Category Archives: vinyl road rage

Who Is Turntabling?

Record Shops, vinyl road rage, We Buy VInyl, , , , , ,

Joe Wallace Vinyl RecordsTurntabling has been expanding lately and going through some changes and now seems to be a great time to reintroduce myself and Turntabling.

My name is Joe Wallace, and for all intents and purposes, I am Turntabling. I run Turntabling from the 5th floor of the Bridgeport Art Center, where I also do vinyl-related art shows and special events. There is a large inventory of vinyl records there, and it’s getting larger all the time. I will have to hire people to help me run it all one of these days soon…but I’m dreading that as I like to personally take care of everything related to Turntabling.

I started collecting records at a very young age, but didn’t get serious about buying until 1997, when I started amassing a pile of bizarre regional and obscure New Wave records from Texas and elsewhere.

I got obsessed with collecting Goblin titles after purchasing two CD compilations of Goblin soundtrack music from an Austin record shop called 33 Degrees, which is now sadly long gone…Goblin led to collecting Ennio Morricone work from the 1960s through 1980s, and that led to buying Riz Ortolani soundtracks, which led to an interest in Bossa Nova and related sounds that could be heard in giallo movies, Italian horror films, sexy Euro cinema and other films from that era between 1960 and say, 1986.

Eurohorror figures largely into these things, too but some of those influential soundtracks are REALLY hard to find these days–IF they are even available at all. Try finding a vinyl copy of the OST for The Blood Spattered Bride or Jess Franco’s Venus In Furs and you’ll see what I mean.

Turntabling has an almost Japanese vinyl otaku focus to it in that I am very interested in soundtrack records in general, but especially Italian horror, giallo, and exploitation. I’m also into anything electronic, bizarre, naughty or experimental on vinyl. I try to sell things I want in my own collection, and I am always up for purchasing record collections or lots of albums that include New Wave, Goth, Industrial, Experimental, No Wave, etc.

So basically I am on the lookout for electronic, experimental, soundtracks, and unclassifiable/weird records. Since I buy AND sell, I am always happy to consider offers from people who want to sell their collection of records.

I scour the earth for vinyl records to list for sale in the Turntabling Discogs shop and to add to my own collection. When I am not selling vinyl records, I’m planning vinyl-related art shows as mentioned above, and other creative endeavors.

When you buy from Turntabling, you buy from me and support the vinyl projects I run from the 5th floor of the Bridgeport Art Center. You also support the annual cross-country record store blogging trip I do called Vinyl Road Rage. It takes of a LOT of gas and hotel money to blog about America’s most wonderful places–the record stores–and every album you buy from Turntabling supports that effort, too.

If you have questions, want to buy vinyl, or want to sell a record collection, please get in touch with me: orders@turntabling.net. If you’re interested in connecting with me on social media, please drop me a friend request at Facebook or connect with me on Instagram. I’m also on Twitter.

Thanks for your interest and keep on spinning those records!

–Joe Wallace

Ars Technica On The Growth Of Vinyl

Record Shops, , , ,

United Pressing vinyl records nashville That coupon you see here is from United Pressing, the record plant in Nashville Tennessee. When Ars Technica reported earlier this month that United Record Pressing was expanding its operation to move from 30 pressing machines to 46, it included a tantalizing factoid about the growth of vinyl and how record sales are recorded and reported:

Nielsen’s SoundScan reported that 6.1 million vinyl records were sold in 2013, up from 4.6 in 2012 and under 1 million in 2007. But as The New York Times reported last year, “manufacturers, specialist retailers, and critics argue that SoundScan’s figures represent only a fraction of actual sales” and perhaps only account for as little as 10 to 15 percent of total vinyl sales, because Nielsen tracks records sold, rather than records pressed, and many vinyl manufacturers don’t print bar codes on their record sleeves, so sales from independent shops that don’t report to Nielsen don’t get counted.

If you have ever wondered about the hows and whys of vinyl records as a viable business–and I don’t just mean selling them–that quote says a hell of a lot.  For most businesses, tracking sales and recording related, relevant data is a big part of critical decision making that helps the business survive. But what can you do when the most basic business intel is incomplete?

Well, if you’re a record vendor, the answer is “make a profit”. Vinyl ain’t your typical MBA-run industry.  (It’s actually pretty lazy writing to classify an entire marketplace as “vinyl”. But you know what I mean–the business of recording, pressing, selling and promoting music on a physical record.)

That’s actually one of the most appealing things ABOUT vinyl–the fact that a nice little chunk of the business isn’t subject to the usual corporate nonsense. Of course, there are people who will try to shove the square peg into the round hole and force our beloved vinyl business into some kind of rinse, lather, repeat model. But thanks to indie retailers and what seems to be a general allergy to that sort of thing among musicians and record sellers alike, we keep getting news stories like the Ars Technica piece.

Though I will say, bar coding DOES make tracking your inventory a hell of a lot easier…

Rare CDs Are Fun To Collect, Too!

Record Shops, Vinyl Finds, , , , ,

Man From Deep River Soundtrack CD


Sometimes you can’t find this stuff on vinyl but there are TONS of limited edition releases out there of soundtracks like this….it takes some dedicated digging to turn them up from time to time, but there are lots of no-more-than-1000-made reissues of soundtracks like these thanks to awesome labels like Beat, Cinevox, Easy Tempo and much more…

And yes, Turntabling DOES sell rare, hard-to-find, weird, and just plain cool soundtracks on CD too. We’re at http://www.discogs.com/seller/Turntabling on Discogs.com




Pittsburgh Record Fest XI

Events, vinyl road rage, , ,

Pittsburgh Record Fest 11This sounds pretty damn cool. The fest costs nothing to vend at except the three dollar admission charge and it’s in a bar, which makes it even more fun-sounding. Pittsburgh Record Fest 11 should be a HELL of a good time and if I could get away to go to this thing I would make the eight hour drive from Chicago to be there…sadly it’s a matter of logistics and I don’t think I can squeeze it in.

But if you are in the area, this looks like a worthy event for any vinyl junkie. It’s this Saturday, May 24 starting at 7PM instead of the early Sunday mornings I am used to, which makes me want to go all the more…

–Joe Wallace