The Instant DJ Toolbox
Thanks to Chicago DJs for this. We are excessively amused.
It’s been a zany couple of days. 1000 + miles covered in two days? Can that possibly be? Big update coming tomorrow on weekend follies in the great vinyl road trip. I’m far too whacked from all that driving to go into it now, but stay tuned…
Ted Nugent’s cover for the 2007 greatest hits collection, Love Grenade, isn’t just a wretched exercise in horny teenager-style cartooning, it’s also wildly offensive! Just look at how she’s depicted abusing that innocent hand grenade.
Seriously though, rampaging sexism aside, Love Grenade wins top marks–it’s a true accomplishment to bewilder AND register as blindingly stupid at the same time. A naked woman bound on a food tray with…a grenade in her mouth? That IS a grenade, right? It’s not an under-ripe avocado? Or maybe it’s Ted Nugent’s wallet, fat with all that cash he’s making off another collection of reheated twaddle.
I’m trying hard to figure out what The Nuge is trying to say here–aside from “Hey Kids, here’s a REALLY DUMB record by MEEEEEEE!” And the track listing does nothing to dispel that notion. When you’ve got songs like “Bridge Over Troubled Daughters” and “Broadside” (get it? Huh huh, heh heh, BROAD side…heh heh huh huh) you know you’re not dealing with a Rhodes scholar here.
Whatever happened to the good old days when long haired dorks with guitars sang about SATAN? … Continue Reading
I do NOT for a SECOND believe that cassettes are coming back the way vinyl already has. But tapes do keep appearing on my radar lately, quite a lot actually. Example, right down the street from my house at Laurie’s Planet of Sound there is a cassette tape which actually tempted me–a Chris Connelly release I’d not heard of before due to being either out of touch or the tape itself being…gasp…new?
Then there’s the Ohio-based Everybody’s Records, which proudly displays the mighty cassette tape rack shown above. I don’t know why anyone would shell out four dollars for one, but they advertise .99 cent tapes, too and that wouldn’t be a hard sell if the cover art were intact and you are a completist. Everybody’s Records–from the photos–looks like an amazingly cool place to shop. What is it with Ohio and their excellent record stores? I am always impressed when I go there…it seems to be an endless supply of great indies.
I don’t get the appeal of the cassettes these days, but I suppose nostalgia must be part of it…do the sellers of cassette tapes also sell cassette players, too? If not, they should. Ditto for anyone selling 8-tracks. Otherwise how in the world do you sweeten the deal for someone who has old gear that’s about to die, but still wants to revel in the old-old-OLD school playback experience? Me personally, I do miss that goofy “click/clunk” of the 8 track tape machines as they switched to the next track. I don’t miss having the track change in the middle of a song, however.
His previous albums have sonic tributes to cinematic touchstones including Lalo Schifrin, Isaac Hayes, and John Barry. But Sticks sounds more influenced by phases in analog music history rather than specifc albums–the Maharishi-era Beatles, Get Carter-period Roy Budd, that specific year when women dancing in go-go cages really caught on, you get the picture.
All Music Guide’s Rick Anderson tries to take Chris Joss to task for evoking these atmospheres, saying they’re for people who like “around watching cheesy movies from the ’60s and cheerfully doing the swim while bell-bottomed boys with bowl haircuts play cheerfully wanky psychedelic music.” But in declaring Joss to be “not terribly original” Anderson reveals that he completely misses the point. You might as well dismiss Daft Punk for being repetitive and too reliant on synthesizers.
Standout tracks on Sticks include Danger Buds, the “Have some opium, then” Little Nature, and my current favorite, Night Scare. All I can say is for anyone who watches Get Carter for the soundtrack as much as Michael Caine’s “ten feet tall and bulletproof” antics, the purchase of new Chris Joss record is a foregone conclusion. Sticks is a lovely, swirling and smoky collection of grooves.
PS–Chris Joss is best experienced for the first time via his jukebox sampler at the official website. There is a LOT to discover there…
My job as editor of CheapToday.com gives me the chance to do something really cool–I get to search high and low for bargains and hot deals on products that I’d actually (and often do) purchase. There’s an entertainment section on Cheap Today that is woefully under-served in the vinyl department. As in, there are NO DEALS on vinyl records there.
With so many new groups putting out music on vinyl, the thought occurs that there MUST be people out there selling records at discount prices. New vinyl doesn’t stay in the “brand new” bins forever, so where do they go when they go on sale?
I’d LOVE to plug deals on vinyl albums on Cheap Today, and while I don’t think I’ll ever find enough to create an entire section dedicated to LP deals, there’s already an entertainment section that such things would fit nicely into.
I’m currently in search of any vendors of new vinyl who sell over the internet, offer reliable customer service and order fufillment and have GOOD return policies who want to get in touch to let me know about any hot deals on vinyl records and related items. There are enough fans of the glorious album format to justify at least experimenting with putting up deals on vinyl. If you sell albums and offer deals on some or all titles, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. Drop me a line:
joe.wallace at CheapToday dot com. I would love to hear from you!
2008 goes away this week, and with 2009 comes a brand new Turntbling.net. What is in store for this space? Coming soon…a glorious vinyl podcast and more. Thanks for reading, see you in the new year!
J. Wallace
Turntabling.net
Got an e-mail forward today with a massive list of retailers that are scaling back, closing stores or filing bankruptcy. Not a SINGLE musical instruments vendor, record shop or downloadable media enterprise was on the list.
That’s not entirely scientific, I know, especially since Virgin and Tower got their collective asses kicked already. But I predict that in an age of massive economic trouble, people will still cling to the music–maybe more than ever.
In short, VIVA LA VINYL!
I just dropped some nice coin on German disco cheese, and a glorious Brazilian post-punk album. More on that stuff later. Looks like Turntabling.net is back up, eh?
Don’t worry, we’re still kicking. Just working out some business and trying to get some concepts working properly. Turntabling is still all about the vinyl, but I am contemplating the MP3 posts as well…updates forthcoming. It’s been well over a month since anything hit this space but Turntabling is reviving. Stay tuned.
While I do love a bit of the old vintage George Clinton, that’s not the reason I bought this piece of vinyl. Instead, I bought it because the whole thing is massive “borrowing” (with appropriate thanks in the liner notes) of Church of the SubGenius schtick. The center graphic, with Clinton’s face over the legend “Inspired madman or complete jackass?” is classic Ivan Stang. I have yet to listen to this, the graphics were enough to make me get it…as with many of my vinyl purchases, when you’re flipping through the bargain used bin, any strange thing that grabs your eye is enough to justify buying. That’s how I got Pop Against Pope, which I will have to review and post MP3s for next week, once I’ve relocated it in the stacks. It’s also how I discovered 4 Out of 5 Doctors, Pictures on a String, Comateens, and the much reviled Lung Overcoat
This George Clinton album gets high ratings by some fans, so I am hoping it’s a roof-shaker. Of course, I’m the guy who can listen to Funkadelic’s “DooDoo Chasers” more than once, so maybe in this case my judgement is a bit faulty. How can you NOT be at least slightly amused by the late-night bong hit ravings of Clinton and company, to the tune of Bootsy’s guitar noodling? Clinton’s utterly adolescent phrase “Count the calories in your farts!” will echo in your brain for days in spite of your best attempts to grow up.
If you look closely enough at the album cover for You Shouldn’t Nuf Bit Fish, you’ll see the Subgenius riffs, but you will also see where Snoop Doggy Dogg stole his ideas for much of his cover art…not to mention the “bow wow wow” chant on one of his earliest hits. Clinton does it better, Snoop.
Back in stock!
