Which is great until it’s time to buy a record sight unseen on eBay, Discogs.com or elsewhere, and then suddenly those vinyl grading terms mean a hell of a lot more.

This video is one point of view on grading vinyl records, and the background music is fun, too. There is a great amount of personal preference built in to grading vinyl records, but once you get used to the grading systems and know what to look for this whole topic is much easier to deal with. Again, some of this is really down to personal preference–how much wear is acceptable to you?

–Joe Wallace

For those just joining us, Vinyl Road Rage is Turntabling’s annual cross-country road trip to find the coolest record stores in the USA. Shangri-La Records, at 1916 Madison Avenue in Memphis, was definitely a “mission accomplished” moment in that regard.

For some reason, most of the best record stores found during Vinyl Road Rage are basically converted houses. Maybe it’s the large number of rooms packed full of vinyl, plus the attention to detail that most of these stores pay to the whole record shopping experience….whatever the reason, Shangri-La Records is one of those stores that makes a road-weary traveler remember why an extended journey in search of cool vinyl records is a good thing to do.

Shangri-La Records has a very respectable 80s alternative/New Wave/Industrial section and the soundtrack selections were pretty excellent, too. There is a staggering amount of vinyl to look through here. Dedicated crate diggers, don’t bother coming in as a first-timer until you have an extended amount of time to marvel at all this.

And like all truly great record stores, it’s a friendly, chatty place. Shangri-La has a high pain threshold for vinyl geek chattiness–kudos to the poor soul running the show when the most socially awkward record shop denizens in the USA are firing non-stop questions at light speed. Maybe this store should be renamed “Patience Of A Saint Records” instead.

There were some excellent rarities, some common-but-collectible finds, and a great selection of new releases and re-issues. The Sun Ra spoken word titles on display there were of particular interest, and reasonably priced. All in all, a most satisfying stop indeed. Don’t pass up a chance to stop at Shangri-La, it’s aptly named.

–Joe Wallace

Lovely to watch, isn’t it?

My major complaint with most of the vinyl documentaries I’ve seen over the past year and a half is that the filmmakers all seem compelled to spend an inordinate amount of time discussing why vinyl is superior to digital. This is completely unnecessary and really sounds like a sales pitch. But that doesn’t spoil my enjoyment of this production in the long run…

And while I’m feeling feisty, additionally vexing to a nitpicky writer/editor is referring to more than one record album as “vinyls”. People! “Vinyl” is both singular AND plural.

–Joe Wallace

No, I haven’t got a damn CLUE what’s going on with this album cover. But isn’t that the best part? Trying to guess what was going through the minds of the people responsible for this is half the fun! See if you can guess what kind of record this is by looking at the album cover–no fair researching it on Google you cheaters! Is this 70s-era hard rock? Experimental farm animal acapella? Brian Eno-inspired ambient drones with an emphasis on medical jargon?

Nope. Wrong on all fronts. Take a listen to this via the clip below and marvel at how totally disconnected that cover is when viewed  while listening to the actual music. Whaaaaaaat?

This Youtube video breathlessly announces that you can, thanks to Makerbot, now create your own 3D printed vinyl records. Exciting, eh?

But it’s clear that something is not quite right at the start of this video…but one tends to suspend disbelief since vinyl junkies and home recording maniacs (Ok, ME) reaaaaalllly want this to be true.

Sadly, you watch, you come to the awful realization that this is a heartbreakingly cruel April Fool’s joke AND you get Rick-rolled in the bargain. You’ll feel violated. Amused, but violated.

Like Fox Mulder, this video hurts because I WANT TO BELIEVE! Makerbot, you wound me…(cue the sappy string music and begin swooning in disbelief here.) Yes, they got me. They got me good. You win THIS round, Makerbot…but I defy you to make this happen FOR REAL. Heh.

In the 80s, “Home taping is killing the record industry!” was the battle cry of many suit-and-tie candyassed record company execs who felt threatened by a bunch of teenage kids trading cassettes of their favorite vinyl records.

Sound familiar?

Today’s version of that whiny nonsense has culminated in the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA for short, plus its evil cousin, the Protect IP Act or PIPA.

The biggest pro-SOPA/pro-PIPA crybabies include the MPAA and RIAA, who have caused plenty of grief for musicians in the past with their blinkered, pee-pants fears of piracy, file sharing and the like. They basically seem to hate any activity that doesn’t result in the cash registers chiming.

That sounds a bit extreme, a bit knee-jerk reactionary, to be sure. But it’s an impression that can’t be avoided in an age where six-figure lawsuits are brought against college kids for file sharing in their dorm rooms.

Here in Chicago in a measure totally unrelated to piracy, SOPA, or the alphabet soup agencies, rumor has it that one elected genius tried to introduce legislation that would make the sale of used CDs illegal.

Why?

With news like this, plus reports of the MPAA crying over the blackout of websites in protest of SOPA/PIPA as an “abuse of power”, it gives me great pleasure to see a resurgence of attitude against legislated censorship (which SOPA and PIPA clearly would bring).

The sad thing about all this is that the hue and cry that brought SOPA and PIPA legislation into being has more to do with the fact that these record industry dinosaurs (who are so afraid of the 21st century verision of home taping) are basically making their final bleating cries as they sink into the music business La Brea tar pits.

The dinos are going down, but they keep on bellowing for dear life.

Once upon a time, Steve Albini wrote, “The future belongs to analog loyalists. Fuck digital.” And now, after MP3s, file sharing and all the rest, damn if he didn’t turn out to be exactly right, albeit in a sort of collector-y way. MP3s and the collapse of the CD market have driven people back to vinyl. Which proves a point.

File sharing, piracy, and the rest of the yellow underwear issues the MPAA, RIAA and the corporate giants are afraid of? They all drive people back to buying music. Actual purchases. Let the file sharing kiddies have their illegal Metallica and Britney Spears downloads. The rest of us–people who actually BUY music, and GOOD music to boot–are still spending money in spite of the sharing.

None of this is news, not to us. But these record industry types need to take a weekend to wring the urine out of their trousers and re-think. Not that they will. They NEVER will. In fact, they’re just going to keep sitting there in their own piss, shivering in fear that another 99 cents won’t be spent on the brain-dead utterances of 50 Cent or Adele.

And they are right–crap music will be pirated forever and ever, because somewhere deep down inside, even the most vacant, uncritical fan of what I call Hollywood-core knows they shouldn’t spend money on that shit. Piracy? No, friends, let’s call it what it is–EVOLVED PURCHASING HABITS. People spend money on Radiohead records offered for “whatever you wanna pay”, they shelled out for Nine Inch Nails four CD sets after getting a full album of the stuff for nothing.

Those stunts–which WORKED–coupled with the piracy of USELESS, STUPID MUSIC should tell us something, shouldn’t it?

This post is perhaps not terribly safe for work. You have been warned.

I am a follower of author William Gibson on Twitter, and recently he mentioned finding 8-track tape erotica at southern truck stops. The very idea of this was mind-numbing. Could such weirdness actually exist?

Apparently it’s not enough to get naughty videos and vinyl records. Somebody decided there was DEFINITELY a market for dirty goings on delivered via eight-track tape.

The concept seems so odd that I became obsessed with seeing them for myself. What do these things look like? Who buys them? What on earth do they get out of them? Well, that’s a totally stupid, harebrained question as we all know what you get out of them.

But looking at the packaging for 8-track tape pronorama makes me think that the very last thing on earth these would do is turn somebody on. Thinking of somebody producing smut for an 8-track audience doesn’t make me envision high production values…it makes me visualize a corrugated tin shack somewhere with a Radio Shack microphone dangling from the ceiling while a couple of 19-year old high school dropouts force out grunts and wheezes between shifts at the local In-N-Out Burger.

No pun intended.

I mention all that to say that after being turned on (heh) to the concept of 8-track tape erotica, I actually found some images of these no doubt classics of the recording industry:

And according to William Gibson’s Twitter posts, if I read him correctly you can STILL PURCHASE THESE DAMN THINGS as under-the-counter, on-the-sly finds in the deep south.

Let me repeat, I am certainly no prude–you should be able to listen to any damn thing in any old format you want as long as your eyes are on the road and BOTH HANDS are on the wheel. But these can’t POSSIBLY raise so much as an eyebrow, can they? Not having heard them, I’m guessing they’re as erotic as a reading of De Sade’s 101 Nights Of Sodom by Ted “Lurch” Cassidy.