I bought it.

$38 dollars, an email, a money order, a frantic phone call about said money order, and an envelope and stamp. What do these things have in common?

They all led to me biting the bank account and buying the s/t New Found Glory picture disk.

A pic will be up soon. I'm so excited. I also have a Gaslight Anthem Sink or Swim green vinyl LP, a Kevin Devine Another Bag of Bones 7", and the new Menzingers 7" on their way from the always lovely folks over at Vinyl Collective in Denver. This weekend I also picked up the new NOFX Frisbee LP, Alkaline Trio's Agony and Irony on 180 gram vinyl (big ups to vinyl that can last!), and the Grizzly Bear Live on KCRW 7".I was talking to a friend tonight who claimed that I needed an intervention for my vinyl habit. She might be right.

Whatever.

Fake Problems - It's Great to Have on Vinyl

Hailing from sunny and political simmering Florida, Against Me! are no longer the finest America's tail state has to offer. The challengers come in the form of Naples based Fake Problems, a band who are redefining the words "genre bending".

I guess if I was forced at gunpoint to only pick one form of music that they were, I would say folk punk. But then that would bring up comparisons to Gogol Bordello, who are waaaay different from FP. I could say that they are indie rock, but then the inevitable words "Death Cab For Cutie" are spoken and that comparison goes to hell. I would say party music, but then the asshole Asher Roth gets involved. So I guess I will just say that they are most easily compared to early Against Me! (think Reinventing Axl Rose minus the political allusions, throat shredding Tom Gabel vocals, and use of what sounds like only half the drum kit). This band can play, and their latest release on Sideonedummy Records, It's Great To Be Alive, is choc full of positivity in the face of failing relationships and lofty aspirations.

As far as I know, this was pressed on only four colors: orange imported from the Europe extension of Sideonedummy, purple from the US Sideonedummy site, clear pink*, and a Vinyl Exclusive /300 clear gold. My copy of the gold one arrived last month and is glorious. Fake Problems have also released a 7" single to support It's Great to Be Alive, titled "The Dream Team" on the A-side and featuring an exclusive non-album track on the B-Side called "Rumble In the Jungle" which is one of their better songs. The 7" was pressed on orange for Sideonedummy's website and on red for Vinyl Collective. I picked this up and have been spinning it relentlessly for the past few weeks.

Fake Problems also have a few other releases out on wax right now, an EP called Viking Wizard Eyes, Wizard Full of Lies (an obscure Blink 182 reference supposedly) and a picture disk LP called How Do You Spell Hero?. All of these are avaliable on the interwebz with pricing ranging from $4.25 - $4.99 for the EP's, and from $9.00 - $10.99 for the LP's.

DOWNLOAD THESE (legally!): The Dream Team, Tabernacle Song, Heart BPM

* I can only find the clear pink on the Vinyl Collective website, so I'm guessing that it is another VC exclusive but seeing as I havn't heard this straight from the horses mouth, I can't say for sure.

new found glory - to buy or not to buy?

I have a problem. Not a moral issue, but a monetary quandry as it were.

Should I buy the New Found Glory s/t picture disc for $32, or should I not?

I really want it. Really. But I also don't want to spend $32.

I'm so cheap I'm disgusting myself.

Radiohead - 'nuff said.

Everyone likes Radiohead. For all intents and purposes, Radiohead might very well be the Beatles of the '90's & 00's.

Now before the old schoolers go crazy about me and my daring to compare the Fab Four to a group of dudes who looked like some of them havn't seen a shaving razor in awhile (read:Tom Yorke), let me explain.

The Beatles are considered the masters of Pop music. They wrote songs that everybody knows, not just the wierd high school teachers who only listen to oldies stations in their classroom. Either through voluntary subjection or unwilling auditory force, I challenge you to name one person who does not know at least three Beatles songs. Yes, "Hey Jude", "Hello Goodbye", and "Let It Be" count. I mean c'mon, "Hello Goodbye" in on a Target commercial. You just can't get any more osmosis song learning than that.

Now think about Radiohead. Everyone knows "Karma Police". Everyone knows "Creep". These songs are just as genre defining and innovating as anything The Beatles did. Personally, I think that 2003's Hail To the Thief is one of the best albums ever made, but thats just me.

DOWNLOAD THESE (legally!): 2+2=5, Hail to the Thief, Paranoid Andriod, Exit Music (For A Film)

mission statement

Welcome to turntablegirl.blogspot.com! I would just like to congratulate you on stumbling onto this page: you are about to be tossed headfirst into a world of great music. On this blog I will be posting reviews of records, shows, and commentary on what is going on in the crazy world that we know fondly as the music industry. As you should well know, the music industry is in a strange state right now. I call it the "post downloading era". With the collapse of the major record companies a few years ago, everything went ape shit for awhile, and even now has yet to struggle back to it's true form. Everybody from independent labels operating out of some random business park suites to the labels with office buildings almost as famous as the company is (here's lookin' at you, Capital) has lost revenue and in some cases even their incomes to this download phenonmenon. The recession our beloved former President got us into dosen't help much either.

But that is neither here nor there in this blog.

This is a blog to celebrate the greatest thing on Earth next to rice pudding: music. I am going to be giving you all my take on this world, and what it produces.

And who knows? I might introduce to your next favorite band.