Westwood Avenue (featuring Erin Rae)
Bachelorette Screams b/w Tennessee
scum stats: two versions, 25 copies on Wax Mage variant, the rest on pink (mine is pink)
HAPPY SEVEN YEARS OF RECORD OF THE WEEK WRITE-UPS!!!!!
Each anniversary here, I choose a record from the local Nashville label Soul Step. As a local vinyl focused label that is (essentially) a one-man operation.
I am disappointed in the missed opportunity to rhyme "bachelorette screams" with "Jason Aldean's" but otherwise, the a-side is a charming country ode to the "change" that has gone down in downtown Nashville, specifically the neon jungle of Broadway. Even more in the spirit is that Melvin, main man behind Soul Step, oversees a large corporate operation in the heart of Broadway and he described to me his release of this song as some quasi-payment of karmic debt to the situation.
Melvin explicitly said to me "I might only ever sell a handful of copies, but I just felt like I needed to put it out."
Having been in the game for nearly 25 years, shit, just this morning digging through decades old boxes of Cass Records backstock looking for a single copy of a record long-since declared unimportant by the masses of record buying public...I know the exact feeling. It's real. It motivates. It is arguably the reason I'm even here.
So while it seems like once a year is too infrequent to relay such a message, I will continue to relay it...SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL INDEPENDENT VINYL RECORD LABELS. They are not forever. They are not lucrative. They are not easy. They NEED it. They are imperative to the success of the overall vinyl (and music) ecosystem. Without small labels doing the leg work, taking chances, discovering the unknown...you don't ever get huge successes of the "next big things."
As a celebration of seven years of you folks continuing to read what I put here...I'm doing a giveaway. Post a comment here before Friday October 6th. Just make it good. Maybe it's about something YOU JUST HAVE TO DO. Maybe good equals funny. Maybe good equals emotionally heartbreaking. Maybe good is clever. You be the judge...until I be the judge.
Prize is...since I don't have anything specific sitting in my hands that makes me think that the winner will be all "oh boy oh boy oh boy!" I'm gonna call the winner, we're going to have a conversation about records and music and we'll decide, together, what record from the depths of my closet is commensurate with their award-winning commenting abilities.
Soul Step records is pretty awesome. He puts out some great bands with great music.
This is hands down the greatest comments ever in a giveaway. Exquisite job Mr. Blackwell for always digging deep and pulling out the heart from us to pour on a page. I really enjoyed this. The way vinyl and music has affected our lives and others is such a unique feeling. One more cup of coffee for the road. Good night to all, just got in from the cold dreariness of life.
Most of what you said is exactly why I put in the “free” hours versus the trade hours at the record store. It’s about…what is the more…what is the future…showing the future the past to make it part of the future again… Ya dig…Maybe I went to far. I usually do.
Hi Ben!!!
Vinyl saved my life. It was my first real escape from life. The crazy music production world the my mom drug me through in 1973. I was the unofficial DJ for small production parties at our house. Wild time for a little kid. I found safety in mr records.
Would love to talk with you again. I met you last Jan on a shop tour….. ur the best
💛Megan Zoe🖤
Having two daughters and being able to see their musical tastes evolve over the course of their childhoods has been fun to track. However, as much as their tastes changed, the one constant during that time is their ability to completely ignore any record or artist their father deems sacred. Ultimately the specific artist or record isn’t as important as a truly great song allowing you to completely lose yourself singing at the top of your lungs on a drive to get snacks at the convenience store. This we’ll always have in common.
Almost a perfect music video just missing an entry or exit from a Bachelorette black van shuttle service and maybe some penis straw necklaces. I would love to win this vinyl, but either way the real winner here was being turned onto Westwood Avenue. Been listening nonstop for the past few days since your post. Thanks Blackwell, love being a Vault member!
Love all that you do Blackwell! Just watched the video for the mastering of Elephant for the UHQR release and I love how seriously you take your role as the WS historian and how you are always looking to improve on the legacy.
Last year I went to a thrift store in Missouri and found that someone had donated hundreds, maybe thousands of 45 records. I went twice even though it was a bit of a trek. I went for the labels I had never heard of, the ones that had very little information listed online. There’s some real gems and I am for certain that nearly all of the record labels are long gone. What’s also fun is that I found maybe 2 dozen 45s out of Nashville labels. Man it really was Music City!
The White Stripes was the SECOND time I fell in love with music.
The FIRST was Queen. And just this past weekend, my girl surprised me with tickets to see the UK tribute band KILLER QUEEN in Greensboro NC. It is only when I am singing songs of Jack’s or Queen’s that I actually feel emotional about the music.
Long live Freddie!
When I was 8 years old my dad left my mom for a high school sweetheart. He left his old life behind including an old record player and his childhood collection of records stored in a wooden box decorated with imagery of mallards taking flight over a marsh.
On those quiet school nights with nothing to do I would stand on a chair and wrangle the heavy record player down from the top of the closet and pull out Joan Jett and the Black Hearts from that duck box, place it on the record player, put the needle down and spin it by hand while putting my ear close to the record.
I knew it needed something to actually play from speakers but I didn’t know what. Despite this it was truly captivating to hear that iconic riff and Joan’s gravely voice emitting from this piece of plastic I was spinning with my hand,
This piece of plastic my dad used to play with as evidenced by the well worn near tattered cover of Joan in her bright pink jacket standing against a baby blue background.
When I could finally buy my own record player and records I did and not to grovel but Third Man lit that spark in such a massive way. Music on plastic discs are my ducks in Tony Soprano’s pool (Season 1 episode 1) except I actually get to have them and they didn’t fly off with my penis in a dream… or did they?