Category Archives: Vinyl Finds

The Turntabling Collection is Growing

For Sale, Vinyl Finds, Weird and Unclassifiable Vinyl

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

For Sale, Goth Industrial, Media, Vinyl Finds, , , , , , ,

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

For Sale, Media, Vinyl Finds

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!

Record Shops, Vinyl Finds, , , ,

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