#cheapo records

[jtem]

[chaddavisphotography]

Cheapo Records, a record store on Nicollet Ave in Minneapolis.

[tony-the-tigers-juicy-armpit]

Just had the best Uber ride of my fucking life.

The car was an old Nissan Altima, white on paper but dusted with beige all over. The door was misaligned with its socket, the entire structure of the vehicle clearly well-worn. The interior was dirty, potentially mildewy by the smell and the orange-colored patches on the door, mingling with a odd musty mint that I theorized to be the wake of a few Newports. There were mysterious black streaks along the floor, the beige fabric of the whole interior splotched with light and dark. The driver was friendly, telling me to let him know if it got too hot in the back seat. His window was open, so it never became a problem, but I got the sense that somebody, at some point, had terrorized him about the temperature.

A minute into the ride, we came down a thin street, blocked by a yellow pickup truck. The driver rolled his window down all the way and shouted to ask what the holdup was. The owner of the yellow truck told him: "how about you just sit there and fucking wait!". A passerby, witnessing this, approached the driver. He explained to the passerby that he's driving Uber, and needs to get me to my destination. The passerby nodded in understanding. The yellow pickup truck remained halted, and the driver departed to confront the owner of the truck face-to-face. A tense 30 seconds later, in which I thought my driver might fistfight the owner of the truck, he returned, and the truck moved.

The driver explained to me that he wanted to fight, and would've had I not been present. He continued making conversation, telling me that driving Uber helps him with his anger issues, that he can't react to minor frustrations with a lot of anger and violence because he can't put his passenger in danger. I grew to be a little nervous, and agreed with his sentiments. Said sentiments were agreeable, but I was also just trying to keep him happy.

Being a resident of historic Philadelphia, some roads in my neighborhood are cobblestone instead of asphalt. In previous ride-shares, my drivers have always chosen to proceed slowly down the cobbles. The driver this time, however, sped over them with shocking zeal, nearly hitting a parked truck. I asked him to drop me off on the road adjacent to mine - a regular practice for me, because my street is thin enough that walking is actually faster than driving - and he asked worriedly if he'd accidentally skipped my street. I told him no, he'd done great, and wished him a good day. He did the same for me.

I tipped him 5 bucks and gave him just as many stars.

[popularsizes]

Cheapo Records, Minneapolis, September 1998. Courtesy of the Hennepin County Library.

[seeminglydark]

tips for a broke punk trying to make diy patches like your “Useless Patch” patch!

So the current Useless patch I have at cons is hand screenprinted by me, but screenprinting does have an initial cost and i think not the best option for a broke punk who is looking to just make a couple of patches. There are so many ways to make patches, but heres what I did when i first started. Get some good 'ol wax paper you can get at the grocery store. and some cheapo acrylic paint, any kind will do, those little bottles you can get anywhere, and one of those spongy brushes. if you are too broke for spongy brush, (they are cheaper at the hardware store than the craft store often time btw) you can use a regular dish sponge or even a folded napkin, you just wanna be able to dab the paint.

get a piece of paper and draw your design on it, you wanna be careful with letters that have enclose spaces like O's and R's, i actually suggest if youre using this method the easiest 'font' to use is the basic punk stencil, which is actually literally just a grade school stencil. you dont need to buy a set, you can look at a reference and draw it or print it out if you have access to a printer and paper (library might help if you dont!) these are the letter type im talking about. Sorry for all these shitty google images lmao. ANYWAY.

grab a razor or an xacto knife and cut the letters out of your wax paper, wax side down, be careful obviously, helps to put a flat piece of cardboard underneath and you can tape it down to keep it in place if you want. once you have your design all cut out you can place it on your piece of fabric. with the wax side down on the piece you plan to paint, run the iron over it. itll stick! neat! now you can grab your paint and use some method (i really like the dab with a sponge brush, dish sponge or papertowel method myself) and paint in your stenciled letters. dont let it dry between coats, layer it up till its a nice solid white or whatever color youre using, let it get slightly tacky but not dry and peel your wax paper off. the design should now be painted on your fabric! hurray! let it dry and the next day, press your iron over it to heat set it and voila! diy cheapo patch. its not going to be perfect, there will be bleeding in your edges, if that bothers you, you can fix it with black (or whatever color your fabric is) paint. either way doesnt matter, punk can be messy. I've made lots of patches this way, heres a pic of the recent ones, the Punks Respect Pronoun patch is the one ive done most with this method, it has the stencil letters i was talking about so it stays in one piece without me having to piece it together. for the record i am totally fine with people making Useless Patch, and if someone does, I'd love to see it! And obligatory shop shill, i will have my own versions of both these patches in my store soon when I get some time! I'm sorry I dont have pics for the process, next time I do it, ill take some and post them <3

Thanks for the Q!

[riaaanna]

“We had a lot of stuff in our heads,” said May. “We are just being able to put it on tape, so that was very exciting, trying things out for the first time.”

Some of these ideas had been long-held ambitions. Hitherto, the band didn’t have the means to make them a reality. “It was the first time I managed to get a three-part guitar solo down,” said May. “It was in my head for years before that. But to actually do it was amazing.”

“Yeah, The Night Comes Down, looking back on it I am quite surprised actually because it is quite complex and difficult,” said May. “I wouldn’t like to be playing it live onstage at this moment because it’s tricky! And it’s played on a strange little guitar.”

Yes, this strange little guitar. This was the subject of May’s curiosity. What if it could be made to buzz? May’s idea was that it would sound like a sitar. What we hear on the record sounds not far off, with the overtones from the strings giving it texture that sits somewhere between a 12-string guitar and a harpsicord, or at least tone-wise they are in the same universe. It sounds perfect for the track. Best of all, it was cheap. Dirt cheap.

“You can spend thousands on an acoustic guitar,” said May. “This was a little guitar that cost about £10, but it had buzzy strings and I encouraged the strings to be buzzy by putting flint and knitting needles and stuff under the bridge, so it sounded a bit like a sitar. That’s why the guitar sounds like that.”

Should Queen ever record again – and a couple of weeks back Roger Taylor hinted that this was a possibility – we might hear May's customised Hallfredh acoustic again. “I still have the guitar,” said May. “It still buzzes. But I’m not sure I could play [The Night Comes Down] right now.”

[somethingvinyl]

This album is so important to me it’s hard to put into words. I bought it (for I think like $5) during my first trip to my favorite record store in college, Cheapo Discs in Austin (rip). I was a Coltrane fan in high school with CD copies of A Love Supreme and Blue Train, and Africa/Brass had played a prominent role in a scene in my favorite novel at the time, Sometimes a Great Notion. So as soon as I saw this I knew I needed to hear it. Listen to that opening… the insistent bass line, the low rumbling thunderstorm of the brass section, then the clarion call of Trane’s sax cutting through it all and marshaling it to order behind it. Spine-tingling. I have a lot of favorite Coltrane albums, and this is definitely one of them.

[herecomesyourghostagain]

cheapo records

[inbarfink]

If there’s one thing I like to do whenever I get in a really Rocky Horror mood, is to put in the YouTube search bar ‘Rocky Horror’ and set the video length on maximum.

Because that way you can get a whole bunch of recordings of all sorts of fun RHS productions. Interesting international versions and/or oddball local shows, all sort of fun stuff! Like Spanish Rollerblading Action Frank here!

And I have a special soft spot for the cheapo productions, really. I mean, the current West End Version is pretty damn cool - but there’s something especially ‘punk-rock’ about making Rocky Horror works with a budget of twenty dollars and a corset which fits just so well with the whole Vibe of RHS. I just love seeing folks finding clever cost-efficient workarounds to some of the trickier setpieces, and improvise the characters’ outfits via the power of Closet Cosplay + Maid Halloween Costume for Magenta.

And one example that really stuck with me is from this little video. 

So one thing you notice watching a lot of smaller RHS productions, is that one design detail a lot of folks tend to just drop is Frank’s labcoat-frock-thingie.

Because, well, it’s an outfit that only appears for one scene, and it’s not as iconic as his other Looks and it’s a bit harder to cobble together from bits from the closet of your Most Interesting Friend. So if you’re working with a shoestring budget, it makes more sense to give Frank a Generic Labcoat or just go ‘screw it! Frank-N-Furter does Mad Science in his lingerie!’

But this production… this production actually thought up a really fun solution to the LabFrock problem!

Frank's Lab Outfit is a Sexy Nurse Halloween Costume!

I just... love this so much! It's cost-efficient and it's creative and it's fun and it's just so perfectly Frank-N-Furter! That's exactly the kind of thing that makes me love theatre AND Rocky Horror!!

[ourladyofomega]

I was getting deeper and deeper into everything electronic and industrial, all during my one-year break in-between the Brentwood era and community college. The UK electronics invasion, MTV's Amp, and Wipeout XL were the major influences that led me to that point. I was starting to have an endless appetite for music, and one thing I learned about myself that I could be interested in anything and everything. I already had an affinity to golden-era hip-hop / rap and alternative. The seeds of hardcore started to grow, so there would be no stopping me at this point. There were so many genres, artists, and sounds I was getting into, and I wanted to keep up. I had a position at a department store in the shopping mall, then later at a movie rental store, so I could afford to buy titles for whatever cash I had in hand.

I didn't have a desktop with internet to find independent stores. I had yellow pages instead: thick phone-books listing hundreds upon hundreds of pages of local businesses, their addresses, and their phone numbers all in minuscule print. That's how I discovered them back then. It was a year after visiting my first-ever independent record store, Commack's Mr. Cheapo's. Then came West Babylon's Looney Tunes before the holidays. Still enthusiastic in discovering the vast unknown, I wanted to find more. Port Jefferson's Music Den would be the next destination.

I already felt like an outsider when I arrived on campus. It was a different type of demographic I was used to. I looked around and I'd still see cliques, circles, and other "exclusive" groups of students that I felt I wouldn't be included in. I'd meet newfound friends who'd introduce me to their friends, but it felt forced, and they didn't seem to care. I was crazy for Atari Teenage Riot because they showed me exactly what techno always should've been: deafening loud, criminally high-speed, and maniacally all over the place. I tried looking for people who were in them, and observed what types of music the majority were into. Simplistic, manufactured, predictable dance hits. Boring weekend club-mashers. Formulaic radio chart-toppers. I wasn't impressed. The people who were into that were shallow, superficial, judgmental, needlessly competitive, and at times just unnecessarily mean. Drama artists and attitude jockeys all over the place. That's why they called community college "13th Grade". Now you'd see the disgusting distaste of the late-Nineties music scene I had. But, I did have a couple of good cards given to me. I joined the campus newspaper which I'd write music reviews for. An attractive brunette, Sandra, randomly stopped me to strike up a conversation, and wanted to get to know me better. She was also a Jesus freak. I also made another friend I met on campus who decided to set me up with an Irish blonde acquaintance of his, and we hit it off right away. Even then, I'd deal with constant games, rudeness, and random acts of ego during my time there.

The newspaper meeting ended one late October Thursday night. I finally had the opportunity to drive out eight miles from campus to the Port Jefferson Music Den for some shopping. I walked right in, and started digging. I'm not even there for two minutes and I already find gold: the import version of Alec Empire’s The Destroyer for only $9.00 used ($22.00 brand new otherwise). That was a huge deal for me because (once again) I was an Atari Teenage Riot / DHR fanatic. Right after that? Another label release, this time from EC8OR. I'd finally discover all those artists I heard about on the internet; thirty-minute download times of grainy 480P-resolution video and all. I was really starting to like this place. I start scouring the used CD bins, and I’d stumble upon KMFDM’s banned version of Naive for $8.00 - back when used copies on eBay were selling for…$80.00 each! Then came Pigface’s Washingmachinemouth and Ministry’s The Land Of Rape And Honey for a few dollars used. I copped Fluke’s Risotto because of Wipeout XL, and I’d snatch Skinny Puppy’s Back & Forth Volume 2 and Cleopatra’s Industrial Revolution: Third Edition, all for regular price. Finally, Coldcut’s "Atomic Moog 2000" / "Reboot The System": the first-ever multimedia CD I'd ever own.

Minute-by-minute, I'd slowly discover all sorts of wild and unusual sounds and artists they had on the racks. The Port Jeff- Music Den carried all the rare, unusual, and obscure stuff no other store on the island did. Sure, there were plenty of used CDs and vinyl bins in pop, metal, alternative, shoegaze, indie, hip-hop, and jazz. It was their industrial, noise, electronic, and experimental selections, however, that would be the all-important tie-breaker. They had all what I was looking for. I remembered seeing titles like Gescom’s Minidisc on the racks, Coil’s “Autumn Equinox: Amethyst Deceivers” 7", tons of Clock DVA, Controlled Bleeding, plus some Oval and Microstoria albums. It was wild. I felt stimulated because I found plenty of abnormalities that I never knew existed, instead of the expected, typical, calculated fare that did absolutely nothing for me.

90 minutes later, I took my short stack of CDs, placed them on the counter to be rung up, cashed out, and wrapped up what would be my first visit to The -Den. $82.00 later, I leave fucking satisfied.

With each visit after, I’d continue to score big victories where I’d find them. They were Phil Western’s debut album The Escapist, Muslimgauze’s Hamas Arc, Mike & Rich’s Expert Knob Twiddlers, Aphex Twin’s Analogue Bubblebath 3, Merzbow’s Pulse Demon, and Sam & Valley. I’d nab more DHR albums from 16-17, Shizuo on vinyl, Fuck Step '98, Give Up on 12", and Alec Empire’s Squeeze The Trigger. The best? Autechre / Gescom’s “Keynell” 12" that I found under the vinyl bins and hidden inside the cabinet underneath. It was stickered for $17.00 - another record where second-hand copies sold on eBay for $125.00. I also managed to pick up a few of their 12" EPs, mainly Chiclisuite and Envane.

All these finds made The -Music Den the most unforgettable store I had the privilege to visit. They were like nothing else on the island. Sadly, they closed down after the turn of the millennium, and no store that came after was half-as-good enough to fill the hole they left behind. Believe me, if any of you reading this would’ve shopped there, you’d feel amazed and blown away like I was. I’d still have a tough time dealing with all the constant, petty drama on campus over the next couple of years. At the Port Jefferson Music Den, however, I knew that was a place where I felt like I’d belong.

[omegaremix]

Record Store Victory Tour, 2018.

Having three shoulder operations to beat cancer has been the ultimate life victory thus far. It was the most amazing and largest outpouring of support ever. Friends, family, allies, co-workers in good-standing, and even names whom I haven’t seen or heard from in years came to congratulate me and wish me onto a speedy recovery. I don’t know if nine months is what you call “speedy”. Nine months of shoulder replacements, ten weeks of in-home nurse visits, a MRSA infection, six weeks of in-home intravenous antibiotics, and missing two label showcases were balanced out with staying up until 4AM every morning finding endless music (Negril, Robert Ashley, and Steve Khan to name a few), daily postings, heavy amounts of sleep, and Dad’s daily deliveries of free food full of steak, sushi, pizza, chicken, egg rolls, and pasta. With a nine-month blackout period of not leaving the house ever, you had to make the best of it. I knew that after this I would never ever answer to any random nobody about my shoulder. And looking back at it, I say to myself as to why I even let it go so far.

Working for a great company and playing your cards right, you could sit and collect benefits while staying at home doing almost next to nothing. I now had more money in the bank when I last left work. So I promised myself that after I fully recover, I’d treat myself like I never had before. I decided that I would go on a record-store victory tour. I would hit up each and every independent record place, go crazy, and buy up everything I can. After nine months of being bed-ridden and staying home, I needed to treat myself with retail therapy. I needed to get out there and be myself again. Of all I been through and endured, I deserved it.

I didn’t immediately do it, however. It took me a few months to earn back the $2,000 I lost in savings when the benefits ended. While that happened, I enjoyed hot August days walking from my house to the veteran’s park and back, witnessed my ex- Yenny get married, attended Hospital Productions’ 20th Anniversary showcase (a day I will never forget), had a night out in my neighborhood Dave & Busters with my co-workers, and started getting in touch with a Brooklyn witch. I made two label orders with Italians Do It Better and RRRecords which help things get started. As you see, it only got better.

February came and we got a surprise $1,000 from our company. Tax refunds and a third paycheck of the month sealed the deal and all systems go. My first stop was at Patchogue’s Record Stop, their new location since moving from their Shirley warehouse, and thumbed through whatever old-school hip-hop, 12” singles, and other small easy victories I could find. It wasn’t until places like West Sayville’s Vinyl Paradise was when spending three hours minimum searching in stores and $200.00 a visit on music was normal. I can also count West Babylon’s Looney Tunes, Mineola’s Mr. Cheapo’s, and Amityville’s High Fidelity who could’ve matched the totals I had from that store. It’s all about finding the most for less. Whether it’s Seventies’ jazz / fusion on vinyl, discount 12” singles, used CDs, dollar hardcore / punk 45’s, or other long-awaited finds, amassing history and style points is the most self-serving and exciting hunt I take part of. Other stores such as Northport’s Record Reserve, Massapequa’s Infinity Records, Riverhead’s Sunday Records, and Rosie’s Vintage (the smallest of them all) allowed for tidier spaces and friendlier prices for me to walk out with, with smaller receipts ranging from a mere $30.00 to $100.00.

Of course, with many victories come disappointments. Plainview just opened a new store called Vinyl Bay 777. It’s one of the cleanest and shiniest stores on the island, but also the most expensive. With a penchant for ambition and grading, their selections are anywhere from three to five times the price of what you’d find in others store. It was the only experience of the tour that I left feeling poor and let down. The other disappointment? Innersleeve Records all the way at the East End / Amangansett. Why? I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to go.

And almost every store have their own legacy. Record Stop’s been around since 1974 starting in Ronkonkoma, then shuffling to a warehouse in Shirley before finally settling in Patchogue. The family-owned and highly-awarded Looney Tunes had survived a summer fire and took them 90 days to rebuild. This year they’ll celebrate their 50th anniversary. Mr Cheapo’s has two locations, the only store on the island to do so. High Fidelity moved to larger and cleaner digs which solved their storage issues. Record Reserve just moved again; their fourth time in ten years of operation. Infinity Records was the only store on the ropes during the pandemic relying on crowd-funding to make up for the rent. Rosie’s Vintage isn’t owned by Rosie. In fact, Rosie doesn’t exist. It’s a rockabilly wife named Thea who owns an antique store. And you can’t get any literal than Sunday Records, which is only open on Sundays. It’s the only store I know who classified their records not on genre but radio stations and chart positions.

The entire experience was great and I looked to do it again the year after. Unfortunately, I had lots of traffic tickets, fees, and violations to pay. With a vehicle in disrepair and an expired inspection, driving out in daylight without the police spotting me was not ideal. Then I looked to do it last year, and we all know what happened. The pandemic paralyzed and killed businesses left and right. With immediate closures and stop of life, everyone stayed home for their lives.

Next time, it’s going down.

Essential money was saved all throughout the pandemic. Two stimulus checks later, a third on the way, tax refunds, a third bi-weekly check in April, and a bank transfer means I’m ready to do it all over again. In fact, it’s already started! Rough Trade announced it’s relocating from its’ Williamsburg spot. With 25% off books, merchandise, and CDs, it was an incentive to get to it. With me waiting forever to go, now was the chance. I found the perfect March Wednesday to do it and I finally made it happen. What you’ll read later on became the most expensive purchase I ever made at a record store, and also the greatest.

Most locations (except Vinyl Bay 777, replaced by any given one New York City store) are on the list for the next record-store tour. I healed mostly from last summer’s depression and I had a trouble-free winter. With a day out at Williamsburg’s Rough Trade, the spring euphoria and hope came back like it did the first time around. With money in the bank, vaccines, and everything coming back into play, it’s time to have fun again like I want to.

For those who can’t be harassed by looking up our series and reading our visits one-by-one, here’s the final results of 2018’s tour:

Record Stop:

Sugarhill Gang “The Lover In You” 12”

Grover Washington Jr. Mister Magic

Carmen McRae In Person

U.T.F.O. “Roxanne, Roxanne” 12”

Ahmad “Back In The Day” 12”

DJ Yella “4 Tha E” 12”

L.A. Style “James Brown Is Dead” 12”

Knucklehedz “Hed Rush” 12”

Flatlinerz “Live Evil” 12”

Blondie “Rapture” 7”

Chemical Brothers Come With Us

Royal Trux Thank You

Delerium ft. Sarah McLachlan & DJ Tiesto “Silence”

Prime Minister Pete Nice & Daddy Rich “Rap Prime Minister & Daddy Rich (Rat Bastard)” 12”

Vinyl Paradise:

Laura Nyro Christmas And The Beads Of Sweat

Genesis Invisible Touch

Clash, The Black Market Clash 10″

Delegation The Promise Of Love

Herbie Hancock “Rockit”

B-52’s, The Wild Planet

Blondie Parallel Lines

Spyro Gyra Catching The Sun

Brecker Bros. self-titled

Herb Alpert Rise

Heart Dreamboat Annie

Tom Scott Blow It Out

Pat Metheny American Garage

Martha Velez Escape From Babylon

Stanley Turrentine Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

Bob James & Earl Klugh One On One

Sister Sledge All-American Girls

Black Moon “Who Got The Props?” b/w “Fuck It Up”

Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock “It Takes Two”

Shannon Let The Music Play

Jellybean “Wotupski?”

Fu-Schnickens “Sum Dum Monkey” b/w “Visions (20/20)”

Tortoise & Autechre “Adverse Camber” b/w “To Day Retrieval”

Shirts, The Inner Sleeve

Freedom U.S.A. Hardcore

Coke Bust Confined

Ressurection I Am Not: The Discography

Spit It Out self-titled

Vice Flawed

Terror The Walls Will Fall

This Is Hell Bastards Still Remain 

Subterfuge Fight Back 

Bikini Kill self-titled single red 7″

Hangman A Vile Decree 

Dead Kennedys “Nazi Punks Fuck Off!” (with lyric bag and armbands)

Until Your Heart Stops We Are Not Coming Down

Corrective Measure self-titled

Soft Cell “Tainted Love”

Kraftwerk “Pocket Calculator” b/w “Dentaku” clear yellow 7”

Six Weeks label America In Decline CD

Tear It Up The December 2000 Sessions CD

Dee Cracks “Be My Valentine” red heart-shaped flexi

This Means War “Use It Up” flexi

Broadcaster b/w Aspiga (Secret Audio Club Wax Pack)

Marathon b/w Fire When Ready(Secret Audio Club Wax Pack)

Looney Tunes:

Up In Arms / Eternal Youth split 7”

Defiant Trespass / Cold Like December split 7”

Make Or Break Down For Life! 7”

Arcadius / 7654 Stories split 7”

Pissed Jeans demo 7”

Search Bloc Life, By The Code 7”

Proud Youth Nothing’s Changed 7”

UN Bodies Unremarkably Mortal 7”

Force Of Change The Bond We Share 7”

Self Defense Family “Indoor Wind Chimes” b/w “Cottaging”

Tolerate self-titled 7”

Joe South & The Believers “Walk A Mile In My Shoes” b/w “Trespass”

Bread And Water / Reason Of Insanity split 7”

Stigmata There Is No Mercy Here 7”

Degenerats, The 7”

Monster X 1993 demo 7”

Last Dead Word 7”

Let It Burn From Jersey With Love 7”

Slak Another Disaster 7”

Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These” 7”

Toni Basil “Mickey” 7”

Squeeze “853-5937″ 7”

Nena “99 Luftballons” 12”

Staple Singers City In The Sky

Unsung Heroes “What Would You Do?” 12”

White Mystery self-titled

D.S. 13 Vad Vet Vi Om Kriget?

Killing Joke Brighter Than A Thousand Suns

Marc Hurtado & Vomir 2011 / Sang+

Razed In Black Shrieks, Laments, And Anguished Cries

No Future Plan Of Attack

Die Krupps & Front Line Assembly Remix Wars

Maldoror She

Self Defense Family Heaven Is Earth cassette

Unholy Archangel The Wrath Of Kosmostistis cassette

Tod Hate Campiagn, Hymn To The Death cassette

Krieg Blue Miasma cassette

Hekseri The Atrocity (Early Demos) cassette

Crebain Under Black Wigs Of Night cassette

Riddle Of Meander End Of All Life And Creation cassette

Black Flame Torment And Glory cassette

Xasthur self-titled cassette

Krieg Songs For Resistance cassette

Striborg A Procession Of Lost Souls cassette

Tod Black Metal Manifesto cassette

Cheapo's (Commack):

Blackbyrds, The Action

Deodato 2

Jon Lucien The Best Of…

Bob James 2

Hubert LawsRomeo & Juliet

Deodato Love Island

Rolling Stones Undercover (stickered)

Bob James 3

Deodato Whirlwinds

George Benson White Rabbit

Bob James 4

Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth Mecca & The Soul Brother

Jedi Mind Tricks Legacy Of Blood

Naughty By Nature self-titled

M.I.A. Arular

P.O.S. Never Better special edition disc

Unseen, The Explode

Richard Hell & The Voidoids Blank Generation

M.I.A. Kala

All Dogs 7”

Last Shop Standing DVD

Katt Williams The Pimp Chronicles Vol. 1 DVD

Jerky Boys, The Stop Staring At Me cassette

Paula AbdulForever Your Girl cassette

Record Reserve:

Cars, The Shake It Up

Rolling Stones, The Some Girls (cut-out)

Peter Gabriel Melt

Weather Report Heavy Weather

A Clockwork Orange motion picture soundtrack

Genesis Abacab

Laura Nyro self-titled

Stranglers, The IV

Samantha Fox I Wanna Have Some Fun

Spyro Gyra self-titled

Cars, The Candy-O

Peter Gabriel Scratch

Debbie Gibson Out Of The Blue

Spent Idols “Chinese Suicide” b/w “Gacy’s Gone” 7″

Out Cider D.C. label Raise The Flag: DC Hardcore Vol. 1 7″

High Fidelity:

Prurient & Kevin Drumm  All Are Guests In The House Of The Lord

KMD  Mr. Hood

Sonic Youth   Evol

Algiers  self-titled

ESG  A South Bronx Story deluxe disc

No Age   Nouns

Greymachine Disconnected

Killing Joke   Hosannas From The Basements Of Hell

Television   Marquee Moon expanded disc

Esther Phillips  Capricorn Princess

Severed Heads  Cuisine With Piscatorial

Elastica  self-titled

Sonic Youth & Mats Gustavsson & Merzbow  SYR8

Killing Joke  Pandemonium

Eric Gale  Multiplication

Front Line Assembly  Echoes

Wavves  King Of The Beach

Strawberry Switchblade  Since Yesterday 12”

Bjork   Telegraph

Public Image Ltd.  Second Edition

Esther Phillips  Performance

Hatebreed  The Rise Of Brutality

Killing Joke  Night Time

Wilbert Longmire  Champagne

Grover Washington, Jr.  A Secret Place

Young Black Teenagers  “Tap The Bottle” 12”

Sagat  “Funk Dat” 12”

Crash Crew   “Breaking Bells (Take Me To The Mardi Gras)” 12”

Prurient   Pleasure Ground

Victory Records  Victory Style II

Esther Phillips & Joe Beck  For All We Know

Sonic Youth  Confusion Is Sex + Kill Your Idols

Swell Maps  A Trip To Marineville

Severed Heads   Rotund For Success

Whodini  Escape

Killing Joke   Revelations

Stop The Violence Movement, The  “Self-Destruction” 12”

Eric Gale  Part Of You

Professionals, The   “The Magnificent” 7”

Guyana Punch Line  self-titled 7”

Heart   self-titled cassette

Infinity Records:

Self Defense Family “Self Immolation Family” b/w “World Virgins” 7”

Peter Gabriel Security

Mantronix The Album

Eric Gale Forecast

Arsonists As The World Burns

Beat Street motion picture soundtrack

Kool & The GangLight Of Worlds

Dire Straits Making Movies

Shirts, The Street Light Shine

Belinda Carlisle Belinda

Makers, The Rock Star God

Bug, The Infected

Peter Gabriel Car

Filter Short Bus

Warzone Fight for Justice

Mood Doom

Jane’s Addiction Nothing’s Shocking

Depeche Mode Ultra

Curve Cuckoo

Rosie's Vintage:

Genesis Abacab

Nice & Wild “Diamond Girl” 12″

Shabba Ranks “Mr. Loverman” 12″

Dire Straits self-titled

Mad Skillz “Nod Factor” 12“

Boogiemonsters “Recognized Thresholds Of Negative Stress 12″

Blahzay Blahzay “Danger!” 12″

Harold Faltermeyer “Axel F” 12“

Spyro Gyra self-titled

Malcomb McLaren & The World Famous Supreme Team “Buffalo Gals” 12″

Sunday Records:

Cabaret Voltaire  The Arm Of The Lord

Nitzer Ebb As Is

Strawberry Switchblade  Who Knows What Love Is?

Steve Jones  Mercy

Patti Smith  Easter

Ramsey Lewis  Tequila Mockingbird

Doors, The  Greatest Hits

Cabaret Voltaire  Drinking Gasoline

Utah Saints “Something Good”

Image In Vogue self-titled EP

Steely Dan  Pretzel Logic

No Age  Losing Feeling

Dead Or Alive “Brand New Lover”

Cabaret Voltaire  The Drain Train

Public Image Ltd. “Home”

Gary Numan “Cars” / “Metal”

Malcomb McLaren “Soweto” b/w “Zulu’s On A Time Bomb”

J. Geils Band “Centerfold” b/w “Rage In The Cage”

Fad Gadget “One Man’s Meat” b/w “Sleep”

Tony Basil “Mickey” b/w “Hangin’ Around”

Stray Cats “(She’s) Sexy + 17” b/w “Lookin’ Better Every Beer”

Madness “Our House” b/w “Cardiac Arrest”

Todd Rundgren “Hello It’s Me” b/w “Cold Morning Light”

No Age  Eraser 7”

Suzanne Vega “Luca” b/w “Night Vision”

Siouxsie Sioux & The Banshees “Hong Kong Garden” b/w “Night Vision”

Mr. Cheapo’s (Mineola):

Mic Geronimo “Masta I.C.”

Jemini The Gifted One “Funk Soul Sensation”

Hi-Tek “Hi Teknology”

Schoolly D “Livin’ In The Jungle” b/w “Gucci Again”

Richie Cole New York Afternoon

Dott & Night School Carousel split e.p.

Joe Beck self-titled

Chick Corea Return To Forever

Hank Crawford Hank Crawford’s Back

Steve Khan Tightrope

Tappan Zee label Best Of…

Shabba Ranks “Ram Dancehall” b/w “Original Woman”

D&D All-Stars “1, 2 Pass It”

Rayvon “No Guns, No Murder”

Doug E. Fresh & Beenie Man “Hands In The Air”

Black Moon “Black Smif-N-Wesson” b/w Smif-N-Wesson “Headz Ain’t Redee”

Goats, The “Burn The Flag” b/w “Typical American”

Little Shawn “Don Perignon”

Specials, The More Specials

Lee Ritenour The Best Of…

Steve Khan Arrows

Genesis Invisible Touch

Vacancies, The Tantrum

Nobodys, The Generation XXX

Easy Action Friends Of Rock & Roll

New Bomb Turks Scared Straight

Roots, The Do You Want More?!!!??!

Eric B & Rakim Don’t Sweat The Technique

Boogie Down Productions Edutainment

X Clan Xodus

Lords Of The Underground Here Come The Lords

Buckshot LeFonque self-titled

Channel Live Station Identification

Funkdoobiest Brothas Doobie

Method Man & Mary J. Blige “I’ll Be There For You” / “You’re All I Need”

GZA / Genius Liquid Swords

Milk Never Dated

Naughty By Nature19 Naughty III

Das EFX Straight Up Sewaside

Grand Puba 2000

Naughty By Nature Poverty’s Paradise

Ol’ Dirty Bastard Return To The 36 Chambers (dirty version)

George Michael Faith

Vinyl Bay 777:

(No purchases.)

[grimeclown]

Built a lil thing for my guitars and I've got a cheapo radio on it rn but I want to get a record player and I want to start getting king gizzard records and I want to start paying someone to give me proper guitar lessons ans I'm going to keep investing in things that I like and invest in the kind of person I want to be

[steveinscarlet]

I need to buy a new record player because it's not worth trying to replace the worn out belt on the cheapo plastic one I have at the moment (which I got from a friend who was throwing it out). So I was looking online for a recommendation for a slightly less cheap (maybe £100 instead of £40) portable player. I know they're pretty rubbish but I do not have the space or the money for fancy separates and speakers the size of a wardrobe, plus I like the retro experience of lying on the floor playing records on a little thing in a suitcase. Anyway, I stumbled into some Reddit forum where someone had asked the same question and wow what a lot of condescending gate-keepy wank! A lot of stuff about ruining the experience, and damaging valuable records, and 'if you can't afford a decent system, you can't afford vinyl'. They do know that for a long time records were just the standard way you listened to music? And that for decades an awful lot of that listening was done on suitcase players in teenager's bedrooms? And that you can, and have always been able to, get secondhand 45s for pocket money? Just let people enjoy things ffs!

[dustedmagazine]

Mordecai — Seeds from the Furthest Vine (Petty Bunco)

Photo by Richie Charles

Seeds From the Furthest Vine, the latest Mordecai record, spends 37 minutes disassembling without completely coming apart. The trio plays like a ramshackle miniature train: one moment chugging wildly, tilting and careening, the next tipping back into something like balance, avoiding the wreck. Much of the folkish psychedelia from 2020’s patchy, engrossing Library Music is carried forward. Yet here, Mordecai both raises the intensity of the commotion and channels it into a more structured rock and roll. Seeds from the Furthest Vine, for all its thrashing, tends to find a tuneful coherence in the clatter.

Wild whistles follow the title track’s hop to its sequel, “Seeds from the Furthest Vine Part 2.” The guitar’s nodding, muted strum is right from the 1990s Darnielle school of straight-to-boombox longing. And as in many of those brief, early Mountain Goats songs, Mordecai builds up a shimmering aura in the atmosphere trailing off their simple, repetitive playing and dissonant detours. The brightness is moving. Something similar and wistful is achieved on “Oval Door” in the dogged, is-it-quite-tuned quality of the guitar and forceful hand-drumming. Still, disorder is never far away. “Oval Door” opens with the lyric “I am not in my right mind/as she stands by the oval door.” What’s going on is not exactly clear, but that we’re headed “a long way down” to somewhere is hard to deny. Even “Minted,” perhaps the record’s most staid song, with Holt Bodish annunciating a la Jonathan Richman and playing light, wind-bent chords, erupts in clean, treacly bursts of micro-strumming and clustered notes by the end.

Beyond the natural fizz of the recording style, there’s little distortion applied to the band’s amplified instruments. It’s the practiced unsteadiness of the playing and the exploratory percussion that creates the album’s ambient menace. Perhaps the most menacing, if not the most overtly abrasive is “Meat on a Stick.” It reels, distraught with thin, vertiginous guitar notes which teeter over the tinny explosions from Gavin Swietnicki’s drums (or is it trash can lids?) behind them. The sound is severe and intimate, with Bodish, somewhere between a mumble and cry, spinning out about “a perfect world” and “rotten flesh.” “Never Get Ahead” packs a more robust punch. A keyboard drone shifts up and down; it’s more mechanism than music. Take your pick: ten fingers jamming out a torrent of approximated chords or an exhausted car engine barely turning over. Either way, the band works “Never Get Ahead” up to a pounding ache.

“Divine Sea” is a highlight, both in the sense that it’s one of the album’s best songs and because it illuminates the fundamental elements. We get ranting, rambling bursts of lead guitar, but also a thick, discernible bassline from Elijah Bodish, which girds Holt’s humming, one-sided conversation. Swietnicki, for his part, could be hammering out the beat with screwdriver handles on a cardboard box. The sound is the album’s character distilled: wry and raw, drunk but mostly lucid. If “Divine Sea” is a showcase, then, in an apt bit of sequencing, the seven-minute closer “Down In An Alley" feels like a summation and even a lurch further. H. Bodish’s guitar alternates between chipping away at the space and peeling it back in great, metallic tugs while sundry percussive components, instrumental and otherwise, detonate in the background. What’s probably an accordion sighs. Gleeful, cheapo keys add to the texture and personality. It’s sprawling and wanton; a loose, petulant pleasure. Music that might be described in terms of heavy machinery with a different band is, with Mordecai, the sound of passed down hand tools and decayed electric saws whirling and chirping; the clanks and whines sparking out from under a half-open garage door down the block, or, indeed, alley. To wander over, even just to rubberneck, is to be drawn in.

Alex Johnson

[spectrallik]

Specter Learns Guitar, the Hard Way

Big things often start small

I may have made a terrible mistake.

I’m a lifelong keyboardist. Not a great one, but an OK one. And I’m finally comfortable enough with the instrument to write my own music. Just one problem: the kind of music I want to make, the stuff that’s running through my head all the time, is on the dream pop/shoegaze end of post-punk. Keyboardists have a place in dream pop, and some of my favorite dream pop acts like Alvvays and Hatchie prominently feature synths. But any genre that descends from punk rock, even something this far-removed, is still fundamentally a guitarist’s genre. Plus, the songs in my head are on the heavier side like The Joy Formidable - no keyboards there, unless you count getting on your hands and knees and playing your effects pedals like a keyboard.

My synth has guitar tones, but they come nowhere near replicating the real thing. And I have some guitar-playing family members who are willing to help me out, but I don’t really know how to communicate my ideas to a guitar player. They don’t read sheet music, they just play everything by ear. How could I communicate how to play a part, or even what tone I’m going for, when I didn’t really know how a guitar works?

The only halfway decent guitar tone on the Roland Fantom, and it only sounds good after you shove a fuckton of reverb and delay after it.

So, I decided that the only way to get that knowledge was to experience the guitar firsthand. I don’t want guitar to become my main instrument or anything, but I want to at least get comfortable with it. Once I understand how a guitar truly works, it will be much easier to write for it. 

Unfortunately, the guitar I want to get - a G&L Fallout - is backordered for a few months. So, in the meantime, I got a cheapo starter guitar to screw around with and hopefully get some of the basics down. I’ll trade it in for a pedal or something later.

This is the Eastrock 39, and it is a piece of shit. It barely stays in tune, the pickups sound thin and lifeless, and the frets are rough. You have to actively fight this thing to get the strings to ring properly. Some of my tone problems are because I still need to build finger strength, sure, but I’ve read reviews from veteran guitar players that say that this doesn’t play easily. Not great for a supposed “beginner” guitar. On the bright side, it came with a ton of extra stuff that doesn’t suck - a nice guitar bag, beginner picks, a solid capo, audio cables, and luthier tools to replace the strings and adjust the action. It even came with a practice amp, but I live in a studio apartment and have an audio interface for my synth, so I don’t have much use for it. 

So… goals. My first goal is to get the basic chords down, figure out how barres work, and learn ONE simple song. I’m not too worried right now about memorizing the fretboard - I’m not gonna do any solos anytime soon - but I need to understand chords to actually play songs. Luckily, guitar sheet music is more commonly written in an alternate form called tablature that is WAY EASIER TO UNDERSTAND THAN TRADITIONAL NOTATION, HOLY SHIT, WHY ISN’T THERE A VERSION OF THIS FOR PIANO!? I’m still not great at reading sheet music, despite my ClAsSiCaL SuZuKi MeThOd training, but it took all of 5 minutes to pick up TAB.

So, what’s my first song? Well, a few months ago, I got a picture of one of my characters playing air guitar and singing along to a song:

As it turns out, this song - Future Me Hates Me by The Beths - is very beginner friendly. 90% of the rhythm part is the same power chord shape, and the lead guitar part is pretty reserved and minimalistic by Jonathan Pearce standards. Plus, the guitar I'm waiting on is the exact same model that Liz Stokes played on that record. So it should sound perfect, especially once I get a RAT on my pedalboard.

So yeah, we'll see where this goes. I do want to keep track of my progress somewhere, and I'm planning on getting the fuck off Twitter once and for all, so I guess it will go here.

[fantastickkay]

Collection Spotlight: *NSYNC - Pop CD Single (2001)

*NSYNC's 2001 single Pop is one of the greatest pop songs of all time! I love how it is self aware about their 'bubblegum' status while also saying 'so what' to the haters. 'Cause we're just fine doing what we like, can we say the same for you?

It is also a grittier sound for them as they introduce this new Celebrity era. The production is gorgeous, everything is just perfect! Except... *insert record scratch sound effect here* man, I'm tired of singin.. Yep, the dreaded outro on the album version, SO CRINGE! So, when I found this Australian CD single while browsing the shelves of Cheapo and noticed it had the radio version, I was SO EXCITED! The remixes are also really great as well, I absolutely love the Deep Dish version - it goes on all my dance club playlists!