If there’s one band that’s been THE biggest supporter of Record Store Day from the proverbial get-go, it’s Metallica. As such, we’re psyched to be offering this lil slice of Metal Mayhem as TVD’s Eleven Weeks of Record Store Day Vinyl Giveaway, Week 5! It’s the very first Metallica LP “Kill ‘Em All” (Or, “Kill all posers!”) and the most recent Metallica record “Death Magnetic” wrapped in what’s probably my favorite cover graphic from last year.
So, wanna wrap your hands around these records? Grab our attention in the comments WITH your email address (important!) so we can contact you about your triumphant win. (Or, you can comment and forward your email address in an email to us. We’re not picky.) And remember – each entry into our vinyl contest is an automatic entry to win the Stanton T.90 USB turntable on Record Store Day 2009!
Just make it funny. Or make it smart. About record stores. Or Record Store Day. Or vinyl. About us or you. Or something else all together. Just make it before next Monday (3/2) when we’ll choose our winner. (AND launch giveaway #6…)
“You know, a lot of people come to me and they say, ‘Steve, how can you be so fucking funny?’ There’s a secret to it, it’s no big deal. Before I go out, I put a slice of bologna in each of my shoes. So when I’m on stage, I FEEL funny.”
Rare it is indeed when the TVD readership writes to us here directly to say they’ve enjoyed a posted feature or theme–but it seems we hit upon something with our recent ‘Laugh Tracks’ series if the response at TVD HQ is to be any indication. So, we’re digging into our bag of wax once more this week to breathe life into the cubicle (or office) with a dose of classic levity. And they don’t come more classic or uh, levitated:
The Vinyl Giveaway Madness continues for another week here at TVD with two Dan Auerbach related releases — The Black Keys “Attack & Release” and Dan’s new solo LP, “Keep It Hid.”
And if that’s not enough to get you opining in the comments, our good friends at Crooked Beat Records have a pair of tickets to give away to see Dan Auerbach at the 9:30 Club on Saturday, February 28th! Get down to the store, tell ’em The Vinyl District sent ya, and enter your name into the giveaway. A winner for the tickets will be drawn in-store on 2/26 for Dan’s show at the 9:30 on 2/28.
Meanwhile, the process is the same to get your hands on the vinyl: grab our attention in the comments WITH your email address (important!) so we can contact you about your triumphant win. (Or, you can comment and forward your email address in an email to us. We’re not picky.) And remember – each entry into our vinyl contest is an automatic entry to win the Stanton T.90 USB turntable on Record Store Day 2009!
Just make it funny. Or make it smart. About record stores. Or Record Store Day. Or vinyl. About us or you. Or something else all together. Just make it before next Monday (2/23) when we’ll choose our winner. (AND launch giveaway #5…)
Fresh off the road supporting The Who, you’d think that Winnipeg’s Inward Eye, who cite influences as varied as The Kinks, The Jam, Smokey Robinson, and Holland-Dozier-Holland, might have a thing or two to say regarding vinyl records. And you’d be right.
We caught up with the trio’s bassist and vocalist Dave Erickson, with a flashback or five:
“My earliest memory of vinyl records was the smell. Opening my dad’s wooden drawer filled with old relics, I remember this earthy organic smell filling the air, much like the sound. Flipping through the strange looking artwork wondering what they all sounded like is how I first fell in love with music.
I remember hearing vinyl for the first time and loving the warmth of the bass and how everything seemed to meld into one big sound, like it was pulsing together, with a real heart and soul. You really can’t achieve that with a CD or iPod. Some may say that a CD has a “truer” sound because it has a greater bandwidth, but there is something about putting on an old record that seems to suspends reality for moment without the sterile pro-tooled sound.”
I’ve gone on and on in this spot in regard to my eye-gouging disdain for contemporary ‘popular’ music, so I won’t repeat myself again. But I’ve often felt that the young impressionals out there are currently getting the shaft–to the point where I’m almost beginning sentences with the, “In myyy day…” with that down the nose sneer n’ all.
But I do tend to believe that Top 40 radio and singles and pop stardom was far better in the early, classic Tiger Beat era.
Or was it?
Have I glamorized my own brand of heady youth that I’m just not seeing clearly? I mean, I wasn’t READING Tiger Beat, but I can point to a particular radio-friendly era with fondness that Tiger Beat covered to a fault. (And it’s not a fault that the pre-teen female audience fretted over, I’m sure.)
So, for the coming days TVD’ll be asking the question out loud: Was Top 40 radio and singles and pop stardom far better in that Tiger Beat era?
Actually, I’m not sure myself but we’ll find out together as we relisten (or listen anew) to some of this stuff.
A confession right up front however, if it wasn’t for Sweet’s ‘Fox On The Run’ and the Bay City Rollers’ ‘Saturday Night’ you’d all be staring at a blank screen right about now…
Another week, another great TVD vinyl giveaway! This week: the all hip-hop edition! (Covering all the bases here on the blog, huh?) Up for grabs this week is the new Murs LP, ‘Murs for President’ and ‘Notorious’, the Biggie Smalls movie soundtrack.
You know the drill; grab our attention in the comments WITH your email address (important!) so we can contact you about your triumphant win. (Or, you can comment and forward your email address in an email to us. We’re not picky.) And remember – each entry into our vinyl contest is an automatic entry to win the Stanton T.90 USB turntable on Record Store Day 2009!
Just make it funny. Or make it smart. About record stores. Or Record Store Day. Or vinyl. About us or you. Or something else all together. Just make it before next Monday (2/16) when we’ll choose our winner. (AND launch giveaway #4…)
You know how it is with first dates–very often they rely completely on happenstance and timing. There’s simply no way around it.
Fortunate we be then, to have Boston, Mass’s Aloud right here–in DC…yep…tonight. Now, you do with this info as you will, but we here at TVD think it’d be wise to be front and center at Velvet Lounge later, saaay…about 10PM or so. (And I’d come with flowers. It IS Valentine’s Day week after all.) Meanwhile, Henry Beguiristain (vocals/guitars) has a valentine for us:
“It was a few years ago I was reminded how wonderful listening to vinyl can be. I was hanging out with a friend of mine one evening and was amazed that she’d never heard Strawberry Fields Forever on vinyl. I promptly dusted off the record player, placed the Magical Mystery Tour LP onto the turntable, and did my best to carefully place the needle where the track began (or at least my best approximation). Fireworks. Well, maybe fireworks and the musky smell of old record sleeves. Anyway, I was 13 years old all over again, listening to that song for the first time after I’d raided my mom’s stash of records one afternoon, poring over non-extant hidden meanings and figuring out WHO exactly buried Paul.
Nostalgia aside, what really pulled me in was simply how great it all sounded. This is how these songs were meant to be heard. Rich, WARM, with a bit of hiss, crackly at times, and not compressed to hell. These are all the qualities that fewer and fewer albums coming out seem to lack—sacrificed on the Altar of Blandness, often mistaken for some vague notion of Loudness. One can go on all day about sound, though, which is ultimately in the ear of the beholder. At the end of the day, I guess the main allure of the LP is that, by its very nature, it DEMANDS to be appreciated. The packaging is too large to ignore. The disc itself is extremely fragile and must always be handled with care. A little after twenty minutes you have to get your ass up off the couch to flip it over. And, unless you’re willing to put in the work, there’s no shuffle function here; THIS ALBUM WILL BE LISTENED TO. As a result, something happens, something important, that has been seemingly bred out of us in the 21st Century: you stop and smell the roses.
While I’ll freely admit that my iPod is my constant companion, there’s something to be said for vinyl outlasting audio cassettes, 8-tracks, and—soon enough—CDs. So while I’m not suggesting this magnificent format is going to overtake mp3s in popularity anytime soon, I’d be willing to place my bets that vinyl would make for good cover during a nuclear explosion. At least that’s what it says when you play Octopus’s Garden in reverse…”
This past December, under the guise of a little experiment here at TVD, I wrote that I, you, we spend an inordinate amount of time by ourselves in our daily lives performing those basic, mundane tasks that are the essence of being human–showering, brushing one’s teeth, taking out the garbage…the list goes on.
In my teen years which are normally the most social of times, it seemed I’d go out of my way to retire to solitude after school and most oddly on the weekends. I wasn’t a loner by any real stretch of the imagination…just sorta’ kept to myself with the outlets being drawing and reading, for example. The major outlet however was: music.
I was reminded recently about “Things from England,” Scott “The Professor” Muni’s Friday afternoon 4-6PM radio show on New York City’s WNEW-FM. I’d tape the entire show and later, on walks outside by myself or with the family dog, boom-box in tow, would listen to the program back as Scottso’s voice boomed off homes braced for winter weather, buttressed by tall snow drifts that I never seem to experience any longer.
There’s a quiet solitude within this winter weather I recall quite fondly when I’d head outdoors into the snow for a long walk around the block or up the hill where we’d sleigh-ride …but long after everyone had gone home. Bathed in purple/orange streetlight–that was the place for me. And “The “Professor.”
This week we’re gonna go on some of those walks again with some of the music that, for good or for bad, became the soundtrack…
It’s an understatement to say that we here at TVD are proud to have teamed with Som Records,DC Soul, and Civilian Art Projects to bring you what we hope will be one of many Washington, DC Record Fairs.
Please join us this Sunday, February 8th in the Civilian Arts gallery located at 406 7th Street, NW for an afternoon of records, DJ’s, (adult) refreshments, and yea — more records. We’ve got dealers from New York, Richmond, and all points in between hawking their vinyl wares. DJ’s confirmed so far include DJ’s Name Names, D-Mac, and Nitekrawler.
So, get to brunch. Knock back a few Bloody Marys (as we’ll have) and join us this Sunday. We’ll be the folks with our noses in the crates…
“ORPHEUS RECORDS WILL BE OPEN THE REMAINING FRIDAYS & SATURDAYS IN FEBRUARY ….Friday & Saturday…Noon til 9pm…….February 6 & 7…Feb 13 & 14…Feb 20 & 21 and Feb 27 & 28…There are about 2000 lps out, that weren’t out 3 weeks ago. They are not part of the “sale”, but they are priced to move. Come on in, gobble them up, and while you’re here…….. THIS WEEKEND CONTINUES OUR 2nd ANNUAL “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE”. To Commemorate the occasion ALL THE LPS THAT WE WERE SELLING FOR ONE DOLLAR WILL BE 2 FOR A DOLLAR…. The new release & re-issue lps that have never been part of the sale are on display, still FULL PRICE. MOST OTHER LPS IN THE STORE ARE 2 FOR ONE DOLLAR. THAT MEANS: if the sticker says it’s 99 cents it’s 2 for a dollar, if the sticker says it’s $9.99, it’s 2 for a dollar, if the sticker says it’s $29.99 or even more (not likely) it’s still 2 for a dollar. Come on in, stack ’em up and buy as much as you can afford, or more, 2 for ONE DOLLAR. Please bring boxes if you need them, we’re out…”
The Submarines have covered The Morning Benders. The Morning Benders have covered The Submarines. Now TVD’s got you covered with a pair of tickets for Sunday night’s show at The Black Cat and a tour CD for the individual jumping up and down and waving in the comments to get our attention.
So now, here’s a tip for one perfect Sunday — head on over to Civilian Arts for the TVD, Som Records, and DC Soul-sponsored Record Fair, then zip on over to the Cat and catch the Subs and the Benders live. It does not get better, now does it?
The contest closes on Friday, so get to typing! (Remember to leave us some contact info too!)
Not for one moment do we think we need to school the readership of TVD in regard to these three seminal Van Morrison releases, 1968’s ‘Astral Weeks’ and Van’s two bits of brilliance from 1970, ‘Moondance’ and ‘His Band and the Street Choir.’
What we do need to impart however, is that this triumvirate of 180gram remastered vinyl from the original analog master tapes is the mind-blowing prize for the second week of our Record Store Day 2009 ‘Eleven Weeks of Vinyl Giveaways’ contest! That’s right–this week’s one winner gets all three LPs shipped directly to his or her mailbox.
By now you know the drill; grab our attention in the comments WITH your email address (important!) so we can contact you about your triumphant win. (Or, you can comment and forward your email address in an email to us. We’re not picky.)
Just make it funny. Or make it smart. About record stores. Or Record Store Day. Or vinyl. About us or you. Or something else all together. Just make it before next Monday (2/9) when we’ll choose our winner. (AND launch giveaway #3…)
In honor the 2nd annual Record Store Day, Matador Records will be releasing the following limited edition vinyl titles, only available at independent retailers taking part in RSD2009:
OLE-864-7 – Jay Reatard “Hang Them All” 7″ b/w Sonic Youth – “No Garage” OLE-865-7 – Sonic Youth – “Pay No Mind” (Beck cover) b/w Beck – “Green Light” (Sonic Youth cover) 7″ OLE-855-1 – Pavement Live In Germany LP
Matador’s making 2,500 each of the above. After they’re gone, to quote the Matador Matablog, “…tough fuckin’ shit.”
If there’s one band that’s been THE biggest supporter of Record Store Day from the proverbial get-go, it’s Metallica. As such, we’re psyched to be offering this lil slice of Metal Mayhem as TVD’s Eleven Weeks of Record Store Day Vinyl Giveaway, Week 5! It’s the very first Metallica LP “Kill ‘Em All” (Or, “Kill all posers!”) and the most recent Metallica record “Death Magnetic” wrapped in what’s probably my favorite cover graphic from last year. 
