It reads a lot like our own Vinyl Road Rage posts, so I was naturally happy to see someone else detailing their record shop experiences, turning the rest of us on to new-to-use places to dig through the crates.

Rosenblatt’s bio on the site reads (unintentionally) a bit like a superhero About Us page–by day, he works as an architect as the head of Springboard Design. By night he’s a vinyl blogger and definitely in love with LPs and has plenty of good intel on Philly record shops and more.

Without gushing too terribly much, I highly recommend this vinyl blog–my only gripe is that I wish there was 2000% more of it. But it’s a damn fine read, whatever the length. He seems to post a bit more frequently than Dust and Grooves, but the posts are every bit as enjoyable. One to be bookmarked, for sure.

–Joe Wallace

But I’m happy to announce the impending return of vinyl sales to Turntabling–there are some things in the works that should expand the collection and how much is for sale here at any given time.

Selling music here is a fundraising activity for Turntabling–if you’ve ever bought a vinyl record or CD from us, you’ve directly supported the site, and for that we thank you. Over the last three years many, many people have helped us thrive and grow with their purchases and we would NOT be here without you. Stay tuned…there are some important developments in the works in our vinyl and CD department.

–Joe Wallace

Has this guy been arrested yet?

Let’s see if this concept is understood properly. An adult male who has never been married, or is active sexually is going to…teach your kids about sex. Or teach YOU how to teach them. Not only that, the adult male in question looks like a clueless berk who just got out of a minimum security prison for forging postage stamps.

It is NEVER safe to assume that an album cover with a puppet on it is a children’s record. It’s been said before and it’s getting repeated here; if half of the whole point of the ventriloquist act is to do tricks where it looks like the dummy is talking and not the human, WHY DO A RECORD? Never mind. Just revel in the delicious awfulness.

Has THIS guy been arrested yet?

Here’s a collection of resources to help you mark your calendar:

Record Shows Of America is one of Turntabling’s go-to resources for record show dates, and the name is a bit misleading as the site also covers record shows in Canada, too. “Record Stores Of North America” doesn’t really have the same ring to it, but that’s what this site truly is. Recommended!

There’s also good info to be found at the Goldmine Record Show Calendar, and Goldmine also gives our neighbors to the north some love as well.

Vinyl Times also has a record show calendar which urges you to contact the shows by e-mail prior to traveling–good advice!

These are what we’d consider the top three online resources for record shows–at least that we’re currently aware of. Some excellent results can be had by Googling the name of your state or city along with the phrase “record collector shows” to find events in your area that might not have made it onto the listings for the sites mentioned above. Believe it or not, some events don’t take advantage of these centralized show listings–usually because they don’t know they exist, we’re guessing.

It’s unclear what a woman’s buttocks have to do with Satan or pop metal, except perhaps as an overt statement that sexism still sells metal records. Not that album covers have to be nudity-free, not by any stretch of the imagination, but where metal records are concerned, you might just be able to say there’s a bit of a track record of paternalistic nonsense. As in, the metal genre can be as much as much of a testosterone-fueled sausage fest as any college football game.

I can already hear the wails of protest coming from Mom’s basement on this one, but I ask you, my corpsepaint loving metalhead complainers, to please refer me to a SINGLE gay-themed heavy metal outfit that could act as a counterbalance to all this?

Rob Halford doesn’t count–I’m talking about the EQUIVALENT to something along the lines of the above album cover, not just a band that HAPPENS to have a non-heterosexual in it. I’m waiting. An openly gay death metal band would be a huge blast of fresh air here–something unique, at long last! AND actually genuinely rebellious to boot. Maybe there’s a whole army of ‘em and I’m just behind the times? I’d love to know. Seriously.

Why am I on about all this? It’s the same reason I was so totally into the idea of Gangstagrass–hip hop mashed up with bluegrass music. Could there ever be a collision of styles that traditionalists on both sides of these musical fences would hate MORE? How totally awesome–and again, TRULY rebellious and not just a bit of half-ass fakery. But I’m rambling here. This album cover on its own merits is dopey enough without all the subtext. I mean, just LOOK at it…

–Joe Wallace

“Nearly 100 feet of releases from Victory Records, Fearless, Hopeless, Epitaph, and local bands? How many Sam Goody mall stores had that? Mine did.”

The idea that a local Sam Goody had a local scene evangelist working to promote the bands is pretty amazing, and just goes to show you that one person CAN make a difference. It’s a pretty inspirational piece that does eventually get round to discussing Record Store Day 2012 (the image to the left is part of that story) and unfortunately has to end on a bit of a downbeat note–apparently there aren’t any true indie record shops near TheRockFather.com central.

RockFather.com founder James Zahn works in a variety of creative disciplines, and is available to bands for hire for music video projects, album trailers and much more. I haven’t had a chance to get acquainted with the rest of his site, but the Record Store Day post was great fun to read and I hope there’s more musing about vinyl, record stores, and indie culture there…

–Joe Wallace