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One of our favorite venues, the Rock & Roll Hotelis hosting what they're calling "The First Annual Summer New Year's Eve Party" this coming Friday night and they've hooked us up with a pair of tickets to get into the hands of one of you guys.
From the press accompanying the tickets: We here at Rock and Roll Hotel are hosting a killer party on July, 23rd that we're calling "The First Annual Summer New Year's Eve Party." Yes, it's the middle of summer, but what greater party is there than a New Years one? So we're bringing that sparkle and shine to the club on the 23rd from 6 pm to 3 am."
The line up of DJs is pretty damn impressive too: Yes Giantess, Audio Ammo, DJ Chris Burns, DJ Autorock, DJ Metaphysical and DJ Phil Real.
Not too shabby, hm? Plus, there's free food, free leis, and tons of free stuff.
As mentioned, we've got a pair of tickets to giveaway in exchange for simply asking for them in the comments to this post. Plead your case, offer your first born children—we don't care. Just make it so your comment stands out from the rest and that person'll get one pair of General Admission tickets on us and the Hotel.
We're choosing our winner at 5PM this coming Thursday (7/22) to give you plenty of time to stock up on the Advil.
And finally: remember to leave us a contact email address!
I've been a fan of DC's Tereu Tereu for quite a while now and so, with the impending release of some fresh vinyl and the launch of a summer tour, an opportune moment arrived to spend some quality time with the band for a full week.
We'll get you up to speed on the vinyl and the tour tomorrow (with ways to win some stuff into the bargain) but to kick things off Brendan Polmer, the band's drummer and resident vinyl enthusiast weaves a lucky tale that has me more than a bit envious... —Ed.
Dumpster Diving for Vinyl | About a year ago, I stumbled upon a vinyl goldmine in the unlikeliest of places– a dumpster inside a freight elevator of a self-storage facility on H St NE, Washington, DC.
I was in between apartments and checking out a storage unit to hold some of my crap while I searched for a new place to live. The building had once been used for storing cars, and thus had two large, industrial car-sized elevators that were now being used to haul large, heavy items to the storage units on multiple floors. As the storage employee who was showing me my potential unit lead me onto one of the elevators, he apologized for the mess that greeted us as he opened the elevator’s vertical barn-door gate. There was a mattress or two, a broken chest of drawers, a portable clothing rack and a large plastic dumpster on wheels, about five-feet high and equally wide, filled to the top with a ton of crap. “What happened? Someone didn’t pay their storage bill?” I asked jokingly.
“Yea, it’s all goin’ to the dump man,” he said. “Happens all the time. Sometimes people fall behind on their rent and can’t pay no more. Sometimes they just die and nobody comes to claim their stuff. Either way, we gotta toss it.”
As the elevator jerked upward, I peered over the ledge of the dumpster to take a look at what exactly was being thrown out. The first thing that caught my eye was a vintage AKAI reel-to-reel tape recorder. Now, I’m quite the hi-fi nerd, so my first instinct was to ask if I could check out this obsolete yet glorious instrument of music playback technology. “Yea, go ‘head man, it’s all goin’ to tha dump anyway.” I reached into the dumpster and pulled out the ancient relic. It was heavy as shit, about 40 pounds, but it was gorgeous. I then looked back into the dumpster and what I saw next gave me the chills—a painting of Stevie Wonder’s face peering up at me in front of a bright orange background, smiling behind a pair of sunglasses. It was the LP cover of his 1980 release “Hotter Than July.”
“Woah! There’s vinyl in here!” I yelled. I was so excited, all I could think about was what else could be underneath all the layers inside the dumpster of what appeared to be books, newspapers, old photographs and other personal items. The elevator stopped. I didn’t want to leave the dumpster, but I had to look at a storage unit. Five minutes later, after checking out the unit, I asked the employee if I could hang out for a while so I could, um, dumpster dive for vinyl. He said it was cool, as long as I put everything I didn’t want back in the dumpster when I was through.
Two hours later, covered in sweat and sneezing from the dust I stirred up, I salvaged an impressive 150+ records! The poor bastard who couldn’t pay his storage bill (or, for all I know, was dead) had quite the collection at one point in his life, with most of it ranging from blues, funk, sixties and seventies soul, and r&b, as well as some early go-go and hip-hop.
Most of the records were in decent shape, others not so much. But from what I was able to save, I created several mixtapes of epic proportions, recorded samples into an MPC for my amateur attempt at beat production, and kept others solely for their glorious album artwork appeal.
So now, without further ado, I present to The Vinyl District with my Dumpster Diving 4 Vinyl! mixtape. Enjoy! —Brendan Polmer, Drummer, Tereu Tereu
(Ed. Note: Stream with option to download each Mp3 by clicking links.)
From the press accompanying the tickets: We here at Rock and Roll Hotel are hosting a killer party on July, 23rd that we're calling "The First Annual Summer New Year's Eve Party." Yes, it's the middle of summer, but what greater party is there than a New Years one? So we're bringing that sparkle and shine to the club on the 23rd from 6 pm to 3 am."
