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I’ve been the happy recipient of a few "Aw, thanks...” emails recently in response to alerting someone that they’ve won a record in our Ten Weeks of Record Store Day Vinyl Giveaways. More to the point, a handful have mentioned that they don’t even own a turntable (yet!) and/or this win will enable them to rekindle the relationship with their own turntables that went unattended for this or that reason.
And to this I say – fantastic.
I often wonder if we’re just preaching to the choir or making new converts along the way and I’m starting to think that when the first taste is free, you’ll be coming around for more.
So, this week while we take a short break from our label showcases (and we have some really cool ones coming up) we’re giving away more vinyl. All week.
Aquarium Drunkard’s quote alone sold me: "A four piece, the bands live show kills, reminiscent of Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine and Psychocandy era JAMC."
What’s not to love?
The rules can't be any simpler for our RSD2010 Vinyl Giveaways. All you need to do to enter to win is to leave a comment in the comments section to that week's giveaway letting us know why you deserve to win that week's LP.
Be creative, funny, incisive—whatever it takes to grab our attention to deem you the winner. Most important however is to leave us a contact email address! You can be brilliant as hell, but if we can't track ya' down, you're out of the running.
All winners will all be notified on Monday (3/15) upon the launch of the next RSD2010 Vinyl Giveaway!
It's been another long while, but we've re-established contact with our correspondent from the '70s.
"Listen, man," he said when he checked in the other day. "You really have no idea just how hard it is to make that trip from the '70s."
"So what did he bring us from the sweet blue haze of time?"
"Ah, I think you'll like this, man. It's another one from 1972."
Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose emerged from the Miami area as the '70s dawned. Carter and Eddie Cornelius were indeed brothers, Rose was indeed their sister and another sister, Billie Jo, rounded out the group.
They're best known for two smash pop-soul singles,"Treat Her Like a Lady" from 1971 and "Too Late To Turn Back Now" from 1972. Both are on this LP, the self-titled "Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose" from 1972.
This was the high point of their career. The group broke up in 1976. Both brothers turned to careers that mixed music with the ministry. Eddie, who wrote most of the group's material, is still at it. Carter died in 1991. Rose, a gospel singer in the late '60s before the group was formed, also remains active.
So here's a sampling. One of the hits, one of the fine deep tracks and a rarely-heard cover.
All from "Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose," 1972. The LP out of print. The first two cuts are available onthis CD and digitally. The latter isn't found on any compilation.
In 2006, Raleigh, NC band Annuals turned quite a few heads with their debut album, Be He Me. Their expansive, energetic sound and tight pop sensibility captured the hearts and ears of both listeners and critics. They released their sophomore album, Such Fun, on Canvasback Records, in 2008.
Now, armed with a reputation for solid songwriting and several years of experience, Annuals go back to the formula and sound that first cemented their acclaim.
The Sweet Sister EP marks band leader Adam Baker's return to the producer role, Annuals' return to a more tight-knit DIY collective, and a pure distillation of their trademark quirky pop experimentalism.
From my point of view, the best part of our Ten Weeks of RSD 2010 Vinyl Giveaways is being exposed to new music and new artists that I may not have heard otherwise. Such is the case with this week's featured artist behind our LP giveaway, Georgia Anne Muldrow. Hell, I've been listening to her all weekend at this point.
With aspirations to be a modern-day Quincy Jones, Muldrow is truly a renaissance musician. She is always looking to take her craft to a higher ground. She channels her unstoppable creativity into music that is commercially viable but does not lose sight of her essence as an artist who challenges the norm. She bears the enviably ability to play all her own instruments, and write and perform her own songs. Everything you hear on Kings Ballad is handcrafted and non-sample-based. She has been called a modern day Nina Simone, and fans of Chaka Khan and Betty Davies would feel at home with Kings Ballad, too.
In the midst of amazingly fruitful studio time, she cranked out several albums and compilations in 2009, on the back of recent collaborations with the mighty Mos Def (on his Ecstatic album), and Erykah Badu (on her New Amerykah album). Kings Ballad is the latest work and is all original and exclusive. On most Muldrow sings, on other she raps, sometimes both, always effortlessly. Perkins joins in on a couple of tracks, Medaphor lays down a quick rhyme, her son Nokware throws down the occasional rattle, but otherwise it’s pretty much Muldrow all the way.
Georgia Anne alsoappears on the limited edition 10" EP by Bei Bei & Shawn Lee, 'Beauty and the Beats' which we're including in the giveaway this week as well.
New music by Gu Zheng performer Bei Bei and Ubiquity producer Shawn Lee marries a unique blend of ancient tradition with studio trickery and spiritual jazz. This uplifting, genre-bending, soundclash recalls the afrocentric harping of Dorothy Ashby, the hypnotic style of Alice Coltrane, and the organic electronics of Four Tet and Quantic.
For this introductory, limited edition 10” EP, we include the original and instrumental versions of “Make Me Stronger,” with a vocal by Georgia Anne Muldrow who has recently produced and sang on records by Mos Def and Erykah Badu (she is also working on a solo record for Ubiquity.) Alongside these, is a storming version of the Billy Paul psychedelic soul opus “East.” And a remix by UK producer Floating Points (whose “Love Me Like This”, “Vacuum Boogie”, and “Radiality” releases have been turning heads all year long) takes the track deep into FP vs. Wu-Tang territory.
As we cut and pasted five times last week—the rules can't be any simpler for our RSD2010 Vinyl Giveaways. All you need to do to enter to win is to leave a comment in the comments section to that week's giveaway letting us know why you deserve to win that week's LP.
Be creative, funny, incisive—whatever it takes to grab our attention to deem you the winner. Most important however is to leave us a contact email address! You can be brilliant as hell, but if we can't track ya' down, you're out of the running.
All winners will all be notified on Monday (3/8) upon the launch of the next RSD2010 Vinyl Giveaway!
Today we've got a pair of tickets and their 'Imaginary' 7" EP to give away to one swift commenter who swoops in and takes 'em both in our 24-Hour Giveaway!
The fire drill's the same - get at us in the comments, make your best case to be declared the winner of the tickets and the 7", and we'll choose the most convincing of the bunch.
Never fear however if you find yourself a bit slow on the draw with this one. We'll award one runner up the 'Imaginary' 7" EPnext Monday (3/8) when we launch our brand new RSD2010 Giveaways.
"Well, it's Friday - the last day of our Sarathan Records spotlight.
This week, each band shared an exclusive song, selected just for The Vinyl District in celebration of the upcoming Record Store Day (April 17th). Don't fret that our week is over - we have more music to share! Two more songs from Thunder Buffalo, Two Loons for Tea, Feral Children, Peter Bradley Adams and War Tapes.
Thanks so much for hanging out and letting us share our record store memories - now go out and make your own!"
I used to intern for a record label when I lived in Washington, DC. One of my responsibilities was visiting the many record stores in and around the DC area and hang up posters for the different bands I was helping to promote.
One of the band's posters that I hung up was a two sided poster, one of the sides was a full band shot and the other was an album cover shot. Whenever I hung up the album cover side of the poster I would tear off the white bar that was perforated. But the other side of the white strip was one of the band members faces. I remember always feeling bad for some reason tearing off this poor guy! Sometimes I would end up with a big stack of this one band member and would feel so sad throwing him away!
This went on for about a month at each and every record store I visited. One day the band from the poster came through DC, I was supposed to meet them and help out the label! When I met the band member who's face I had stared at for a month I felt like I knew him already! It was so weird! What's weirder is that he is now my husband and the drummer of War Tapes! —Becca Popkin, Bassist and backing vocals
Growing up in Hawai'i, it was difficult to find new music as there was little to no touring bands rolling through town. And it was always a gamble when ordering mail order through an ad in Maximum Rock n' Roll.
There was one local music store called Jelly's that was a small indie store that also carried comics, books, baseball cards, d&d stuff, magic card stuff, novelty toys, and anything else nerdy that you would ever want. It was like a haven for every skateboarding punk kid in west Oahu and we would spend hours peeling through the new and used tapes and cd's.
They had a small vinyl section and I remember that they usually only stocked one of each 7" single. My friends and I were convinced that this was the best deal because a punk rock 7" would usually have 4-9 songs on the 14 minute record. AND it would only cost like $3.50. So it was always a race to purchase the new 7" from bands like Screeching Weasel, the Queers, Green Day, Op Ivy, anything off of Lookout or Epitaph records really, Bad Religion, and bands like Youth of Today, Gorilla Biscuits, Naked Raygun, etc.
You had to be on it and we knew the delivery schedule for when to check for new digs. Almost every record I bought between the age of 11 to 17 was from that store. And those were the records that defined who I was and who I was going to be. For Real. —Matthew Bennett, guitarist
When I was 7 years old until I was about 12, living in Birmingham AL, I had a weekly ritual... I would walk two miles to the little record store called Charlamagne Records (it's still there!) and pour over the stacks of used vinyl... it was really my most valuable musical education... more than any actual schooling... just taking those records home and putting them on my dad's record player while he was at work changed my ears forever.
That's how I first heard Paul Simon, Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Donny Hathaway, Wings, Gram Parsons, The Band, Randy Newman, John Prine, Bonnie Raitt... and the list goes on and on...
Maybe it was something about the dark stairwell leading up to the store which was covered in old posters, or the way place smelled, or just never knowing what I was going to find, or even walking with those LP's in an unmarked brown paper bag... whatever it was, the whole thing had an air of mystery and discovery...
Think you may not be ready to end the weekend this coming this Sunday night? If you're just a bit like me, that's a given.
Madrid’s exciting funk trio Telephunken is making a US tour around its official SXSW 2010 Showcase appearance. The tour begins on March 7th at Bossa in Washington, DC. Combining animated elements of funk, fusion, Latin, jazz, raggamuffin, with a breakbeat background, Telephunken are a band with a long career. Performing a live show with a complete band, and currently presenting their fourth studio album "Que viva el ritmo!!" (Actúa Recordings 2009).
They have toured countries like England, France and Mexico. Ernesto performs with other musicians like Fernando Parrilla (drums) and Sergio Zamarvide (Bass and VJ), with the intention of overcoming the staging somewhat unchanging number of DJ's, providing direct their dynamism.
We've got a pair of tickets and the full length CD "Viva el Ritmo" for two winners ready to party straight into Monday. Plead your case in the comments to this post and we'll choose winners by noon on Saturday (3/6) for Sunday night while you recover from Friday night.
So, I said to the nice folks over at Sarathan Records, try to give me some hook for the big contest giveaway we teased earlier in the week. Something that'll set it apart from the others we do with frequency here.
And they sure did.
Thunder Buffalo's Aaron Schroeder fills us in:
"For the past while I have been drawing this character that I dubbed “Buffalo Bill.” He has been all across the world and even in Outer Space. For Halloween he was a bat, he also once took a voyage on the SS Luv, but it sank…
Every drawing of Buffalo Bill is a one-of-a-kind with no duplicates made. So, the winner of the contest will get an original (not a photo copy) drawing of Buffalo Bill in an environment of your choosing, filtered obviously, through what is known as my brain. It could be anywhere, the moon, alien space craft, your kitchen… the possibilities are endless."
So, put Aaron to work. Where would you have him render Buffalo Bill? The cleverest response in the comments to this post will be awarded the one-of-a-kind, hand-drawn art, along with:
...an autographed Thunder Buffalo CD...
...signed Feral Children CDs of both their 2008 debut 'Second to the Last Frontier' AND their new release 'Brand New Blood'...
Posters for Peter Bradley Adams' 'Leavetaking' ('08) and 'Traces' ('09)...
...Two Two Loons for Tea band T-shirts...
...and last but certainly not least, a pair of earrings hand-made by War Tapes' bassist and backing vocalist Becca Popkin.
You've got til Monday (3/8) to conjure up Buffalo Bill in the scenario of your choice. Let us know where you'd like Aaron to render him in the comments to this contest and remember to leave us some contact info! One winner takes it all...
When I moved out of my parent’s house at the end of high school one of my parting gifts from my dad was two crates of vinyl records and an unused turntable. We had lived in Montana so the only records I had seen were in thrift shops. There was some classics, some jazz, some country. It really gave me something of an appreciation for actively listening to music, whereas CDs seemed easy and of lesser value.
A year after moving here [Seattle], Easy Street Records opened in lower Queen Anne. I always made enough in tips to buy a new (used) record everyday. I made friends that I still have today and my knowledge and passion grew. I spent quite a lot in there and continue to around the greater seattle record stores. These days I find myself at Wall of Sound more than anywhere else, adding to the collection. I think my dad now misses that part of his collection he gave me. Although I thank him almost every time I see him, I probably would be too. —Bill Cole, Drummer
Coming from Maple Valley when we were kids, there wasn't a record store in town at the time. I remember having to drive to Bubble Records in Kent to get my dose of what I needed from music that a simple Fred Meyer couldn't give me. The clerk, maybe he was the owner (he was always there) always smelled like stale cigarettes and was kind of an ass, but it didn't keep me from making the drive to his store.
Once he realized I wasn't coming in all the time for the latest Korn or Bush release he warmed up to me. I would buy Modest Mouse, Elliot Smith, and Mudhoney. The next time I came in the clerk would tell me to pick up 764-Hero, Red Stars Theory, and other local favorites. Maple Valley would eventually get a record store called Rocket Records around 2001. It ended up closing doors shortly after and moving to Tacoma, but Jim [Cotton of Feral Children] actually worked there and met Duff McKagen of Guns 'n Roses fame when he came by for a In-Store performance with his band Loaded.
Even in this digital age we are all still frequent shoppers at our local record stops. Troy Nelson at Easy Street Records in Queen Anne was a big asset to Feral Children's future. Jeff [Keenan of Feral Children] had befriended him in the early days of our band. Troy became a big fan of Feral Children and would later on become the first DJ to play us on the radio (Troy is also a DJ for 90.3FM KEXP in Seattle) as well as direct our first music video for the song "Spy/Glass House". When Bill joined the band, we quickly found that he was an avid vinyl enthusiast and he too shopped from Troy at Easy Street.
When Feral Children are on the road, making a stop at a town's local record shop can always be counted on. You never know what you are going to find in the dusty corners of America, and as any record store fan knows, its about the journey, not necessarily the destination. —Josh Gamble, Guitarist
When we were asked to participate in the official Record Store Day blog we were asked: How have record stores been important to Two Loons for Tea? Well, for one thing, Two Loons for Tea never would have existed had not my musical partner, Sarah Scott, met a clerk at a record store who then introduced us to each other. Since that fated meeting, we have recorded four records and toured the US and Europe. Lovely!
Even more existentially profoundly: I can honestly say that were it not for a record store near New York City, I would not even exist! My future father walked into a record store to buy a symphonic work conducted by Leonard Bernstein; fell in love with my future mother when she sold him the record; and he asked her to marry him on their first date, listening to that same symphony conducted by Leonard Bernstein… and several years later, I was born to these two record lovers, their house teetering under the groaning weight of thousands of vinyl records.
Two Loons for Tea’s exclusive offering to The Vinyl District is a song we wrote and recorded with the members of Critters Buggin’ (Skerik, Brad Houser, Mike Dillon, Matt Chamberlain) as our co-writers and main members of the back-up band. Those of you familiar with Critters Buggin’ or Two Loons for Tea may be shocked to hear an unapologetically romantic R&B ballad that sounds like a Motown / Staxx tribute. But hey, those were glorious days for the record industry and record stores, when songs could be unabashedly about Waiting to meet that-special-someone; and this, dear friends, is our homage to those days when record stores created so many fates.
—Jonathan Kochmer, founder Sarathan Records, member Two Loons for Tea
Record labels. Depending on your point of view, they’re either a hopelessly archaic method of music dissemination in this era of bedroom wizardry, or they’re stalwarts who've adapted to ten million new paradigms and have found a reinvented model for success. Well, some have anyway.
The successful ones have done so in a manner that’s almost gang-like in the sense that the smartest ones have chosen their niche and have run with it. They’ve gathered a family of like minds and set about recording and distributing the bands they love and know. Some of my favorite DC labels, Windian Records,Underwater Peoples, and of course Dischord, are all fine examples of this notion.
For the month of March, The Vinyl District’s going to visit with four labels, one a week, who are not just surviving but flourishing in a wholly different era under very new and different constructs. But the bottom line is the same—they’re promoting and producing and getting the music out there and putting physical product on the shelves of record stores into the bargain.
So, under the banner of Record Store Day 2010, we’ve chosen four diverse labels—new, classic, reinvented—to visit with and wouldn’t you know it, they all have an affinity for the aforementioned record stores and vinyl and the thing that brings you to this blog in general...a love of music.We'll also have tons of free music and giveaways from each one to keep you coming back for more.
First up for the month and this week, indie upstarts, Sarathan Records.
Hi! We'reSarathan Records and we're excited and honored to be kicking off The Vinyl District's March label spotlights.
Although we're waving to you from our little bird's nest in Seattle, WA, the artists you will enjoy from Sarathan Records this week are from all over our hemisphere. In honor of the upcoming Record Store Day, you'll hear how they've all been inspired, changed and even created because of Record Stores! We like to say that Sarathan Records is sweet, its artists eclectic, its music infectious. Hope this week you find something here you love!
It’s the smell that really gets me off. I can walk in any record store and take one breath of the air within to know what kind of record store I’m about to get into. All that cardboard causing a flurry of dust to push past my nasal hairs and into the depths of my mind. The one record in the back, hiding, whispering to my senses to find it.
I get side tracked however, and start pushing my brain to think of the record that I must have. I knew what record it was 5 minutes before walking in, but with every step closer to the doors that record gets pushed aside by all the records I could have. All of them, so close together with equal wanting to be on my turntable, pleasuring my ears. It’s a sex that I can’t live without. The slow pulse of the built up dust on the needle crackling in the grooves of Swell Maps' “Jane from Occupied Europe” or Suicide's “Suicide”, lulling me into a trance that induces chemical reactions in my brain far greater than any drug.
I begin my journey into the depths of a land that has no soundtrack. It is silence, a meditation. I close my eyes and allow my nose to lead to a starting point. I ramble through zigzagging from Blues to Rock to Jazz then back again to Rock to World then back once more to Rock. What was that damn record called! Shit! I knew it before. I could see the cover in my head, a fish eye lens with the young band standing in what seems to be the frame of a building. English gents I believe, I can’t remember, I’m screwed. I decide to forget about it and see what treasures have arrived in the used section.
Thumbing through the J's I find that Tommy James and The Shondells have been marked 20% off. Done. It’s mine… forever. It wasn’t the record I had in mind, but it was the record that came to mind. I push over a few more and find an out of place Captain Beefheart “Safe As Milk”. Hahahaha! There it is, the record, my record, calling for me. I smealt it upon arrival. It was expecting me, and it moved itself to where it knew I would find it. In the one place it didn’t belong. The J's.
The record store is my pusher man, and one that I will always allow to bleed me, and my wallet. Fix me up, sedate me, that’s where I want to be anyway. Sedated, with a punk named Judy. —Aaron Schroeder
The rules can't be any simpler for our RSD2010 Vinyl Giveaways. All you need to do to enter to win is to leave a comment in the comments section to that week's giveaway letting us know why you deserve to win that week's LP.
