Record Store Day is coming in a few weeks. I'll write about it later. Meantime, let me tell you the story of a record store I once knew.
About three years ago, I heard about a magical place. Not just a record store, but an experience. I had to find it for myself. When I did, I found out the hype was real. This place not only sold music on those big, black discs...people talked about the music. They spent minutes, even hours, talking about not just what they've been listening to, but how it made them feel. They shared stories of acts they saw live. Customers not only conversed with the owner of the store, but with each other, despite being total strangers. It was like no other record store I'd ever seen. It was home.
But as Tom Wolfe said, you can't go home again.
The owner of the store planned to expand to a bigger location. He'd have a second floor with live performances. He'd be closer to the City, and the jazz lovers that called it home and sometimes came out to the Island, perhaps on their way to the East End for the weekend. With two stores, it would be the best of both worlds.
But it turned out not to be at all. The bigger store ran into zoning and occupancy problems and never opened. The smaller store, which had temporarily closed in preparation for the opening of the bigger one, ended up being shuttered permanently, leaving the owner with zero stores instead of the two he'd planned on. And it left us, his customers and friends, seeking the magic his store once had.
I, for one, never found that magic. I'd been to a couple of other stores since, but none were so welcoming, so eager to let you stay an hour after closing to talk music. Yes, they bought, sold and traded records and gear - but no...something was missing in each of them. I doubt I'll ever find it again, but I'd love to be proven wrong. God rest ye, Vinyl Exchange.
"Still I'm glad for what we had, and how I once loved you." - Carole King
Monday, March 31, 2014
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Motown Goes To Motorp: A New Way to Store 45s
"Over there is a stack of vinyl/which is yours and which is mine/forty-five."
- Elvis Costello
Remember a few weeks ago I told you about those Sterilite containers I had my 45s in? And how I said they'd be a temporary thing? Well, sure enough, they were.
I'm lucky enough to live close enough to an IKEA to actually shop there on occasion, if not partake of the meatballs and lingonberries*. So for the first time in about three or four years, I did. I happened upon something called "Motorp." Motorp doesn't anagram into anything useful (mop rot? To prom?), but it is useful as storage decor. They're not far off in size from my Sterilites...but they look so much nicer. And yes, you can label them:
Like the Expedits you might use for albums, Motorps come in different sizes. There's a size that's a little smaller, but it has no lid. There's a bigger size that might tempt you into double-stacking your 45s inside if you could find something to serve as an internal shelf. This is the one Goldilocks said was juuuuuuuuuuust right.
It'll take a little bagel-finagling to find the right configuration for your records once they're in there. I have one row down the length of the box, and some stacked on one side perpendicular to them.
As you can see, it's a little too small in either direction to do two complete rows. But such is the price of being able to use the cover. The bigger Motorp is too tall for my tastes, and like I said, the smaller one has no cover.
It's hard these days to find nice, protective storage for 45s that goes beyond sleeves. But I like to think I've just found it.
Keep the conversation going and tell me what you use for your 45s.
* There's just too damn many places to eat out here for me to eat at IKEA. If I have to go as far as the mall this IKEA is in (it's one of the mall's "anchor stores" if you can believe that), I usually go to Red Robin. Although today I had Smashburger, since I just discovered we have one now.
- Elvis Costello
Remember a few weeks ago I told you about those Sterilite containers I had my 45s in? And how I said they'd be a temporary thing? Well, sure enough, they were.
I'm lucky enough to live close enough to an IKEA to actually shop there on occasion, if not partake of the meatballs and lingonberries*. So for the first time in about three or four years, I did. I happened upon something called "Motorp." Motorp doesn't anagram into anything useful (mop rot? To prom?), but it is useful as storage decor. They're not far off in size from my Sterilites...but they look so much nicer. And yes, you can label them:
Like the Expedits you might use for albums, Motorps come in different sizes. There's a size that's a little smaller, but it has no lid. There's a bigger size that might tempt you into double-stacking your 45s inside if you could find something to serve as an internal shelf. This is the one Goldilocks said was juuuuuuuuuuust right.
It'll take a little bagel-finagling to find the right configuration for your records once they're in there. I have one row down the length of the box, and some stacked on one side perpendicular to them.
 | |
| That's not just my sucky photograhy. There really is a purple record in there. Guess what it is. |
It's hard these days to find nice, protective storage for 45s that goes beyond sleeves. But I like to think I've just found it.
Keep the conversation going and tell me what you use for your 45s.
* There's just too damn many places to eat out here for me to eat at IKEA. If I have to go as far as the mall this IKEA is in (it's one of the mall's "anchor stores" if you can believe that), I usually go to Red Robin. Although today I had Smashburger, since I just discovered we have one now.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Video Vinyl: RCA's CED System
It's been just about 30 years since we've seen the last of a format called CED. Capacitance Electronic Disc, as it's more formally known, seems s strange subject for a blog about records. But once you learn what a CED is (if you're not already familiar), it'll all make sense.
CEDs work the same basic way that records do: a diamond stylus reads the grooves on a disc and translates the information into audio (and in CED's case, video). There are two differences: first, the grooves are much smaller on a CED (over 9500 per inch) so it spins much faster (450 RPM as opposed to 33 1/3 or 45). Also, CEDs are in plastic caddies for protection. The player extracts the disc from the caddy for playing. To watch the second side of the disc, you put the caddy back into the player to get the disc back, then flip the caddy over and insert it into the player again. Put the caddy back into the player one final time at the end of the movie to retrieve the disc again and store it until the next time you watch. It's a quaint system, even by early '80s standards.
That could be one of the reasons it only lasted three years. CED was intended for original release in the mid '70s. A change in the top at RCA, the company that invented CED, coincided with the need for further testing and research, and the confluence of events held CED's relesase back until early 1981. By that time, families were fighting over whether their first VCR should be VHS or Beta. That was another thing: you could record on a VCR. You could only play a CED.
It didn't help matters that at the exact same time RCA was working on CED, MCA was doing its own disc-based thing with help from dutch electronics conglomerate Philips. It was called DiscoVision. First demonstrated in 1972, DiscoVision beat CED to the market by three years...and stayed viable until the after the advent of DVD in the mid '90s. You know it better as LaserDisc...the format that gave us Karaoke.
RCA closed the book on CED in 1984 after losing a reported $500 million on the venture. Not two years later, RCA was merged with GE and sold off bit by bit. Today, the TV operations of RCA are part of South Korea's ON Corporation. The rest of the brand is owned by Audiovox.
There's still a contingent of groovy CED collectors out there, and I count myself among them. I don't have the biggest or best collection, but I do have one of the last CED players made and a few dozen movies to watch on it....when I'm not spinning vinyl the other way.
For more than you ever thought there was to know about CED, spend an hour or two (I'm serious - there a LOT there) at Tom Howe's glorious CED Magic site. You'll find complete lists of every player made and every disc produced. There are notes from those present at the creation and even a forum full of people who still keep their machines going.
CEDs work the same basic way that records do: a diamond stylus reads the grooves on a disc and translates the information into audio (and in CED's case, video). There are two differences: first, the grooves are much smaller on a CED (over 9500 per inch) so it spins much faster (450 RPM as opposed to 33 1/3 or 45). Also, CEDs are in plastic caddies for protection. The player extracts the disc from the caddy for playing. To watch the second side of the disc, you put the caddy back into the player to get the disc back, then flip the caddy over and insert it into the player again. Put the caddy back into the player one final time at the end of the movie to retrieve the disc again and store it until the next time you watch. It's a quaint system, even by early '80s standards.
That could be one of the reasons it only lasted three years. CED was intended for original release in the mid '70s. A change in the top at RCA, the company that invented CED, coincided with the need for further testing and research, and the confluence of events held CED's relesase back until early 1981. By that time, families were fighting over whether their first VCR should be VHS or Beta. That was another thing: you could record on a VCR. You could only play a CED.
It didn't help matters that at the exact same time RCA was working on CED, MCA was doing its own disc-based thing with help from dutch electronics conglomerate Philips. It was called DiscoVision. First demonstrated in 1972, DiscoVision beat CED to the market by three years...and stayed viable until the after the advent of DVD in the mid '90s. You know it better as LaserDisc...the format that gave us Karaoke.
RCA closed the book on CED in 1984 after losing a reported $500 million on the venture. Not two years later, RCA was merged with GE and sold off bit by bit. Today, the TV operations of RCA are part of South Korea's ON Corporation. The rest of the brand is owned by Audiovox.
There's still a contingent of groovy CED collectors out there, and I count myself among them. I don't have the biggest or best collection, but I do have one of the last CED players made and a few dozen movies to watch on it....when I'm not spinning vinyl the other way.
For more than you ever thought there was to know about CED, spend an hour or two (I'm serious - there a LOT there) at Tom Howe's glorious CED Magic site. You'll find complete lists of every player made and every disc produced. There are notes from those present at the creation and even a forum full of people who still keep their machines going.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
The Cruisin' Years
I'm not sure about you, but this winter has sucked pretty hard for me. All that polar vortex crap (speaking of suck) has just about done me in. And it's made me seriously question my career choice, since the 24/7-ness of my job requires me to BE there in any weather.
Two workfriends just got back from cruises. They haven't told me what kind of entertainment they saw...but I bet it was nothing like what I'm gonna serve up for you right now. Time was, the only entertainment you had on your ship was some Italian band mixing it up with old "Amore Scusa' me"-type Italian songs and "now sounds." Maybe if the band kept you entertained enough on your cruise, you could get them to autograph their album for you as a memento to take home.
Then that band could maybe keep you entertained enough at home to fire up the old Astro-Sonic Magnavox once in a while.
Or not.
Hit any thrift store at any given time and you're bound to find at least one old cruise ship album there, autograhps and all. If you do, look 'em over. Sometimes you'll get 12 tracks of Amore Scusa' Mi...sometimes you'll get some surprises. I'm not at the stage yet where I can offer compilations, but I can offer you one track at a time for your picky-choosy pleasure. To christen this post, the Romy Formica Theme by...well, the Romy Formica Orchestra, silly! Who'd you expect? (And why's he named after the stuff your counter is made with?) Typical of the music you'd hear on a lot of cruise albums. Recorded underwater before a live audience. Or maybe just the audience was underwater:
A lot of cruise albums just have songs like The Donkey Song, from the cruise album kings, The Rolando's (The Rolando's what? You're killin' me here). WARNING: man-made animal sounds.
Some albums are more adventurous. Here's a foggy little version of Glen Campbell's hit By The Time I Get To Phoenix by Il Milionari:
Here's "Il Mil" again, with a colorful version of a Procol Harum hit. And so it was that later...they decided to sing in Italian.
Here they are doing a whole song in Italian. The song: Black Is Black, originally by Los Bravos - a Spanish group with a German lead singer. Singing in English.
Now, one of the world's shortest versions of Satisfaction, from Murolo-Salviati.
It's The Rolando's again, still with that apostrophe. But this time, maybe a little soul.
And finally, a real off-the-board choice, again by The Rolando's. I bet some of you don't remember the original. I forgot who did it when it hit in 1970 (and can't explain why I remember that). Turns out it was a group called Christie.
Bon Voyage!
Two workfriends just got back from cruises. They haven't told me what kind of entertainment they saw...but I bet it was nothing like what I'm gonna serve up for you right now. Time was, the only entertainment you had on your ship was some Italian band mixing it up with old "Amore Scusa' me"-type Italian songs and "now sounds." Maybe if the band kept you entertained enough on your cruise, you could get them to autograph their album for you as a memento to take home.
Then that band could maybe keep you entertained enough at home to fire up the old Astro-Sonic Magnavox once in a while.
Or not.
Hit any thrift store at any given time and you're bound to find at least one old cruise ship album there, autograhps and all. If you do, look 'em over. Sometimes you'll get 12 tracks of Amore Scusa' Mi...sometimes you'll get some surprises. I'm not at the stage yet where I can offer compilations, but I can offer you one track at a time for your picky-choosy pleasure. To christen this post, the Romy Formica Theme by...well, the Romy Formica Orchestra, silly! Who'd you expect? (And why's he named after the stuff your counter is made with?) Typical of the music you'd hear on a lot of cruise albums. Recorded underwater before a live audience. Or maybe just the audience was underwater:
A lot of cruise albums just have songs like The Donkey Song, from the cruise album kings, The Rolando's (The Rolando's what? You're killin' me here). WARNING: man-made animal sounds.
Some albums are more adventurous. Here's a foggy little version of Glen Campbell's hit By The Time I Get To Phoenix by Il Milionari:
Here's "Il Mil" again, with a colorful version of a Procol Harum hit. And so it was that later...they decided to sing in Italian.
Here they are doing a whole song in Italian. The song: Black Is Black, originally by Los Bravos - a Spanish group with a German lead singer. Singing in English.
Now, one of the world's shortest versions of Satisfaction, from Murolo-Salviati.
It's The Rolando's again, still with that apostrophe. But this time, maybe a little soul.
And finally, a real off-the-board choice, again by The Rolando's. I bet some of you don't remember the original. I forgot who did it when it hit in 1970 (and can't explain why I remember that). Turns out it was a group called Christie.
Bon Voyage!
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Whither Expedit?
Word from the Huffington Post this week indicates that vinyl collectors' favorite shelf, the IKEA Expedit, is about to be no more. And a lot of us are not taking this news well. Facebook and Twitter are all lit up over this.
Why?
Basically, Expedit is the perfect record shelf. It has just the right amount of depth for 12" album covers, just the right height to make it easy to swipe an album from the top (handy for box sets), and more than the right number of configurations to suit any record collector.
I myself have two Expedits: a 4x2 and a 5x5, both fully loaded. They've been with me for about seven years now. The 5x5 has even been knocked apart and put back together for a move I made a few years ago. Still solid as Sears, despite the load on it. It should be: its raw weight is about 150 pounds. Each shelf can hold about 70 to 80 single albums. That's a LOT of music.
The 4x2 used to hold my LaserDiscs and CEDs (yep, I collect those too - look 'em up, kids) but was "converted" to vinyl storage. It's a perfect fit behind my love seat and would probably do well under a living room window of the right height if you choose not to stand it up.
In addition to the decor-friendly 2x4 and the economy-size 5x5, there are 2x2, 4x4, and single-cube sizes. Not to mention plenty of accessories, like doors and drawers. With that kind of versatility, you can probably understand why record collectors are not happy.
Expedit, IKEA says, is not really going away; just being replaced by a shelf called Kallax, which is apparently Swedish for something, like the inscrutable names of most IKEA things. It's claimed to use the same fittings and have the same internal dimensions...but the external sides are smaller. Naturally, with the weight we vinylites put on our Expedits, we can't help but be skeptical about how Kallax will hold up. Gizmodo reports that the reason behind the switch is to use less wood. As it is, IKEA uses 1% of the world's entire wood supply.
Kallax goes on sale April 1, but if you hurry, and you live close enough to an IKEA to grab one, you can still get an Expedit or two to house your vinyl.
Just don't come to me looking to rent space. I'm full up and my Expedits ain't goin' anywhere.
Weigh in:
What do you use for record-keeping, and what do you think about IKEA's move? Make a comment and get some dialogue going.
Why?
Basically, Expedit is the perfect record shelf. It has just the right amount of depth for 12" album covers, just the right height to make it easy to swipe an album from the top (handy for box sets), and more than the right number of configurations to suit any record collector.
I myself have two Expedits: a 4x2 and a 5x5, both fully loaded. They've been with me for about seven years now. The 5x5 has even been knocked apart and put back together for a move I made a few years ago. Still solid as Sears, despite the load on it. It should be: its raw weight is about 150 pounds. Each shelf can hold about 70 to 80 single albums. That's a LOT of music.
The 4x2 used to hold my LaserDiscs and CEDs (yep, I collect those too - look 'em up, kids) but was "converted" to vinyl storage. It's a perfect fit behind my love seat and would probably do well under a living room window of the right height if you choose not to stand it up.
Expedit, IKEA says, is not really going away; just being replaced by a shelf called Kallax, which is apparently Swedish for something, like the inscrutable names of most IKEA things. It's claimed to use the same fittings and have the same internal dimensions...but the external sides are smaller. Naturally, with the weight we vinylites put on our Expedits, we can't help but be skeptical about how Kallax will hold up. Gizmodo reports that the reason behind the switch is to use less wood. As it is, IKEA uses 1% of the world's entire wood supply.
Kallax goes on sale April 1, but if you hurry, and you live close enough to an IKEA to grab one, you can still get an Expedit or two to house your vinyl.
Just don't come to me looking to rent space. I'm full up and my Expedits ain't goin' anywhere.
Weigh in:
What do you use for record-keeping, and what do you think about IKEA's move? Make a comment and get some dialogue going.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
The Kings Were There: Not Always Better The Second Time Around
Sometimes you're best to leave well enough alone. Canadian rockers The Kings learned that the hard way. After their breakout success with The Kings Are Here and its hit single This Beat Goes On/Switchin' To Glide, the foursome decided to cut a second album. Unfortunately, when they did, they followed Murphy's Law to the letter.
Figuring they had a good thing going, they stuck with the producer of their first album, Bob Ezrin. Ezrin had done a lot of good things for The Kings, as he had for Pink Floyd before them. Unfortunately, by the time Amazon Beach came around, Ezrin was doing things for a lot of others too, so another producer, Charles Harrison Kipps, came to fill in some of the blanks. Or attempt to. A lot of decisions Kipps made were unmade by Ezrin - and those unmakings were not always approved of by the band.
On top of that, Nimbus 9, the studio in the Toronto suburb of Yorkville where the magic was captured for The Kings Are Here had closed. Scarborough's Phase One had a lot less appeal mainly because of its location. The combination of studio and producer resulted in a product that The Kings' US label, Elektra, were less than confident about. But they pressed on, citing loyalty to Ezrin for putting them on the map.
Not even the cover of Amazon Beach escaped scrutiny. The Kings, on their page, said one of the proofs featured an image of what they thought was "over the hill biker chicks on some bad dope had taken over the city."
Despite the struggles, Elektra released the album and its single, All The Way. All The Way was a victim of Bob Ezrin's tinkering. It started out with a "playlet" of a guy going for a run on his motorcycle - something "more at home on a Pink Floyd record."
Clearly not The Kings' finest moment, Amazon Beach was never reissued. I guess it's more out of respect than anything that I don't post any tracks here. So I suggest reading the album's entire story - or better yet, listening to and even buying their other, better albums - at thekingsarehere.com.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Gradually Going Tornado
Might as well. I mean, we've had just about everything else here in the northeast, as weather goes. We're getting even more tonight and possibly lots more this weekend.
Anyway, remember that series of early '80s rock I told you about? Well, here's the first of the rest of it.
Here's a little '80s prog from Bruford. Bill Bruford, that is. He's a drummer who's played with the likes of King Crimson and Yes. This album is the last he did with his own group. Jeff Berlin played bass, and on keys was Dave Stewart. No, the other Dave Stewart, not the one from The Eurythmics. On guitar, The Unknown John Clark replaced Allan Holdsworth from Bruford's two previous albums. All About Jazz has a nice piece that sums up Bruford's history. You can find this album and its forerunner, The Bruford Tapes, at Bill Bruford's very own website, billbruford.com.
Before there was Lena, there was Inga. Inga Rumpf came from Hamburg, Germany. She got her start as a member of The City Preachers, a folk-rock outfit, who became Frumpy after a change in drummers. Frumpy morphed into Atlantis, and a few years later, Inga gave us this solo album on RCA. Along with a few originals, Inga gave us a couple of interesting covers: Love Potion No. 9, Roxanne, and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' Break Down.
Though she never really made a dent here, Inga's still as popular as ever back home in Germany. In fact, she's going on tour in March. Her site, ingarumpf.de has all the details - in German, of course.
I have the press kit on this one, so I can cheat a little. Jerry Moss, the "M" of A&M Records, signed Burning Rome to his label the same day he signed The Human League in 1982. The deal-sealer was 22-year-old lead singer Vicki Thomas, who A&M's Dave Anderle claimed was one of three women born to sing rock & roll. The other two? Janis Joplin and Bonnie Bramlett. That's some company. MMicky Shine (the extra M is his), who you can hear on Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True album and some Tommy Tutone and Huey Lewis songs, got tapped for drum duties. Rochester's Ron Murray is on bass, and Steve Dougherty rounds things out on guitar.
So what happened that this was Burning Rome's only album? Mmicky said in this interview that A&M gave the album "no support" and the album didn't do much. To remember it by, here's the video for Once Over.
Anyway, remember that series of early '80s rock I told you about? Well, here's the first of the rest of it.
Though she never really made a dent here, Inga's still as popular as ever back home in Germany. In fact, she's going on tour in March. Her site, ingarumpf.de has all the details - in German, of course.
So what happened that this was Burning Rome's only album? Mmicky said in this interview that A&M gave the album "no support" and the album didn't do much. To remember it by, here's the video for Once Over.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)