One of the highlights of the trip is a two-night double feature at the Riverside Drive-In on Route 66, N. Vandergrift, PA. Monster-Rama features both Dr. Phibes movies, the Bava classic Black Sabbath (with Boris Karloff in color) and the Vincent Price end-of-the-world vampire doom-fest Last Man On Earth. Me and the crew from Kitley’s Krypt are camping out at the drive-in, literally, for both nights. Plenty of beer and insanity awaits.

Rest assured, there will be updates from the road! Images from record shops and drive-in movie madness abound, but most of the instant-gratification updates will be via the Turntabling Facebook page, which is actually my personal page but also where I do most of the Turntabling FB stuff at, too. If you haven’t connected with me there, feel free–I love hooking up with Turntabling friends there.

Also, if you’re placing orders for vinyl or CDs from Turntabling, know that your orders will be shipped on my return next Tuesday. Thanks for your support-it means a great deal.

If you’re curious to know what I’ve got in the way of rare, obscure, hard-to-find and just plain cool vinyl records and CDs, have a look at my current list of titles for sale from the Turntabling Collection. I have plenty in the way of soundtracks, goth/industrial, obscure and really weird vinyl/CDs…over 200 at present and MUCH more to be added when I return. The Turntabling Collection is ever-growing and coming to a convention near you. Stay tuned for the latest appearance dates for shows like Horrorhound Weekend, Days of the Dead, Capricon and many others.

–Joe Wallace

The weekend was full of interesting diversions–I took a side journey into the world of flea markets–the Texas vinyl collector’s old reliable alternative to the indie record shop. People who collect vinyl in Texas know flea markets very well and there are many bargains and rarities to be found. I’ll post a report on that soonest. I still have two excellent Austin record shops to write up and a look into the San Antonio market, too.

A good deal of Saturday was spent combing the flea markets, but the nighttime was spent watching Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, which I can’t find ANYWHERE as an LP and while Amazon was offering downloads of the soundtrack when the DVD remaster came out, a rights dispute forced the tracks offline.

You can find some of them–the reggae tracks are on an album featuring Barry “Lawnboy”Ford (good stuff, that) and it is quite interesting to note that Barry Ford also wrote the Fabulous Stains track “Waste of Time” that the trio plays in their on-stage debut in the movie.

The Looters tracks were recorded by the Steve Jones/Paul Cook/Paul Simonon outfit The Professionals. Some of that was on the re-issue of The Professionals CD a while back.

Black Randy and the Metrosquad show up in this as well, doing “I Slept in an Arcade”. Goofy fun.

Sunday had me back on the road, a fairly uneventful trip. No truck nuts or pee crystal-crazed cell phone conversations–just miles and miles of road, highway cops, and Big Youth’s Screaming Target blasting at top volume. Stay tuned for reviews of Antoine’s, Waterloo Records and the Texas Flea Market report…

Brain fried from far too much driving. Here’s a gallery of images I’ve collected along the way, with some snarky commentary free of charge. I have gathered these images between Springfield, Illinois and San Antonio, Texas–and I’ve paid the price, let me tell you–my retinas are seared for life in some cases.

The name of this John Denver Album, in case you can’t read the type, is “I Want To Live”. Sorry matey, but you should have taken the bus.

I love this album cover. He looks like one of those plastinated dead bodies currently causing all the fuss on the museums. The bananas don’t look plastinated, though. Just very ripe.

WHY WHY WHY do people with terminal charisma deficiencies INSIST on putting their mugs on the front cover of these records? The idea behind a good album cover is to SELL THE RECORD, not to inspire me to shovel rodent feces up with it.

This CANNOT be good for your vinyl collection, but it is still the most amusing album-related toy I’ve seen in ages. The Vinyl Killer was purchased in Japan and brought back to the USA for mayhem. You insert the batteries, put the van on a piece of vinyl on a countertop or floor (horrors!) and it drives around the grooves and plays the record. A fun toy to play with on throwaway vinyl records by AC/DC (Powerage!) and Krokus.

There are LOADS more images from this crazy trip and I still have plenty to say about Forever Young Records in Grand Prarie, Austin’s famous Waterloo Records and Antoine’s…and there are still a few more places to visit before it’s all said and done–the madness continues as I drive to Hogwild Records in San Antonio, plus I owe a visit to Recycled Records back in Springfield, Illinois–but not before I search Bloomington, Illinois for some signs of life in the vinyl department.

By Joe Wallace

I am hiding out in the rec center at Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri–blogging incognito and trying to get a full charge on the laptop before the born-again security staff sic the wolverines on me.

Today has been a day of disappointments and joy. Photos to come plus a full report but suffice it to say that large chunks of Springfield, Missouri are some of the ugliest stretches of endless strip malls you’ve ever had the misfortune to view. I stopped in three music shops—one had no vinyl whatsoever in spite of having the word “Vintage” in its name, another had a pathetic two bins worth of all-new releases from bands I really don’t care about (except the Misfits, perhaps, who were always fun in their heyday). However I struck paydirt with the ultra-friendly Stick It In Your Ear.

Wes Nichols is the gent behind this VERY friendly store, and I highly recommend this place to anyone who wants to spend a couple of hours rifling through the stacks. There’s a large quantity of material here–hardcore collectors won’t be surprised by 75% of the titles, but I did manage to locate Tuxedomoon’s Ship Of Fools, which I hadn’t seen previously anywhere else.

I also scored Devo’s Greatest Misses on CD for the road, I needed a break from Big Youth, Morricone, Beck, and Big Black. What can I say, it’s been a long strange trip.

Tonight I plan to post some updates with more images including the uber-scary Shari Lewis LP I found and a picture disc I never, ever expected to be created for an album reissue that, well, makes me wonder who is BUYING this stuff. Besides weirdos like me, I mean.

The vinyl buying road trip continues. Vinyl Road Rage 2009 hits Joplin, MO next…I think. I didn’t hear good things about the shop I looked up so I might take a pass in favor of hitting Oklahoma next.

As I look around the room here, blogging away furiously, freshly scrubbed, 20-something faces stare at me. They know I’m not one of THEM, I’m not like the others. The girlies look slightly intrigued by my presence, the guys pretend to be indifferent while muttering “Praise the Lord”. I don’t know how much longer I can stay here before my cover is blown as an unrepentant libertine and non-trumpet player. More later.

by Joe Wallace

This is the view outside the famous St. Louis vinyl paradise, Vintage Vinyl–one of three stops on Day One of the first-ever Turntabling vinyl road trip from hell. It’s tough to choose name for this–Vinyl Road Rage 09 sounds like some dumbass MTV show, and Vinyl Road Trip sounds so bloody generic…whatever. The finds are the important thing.

And what finds there were! I’m on a bug hunt for the strange, the unusual, the unmistakably freakish and wrong…and a few dub and soundtrack LPs, too. One the freaky front, there was no shortage of material–who on EARTH thought THIS was a good idea?

I mean, sweet JESUS, this clown looks like he’s about ready to take some hostages and start screaming “DOG DAY AFTERNOON!”

And then there’s this little beauty, discovered in the “educational/how-to” LP section at Vintage Vinyl amid the typing instructional LPs and the “My Life In My Own Words” album by Douglas MacArthur. No commentary needed here, but I do want to meet the family that’s putting this idea into practice. And buy a half ounce off them:

I have plenty to write about both Vintage Vinyl and Record Exchange, both located in St. Louis, but I’ll save those for another post.  I just wanted to get something up here and say to all the new followers on Twitter and such THANK YOU FOR THE RE-TWEETS! I really appreciate it. To recap…I am now in full road trip mode, on a vinyl hunt that started out in Chicago and will go round trip via St. Louis (today’s leg), Springfield and Joplin Missouri, Oklahoma City and Norman OK, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio, Texas…whew!

If you know of any good indie record shops or places to buy vinyl along this route (I-55, I44, I 35), please drop me a comment and let me know, I’d love to take a side journey along the way!

Today, the great Turntabling road trip begins–a long, winding journey by rail and by car in search of black wax platters-the odd, the unusual, and the obscure. Staring in Chicago, ending in San Antonio, Texas, the road winds through two Springfields (Illinois and Missouri), Oklahoma City and Norman, Dallas, Austin and finally San Antonio. There will be blog posts along the way and it should be an amusing voyage, to be sure.

The best part about a trip like this is the frequent stops, and if you know of an indie record store that definitely must be seen along the way (I-55 to I44, I-44 to I-35 is roughly THE journey, pretty simple, eh?) please drop a line in the comments section. This is a first for Turntabling, it should be an excellent adventure. More updates from the road!