I can’t get into the notions I keep seeing on YouTube when it comes to how to clean vinyl records. Steam and wood glue seem to be popular with some, but I refuse to inflict such punishments on my record collection. I present this video as a curiosity…but if you’re REALLY tempted to give this a shot, may I suggest trying it on the most disposable record in your collection as a test first?
Continue reading Cleaning Vinyl Records…If You’re Really Brave
Lisa Sumner sells vintage vinyl on Etsy and spends as much half a day doing nothing but packaging vinyl to ship, one album at a time, to her customers. So it’s safe to say she knows a little bit about safely packaging, wrapping, and shipping vinyl records. And since some of her most lustworthy titles sell for upwards of $45, she’s got a fair amount of passion invested in doing it right, as you’ll read…
After my mailman delivered the SECOND broken record in a week, I was inspired to write a brief how-to on proper record packaging before my roiling anger got the best of me. This is not rocket science, people, and actually quite simple with the proper tools and a teensy, tiny bit of effort:
THE TOOLS:
1. Record Mailers – there are several websites and some record shops that carry them. OK, so they’re not the cheapest thing in the world -44 to 50 cents/ea. – but isn’t it worth the peace of mind that someone’s precious copy of (insert your personal Holy Grail here) is going to arrive in one piece–one SOLID piece?? If you must use pieces of cardboard cut into 13” X 13” squares, make sure to use thick, sturdy cardboard and NOT last night’s pizza box. I’m soo not kidding…
2. Padding/Filler – Bubble wrap, cardboard record mats, Styrofoam and even newspaper are all great fillers, and most of them can be found cheap or even free. Re-using packing materials should be your first choice as long as they’re CLEAN AND STURDY ENOUGH TO HANDLE ANOTHER ROUND OF RUSSIAN ROULETTE WITH THE POSTAL SERVICE. Mix and match if you like, but use at least TWO pieces of any of the above.
THE PROCESS:
First of all, I am assuming that your record has a poly outer sleeve on it, and is put together properly with the record in its inner sleeve on top of the cover all within the poly outer sleeve. Do not make an ass out of me (and yourself) by wondering what a poly outer sleeve is…. I am also assuming that if you are on this website to begin with, you know what the essentials are.
If your vinyl is still sealed, then of course you should leave it that way unless the recipient has requested that you open it before shipping. It will still be well protected inside the cover. Why take the record out at all, you say? I asked this question in the beginning too; it’s to prevent the vinyl from shifting in transit and possibly slicing through one of the seams of the cover. And yes, I have seen this happen.
Continue reading How To Package A Record for Mailing
by Joe Wallace
Is this really happening? According to the Dallas Observer, yes. Cassettes are apparently getting their own little renaissance. I personally have spotted cassettes–new ones–for sale in my neighborhood home of all things vinyl and groovy, Laurie’s Planet of Sound, which I highly recommend.
Tapes have been on the pop culture radar for ages–you can buy cassette tape themed tees at Old Navy, Threadless and elsewhere, and I myself just purchased a mix tape button from one of my fellow Etsy sellers, Buttonhead.
Butthonhead seems to be a fellow retro junkie, and if her work–and all those tape tees–can be used as a barometer of the rise of tape culture, we might just be in for an interesting new collector frenzy.
Suits me just fine–I drive a vehicle still equipped with a tape deck in spite of having been made in 2003. But it’s strange, isn’t it? In the age of CD Baby, iTunes, and digital distro that the physicality of cassettes–not just vinyl or even 8-track tapes–is still in demand. A cultural meme. A fetish?
The mix tape was definitely a major part of 80s and 90s culture and nothing has come along to quite replace it–it was a unique animal to be sure, and no matter how hard you try, “mix disc” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
What’s YOUR take on this trend? I’d welcome a return of the mix tape, myself…
One-inch Mix Tape buttons by Buttonhead. I own the blue one.
Some complain that a staggering majority of rap albums are insultingly stupid, repetitive, sexist, and that the genre is piled to the sky with “me too” copycats. But I defy ANYONE to find anything “me too” about a rap record with cannibalism front and center on the cover.
The way Ludacris is poised to devour that human leg on the cover of Chicken N Beer is worthy of any Romero film, and while the image alone escalates the WTF factor as high as it could possibly go, the fact that the album is called CHICKEN N Beer makes it that much more bewildering.
Shouldn’t it really be HUMAN FLESH N BEER instead? Damn, boys, put some more thought into these titles…don’t fool around now, give us the cannibal rap and stop teasing.