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.
I lost my dog and my dad on the same day.
A few months ago my pops had a stroke,a couple weeks later he took his last breath in Hospice.Imagine the person the person you look up to and love dearly laying there lifeless,organs shut down,basically staving to death.To add injury to insult…we were having a privacy fence built,the contractors had one day left and assured us the dogs could not get out. My new pup poodle escaped the yard and was hit and killed.
It’s been a rough couple of years,thank goodness for good music. Peace and love
This Friday, the 6th I turn 55. I never imagined or thought when I was younger 55. I lived for the moment. Some moments turned out better than others. But the one constant was music. We just moved into a new house and one must have was a music room; which we have. Then another must have was no TV downstairs but a turntable and speakers. Nothing fancy. Just the ability to dust off the records that have been in a box for 20 plus years and spin them and enjoy. Forget about everything but the music coming out of the speakers. Since then I have joined Third Man Records, and added quite a few vinyls to my collection. Music is the medicine of life.
I really miss listening to music with my Pops. When I was a kid he would sit me on a stool in front of the record player, put a set of headphones on me and one on him; unless he felt like annoying Mom, on those days we’d crank that shit up and he’d let do flying elbow drops off the top of the sofa. Anyway, I miss those days. After he and my mom split he went on to be a prison guard at Mansfield Prison, formally the infamous OSU in Ohio.; that place is destitute and insane! I wont share details, just say that he’s never been the same since. He has PTSD from his years of service and is now retired. These days I can’t get him to sit and jam with me the way we used to and, it sucks but, I keep trying. Vinyl is a format that transcends and binds generations together. I’ve been searching for records that might spark those good feels I know are still there.
I have to own every release and their variants put out by Boris. Well, that may sound easy, but it’s not. They have issued a lot of releases in Japan, US and worldwide in multiple colors on multiple labels and formats. I feel in love wirh Boris’ music in 2008 and have tried to keep up with them. I have ordered releases from the ever cool Enju at Inoxia in Japan, sourced by Discogs and eBay, written labels, bought stuff at their merch table and of course, Third Man. But there is still more! I couldn’t get that limited beer and flexi release. It’s driving me crazy trying to find it! I am betting Mr. Blackwell that you have something Boris in your closet of records…help me out. Or you can help make a call so ai can see Henry Rollins’ Boris collection somehow.
I really miss listening to music with my Pops. When I was a kid he would sit me on a stool in front of the record player, put a set of headphones on me and one on him; unless he felt like annoying Mom, on those days we’d crank that shit up and he’d let do flying elbow drops off the top of the sofa. Anyway, I miss those days. After he and my mom split he on to be a prison guard at Mansfield Prison in Ohio.; that place is destitute and insane! I wont share details, just say that he’s never been the same since. He has PTSD from his years of service and is now retired. These days I can’t get him to sit and jam with me the way we used to and, it sucks but, I keep trying. Vinyl is a format that transcends generations. I’ve been searching for records that might spark those good feels I know are still there.
Sometimes it’s not easy determining what you have to do, sometimes you have to determine to do what’s not easy…in light of a 20 year marriage falling apart I find myself having to wake up, put a smile on my face, and continue life as if I am impervious, 20 years ago I would have found myself in a bottle, right where she found me, but not where she left me. I have to show my children that there is strength in heartache, that the ending of one aspect doesn’t close other doors and may bring on opportunity, I have to be there for them so that our actions don’t become their flaws. I have to refind and redefine myself through long lost loves and forgotten melodies, I have to rediscover things that are new to me that I never knew I lost. I must create and recreate myself at the same time.
Reading music blogs makes me realize there’s nothing better than drinking Tennessee whiskey and thinking about about the feeling you got the first time you stepped into that moldy, dingy smelling record stores and dug and dug until you found those records you could afford, well, back in the early 80s it was probably under $2 to $3 and couldn’t wait to go home so you could spin them 100 times. my first love will always be vinyl lol ahh the love of vinyl and sipping Tennessee whiskey, nothing better in my listening room.
Well. I’m sitting in the waiting room about to get a colonoscopy. Seven years ago I never thought about such a thing. The joys of getting older never end. Congratulations on your seven years and hope your day is more pleasant than mine.
I love finding out about music that otherwise I wouldn’t normally hear. Thanks for digging deep.
So I bought a jukebox. A Rowe AMI Model L JAL-200 from 1963. And I have burnt my fingers several times with the soldering iron, trying to get it working. It isn’t in great shape, but it’s beautiful. And it deserves to play again.
It was most stripped. The amp long gone, the coin mechanism too. Some of the light ballasts are temperamental, and the speakers don’t sound amazing and worst of all it will only play the B-sides of records. But I am slowly but surely trying to fix it.
I really don’t want to have to call a pro to come out and fix it. I am stubborn in my wanting to do it myself but also it’s a pain to move and I live in a shoebox. So anyone who would fix it would likely have to take it and I just really like having it around.
I replaced the missing amp with a stereo receiver, got it working without coins, lubed it up and got it to play a bit of music. It brings me joy even though its not perfect.
Across the front there is a spot for a custom name plate. I guess bars used to get them made. Just a piece of plastic or acrylic that would have a cut out of the bar’s name and the light behind would shine through. Considering the jukebox is never going to restored to its former glory with a real amp or coin collector, is it sacrilege to put in a LED instead of a florescent tube? What about putting in a raspberry pi with a display and a camera? I think I could program it to look at the record number that is being played and then display the name and artist and year where the name of the bar used to be.
Because of the state its in, I don’t use it very much. And I find it kind of funny how closely that goes hand in hand with some records I own. There are some records I don’t ever listen too, I just like having them. Maybe I don’t need to fix the jukebox at all, it’s enough just to have it in my space.