The Turntabling Collection Returns!

Yes, it took a bit of time, but The Turntabling Collection is back online for sale, updated regularly with new arrivals and titles. The vinyl and CDs are for sale as a fundraising effort to support Turntabling.net, so any purchases you make directly contribute to the growth of the site.

We could not exist without your support, and it is always greatly appreciated. We’ve got quite a bit of material planned for summer including more Vinyl Road Rage record store profiles, video, podcasting and much more. It’s always great to find and offer rare and obscure vinyl/CD titles and the never-ending search for these great releases takes us into some pretty strange/fun places.

Some have contacted us asking where the for-sale vinyl went, and now that it’s back I’d just like to say thanks for your patience and please check the site regularly for updates and new info–titles are added on a regular basis and there’s some pretty amazingly rare stuff coming. You can browse all current titles for sale and if you are selling a collection of vinyl, please get in touch–we’d love to know what you have. No show tunes, though, sorry–we don’t buy ‘em. Soundtracks, yes, show tunes no.

–Joe Wallace

Vinyl Blogs To Love: Vinyl Record Architect

I tend to share about fellow vinyl bloggers based on my discovery of them–the first time I find ‘em and get excited about reading them, I wind up passing them along here. Paul Rosenblatt’s excellent Vinyl Record Architect is no exception. I found this blog recently and got hooked right away thanks to his post detailing a visit to Pittsburgh’s Sound Cat Records.

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

Where’s The Turntabling Collection?

Some have wondered where The Turntabling Collection has been hiding. Since getting back from Cinema Wasteland, the collection has been offline while we worked on a few shows and events; DJing at OhNo! Doom Gallery, creating videos and writing music all has taken a bit of time.

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

Vinyl LP-Mounted Optical Theremin

A theremin purchase is close at hand here at Turntabling central, and while looking at theremin vids online this little beauty popped up. Warning–not for hung over listeners, not at ALL!

Where Will You Be On Record Store Day 2012?

This Saturday, April 21st, is Record Store Day, which in our view should be a national holiday. There will be a glorious Turntabling excursion around Chicago hitting plenty of favorite haunts including Laurie’s Planet of Sound, Dusty Groove, Reckless Records, and many others.

There is so much goodness on vinyl for sale in Chi-town, and so many wonderful shops that it’s impossible to count them all. Granted, not all of them choose to participate in Record Store Day madness, but many do and we are quite grateful for that.

Support your local record store this Saturday, and if you’re on the fence about buying vinyl this weekend, perhaps you’d be convinced by none other than Mister Johnny Rotten himself, in this interview clip courtesy of TheQuietus.com. Lydon still knows how to stir things up, and employs the blarney quite well here. He goes on and on about Record Store Day but manages to loop in Julie Andrews, Guy Fawkes, riots, and his mum & dad.

See you in the shops on Saturday!

Three Floors of Vinyl Records

Two gents who looooove vinyl show off their staggeringly huge LPs and 12 inches. You cannot help but be impressed by Da Beatminerz who have amassed a FORTUNE in records. Jaw-dropping!

Back from Days of the Dead Atlanta

It was a great trip, and many thanks to all who supported Turntabling by purchasing some of our rare, hard-to-find, and just plain awesome vinyl and CDs. Posts resume soonest, but in the meantime don’t miss the Turntabling booth at Horrorhound Weekend and Cinema Wasteland, both coming up very soon–details and dates to come.

Vinyl Record Reviews: Ceasar Pink & The Imperial Orgy, The Explorers Club

Lately there have been more records coming to our inbox–review copies for new music are always welcome as long as they are on vinyl. Turntabling makes very few exceptions to this rule (Chris Joss releases being one–damn, how can you say no to another Chris Joss record regardless of format?) so please understand, indie bands–vinyl review copies only!

Two records came last week, Four Legs Good Two, Legs Baaad by Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgy, plus Grand Hotel by The Explorers Club.

There’s more than just a hint of 70s-era singer/songwriter vibe floating out of Grand Hotel. From the packaging with its simulated record jacket ringwear, the ghost-of-George Harrison riffs on Weight of the World, and the bongos-n-Herb Alpert horns of Run Run Run, this is time capsule rock, and well done at that.

In some places, The Explorers Club comes across as a more freshly-scrubbed Smithereens, except there is absolutely no trace of the melancholy that made Smithereens records so enjoyable. Elsewhere there are nods to J.D. Souther, Todd Rundgren and the Beach Boys.

Many reviewers name-drop Burt Bacharach when discussing The Explorers Club, and it’s true that his influence is felt on this album, but stylistically the band is a bit more unfocused–there is a lot of room for all sorts of sonic nostalgia on the album, and in the group’s live performance videos on YouTube. One of their standout moments as a group isn’t on Grand Hotel–the group’s Kind Of A Drag cover, originally recorded by The Buckinghams, could be considered source code for the group, as is another cover sadly not on this record, Stormy by Classics IV.

There is some really strong material on Grand Hotel. On Side Two, Summer Days, Summer Nights elevates this record to something higher than a tribute to the analog golden age. This is a recording by a group full of confidence in the material–the vocals are much stronger than on the fun-and-bouncy Run Run Run or Bluebird. Not that they don’t sound confident on tracks like Any Little Way or Acapulco, but Summer Days, Summer Nights sounds like the song they could barely wait to record.

Here’s a band that sounds very much like it might like to go in a Classics IV direction but can’t decide whether they’ll lose their way in doing so. There’s equal enthusiasm on the Grass Roots-y Go For You, but listen to the entire Grand Hotel record and you may agree, Summer Days, Summer Nights is THE standout track–it deserves plenty of attention.

Make no mistake–this is NOT the record for anyone currently grooving exclusively on reissues of the Chrome back catalog or interested in unreleased rarities by Christian Death, but for anyone with retro damage (guilty) or a love for the pre-Yacht Rock singer songwriter sounds of Classics IV, Janis Ian and the like, this is a record worth checking out.

(Those of us fortunate enough to be able to listen to Chrome AND Classics IV think Grand Hotel is a bit of all right, too.)

Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgy offer up a vinyl record called Four Legs Good, Two Legs Baaad. It’s important to review a vinyl record on its own merits rather than compare it to the one you just reviewed, so it took a bit of time to shake off the retro goodness of The Explorers Club so Four Legs Good, Two Legs Baaad could get its due.

Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgy play a type of music that can only be described, however inadequately, as “rawk”. The lyric sheets reads like a hardcore album, but the music is ranges from sub-Chili Peppers funk attempts to chirpy jangle pop…but without the jangle. The most embarassing part on this is the psuedo-rapping of Rabid, which tries to blend machine-gun delivery with moody keyboard riffs.

There’s even a psuedo Black Crowes moment on this, which wears out its welcome very quickly. Sorry, Imperial Orgy folks, but it’s true.

The band doesn’t do itself any favors by writing on the back cover of the LP, “Recorded and manufactured without funding or interference from any corporations large or small”. This sounds wonderful and anti-authoritarian until you discover the MP3 version of this album for sale on Amazon.com. Ummm, Caesar? Your contradictions are showing.

The lyrics talk a good game about Disney, corporations, religion, and other easy targets, but the album fails miserably by delivering bland instrumentation and been-there-done-that arrangements. Dressing up like angry arty types might be a visually strong fashion statement, but you need more than a wardrobe change to pull it off…and lyrics aside, there’s not a whole lot that’s angry or powerful here.

Joe Wallace reviews vinyl records for Turntabling, but urges bands NOT to send review copies unless they are on vinyl. It’s a vinyl-only review column here, savvy? Send your 12-inch, 7-inch or full length vinyl record albums to Turntabling care of:

Joe Wallace 4520 N. Oakley First Floor, Chicago Illinois 60625