Author Archives: Gotta Groove Matt

If you are not already familiar with Ben Meador’s and Owen McCafferty’s book project entitled The New Face of Vinyl, you should definitely check it out if you have any interest or skepticism regarding the recent vinyl resurgence.

After their successful Kickstarter campaign, the authors are currently planning trips across the country to meet and speak with people who work with vinyl records, collect vinyl records, and have a variety of other connections to the format. We (TVD Cleveland) are huge fans of this project—not only because it’s about vinyl, but because the authors are from Cleveland themselves…

To help them facilitate conversations with folks who are interested in being featured in the book, Ben and Owen are hosting a survey to gain some preliminary insights and contact info. They are looking to meet with “people aged 15-25 who have found a new fascination in listening to, owning, or collecting vinyl records. The cities we are visiting include: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago, Cleveland, New York City and Nashville.”

We invite you to become a part of this project by taking a few moments to complete their short survey today!

Cleveland lo-fi band Total Babes are excited to share their latest track “Be So True” off their debut album Swimming Through Sunlight out August 30 on Old Flame Records and Continental Mind.

Swimming Through Sunlight is available from Old Flame now on cassette now, and you can pre-order the vinyl now too!

A personal fav of ours at TVD Cleveland—These Trails have ridden the wind from the Honolulu hills (circa 1973) to the black-hearted traders circles (circa the millennium) to today. Their one album fuses musical traditions of the nations in service of a young idea: assumptions of the eternal, couched in the personal.

These are songs of and for all kinds of folk, created and offered in all innocence. It is, and was, music of the then — and it can never happen again. But, you can grab the wax from Drag City now!

And you thought vinyl records were dead? Not so fast.

The New Face of Vinyl is a project that explores why young people across the United States have started a digital “devolution” by buying and listening to vinyl records. Throughout the country, young people are buying more and more vinyl, thus getting back to the analog roots of listening to music. Collecting and listening to vinyl has become a unique experience for many teens and young adults throughout the world who have chosen to explore the once forgotten black wax. Photographer Ben Meadors and writer Owen McCafferty are setting out to discover what vinyl means to these people, and will create a full color photo documentary book to tell the story.

The project at its core, explores and focuses on the cultural changes occurring as a result of this new found interest in vinyl. The reasons why vinyl has become so popular now are vast; Owen and Ben want to set out to New York City, Cleveland, Chicago, Portland and San Fransisco and talk to young record collectors, store owners and occasional vinyl-lovers to find out what keeps bringing them back for more.

After collecting all the pictures and interviews, the team will compose a 180+ page full color photo-documentary-book to tell the story, and share their experiences with the world.

Owen and Ben have chosen to use the popular organization Kickstarter to help collect donations in order to cover the traveling and printing expenses of the project.

The project won’t receive funding if $6,500.00 isn’t raised by July 31st 2011, so visit the site and make a donation to help Ben and Owen make this exciting project a reality.

Keep an eye on their site for updates, photos, and stories. You can follow the project on Twitter via @newfaceofvinyl.

Coming soon from Drag City is Mickey Newbury‘s An American Trilogy — a collection of three remastered (from the original tapes!) masterpieces from one of outlaw country’s first.

These are Frisco Mabel Joy, Looks Like Rain, and Heaven Help the Child. Drag City has also taken it upon themselves to release Better Days – a collection of previously unreleased sketches and demos from around the time Newbury was making these records.

An American Trilogy will be released on May 17, 2011 — if in Cleveland, hit up Music Saves to grab a copy….otherwise, check Record Store Day to find the closest indie store to you!

After finishing Patti Smith’s award-winning memoir Just Kids last week, Malcolm Gladwell’s work Outliers came to mind. In Outliers Gladwell argues that in order to achieve success in an area, luck, fortune, and chance factor as much into the outcome as does a person’s abilities—a proposition I bet Patti Smith would agree with.

Even without reading Just Kids, an observer of Patti Smith’s career would know that controversial photopgrapher Robert Mapplethorpe played a pivotal role in shaping Smith’s image. He took all the pictures on Smith’s classic 70s albums, including 1975’s Horses, one of the all-time great album covers. With a school girl blazer drapped her shoulder, Smith’s detached but cocked glare announced the arrival of a new wave of NYC rock and roll—all in glorious black-and-white.

Just Kids is based upon the Mapplethorpe-Smith relationship. In the book Smith recounts how Mapplethorpe, always ambitious, constantly encouraged Smith to do more: do openings, readings, shows and eventually concerts. After hearing Smith’s first indie single, “Hey Joe”/”Piss Factory,” Mapplethorpe pouted “you didn’t make anything we could dance to.” Mapplethorpe was the first to hear the Smith/Springsteen collaboration “Because the Night.” because she knew Mapplethorpe would be pleased; it was “fulfilling Robert’s dream that one day I would have a hit record.”

So how did Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith meet? On her first day in New York in 1967, she briefly encountered him while looking for a friend from college and remembered him (“I had never seen anyone like him”). Later that summer Smith is working in bookstore from which Mapplethorpe buys a piece of jewelry Smith admires; they strike up a conversation.

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While not a Cleveland area record store (they are located in Cincinnati, Ohio), Shake-It Records has strong ties to the Cleveland music scene dating back to the early 90s through its own label imprint (Shake-It). Shake-It Records released the early recordings by the renowned 90’s Cleveland-area rockabilly/punk group, the Cowslingers (in addition records by a few other bands too).

Shake-It the record label started as a mail-order only operation. In 1999, the business was expanded into its own stand-alone retail storefront, and has continued to be the premier indie record store in the Cincinnati area. The record label continues to release new 7″ singles and albums, including the Record Store Day 2010 limited edition 7″ release by the brainy band The Seedy Seeds entitled Roll Deep (Shake 764/ER-06/GGR pressing # 10-0057).

We had the pleasure of speaking with Shake-It co-owner Jim Blase for a quick “answer as many questions as you can in 2 minutes” interview:

What are the top 3 sellers at your store right now? Decemberists, The King Is Dead; Social Distortion, Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes; and Daniel Martin Moore, In The Cool Of The Day.

What is the craziest request you have ever received from a customer? Recently, a man walked in wearing a rabbit fur coat and star sunglasses, and asked if they carry fake beards and mustaches. [Editor’s comment: They don’t].

What, in your opinion, is the greatest album of all time? Professor Longhair, Crawfish Fiesta

The Vinyl District Cleveland is now Live! Thanks to TVD for choosing Gotta Groove Records to be the editors for TVD Cleveland.

While everyone knows that Cleveland Rocks (sorry, had to do it), it may not be as common knowledge that Ohio is home to several fixtures in the vinyl music scene and beyond. The state is home to two vinyl record pressing plants (Gotta Groove Records here in Cleveland and Musicol in Columbus), one of the largest vinyl record wholesalers in the U.S. (EDGE Entertainment in Streetsboro), national music publication Alternative Press, several respected recording studios (Ante Up, Acoustik Music/Room With A View Productions, and SUMA to name just three), monumental indie record stores and venues, and of course, the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame and Museum.

In the weeks ahead, we plan on bringing you profiles of local record stores, live music venues, recording studios, and many other of the great music businesses situated right here in Cleveland and throughout the buckeye state!

Of course, TVD Cleveland is also as much about discussing the amazing vinyl releases and performances occurring in the region as anything else – so if you know of any Ohio music related news, performances, releases, or anything else that you think we should be exploring on TVD Cleveland, definitely drop a line to matt [at] thevinyldistrict [dot] com.