Vinyl Records For Sale From The Turntabling Collection: Halloween II, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Blue Sunshine by The Glove

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The Turntabling Collection is a large, ever-growing vinyl collection curated by Turntabling. Portions of the collection go on sale to fund Turntabling.net and the Vinyl Road Rage trips that are well documented here. If you buy anything from The Turntabling Collection, you’re doing more than just filling a hole in your record collection; you’re also contributing to the site, helping us stay alive and online. Thank you!

And if you happen across this post to find these albums already sold out, please have a look at the Turntabling Collection for sale via Discogs.com. There are also select titles from the Turntabling Collection via the Turntabling Etsy shop.

The latest for-sale additions to The Turntabling Collection include the following must-have vinyl LPs:

Halloween II Soundtrack LP by John Carpenter

John Carpenter’s sequel to the original creepy classic is every bit as good, but in totally different ways. This soundtrack LP is highly sought after and with good reason–Carpenter couldn’t really go wrong at this stage in the game.

If you haven’t seen the movie in a while, have another look. Donald Pleasence is fantastic as the obsessed Dr. Loomis, and he really winds up giving the business to The Shape at the end–one of the most memorable takedowns in horror movie history.

 

Plan 9 From Outer Space Soundtrack Vinyl LP

How FUN is this record? For some Ed Wood fiends, you’ve got an instant party when you drop the needle. But the album sounds are only part of the fun. The packaging for this includes Bela Lugosi glowering at you from one side of the record, and Tor Johnson grimacing from the other.

So yes, this record is suitable for framing. As much as the idea makes some collectors cringe, it’s certain there ARE people out there who would rather display the Plan 9 From Outer Space soundtrack album on the wall instead of taking it for a spin on the turntable.

It’s hard to blame them when you see Lugosi’s face on the record, it really is…

 

The Glove Blue Sunshine Vinyl LP (SEALED)

It’s probably rare enough that you’d find a copy of this in decent condition to begin with, to find a SEALED copy of Blue Sunshine by The Glove is pretty amazing. This collaboration between The Cure’s Robert Smith and Souxsie and The Banshees’ Steve Severin is essential listening.

If you liked either group, The Glove is a worthy footnote in the history of both acts. If you aren’t convinced, there are several YouTube clips to sample, here’s just one of them–a great collision of Souxsie/Cure styles.



NME’s “Worst Ever” Album Covers

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The NME jumped on the WTF album cover bandwagon with a list of its own “Worst Ever” album covers, but this once cutting-edge music pub has clearly fallen out of touch. Naming the Beatles (Magical Mystery Tour), Black Sabbath, and a few other luminaries in their worst-ever list was not only lazy, but a little bewildering. There are PLENTY of MORE awful LP covers than the ones they pictured…

For example, get an eyeful of the boring, stupid, but ultimately NOT “worst ever” cover for a Chris Brown recording called Graffiti,

Now granted, I don’t know anything about Chris Brown aside from the fact that he beat the living daylights out of his girlfriend a few years back and that his music does NOT appeal (give us old-school Isaac Hayes funk over reheated me-too hip hop any day of the week), but this album cover certainly is NOT one of the “worst ever” in spite of what the NME staff coughs up.

Granted, NME gets points for the Chumbawumba “live birth” album cover for Anarchy, and one from Royal Trux which is so vile it beggars belief. If NME were running a “three worst album covers ever” post, they might have something, but the other 47 or so are nowhere near close to being the worst ever made. No, this is just sad, lazy and pretty weak. Not to get all record nerdy about it, but five seconds worth of digging will come up with far more horrifying images, believe me.

NME doesn’t even get a pass on the sourcing of these covers, as many other collections of “best ever” and “worst ever” photos are tagged “as voted by you”. Not so on this particular group of awful album covers…ahh, NME, once upon a time you were tops in your field. Today?

And when it comes to “worst album covers”, with few exceptions, none of the records in the NME collection come close to being topped by this:

You may commence screaming now.

Nashville Record Stores: Lawrence Record Shop

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Nashville has no shortage of record stores, for obvious reasons, and when you hit turn down Broadway you will find more vinyl than you can shake a record needle at.

Lawrence Record Shop at 409 Broadway in Nashville is so large that you might actually stop and stare with your mouth open for a moment–it’s 180 feet of wall-to-wall LPs and 45s. It’s an impressive collection of vinyl, and it seems to stretch on to infinity when you’re standing in the front of the store for the first time.

As you might guess, this store is overwhelmingly country-oriented. Just look at this row of vinyl records stretching all the way to the back of the shop, and yes–they’re ALL country:


Turntabling isn’t realllly interested in country music. In fact you might say that thanks to a childhood filled with mandatory AM radio listening crammed wall-to-wall with Ray Stevens, Ronnie Milsap, and the cringe-making ever-present Oak Ridge Boys, there’s a definite ALLERGY to country round the old Turntabling office.

But since WTF album covers are a passion round here, country records must not be overlooked–and with so many twangy LPs on hand it’s damn near impossible NOT to find a good variety of laugh-inducing album art.

Lawrence Record Shop is not only a great place for country vinyl collectors to fill the gaps in their collections, it’s also a Mecca of mind-numbing WTF album covers.

In the midst of all this, there was a decently sized soundtrack section which featured some eyebrow-raising titles including The Dark Crystal, the soundtrack for the Irwin Allen laugh-fest The Swarm, and even a copy of Buck Rogers In The 25th Century.

This store is definitely worth a look in, even if you’re just a curiosity seeker who hates the sound of a twangy guitar. It’s right next door to the legendary Ernest Tubb Record Shop, so chances are you were headed to that part of town anyway if you’re not from Nashville.

While it’s true that some would say that the t-shirt message, “Nash Vegas” is precisely what’s WRONG with Nashville, you can’t deny that the southern-friend veneer of Broadway in general is pretty fun–at least as a mere country music tourist, more than amused at the down-home quality of the genre. Sorry folks, give me technology, city noise and scary movies with subtitles.

I shudder to think what the locals make of the Nash Vegas notion, but who knows? Maybe everyone in town is all about the cowboy boots and a ten-gallon hat. I somehow doubt it, if Jack White’s Nashville-based Third Man Records is any indication. White might have allied himself with one of country music’s darlings, but I view their work together more like southern gothic, for some reason.

There’s definitely much more to Nashville than Ernest Tubb…but as my first stop on the Nashville leg of Vinyl Road Rage it was pretty fun to enter the honky tonk heart of darkness–briefly.

–Joe Wallace

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Maniac Soundtrack LP Reissue

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Behold the ultra-rare vinyl reissue of Jay Chattaway’s score for William Lustig’s slasher opus, Maniac. The score was remastered by James Plotkin, and the record sports brand new liner notes by Lars Nilsen.

And how about that stunning artwork by Ken Taylor? Joe Spinnell leering at you from the cover is totally iconic. The original poster is excellent, but this album cover could become THE defining image for the film. This specific release is destined to be legendary and extremely collectible–it’s a heavyweight 200 gram vinyl record and limited to only 500 copies.

325 of those copies were pressed on black vinyl, with the remaining 175 copies pressed on clear vinyl with red mixed in. Those special copies are random, there’s no way to tell whether your copy is black vinyl or the colored vinyl.

The score itself is pretty fascinating. Shades of experimental Morricone, Goblin, but above all Jay Chattaway’s own unique take on quietly creepy atmospherics. If you’re looking for an excess of overly bombastic sounds and “gotcha” stings, you’re in the wrong place–take a listen for yourself:



This particular release is sure to be prized, and they have virtually disappeared from the shelves near as we can tell. Kudos to Alamo Drafthouse Cinema for getting this out–it’s an amazing piece of work!