The Turntabling Collection Returns!

Yes, it took a bit of time, but The Turntabling Collection is back online for sale, updated regularly with new arrivals and titles. The vinyl and CDs are for sale as a fundraising effort to support Turntabling.net, so any purchases you make directly contribute to the growth of the site.

We could not exist without your support, and it is always greatly appreciated. We’ve got quite a bit of material planned for summer including more Vinyl Road Rage record store profiles, video, podcasting and much more. It’s always great to find and offer rare and obscure vinyl/CD titles and the never-ending search for these great releases takes us into some pretty strange/fun places.

Some have contacted us asking where the for-sale vinyl went, and now that it’s back I’d just like to say thanks for your patience and please check the site regularly for updates and new info–titles are added on a regular basis and there’s some pretty amazingly rare stuff coming. You can browse all current titles for sale and if you are selling a collection of vinyl, please get in touch–we’d love to know what you have. No show tunes, though, sorry–we don’t buy ‘em. Soundtracks, yes, show tunes no.

–Joe Wallace

Vinyl Records For Sale From The Turntabling Collection: Halloween II, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Blue Sunshine by The Glove

The Turntabling Collection is a large, ever-growing vinyl collection curated by Turntabling. Portions of the collection go on sale to fund Turntabling.net and the Vinyl Road Rage trips that are well documented here. If you buy anything from The Turntabling Collection, you’re doing more than just filling a hole in your record collection; you’re also contributing to the site, helping us stay alive and online. Thank you!

And if you happen across this post to find these albums already sold out, please have a look at the Turntabling Collection for sale via Discogs.com. There are also select titles from the Turntabling Collection via the Turntabling Etsy shop.

The latest for-sale additions to The Turntabling Collection include the following must-have vinyl LPs:

Halloween II Soundtrack LP by John Carpenter

John Carpenter’s sequel to the original creepy classic is every bit as good, but in totally different ways. This soundtrack LP is highly sought after and with good reason–Carpenter couldn’t really go wrong at this stage in the game.

If you haven’t seen the movie in a while, have another look. Donald Pleasence is fantastic as the obsessed Dr. Loomis, and he really winds up giving the business to The Shape at the end–one of the most memorable takedowns in horror movie history.

Plan 9 From Outer Space Soundtrack Vinyl LP

How FUN is this record? For some Ed Wood fiends, you’ve got an instant party when you drop the needle. But the album sounds are only part of the fun. The packaging for this includes Bela Lugosi glowering at you from one side of the record, and Tor Johnson grimacing from the other.

So yes, this record is suitable for framing. As much as the idea makes some collectors cringe, it’s certain there ARE people out there who would rather display the Plan 9 From Outer Space soundtrack album on the wall instead of taking it for a spin on the turntable.

It’s hard to blame them when you see Lugosi’s face on the record, it really is…

The Glove Blue Sunshine Vinyl LP (SEALED)

It’s probably rare enough that you’d find a copy of this in decent condition to begin with, to find a SEALED copy of Blue Sunshine by The Glove is pretty amazing. This collaboration between The Cure’s Robert Smith and Souxsie and The Banshees’ Steve Severin is essential listening.

If you liked either group, The Glove is a worthy footnote in the history of both acts. If you aren’t convinced, there are several YouTube clips to sample, here’s just one of them–a great collision of Souxsie/Cure styles.

The Turntabling Collection is Growing

The Turntabling Collection is the ever-growing list of rare, hard-to-find, bizarre and just plain amazing vinyl and CD titles available for sale. You can browse the collection online and have a look conventions like HorrorHound, Flashback, Cinema Wasteland and many others.

There are more than 280 titles currently listed online and many more updates coming. There is too much stuff to add all at once–these titles are just the most exciting ones and there are many more for sale at the conventions I run the Turntabling booth at…

Over the weekend there were a lot of great titles on vinyl and compact disc added including some of these beauties:

The Abominable Dr. Phibes soundtrack, a great collection of the music from Andy Warhol’s Dracula and Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, a copy of the Island of the Fishmen soundtrack, also known as L’Isola Degli Uomini Pesce.

There is all sorts of great, bizarre and rare vinyl going into the collection–have you heard the collection of Brazillian psychedelia freakouts called Far Out Spaced Oddyssey? That’s no misprint, this record is so far out they didn’t even bother spelling it correctly.

Then there’s that copy of the Deep Throat soundtrack issued by Light In The Attic Records, which includes a poster, and ditto for the J.G Thirlwell project Wiseblood–the Turntabling Collection now includes a copy of Motorslug by Wiseblood which has the original comic book insert Nyak-Nyak included.

There are plenty more titles coming—the collection recently acquired titles by Can, BBC Records, KLF, Skinny Puppy and many others. These titles often don’t stay in stock very long–some of the rare ones get snapped up pretty quickly, especially at shows. If you click on a link and find that title is already sold, by all means drop a line to me at jwallace (at) turntabling (dot) net and I can see about getting my hands on another one.

The Turntabling Collection goes toward funding more activity on the site, including Vinyl Road Rage–my cross country road trips in search of the best indie record shops on the planet. If you’ve purchased records or CDs from Turntabling, you’ve helped fund one of these drives and related excursions. THANK YOU!

–Joe Wallace

Sleep Chamber Vinyl LPs

by Joe Wallace

I was first intrigued by Sleep Chamber after reading a lengthy entry about the group in the Trouser Press Record Guide back in 1993. The Ira Robbins write up made this band seem naughty, daring and creepy. How right that impression turned out to be, and in all the best ways.

Sleep Chamber vinyl is rare–some feel it’s in the same rarified air as Coil vinyl, albums by Current 93 or Nurse With Wound. I’m partial to that way of thinking as it’s been difficult for me to find much to add to The Turntabling Collection and I would love to get my hands on some more.

Sleep Chamber founder John Zewizz seems like a kindred spirit with the likes of Coil, Current 93, TOPY and others…he’s got a penchant for sinister atmospheres, doomy sonic landscapes and even manages to evoke the Legendary Pink Dots at their darkest and most experimental. This is, of course, all complimentary.

To date, I’ve only managed to get my hands on two Sleep Chamber LPs. Sexmagick Ritual is exactly what you expect it to be–plenty of emphasis on the sex and the ritual make this a great mood record for lights-out time in more adventurous houses.

Sharp Spikes and Spurs is a bit more upbeat compared to Sexmagick Ritual and even includes a cover of The Light Pours Out Of Me, originally recorded by Magazine. Gotta love artists who pay tribute to Howard Devoto, one of the true geniuses of post-hippie music.

Again, fans of Coil, Current 93, and others in that musical zip code are sure to find something to love about Sleep Chamber. Those who don’t follow the 90s industrial/electronic genre but are curious will find a whole fascinating universe of discovery–the personalities from this era are every bit as interesting and colorful as the music, John Zewizz included.

John Zewizz has a Sleep Chamber channel on YouTube (these days the band seems to be presented as SleepChamber) and I’m including the video clip for Weapons Ov Magick from Sexmagic Ritual here as it’s a great introduction to the world of Sleep Chamber.

You can view these two Sleep Chamber vinyl LPs for sale as part of the Turntabling Collection via Discogs.com.

Legendary Pink Dots Vinyl

The Turntabling Collection (my pretentious-yet-accurate name for the inventory of vinyl and CDs I sell online at at conventions) includes several titles by the one-and-only Legendary Pink Dots.

Those who don’t know the Dots aren’t hip to their unique brand of audio surrealism, psych-tinged epic journeys into the imagination that recall the best of Syd Barrett and like-minded fellow travelers. But if any or all of that description sound good, you owe it to yourself to become what some used to call a “Dotty phrend”. Here’s a selection of titles you should get to know:

Legendary Pink Dots Asylum double LP.

This is the record some reviewers and Dots fans describe as LPD at their most crazy, psychotic and creative. Standout tracks on this one include Echo Police, which sounds oddly reminiscent of the Liquid Sky soundtrack in places–at least at the start.

This is one of the older releases in the massive LPD catalogue, and the double vinyl presentation is pretty amazing. The artwork alone is worth a look…the album? One of the most unique even for the band itself. Here’s a video clip of LPD performing Echo Police from the Asylum album, shot live in 2008.
 

The Legendary Pink Dots album Island of Jewels is half experimental and half structured, featuring plenty of surreal wanderings, but does have a playful side at times. Some nice sax interludes give this a–dare I say–50s beatnik vibe in spots, which is not a bad thing for a fan of the Naked Lunch soundtrack.

Some fans call this album a must-own, others say it’s their least favorite in the collection. The band is like that–inspiring rabidly devoted followings but with wildly opinionated and divergent opinions on the group’s output. Call this one a good sampling of what you can expect from the rest of the band’s recordings and you probably can’t go wrong. The wild mood swings are all here, the sonic experimentation, the light-and-dark shifts…pretty fine, if you ask me.

The Legendary Pink Dots vinyl record The Golden Age shows you a side of the Dots that many love–surreal, beautiful, with a touch of what I call “morbid hippie”. Nobody does that quite like the Dots, with tracks like “Even The Vegetables Screamed”. The wonderful “Hotel Noir” is reminiscent of some other great LPD albums (The Lovers comes to mind–another essential title to find).

“The Month After” even has a little Simon Boswell/Italian horror soundtrack vibe going on there…very nice. I’m also sure it was unintentional, but no matter…

There are plenty of 12-inch singles which are sought-after too, including something brilliant called the Pre-Millennial Single and a wonderful little 12-inch called Princess Coldheart. This is a prime example of Dots storytelling at its finest–bizarre, twisted fairy tales that meld ancient medieval imagery with modern technology. Acid music? You’ll know for sure on the first listen–here’s a sample of that single, courtesy of YouTube. (see below)
 

…and We’re Back!

Was a great, sleep-deprived and vinyl-riffic road trip to Pittsburgh and back again. Loads of great vinyl finds and good times, and the two-day horror movie marathon and camp-out at the Riverside Drive-In was awesome fun. The normal Turntabling posting schedule (such as it is) resumes once more now that I’m off the road.

Learned a few interesting things about my own vinyl collecting habits while on the road. Maybe it’s just personal bias in favor of one system over another, but I find vinyl graded with terms other than the Goldmine standard (G, VG, VG+, NM, NM-, M) seem to be MUCH less than advertised when you inspect the records.

“Very Fine” and “Exceptionally Clean” seem to be much closer to bullshit in my opinion–”exceptionally clean” or “very fine” lead one to expect a record in at least VG+ or NM- condition. Instead what you get in many cases is an overpriced VG.

What’s the difference? I know a lot of people out there have a hard time with record grading, but my own criteria, fussy as it may be, is basically this: if a record has more than a couple of stray marks on it, it can’t possibly be better than VG+. If a record looks used, but well taken care of (shiny, without more than two glaring marks or scratches that don’t affect play) it’s probably VG or VG+. I think records in VG+ condition are great purchases, and many of the ones in my own collection are VG+.

I will buy a record that looks VG+ any day of the week. I love NM vinyl best of all the “pre-owned” grades, but sometimes you’ll pay more for them because they’re more sought after–a NM version of a rare title is a wonderful find. But VG+ is just fine for anyone who plans to play the record often.

Near mint is just that–a record that’s used but looks pretty damn close to when it came out of the shrink wrap with some leeway given for the age of the record. Mint is either just out of shrink wrap and played once or twice or still sealed. In my experience–and it’s all VERY subjective, naturally==I think people who collect are really into NM, but many of those who buy from me at shows like HorrorHound Weekend or Cinema Wasteland buy to play the albums often and are perfectly happy with VG+ or VG.

The records graded “Very Fine” or “Exceptionally clean”, I’m not too impressed with as the perception is (for a hardcore record buyer and seller of vinyl) that somebody’s trying to sidestep the condition issue. That’s not always the case, to be fair, but it was really glaring on this trip how untrustworthy grading systems can be. Always inspect your vinyl!

I’ll have to do a full post on this stuff a bit later on, methinks.

–Joe Wallace

Tim Larson and the Owner Operators: A New Deal

I just got my copy of A New Deal on vinyl–the new record by Tim Larson and the Owner Operators. This Chicago band has been toiling away in and out of the Windy City for quite some time now and the new vinyl is, quite frankly, a triumph.

A full review of the vinyl is coming, but for now let me just say that Larson and company have perfected something I like to call Economic Noir. It would not be unfair to compare the lyrics to the storytelling and world-weariness of Stan Ridgeway, but the music is in its own league altogether.

A New Deal is a combination of dark, brooding southern sounds (without sounding corn-fed or just off the Dukes of Hazzard farm) with some excellent swampy guitar work, plus more than a hint of Angelo Badalamenti. I am sure that’s not intentional, but it certainly is welcome. If you’ve ever seen the evil barroom scene in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, you’ve got a good idea of the vibe that comes off some of these tracks.

The album is a flat-out commentary on life in post-Bush America, with the 2008 housing crisis firmly in mind. But this record does not preach or climb up on a soapbox whatsoever. A lot of that sort of thing (from lesser artists) can be tiresome, but A New Deal writes from the trenches and sounds a lot more like looking for hope in the middle of the chaos rather than rolling over and waiting for the wolves.

I’ll save the full review of A New Deal for later, but here’s some of my favorite work from that album, live in Chicago. This stuff is HIGHLY recommended. The video doesn’t even do it justice, but consider it an apertif for the main course. Tim Larson and the Owner Operators play The Double Door in Chicago 8PM on Wednesday August 24, 2011.

Kerry Livgren Seeds of Change Vinyl LP

by Joe Wallace

Kerry Livgren is best known for his guitar mania in Kansas. Classically influenced, sort of residing in the same musical zip code as Yes, but without the capes, the frilly raised pinky finger playing, and near-falsetto whine vocals.

Livrgren’s solo record, Seeds Of Change, has a trippy backstory. Livgren had experienced a lot of existential crises while on the rise in Kansas. He was well into something called The Urantia Book, which was one of those dusty old tomes supposedly dictated by “celestial beings” and full of revelations about life, the universe, and everything.

Livgren went evangelical after his conversations with a member of his support band, Le Roux. “I began to get more agitated and emotionally upset than ever. It was as though a thousand pounds was weighing down on my shoulders. I knew I was heading toward a significant conclusion, but I didn’t know what it would be.”

He had one of those quintessentially late 70s/early 80s born-again experiences and decided to chuck the Urantia book and dive into Jesus instead.

Livgren is probably one of the least tiresome “true believers” who kept going with music. Smart enough to know when to save it for Sunday and skilled enough in the music biz to let his views influence his work but not completely devour it, it turned out to still be possible to listen to an 80s-era Kansas record without feeling like you were being dragged in front of a Jimmy Swaggart revival meeting.

So when Livgren came out with this solo album, Seeds of Change, it could have gone one of two ways–the grim, humorless fist of churchy preach-a-tization, or a more complex, multi-layered artistic endeavor.

He chose the latter, even if the record is overwhelmingly evangelical in content. Some of which you have to be savvy enough to read between the lines to get (Ground Zero) plus some decidedly blatantly in-your-face-for-God material (Mask of the Great Deceiver).

The thing that makes this record truly wonderful? A must-buy? Two things, actually. It is a stunning artifact of 70s cheese–the prog-a-licious synths of the futuristic Ground Zero are too fun to pass up, and ditto for the Broadway-style musical intro to Mask of the Great Deceiver. Listening to that, you can just picture some kind of demented chorus line forming.

Secondly, the guest vocals on this album are a complete shock. Livgren may have converted to evangelical Christianity, but he did NOT lose his sense of humor for this album–Mask of the Great Deceiver features lead vocals by none other than old hook-em-horns himself, Ronnie James Dio.

Who, I might add, did NOT phone it in. AND, oddly enough, performed without a shred of irony while singing lyrics in praise of God and warning about the DEVILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.

Livgren put Dio on two tracks, saying he wanted to give Dio a chance to do something “diametrically opposed” to the Black Sabbath and solo stuff. But you can’t help but think it was also a tweak at the stuffy, uptight brethren he surely found himself dealing with once his conversion story got out.

All that said, there are some completely insufferable moments on this album. The first cut, “Just One Way” is a shameless Christian tract basically saying what the title implies. Livgren may be one of the most creative forces in Christendom, but he was still infected with that religious elitism that plagues all the monotheists–”Our god is NUMBER ONE! YEAH!”

But the good stuff on this album is worth repeated listens, even the instrumental break on the gag-tacular “Just One Way” is pretty great. Try to ignore the naivete at work on the moments where “God Is Great, God Is Good, And He’s The Only Thing That Will Make You Happy” noises are happening, cuz Seeds of Change by Kerry Livgren is a lot of fun otherwise.

(Transparency alert: at the time of this writing I have a copy of Seeds of Change for sale at Discogs.com. If you click on the links and find it’s not there anymore, you can always check out the other rare, strange, and under-appreciated vinyl I have for sale there.)

–Joe Wallace