Monthly Archives: February 2012

Son of Bazerk suffered the double whammy of arriving too late and also too early. Instead of the success they deserved for their enduringly brilliant debut Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk, they had to settle for cult status.

Production by Hank Schocklee and The Bomb Squad insured that the group was in no way behind the times on a musical level, but in terms of presentation and content, they unfortunately fell outside the zeitgeist; savvy in conception while also possessing the requisite intensity, this still underappreciated classic fits rather snuggly into the niche of rap as extroverted, highly social party music.

Problem was, by 1991 the hip-hop tide had changed toward socially relevant, politically conscious, often angry tracts as exemplified by Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet and Ice Cube’s Amerikka’s Most Wanted, both released the previous year and both notably produced by The Bomb Squad. Instead of righteous platforms of truth-telling and uncensored depictions of ghetto existence, Son of Bazerk was a crew dedicated to elevating and extending the time honored tradition of rocking the block and the club with finely tuned precision.

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In a bit of karmic congruity, Record Store Day reaches a 5 year milestone this year as does TVD—this lil site you’re presently perusing. Without the raw data in front of me to confirm any suspicions, I have to think both endeavors are somewhat responsible for the renewed interest in vinyl and the uptick in interest as to all things record store.

To celebrate these stars aligning, we’re going full out over the next 10 weeks with the vinyl giveaways (as we’ve done every year to be fair) in anticipation of Record Store Day 2012 which arrives on April 21st this year.

To kick off our vinyl giveaways, we’ve got one of our absolute favorites from last year, The Joy Formidable’s The Big Roar, of which NME swooned, “Led by rock’s new heroine Ritzy Bryan, and swathed in swirling guitarscapes and momentous walls of sound, The Big Roar is the kind of epic-yet-intimate debut that does exactly what its title makes out in the most tactful of styles; an LP that ultimately delivers on every count on the four years of promise leading up to it – primarily in its gutsy, chest-swelling brilliance and partly because, well, you’ll probably be sufficiently acquainted with a fair few of the tracks already…”

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