Category Archives: editorial

WTF Album Covers: Pleasureman by Gunther

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WTF bad album covers gunther pleasureman

I thought Gunther was joking. Surely, I wondered aloud, this HAS to be some Saturday Night Live gag spun off into its own release. Please tell me this guy’s not for real. Pleasureman here can NOT be serious.

But he IS.

Let’s consider the album as a unified concept for a moment–the images, the song titles, the face of the dork on the cover. You get Gunther’s faux-sexy “the Metamucil isn’t working” grimace, but you ALSO get staggeringly smooth and sophisticated tracks like Ding Dong Song. We’re talking high class material for the jet set here. Oh yes indeed, you ought to wrap your ears around this so you can get SUPER sexy before you go out on that blind date and turn on charm.

Tell me how you’ll be sustaining your arousal level without chemical assistance after listening to this nonsense. This stuff sounds like a VERY low rent Hyperbubble ripoff without the fun or canny observances of social phenomena (hear Pictures of Paradise for some great multiple entendres and commentary.

I do like the fact that Gunther is fondling himself on this album cover…indicative of what he did through the entire recording process in one way or another.

For the Love of Vinyl: The Album Art of Hipgnosis

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For the Love Of Vinyl Hipgnosis

Even if you don’t know the name Hipgnosis, you know the work. Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Led Zepplin, 10CC, a whole slew of bands that all got the benefit of amazing, surreal cover art by the geniuses at Hipgnosis, which Throbbing Gristle/Coil member Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson joined in 74.10cc How Dare You

One of the very best designs by the group, for our money, is the work Hipgnosis did on the 10CC album cover for How Dare You? which manages to tell a complete story without actually conveying any plot information whatsoever.

The CD version of this album is often given the short shrift, sometimes missing one or more panels that reveal the whole tableaux. The album version of How Dare You is the one to see as it has the entire spread of carefully crafted Hipgnosis images. Amazing. Keep your Houses of the Holy, we love 10CC better.

For the Love of Vinyl gives a detailed look at 60 Hipgnosis designs and features guest commentary from musicians including Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason. This is a pretty amazing tome, and is in fact written by the founders of the design group itself, so you know you’re getting the stories right from the source. Recommended.

Crosley CR2413A Memory Master II CD Recorder Turntable

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crosley memory master II CD recorder turntable

I’m familiar with other Crosley products and was very tempted to get a Crosley Memory Master II for review here–after all, not everybody has a pro setup or is interested in ultra-high quality MP3 versions of their favorite vinyl LPs; most people just want to rip, listen, and enjoy.

But the customer reviews for previous versions of the Crosley Memory Master were so discouraging that I hesitated to waste even the shipping fee to get one of these to Turntabling central. I’d be very interested in learning who out there in Turntabling-land has used one of these and what they think.

The specs look good--this model is equipped with a line out to run into your stereo system if you don’t want to rely on the internal speakers, and there’s a USB connection for ripping direct to Mac or PC. This model lets you use a recordable CD to rip the records in real time…but near as I can tell there is nothing that specifies how individual tracks are broken up once the recording process begins. Just try looking for a definitive customer review of the Crosley CR2413A and you’ll come up with more questions than answers.

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Join Turntabling at Cyphan Friday June 25 2010

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Turntabling has a table full of delicious vinyl and rare CD finds in the dealer hall at this year’s Cyphan con. The show is Friday June 25 through Sunday June 27 at the Westin Chicago North Shore Hotel in Wheeling, Illinois.

The Turntabling table features some vintage Goblin, Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Tarantino soundtracks, a bit of the old Rob Zombie on vinyl, even some Doctor Who-related vinyl for the sci-fi set. We’ve also got a line of tees for sale this time out including the infamous “Sweet Innocent Teenagers” tee.

Cyphan is an experiment for Turntabling…sci-fi shows aren’t what we’re used to doing, but this one features a Friday The 13th reunion and a few other tasty treats, so we’ve decided to give it a go and see what happens. Come out join Turntabling for a weekend of fandom, vinyl, and something called the Browncoat Bash which features Firefly star Jewell Staite as the guest of honor. These maniacs have made the Browncoat Bash an OPEN BAR affair–a dangerous thing to do with a bunch of vinyl junkies in the room.