite good place to begin.

While we’re on the subject, you might also want to check out the rather awesome Secret Society of Lathe Trolls, who are the biggest vinyl junkies on the planet. That’s because this forum is all about creating your own vinyl rather than simply collecting other people’s work. Bravo!