Category Archives: Blogs

Blogs To Watch: Music For Maniacs, Stereofound, and Thrift Store DJ

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vinylby Joe Wallace

Every once in a while I like to call attention to blogs that have caught my eye, and there are three that I’m really enjoying. Music For Maniacs, Stereofound and Thrift Store DJ are all dedicated to the oddball stuff on vinyl that most record store shoppers pass up in favor of those albums by Modest Mouse and Radiohead.

What those shoppers don’t know won’t hurt them though–I’m all in favor of having the unclassifiable music left alone in the bins until I can swing by to scoop them up, doofy treasures that they are. My fellow travelers in search of vinyl weirdness blog about their discoveries and I am SO very glad they do.

Music For Maniacs covers everything from exotica to mechanical music. That’s right, music made by machines. Not COMPUTERS, mind you. Picture something on the order of Doctor Phibes’s Clockwork Wizards except without the animatronic mannequins. This blog manages to be even cooler with a whole section dedicated to sound collage and mashups. BRILLIANT.

Stereofound is dedicated to what it describes as “non-music” on vinyl. In fact, according to Stereofound, the blog is obsessed with “oddities on vinyl, found at thrift stores and flea markets. Think of stereo-test records, jingles, sound effects, instructions..” My favorite part of Stereofound is the Moog section, but the Floppy Records stuff is a close second.

Thrift Store DJ is on a similar bent in that it is dedicated to, you guessed it, the music that gets left behind in the junk shop. Continue reading Blogs To Watch: Music For Maniacs, Stereofound, and Thrift Store DJ →

Blog To Watch: The Record Robot

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columbine cw mccall 45 single

You might get the impression I’m addicted to vinyl blogs, but I love the quirky ones best of all–the ones that report on stuff that you didn’t DARE dream existed, let alone WISH to actually exist. Behold the image above from The Record Robot, which is a 45 single by CW McCall. It’s just kinda creepy to see a 45 recorded in the 70s that manages to resonate more than 30 years later with lyrics like:

“Columbine, columbine/
Blue in the Rockies/
Will you miss me, when I’ve gone away?”

OK, so maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, trying to tie that 45 in with more recent events…but still, any blog that manages to dig up strangeness on vinyl from as far off as Vietnam has my wholehearted support.

The album below features lounge singers from Vietnam in a variety of languages and now I am DYING to hear it.
Saigon

Vietnamese Lounge? That’s a massive undiscovered genre I need to hear, and SOON. Three cheers for The Record Robot for continuing to chronicle unusual vinyl finds since 2005.

Continue reading Blog To Watch: The Record Robot →

I’m In a Jess Franco State of Mind

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I'm In a Jesse Franco State Of Mind

Blog discovery of the year? It may be a bit premature to say this in APRIL, but it’s hard to argue with I’m In A Jess Franco State of Mind–a blog that’s been discussing Franco since 2006. Franco’s movies aren’t for the faint of heart–most either instantly love Jess Franco or hate him completely. Turntabling is in the first category–Franco is one of the all time greats in one sense or another. He’s a frickin’ genius even if he doesn’t mean it.

From his greatest serious works (Venus in Furs, the Diabolical Doctor Z) to the masterpieces of hysteria and excessive zoom-lens abuse that are Virgin Among the Living Dead and Vampyros Lesbos, Franco is something wholly other–a filmmaker who plays by his own rules and creates freakish worlds populated by perverts, drooling halfwits, innocent victims turned predatory vampires, and halpless cuckold significant others who just don’t get that their old bed buddy has started batting for the other team…which in this case is the living dead.

I’m In A Jess Franco State of Mind has so much wonderfulness for a Franco fan to explore that you won’t know where to begin. Start from the newest posts and just work your way backwards, it’s better that way. That any blog has survived since 2006 is quite impressive, that a blog specifically about Jess Franco has been going so long is nothing short of brilliant. This is our new favorite blog and we don’t mind raving about it.

Unrezt and Recordings of Thin Consolation

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unrezt records

I stumbled across Thin Consolation by accident today after checking out a new Twitter.com/turntabling follower who is part of this Belgium-based record label.

I spent AGES on this site listening to glitchy, electronic wonderfulness including a FABULOUS electronic 12 inch by Odaka called Warm Geometry. I’ve played this six times in a row now. Part of what Unrezt calls the “Pastorale Electronics series”, Warm Geometry is an analog synth dreamy-fest that kicks into some nice percussion-n-bass analog synth action.

I am dying to hear Warm Geometry on vinyl as the gods of stereo intended but the track at Unrezt is a nice experience regardless.

There are other wonderful discoveries to be made at Unrezt including the glitch-happy Cupp Cave (which features a nice sample about zombies on the intro to the track linked here). And I love the description of Cupp Cave’s world, which is inhabited by “improbable vegetarian Texan zombies on Mexican mushrooms, all thumbs and two left feet.”

Unrezt is my new favorite record label (at least for this week)–great stuff from Belgium and more to come.

P.S. The label is Thin Consolation, the website is Unrezt. I am new so I don’t get the distinction between one end and the other…so Unrezt folks, forgive a dumb Yank.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

–Joe Wallace Continue reading Unrezt and Recordings of Thin Consolation →