Are You Still A Vinyl Junkie?

 

Are You Still A Vinyl Junkie?

 

Even in this day and age of free digitally downloadable music straight into your cerebral cortex, CDs for a couple of pence on the Amazon Basin, and streaming sites as open and free as a Jehovah Witness cake sale, are you still worried that you’re dangerously addicted to vinyl?

 

Are your friends and family concerned for your wellbeing, and have they started to question your obsession with all things disc shaped? Do you sketch out various gun tower designs in your head in order to ‘take out’ the eBay sharks who queue up at 2am on Record Store Day just to turn a quick profit? Since when did record collecting and gig going become the new Harrods Sale? Sleeping bags and thermos flasks at dawn as opposed to (Sex) Pistols at Dawn.

 

Do you lose sleep at night sweating about being a 12” Trainspotter, or spend your waking hours having unconditional cravings for gatefold sleeves and crease free spines?  If you are, then here are 24 fail-safe indicators which will help you to check the seriousness of your addiction.

 

You know you’re still a Vinyl Junkie if......

 

1) You suffer more pain to your body due to record collecting - shoulder strap burn, crate-lugging-spine-crack, dusty fingered dysentery, Isopropyl inhalation, and paper-cut lock-jaw - than sports related injuries. Why carry round a memory stick with the whole of HMV on it when 2 battered flight cases are a far more romantic healthy proposition. Even if the ‘gig’ is up three flights of stairs, recently decorated.  Laptops after all, are for laps, and for tits who want to check their Facebook updates.
 

2) You will quite happily visit a quaint historical English town purely for the record shops and not for the quaint historical English town.
 

3) You seriously weigh up the pros and cons of purchasing more records as opposed to buying any food at the weekend. "Well that jar of pickled eggs, box of All Bran and can of Sild will see me through ‘til the end of the month!"
 

4) Even on bright sunny days, 'inside with choons' is preferable: and even on clear days the only point you can see is the end of a stylus.
 

5) You frequently measure your accommodation, not for new furniture, but in order to look for extra space to pack in more vinyl. "Ahh, the skylight, now there's room for a shelf up there"
 

6) You develop a love for groups such as, 'XTC', 'Yes' and 'ZZ Top' because your alphabetical record library is a little, "A-B-C top heavy man!" Xmal Deutschland, Yummylip Jester, and Zebra Tripod certainly help fill a gap.
 

7) You will quite happily convince yourself that the one hundred pounds plus you have just spent on records is a sound investment. Only to get home and have a proper listen and realise that 90% of it is a load of old pony.
 

8) You think, Ikea is a hateful place, full of pseudo-trendy flat pack Automatons, purchasing lifestyles off the peg; but you're willing to concede that they do possess top quality shelving; and now that that advert with the ‘DJ’ has gone viral, you feel justly vindicated. Even though he’s probably an actor from Devon.
 

9) You will wander the length and breadth of towns and cities to find an uncreased mint nick version of the latest Moodyman 12". One tiny crease on the corner will not do. People banging into your bag on the bus creates more than a moody man.
 

10)You used to be prepared to wait behind, 'Dj Trance Monkey' - as he pretended he was  in Cream - and waste twenty minutes in Virgin/HMV just to listen to a record you picked up, 'on a whim.' You wished cholera and pestilence upon Cream after you eventually listened to your tune and you realised that it was a pot of pish. You now wait in a ‘virtual queue’ trying to score a limited edition of one of the 14 7”s from a cottage in Liverpool, hand stamped by a Slovakian exchange student.
 

11) You cannot sell any of your records and you will quite happily convince yourself that the 'Big Beat Happy Hardcore Tibetan Trance Revival' is just around the corner and all the top DJs will probably be caning that stuff next month.
 

12) You suffer apoplexy when steaming off price labels and it takes a bit of the cover off with it. You’d rather scald yourself than risk any part of that pink Day-Glo £6.99 sticker remaining.
 

13) You must have both versions of 'Strathclyde Milkbottles' by The Electric Figs, even though the only difference between the two 12"s is a triangle going, "PING" in the last two bars of the first version and an A or B on the matrix code.
 

14) You cannot return home from a shopping trip without the feel of a plastic record bag slapping at your thigh. Even if you have to buy, 'The Best of Racey', 'Mrs Mills Piano Party' , 'Mantovani Live' or 'Mother' by Goldie. You’ll convince yourself that The Rastrick Brass Band probably has at least one ‘winner’ on it too.
 

15) You get irritated when a reviewer spells the name of an Aphex Twin song incorrectly, eg. Antiphlemghoxxornish!te as opposed to Antiphlemghoxxornish!ta.
 

16) You will quite happily buy obscure 80s pop from markets and confidently pass it off as 'Balearic.' Point of Caution – Confiscated Snood, A Flock of Falkland Sheep and The Brotherhood of Hair Gel, were, and always will be shite.
 

17) You call into question the professional integrity of a record shop owner who doesn't open before eight o'clock in the morning. ‘Well without me, they’d close!’ you exclaim rather indignantly. They did, but they’re open again now.
 

18) You will happily talk for hours about the limited editions on the Bulgarian record label, 'Imploded Cavity' with anyone who will listen. NB. It is not a good idea to share your knowledge with, members of your family, the police or the armed forces. They will undoubtedly have you committed.
 

19) Christmas Day is scribbled onto your calendar with a 2B pencil, whereas Record Store Day is etched into your calendar with indelible ink, aerosol and your own blood.
 

20) It’s Vinyl not Vinyls
 

21) Every record you own is safely and lovingly sheathed in a plastic protective sleeve. Ironically you have a slightly more cavalier approach when it comes to prophylactic sheathing.
 

22) When people tell you stories about how they ‘used to have a large collection of ‘vinyls’, but they sold/lost/threw/burned/binned/recycled them, a little part of you dies.
 

23) You have too many records.
 

24) You state the bleedin' obvious!

Mutant Balearic Vol 1.

MUTANT BALEARIC Volume 1. Shameless Bootleg Collection (similar to 'The Balearic Sound of.'.) of some very rare tunes cobbled together by some wealthy baseball cap wearing hipster twat who hangs around 'Balearic' parties with an iPhone constantly on Shazam. A few know of his identity, but it would be churlish of me to reveal it here. Needless to say, he went to Cambridge, got a first in Economics and wouldn't know a decent tune if it hit him on his inbred chopping block of a head, were it not for the tireless DJs and music obsessives who unearth this type of stuff in the first place for this robbing cock to boot and reap the ill-gotten rewards.

Side A:

Chico Career – ‘It’s Bird Flu Time (Los Salinas Beach Bar Edit).’ Pop-infused paean to forgotten tabloid scare stories. The rare follow-up to his cover version of Izzit and Dizzit’s ‘Foot and Mouth’.

Ms Dynamite, Sean Paul, Roll Mop Herring Deep and Twista – ‘Water Get No Enema (Sunset over Palma Beatless Mix)’. Charity collective raising awareness for ‘Bowel Cleansing Week’. It’s some next level shit man. Witness the shitness.

Nils Loftgreen – ‘Roots Manoeuvre (Baldelli 4am paella mix)’. The diminutive bandana wearing clod-hopping rock Umpa lumpa’s latest tune, inspired by the tree surgeons of Ghent and Hydroponic secrecy.

The Protagonists - ‘Turin Shroud Brakes’ With a nod to Ibiza Rock Pools, Welsh electro-gash five-piece delicately rip through a song dedicated to the cog stopping holy cloth of Italy.

 The Balearic Sound of Nerina Lorry Pallet – ‘My Space Declined Kumquats (Café Del Mar Sunset over the hordes edit)  ’ Impish Balearic wobble pop from the daughter of the landlord of the Jolly Butcher’s Testicles, Hove.

Side B:

The Spanish Proclaimers – ‘Them X Factor Coonts Are Biting Oor Style’. Leith-spawned Celtic shouty pop from the brothers Ben King Carlos and Wayne.

 Herbie Hancock’s Half Hour – ‘Zoot, Sqoit, Plink, Whizz, Burble and Sploosh’. Onomatopoeic-cosmic jazz fest from the housewives favourite.

Transsexual Bob – ‘Man, I Feel Like A Woman (Miss Selfridges Ku Mix)’ Canadian based cross-dressing perv murders (in a good way) the Shania Twain MOR stompathon.

 Julius Cesaro and Mariano Faithfulo with FPI Projecto  – ‘Futbol, Basketbol and Volleybol’(Amnesia ’88 Edit). Balearo-Jazz dance classic gets the edit treatment for the ASBO 88 EMO SENCO generation.

 Captain Hook – ‘Clap Your Hands, Say…..OW!’ (Jose Padilla Space Pirate mix) Booty breaks, hybrid squelch and sleazy skiffle grime from this Hoxton septet.

Aficionado Presents: Land of Light

Larry's Lounge

Bar Moda

A Potted History Of The Crackle In Vinyl

A potted history of the crackle in vinyl, for those whose ipods do not fizz, crackle, pop or show any of that 'surface' matter, for that matter.
 

1117 – the first crackle is discovered in Ye Olde Worlde Plague house, Pudding Lane, London. Locals are heard to shout, ‘A pox on your crackles sir, a pox!!’ as the gravest form of insult, as well as 'ye smoothe faced cunt ye! Why were it no for my filthy pock marked, line strewn face sir, I would be taken for a child chimmney sweep.'
 

1324 – Dogs are invented
 

1476 – Megaphones are invented
 

1524 – Colonel Tobias Emary Snowball-Truss listens to his dog barking through a megaphone. The image hangs in the ether of human consciousness for centuries.
 

1901 – The eminent Victorian scientist, philanthropist and vendor of quack nostrums, Dr Harlequin Pluckrosefeltch rediscovers crackles by accident. Working late one evening on sound reproduction in his study, he accidentally spills some tincture of warthog sputum onto his beloved musical cylinder organ. The discomfort of crackles throughout his favourite songs causes him such anger that he becomes a Tibetan yak herder.
 

1948 – Columbia release the first ever vinyl album by a young Danny Tenaglia called New Yoik, New Yoik. Due to an unfortunate disagreement at the pressing plant due to a dispute over sauce rations on the hotdogs, the acetates are forever soiled with mustard, ketchup and over excited loin splash.
 

1951 – RCA launch the ill fated 4-inch 45rpm single.
 

1952 – RCA launch the more successful 7-inch 45rpm single. The extra 3 inches allows for more crackle potential but it is argued that 3 extra inches = jazz crackle!
 

1955 – Bill Haley and the Comets release, ‘Rock Around The Unbearably Static, Crackly, Popping Grandfather Clock’ an homage to Bill’s Father’s Father’s Vandergraff Generator-cum-timepiece. Sales of 4 inch plus 3’s (as they are known) rocket from the crypt.
 

1976 – Punk Rock spawns a newer more deadly form of crackle as pressing plant employees happily ‘gob’ on acetates in reverential acknowledgement of what is between the grooves, and their need to release self-inflicted 'grollies' of UHU filth.
 

1983 – The CD is launched. Crackles are added when people eat their dinner off them.
 

1988 – The rave generation think the fizzes crackles and pops in the grooves are ambient messages sent from planet Ozric and a Guy Called Gerald.
 

1992 – CD sales overtake 12 inch vinyl sales for the first time. Farmers use vinyl crackle to scare moles and crows.CD favouring farmers invent BSE.
 

1997 – Sales of Samplers and turntables outstrip conventional instruments. As a fightback, Dr Nobel Gas Krypton, the eminent German scientist, invents a guitar, which sends out crackles.
 

1998 – Vinyl is 50 years old. Crackles gatecrash the birthday party, kick the door in, drink all the booze and scratch the furniture.
 

2004 – Old samples are released with crackles in new work. Debate flares. Crackles get angry. Say ‘It’s our ball and we’re not playing!’ and immigrate to Nevada, where they open up a motel with shit static TV reception.

 

2009 - Radiohead release a limited polythene bag full of pork scratchings, which they charge nothing for. Farmers complain, suggesting pigs have died for this shit.

 

2010 - Vinyl begins a resurgence. 180gm Audiophile copies of records sell out within hours. Audiophiles weep into their Snap, Crackle and Pop cereal due to the perfection and the loss.

 

2012 - Bands begin to realise the provenance of the crackle and add it to their recording process. Small minded men in Switzerland complain that paper particles are invading their grooves and are somewhat ruining the ambience of their fumidor collection of rare Tame Impala.

 

2013 - Hipsters are buying more 7" records than downloads. Hush my baby baby don't you cry.

Bjork - Violently Harpy

 

Violently Harpy

Has anyone else scored a copy of that recent Bjork record? I don’t mean 'Bastards' , but the collection of unreleased session tracks, which got a Japanese only release at the same time. Strictly under the counter stuff, very limited and very expensive. Thankfully a good friend of mine has just returned from Tokyo and very kindly bought me back a copy.

The album, ‘Icelandic Pixie Ring of Sprite Juice’, is quite incredible; it makes Yoko Ono’s Avant-Garde warblings sound like Celine Dion, and just needs to be heard by more than a few elite Japanese business men and Wire journalists. I’m happy to share my thoughts with those of you who are contemplating the expensive punt.

The album kicks off in grand style with the tune, ‘Black Pearl Piercing Parlour’, for this Bjork sampled the grunts and groans of Five Sumo wrestlers as they had the letters of her name tattooed onto their buttocks. Over this she sings of her love of sportsmen in nappies and talc, in Mauritian.

Song two, ‘Battysea Dogs Home’, is a work of abstract genius. Bjork is accompanied by the the sea bat canine inmates of Battersea dogs home all woofing and a’ barking as she meows in a weird and slightly disturbing way. This of course sets the dogs off and they reach new highs of barking joy.

She continues to push the Avant-Garde boundaries on the album’s third track, ‘Dental Gasthaus 57’. Fifty Seven dentist drills are suspended from a Tyrolean cottage, screeching away whilst the world famous nose and throat singer, Janice Cher-Dubarry gargles the Star Spangled Banner with Listerine.

‘Syringe Balloon Rabbit Warren’ follows. An instrumental consisting of balloons being popped by big rabbits with syringes, it’s her most challenging work yet.

‘Doppelzimmer Samaritan Purse Cake’ is just Bjork’s rumbling stomach sampled through an 808 and then dropped into a charity shop letterbox. (In the background it’s possible to hear, ‘Yes Dear, that’s nice, but it’s not exactly, Des O’Connor now is it?’

‘Jumpin Jack Cow, It’s a Gas Gas Gas’ samples 25 Indian Holy cows as they break wind into a turbine engine with Bollywood’s best known Mick Jagger impersonator, ‘Talvin Sings the Blues’, scatting with a clothes peg on his nose with rampant abound.

The album closes with an amazing duet between Bjork and Burkin Fatso, the world famous opera singer and fat twat. He sings in deep gutteral tones about his love of spam fritters and she sings rhetorical questions such as, ‘Why do all Spanish people wear red cord jeans and rugby shirts?’

If anybody wants me to burn then a copy….tough, I like being an elitist snob with records no one else owns.