The Turntabling Collection: Rare, Hard-To-Find and Awesomeness on CD and LP

Many Turntabling readers know us from conventions including HorrorHound Weekend, Flashback Weekend, Cinema Wasteland, Capricon and Dark Carnival Film Festival.

Turntabling sells rare, hard to find and just plain amazing vinyl and CDs at conventions every year and last year the Turntabling booth got so large I was carting around more than 700 titles. Not bad for a small space at a convention, eh?

When the collection isn’t making the rounds in convention-land, there are many titles for sale online as well. The Turntabling Collection has been offline since the last HorrorHound Weekend and Vinyl Road Rage, but the collection is coming back on line for sale once more.

As with everything else on the web, listing a collection of this size takes time and the inventory is coming up to speed with updates on a daily basis.

If you’re looking for obscurities, Italian soundtrack sounds from Goblin and Morricone, electronic music and analog synth sounds, Isaac Hayes, John Carpenter, Sleep Chamber, Skinny Puppy, Coil, or similar sounds, keep checking The Turntabling Collection as I am updating the for sale list day to day.

–Joe Wallace

The Turntabling Collection

Now that we’re back from Cinema Wasteland, the Turntabling Collection inventory has been updated (a big job, thanks to the awesome vinyl lovers at Wasteland picking up loads of rare and hard to find vinyl) and is now back on line for your viewing pleasure.

The Turntabling Collection is made of hundreds of CD and LP titles that are, as mentioned above, rare and hard to find or just plain cool. Everyone who purchases from Turntabling is making a direct show of support for the site since all proceeds go to keep the site going.

Your support is GREATLY appreciated. Thanks to all who came to see The Turntabling Collection at Cinema Wasteland this weekend and we look forward to seeing you again at the next show. An updated appearance schedule will be posted shortly.

Browse the Turntabling Collection.

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)
 

Soundtrack CDs for Sale

If you’ve been to the Turntabling Discogs.com store you know there are a LOT of soundtrack sounds for sale there. I am a rabid collector of Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Piero Umiliani, and plenty of other Italian soundtracks so I run across a great deal of interesting finds in my search for new-to-me discoveries.

Here’s a sampling of some of the things currently for sale from Turntabling via Discogs.com. I am trying to list more titles for sale through this site here, but the inventory process is slow going so in the meantime I want to direct your attention to these…

A super-trippy excursion into sci-fi prog(?) and loungey sounds...this French oddity is well worth the time–the opening track is worth the entire price of the album, in my opinion. This sort of thing needs more exposure in the USA, for sure.

The spoken portions of the record are in French, but for non-speakers like me, it just lends an exotic tinge to the whole thing…super sample-able for DJ sets to be sure. There are some great instrumentals here and this little experiment works–fans of Air and Mello should definitely explore this CD.

You can buy Je Suis Vivant, Mail J’ai Peur by Gilbert Deflez from Turntabling via Discogs.com

The Morricone soundtrack for La Donna Invisible is one of his most haunting and sentimental (in a good, melancholy way) of his entire career. I’ve never seen the movie this soundtrack comes from, which is a shame–now I’m sure it could never live up to the expectations I’d have knowing the soundtrack inside and out the way I do.

Like his work on Verushcka, this music stands firmly in its own musical zip code, a completely unique sounding collection of tracks. I HIGHLY recommend this soundtrack, especially if you’re already hooked on the work of Ennio Morricone and are looking for more.

You can buy this CD from Turntabling via Discogs.com.

Goblin is well-known for their horror soundtrack work for Dario Argento, but the band also did work for other directors including the film Notturno. If you liked the sounds Goblin worked up for George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, you will hear a continuation of some of those motifs on this soundtrack.

For Notturno, Goblin drew more on its prog roots–this is a long way from the synth-fuelled Itallo Disco sounds of Tenebre or the creepy overtones of Buio Omega…but this soundtrack really works when it’s firing on all cylinders, so to speak. A nice one from the same lads who did Contamination, Deep Red and so many others…

You can buy this Italian import CD by Goblin from Turntabling via Discogs.com.

Crippled Dick Hot Wax is an import label I’m completely addicted to. For a long time they were putting releases like Popshopping and the sequel featured here, Popshopping 2, out like there was no tomorrow.

Popshopping and Popshopping 2 are collections of German tracks from radio and television commercials–a fun set of time capsule tracks featuring some legendary names including the Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra–Thomas was responsible for the then-famous track, “Opium” which was a seriously lounge/disco take on parts of the 2001 A Spacey Odessey theme.

He also did the soundtrack for Chariots Of The Gods…that goofy “UFOs Brought Life To Earth” psuedo-documentary.

I highly recommend the Popshopping series, I’ve got a copy of Popshopping 2 for sale over at Discogs that would be a great addition to your next groovy party playlist.

When I was a young kid seeing Empire of the Ants for the first time (at the drive-in, no less) it fairly scared the crap out of me. How little I suspected about how cheesy the movie truly was or the cast of has-beens, about-to-become has-beens and B-listers that show up for this.

Seeing this on a double drive-in bill with Food of the Gods was priceless. Now the soundtrack is here with that deliciously lurid cover art that I’d like to get as large as possible for framing…because, well–LOOK at that!

The only thing I am even capable of thinking of when I hear the music for this movie is the bugs-eye-view scenes of Joan Collins screaming her head off. This is a great six-pack movie and deserves its own special shrine in a cheese factory someplace, truly.
You can get your mitts on my ONE COPY of this soundtrack CD for sale from Turntabling via Discogs.com.

This is just a small sampling of what’s for sale from Turntabling via Discogs.com. I sell there to raise funds for Turntabling, Vinyl Road Rage and related fun that gets posted here, so remember–when you buy from Turntabling you’re supporting the site and being a patron of the arts as it were–and I truly appreciate that support!

If you find one of these releases has sold out or get a Page Not Found, please have a look at the main Turntabling inventory at Discogs for the latest additions to the vinyl and CDs for sale there.

–Joe Wallace

Updated Turntabling Appearance Schedule

In addition to selling vinyl online in places like the Turntabling Discogs.com store and similar ventures, this site hits the road every year to do horror and sci-fi conventions. Last week I posted a schedule for the upcoming madness, but since then I’ve had an addition and possibly more to come.

I’ll have more vinyl-and more RARE vinyl-at the following shows than ever before. Not sure how I’m going to fit it all into one little convention table space, but there will definitely be a lot to choose from including rare horror soundtracks like Halloween 2, Return of the Living Dead and the like, plus some ultra-rare stuff from the sci-fi side of things like the Dark Star soundtrack, Tom Baker reading Jules Verne, Leonard Nimoy reading Bradbury on vinyl and much more.

Here is the latest schedule current til the end of the year–these are all shows where you will find the Turntabling table and lots of great vinyl records:

Flashback Weekend, August 12-14 2011 in Rosemont, Illinois. It’s located at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare at 5440 River Road.

Cinema Wasteland, September 30 – October 2 2011 in Strongsville Ohio. It’s at the Holiday Inn at 15471 Royalton Road in Strongsville.

Dark Carnival Film Festival, October 21-23 2011 in Bloomington, Indiana. For ticket and location info call (812) 323-3020

Horrorhound Weekend November 11-13 2011 in Cincinnati Ohio. This one is at the Crowne Plaza Hotel 11320 Chester Road.

If there are additional updates, I’ll post a revised schedule soonest. Hope to see you at one or more of these shows!

–Joe Wallace

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