Fort Collins, CO | The Great Vinyl Record Primer: 15 Albums That Should Be in Every Collection. There was a time when the main leisure activity for some friends and me was sitting around in someone’s living room, shooting the breeze and playing records. That’s records as in “LPs” or vinyl. Okay, so maybe it was a little bit of a slacker scene, but it was our kind of fun. Maybe we would play a game. Maybe we might have some favorite beverages at hand, maybe some food. However, the mandatory thing for meetings such as these was the music. We played albums. We passed the covers around, read the liner notes, told stories, and let the music flow. We shared our favorites, discovered new tunes, and refused to play what just wasn’t cool. One of the things we would discuss is if you could only have ten albums on a desert island, what would they be? I know, that’s not very deep, but it fascinated us.
Record Store Recs: Producer Bongo ByTheWay Shares The Music Of His Mind: “…Amoeba is one of the records shops I’ve always rocked with. It’s pretty well known, but the location at Hollywood in L.A. recently closed [and is moving(opens in a new tab) down the street]. There’s another store on Melrose called The Record Collector that’s pretty dope too. The most frequented place I get my vinyl records from is the Melrose Trading Post; they have a few booths that sell records but I don’t know the vendors’ actual names. As a producer, I’m a big texture guy. I love the different textures of music and vinyl records have an innate texture of their own because of the medium. That grittiness, tone and the overall feel is incomparable. Even though you can synthesize sounds to get that feel, at the end of the day, there is nothing like vinyl. You can find some great, classic records at these shops, so it’s always a unique, memorable experience every time. For the most part, I solely pick up vinyl when I visit [these stores].”
Albany, NY | The return of the independent label: …Now, in the current days of the internet, aside from the streaming services, a new breed of independent labels have begun to pop up. Many of these cater to niches not served by these large music labels. They serve primarily roots music such as Rockabilly, Surf, Garage, and other less commercial, but equal in talent, styles of music. I reached out to a few of these independent labels who primarily produce records similar to the way they were done in the 50s, mostly singles of 45 RPM vinyl, with a few full albums, as well as CD and digital downloads. Many of which, I play on my show, Big Ed’s Little Rock & Roll Show on radioradiox.com. Beck Rustic, who runs Swelltune Records out of Revere, Massachusetts, Sean Law, who runs a pair of labels, Rockin Records and Jinx Records, out of Vancouver, BC, and Magdelena O’Connell, who along with Vincent Minervino, run Hi-Tide Recordings out of Asbury Park, NJ were kind enough to sit down and answer a few questions.
A 12-Inch From an Obscure British DJ Is Now the Most Expensive Record Sold on Discogs: Scaramanga Silk’s 2008 self-released debut, Choose Your Weapon, fetched just over $41,000. Discogs, the bottomless music reference site and music marketplace, has released a list of the 100 most expensive records sold on its platform, and the Number One sale is a fittingly obscure one: a special 12-inch promo vinyl released by the British DJ Scaramanga Silk. Scaramanga Silk’s 2008 self-released debut, Choose Your Weapon, was released as a promo gatefold with a 12-inch vinyl and a CD-Rom, both of which contain the title track. The release also comes with “an art print by Immyart and a poem on acetate.” Only 20 copies of Choose Your Weapon exist and the Discogs record-breaker sold for $41,095.891. Little is known about Scaramanga Silk, who has been releasing music at a slow and steady clip since 2008, including a debut album, Designer Scribble, that arrived in 2016 via Micro Scribble.
Pro-Ject launches phono stages across budgets, plus vinyl-cleaning brooms: Very flexible phono stages between $349 and $1999. Pro-Ject has launched a phono preamp, and on paper it appears to be a doozy of a flexible friend. The Phono Box RS2 is compatible with both moving magnet (MM) and moving coil (MC) cartridges, helping it fit seamlessly into almost any turntable setup. It has a fully balanced, true dual-mono design with fully passive RIAA and DECCA equalisation. It also has plenty of connections, including balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA inputs and outputs. And it should be able to suit your system perfectly, thanks to the continuously variable input impedance loading and channel balance controls. It will even continue to adjust in real-time while the system is playing. It comes in silver or black and costs $1999. But that’s not the only new product Pro-Ject has announced.
