Category Archives: Featured

Dawn of the Dead/Zombi OST Vinyl

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Goblin is one of those scruffy dog groups you either love or hate. Horror movie buffs in love with Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Joe D’Amato and other Italian fear-flick directors are often total fanboys of Goblin. Me personally, I love the excessively dated sound of the 70s and early 80s soundtracks by this group, especially the bizarre mix of acid rock guitars and 80s techno synth riffs.

This album is great–it’s all over the map and has some extended sounds you only heard for a few moments in the actual film. There’s at least one totally misguided and wrong cut on this piece of wax–which somehow makes it all the more endearing for the music that DOES work.

The Dagored album is on 180 gram vinyl and the fold-out sleeve is fun. I love the grainy stills from the movie, especially the back cover with all it’s splattery 70s zombie blood flying everywhere. Aim for the head, youze.

I lust after all the albums in the Dagored back catalog. One look at the cover art for these albums will tell you why. I own many of them on CD, but it’s just not as much fun. Just look at that cover art for Revolver and The Beyond… you can’t tell me these wouldn’t be a joy to play on a turntable while gazing at those covers and foldouts.

While hunting for Dagored (i was hoping to order direct from them, but alas they seem only to have archives available for viewing-no shopping!) I discovered a lovely, seemingly ancient site chronicling a series of Dawn of the Dead soundtrack releases. Worth a look.

The World’s Most Expensive Record Needle

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It’s not OFFICIALLY the world’s most expensive record needle, but at 10K, the Clearaudio Goldfinger is squarely in Donald Trump territory. Sold by NeedleDoctor.com, the Goldfinger is 16 grams of pure gold, with a boron cantilever. Are you going on one knee for some sweet, sweet DJ? Don’t waste your cash on one of those useless finger trinkets sold in shopping mall diamond shops, get this bit of precious metal instead. It’s functional, it’s beautiful, and it probably sounds like nothing on earth. Too bad it costs nearly as much as you’d get selling a kidney. What’s the first thing you’d play after scoring one of these? For my money, it would have to be the More Beer album by FEAR.

Just kidding.

Bippp: Obscure French New Wave

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Born Bad Records released BIPPP in 2006. This is an enjoyable collection of French “synth wave” recorded between 1979 and 1985. The quality of these tracks is fairly consistent across the board both in the songwriting and recordings themselves. For a longtime fan of obscure new wave, this is a real treasure trove. You can practically taste the quaaludes.

“Ping Pong” by Act and “Touche pas mon Sexe” by Comix are standout tracks. Both are described in other circles as “Devo-esque”, which seems to be the favorite term used by reviewers who lack the imagination to describe these bouncy synth masterpieces any other way. Personally, I’d just say that they make you want to snort cocaine and bounce your cranium around like you had a bobble-head. The short version–if you like music that goes “boingy-boingy-dingy-dingy-blip-blop-bleep,” this is for you.

It certainly works for ME. Especially when they aren’t singing in English. I think that’s the best part of all…I prefer NOT to know what they are on about. It’s just more fun that way. Visit the BIPPP Myspace page to hear some tracks from this one. It’s distributed in the USA by Everloving Records, for which I thank them profusely.

The Prima Donnas 7″

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The Prima Donnas were new-new wave long before The Epoxies or any of that lot came along. In fact, I was lucky enough to scoop up this now-out-of-print 7-inch in 1998, ferchrissakes! The Prima Donnas were described gamely as “punk rock without guitars” but really, you don’t need such descriptions. It’s a two-song romp with “She Had Alien Written All Over Her” and “Break Your Fuckin’ Head” both scoring high marks for energy, enthusiasm and fun sing-along-harmonies in goofy brit accents.

 Originally released on Peek-a-Boo Records, this is now available as a download from emusic.com. I highly recommend searching for this single in any Texas record store, especially near Austin and San Antonio. The Prima Donnas later released both songs from the vinyl on the full-length Drugs, Sex & Discotheques, which is full of great moments including one hilarious chant at the end of Reagan’s Dead:

“Reagan died/but his clone survived/run and hide/mass suicide”

Buy this CD with extreme haste, especially if you have a love affair with cheap synth tones. I love this CD and am quite pleased to own the single. If memory serves, Peek-a-Boo was located in Austin, but the website now lists a California contact address. Regardless, I will always associate The Prima Donnas with Texas, as that’s where I got hooked on them—in that scortching, evil 100+ heat.