I’m not sure what The Ritchie Family are trying to say with this album cover. I’m not sure THEY know, either.
This could be a statement of solidarity with gay bikers, or it could express a need to be surrounded by oiled body builders. Understandable. But the inclusion of the dog disturbs me greatly on levels I can’t fully express here. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?
–Joe Wallace
You have to hand it to Todd Rundgren–when he wants to bewilder, he REALLY GOES FOR IT.
I was surprised to learn this album came out in 2004. Liars by Todd Rundgren is a political statement to be sure, but this image of TR-i in flannel jammies and the Easter bunny getup make some run screaming back for the comfort of “Hello, It’s Me”.
But wait, there’s MORE! Todd Rundgren wasn’t content to play dress-up on the album cover…oh, no. Behold the wonder, the mystery, the sheer brain-rendingly odd vision of Rundgren singing God Said (not a bad track in that style, I might add) live (in Glasgow?). The set looks like a Gary Numan video, but Todd Rundgren himself is dressed like a French cabaret chanteuse. Or something. I love this. Let your freak flag fly, TR-i.
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
Mr. Sanju Chiba, of the ELP Corporation, demonstrates the ELP laser turntable, which actually does play vinyl records using a laser beam instead of a record needle. According to Chiba-san, this system is 100% analog and will play back a vinyl record perfectly.
But what’s totally exciting about this video clip for a soundtrack junkie is Chiba-san’s choice of vinyl. The track played in this video clip is by none other than Stelvio Cipriani, who is well known by Italian cinema obsessives for his soundtrack work on films like Twitch of the Death Nerve, The Lickerish Quartet, The Bloody Hand of the Law and many others. So geek out TWICE on this clip–the idea of a laser turntable is truly awesome, and you can also have a better sounding sample of this track courtesy of the second clip…viva Cipriani!