Friday, April 26, 2013

Vol. 4 Episode 17





The Bleeched concert that I am going to will be happening this Sunday. Expect a concert post early next week about it.

You can now download the Man or Astro-man? album and I think that Chunklet will have preorders up next week for the album.



Here we go...

Record Store Day (RSD) 2013
Every year that I have been going to record store day it seems that I need to get up earlier and earlier. This year is no exception. I took my family this year; myself, my wife, my twelve year old son and our new born (about a month old) son. We got to our local store, which is actually an hour away close to six A.M. There are closer stores than the one that we choose to go to but we like this store the best. We go to this same store for the RSD Black Friday event as well. We, me, my wife and my twelve year old son, set up chairs for us to sit and wait for the doors to open. The store opened at Ten A.M. so we had four hours to wait. We were the first three people to arrive at the store and we were very excited about that. About a half an hour later the next two people arrived. They were there with us the previous year as well. Before they arrived we ran quickly over to McDonald’s for breakfast, well my wife did and the three of us stayed to keep our spot in line. From then until the doors were about to open it was all talk about music between us and our neighbors. Everyone seemed to bring along place keepers, chairs, mats and other items. Everyone was friendly and respectful over all but especially about each persons place in line. I had heard stories about people being jostled about in line and having to go back to the end of the line because of it. This doesn’t seem to happen with this record shop. It is obviously the people that make the difference with things like this.

I put my son at the front of the line with my wife and our infant second and I was third in line. A few hours before that one of the people in line handed out “unofficial” numbers. It was cute and worked for what we needed it to be. Ten minutes before the door was to open a few employees came out and gave us numbers. They then proceeded to bring out goodie bags filled with posters, patches, pins and on and on. My son, who was first in line, got a few extras in his bag including a free 7” single from Two Door Cinema Club and a CD promo from The Dandy Warhols.

We had quite a few records on our list this year but we got all of them. We were only allowed to pick up three items per person so that allotted us a total of nine items. The infant did not get a number but we did not need the extra number. I forgot to put one item in the list and they did not get one item in stock that I was looking for. What we did get was quite a few repressings and a few remixes and singles.


One thing that we got that I was really excited about and did not learn about until the week before RSD was a box set from Astralwerks of flexi-disc tracks. It is twenty flexi-discs with one song on each disc that covers the twenty years that Astralwerks has been releasing music. Some of the songs were common, some of the tracks were remixes and others were very rare tracks. The Discs come in various colors. The only two colors that were solid were black or white, all of the other colors were translucent. The other colors were red, orange, blue, green and yellow. There were also a couple that were clear. Each disc had a tagboard graphic with some information about the track on the back. Because it was for RSD it was limited to 1250 units. My copy was number741.

Of the twenty tracks I was excited to have eight of them. The first track that I was excited about was from The Chemical Brothers called Block Rockin’ Beats. I really like The Chemical Brothers but never got into them heavily. I usually pick up their music when I find it cheap on CD at used record stores or pawn shops.

The next track that I was really excited about was Dry TheRain from The Beta Band. I know this song but have never owned anything from them. I know they are a great band but they have been just out of my radar for one reason or another.

I like Fatboy Slim and own a few records that he has released. The song on this collection is called Praise You. I own the CD that this track comes from but was still excited that there was a release from him in the box set. To me it just means that he has the recognition to be on a compilation like this.

I like the album Rooty from Basement Jaxx and was happy to see the song that introduced me to them on this collection as well. That song is Where’s Your Head At. I first saw the video for this song and went out of my mind. It was so strange and the music was so hard and fun at the same time. The song doesn’t really fit with the album that it is from but was happy to get the album as the other music from the album is so good.

I really like Hot Chip. The song that is in this collection is from them comes from The Warning era but was never released. The song is called My Shits On Fire Right Now. I have only heard the song one time but I like to get the rare finds from artists. Since this track can only be found here in this collection that makes it very rare indeed. It is not a spectacular song but it is very rare.

I was not as excited about the song from Air, Indian Summer. I stopped liking them when they put out Love 2. I listened to a few tracks from the album and it just did not do anything for me. It seemed to me like they had given up. Most of their music is slow but this album did not move for me. Unfortunately this song comes from that era but can only be found in this collection. Fortunately, having the song separated from the album and surrounded by these tracks gives it life.

The last track that I was really excited about from this collection was from Kraftwerk. The song is called DieRoboter. It comes from the album Die Mensch-Maschine. I like the group a lot. I would love to spend some money and get all of the recent repressings that have been put out but, although I like the group, it is just not a top priority for me at the moment.

The rest of the music in this collection is very good and I have found a couple of groups that I may be interested in looking into. The collection is of flexi-discs and I will only play them once because of this. I do recommend that, if you can find a copy, you all go and listen to the music!

This is a two track 12” remix record put out in support of RSD 2013. Jamie XX, a member of The XX, put some magic on the latest XX single, Sunset, and a new track called Reconsider. With his remix of Sunset, it becomes more of a fun dance track with new electronic drums and a cool bass line. There is a longer open to get listeners use to this new version that I like a lot. The B side track, Reconsider, on the other hand is a bit lackluster. I can tell it was remixed from something but I have not heard the original song to say what the differences are. I like the hi-hat in the drums but otherwise the song just kind of sits there and doesn’t do anything for me. I like Jamie XX remixes. I got the couple that he did for Radiohead’s last album too. He has done quite a bit of remixing/editing for a wide array of bands but I am not into his work enough to get everything he has done.

This record is probably still out there at the record shops that took part in RSD 2013 if you are interested.

I picked up this repressing for my son. He is a big fan of the group. This repressing came with a bonus 10” record for the single One Step Closer. This is a repressing of the original 10’ single. The B side is of the song My December. My December is a very weak track but works well as a B side. If you are interested in reading more about the album look at Vol. 2 Episode 49.

I picked up this repressing for RSD 2013. I had been waiting for a repressing of this in the US for ten plus years. I know that it is repressed in the UK frequently but I did not want to pay the extra shipping with the recent shipping cost increase. On top of that a used copy ran about 50 bucks. So I waited for it to be repressed here in the US for twenty bucks. There is nothing special about the vinyl, it is black, and the jacket is a single jacket with room for two records. If you want to read what I had to say about the album check out Vol. 2 Episode 5.

This was the last repressing that I got for RSD 2013. I was very excited about this record. It came as a double vinyl in a gatefold jacket. The records were orange with black and white marble. This is a brilliant record and it is too bad that the band broke up after this album. Although, they have gotten back together for an album that happened last year. If your interested in reading more about the album check out Vol. 2 Episode 15.

That is all I have for now...

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