Category Archives: Vinyl

The first stop on my digging adventure in Seattle was Bop Street Records: a spot, which the owner Dave had no problem telling me almost as soon as I walked in, that Wall Street Journal had named them one of the five best music stores in America.  Not the biggest space, but very well used, with records along the walls reaching up to the ceiling.  The center of the store had numerous shelves with very well organized records.  Jazz, blues, rock, etc.  This is one of those places that will have exactly what you're looking for, without even having to really hunt for it.  It's all there, and you'll be happy to pay for the convenience.  Not me, though.  While I may have a mental list of records to look for, I'm happy to spend an hour or two simply going through everything, and letting the discovery happen on its own.  Dave probably approached me three, maybe four, times asking "so what exactly are you looking for?"  I was as polite as I could be, being asked that question so much.  Sometimes you just want to dig, with no goal in sight.  I ended up in the upstairs loft, where they had something like 100,000 45's to go through.  There was a gentleman there who was a regular, and was trying to complete some crazy list of 22,000 records, and he had about six hundred left to find.  Bugged out.  I found a James Brown box of 45's, dug through them, knowing that I couldn't afford them on this trip.  It was nice to see them, though, and make a mental note of the labels and what not for future ventures.  Ended up leaving with a Marvin Gaye "Funky Space Re-incarnation" 45, a Ruby & The Romantics "Our Day Will Come" 45, and Syl Johnson's "Different Strokes" on 45.

Man, I miss these days…This video sums up a lot about our passion, and obsession, for vinyl.  I Love ViNYl is a new york based party and, damn, I wish we did this in LA!

Speaking of Frank Gossner of Voodoo Funk, one of his most recent blog posts are about this super rare Apostles 45 re-issue.  Here's what he said:

The heaviest Deep Funk 45 ever to come out of West Africa. Only two original copies are known to exist. Now everybody can buy one. (before they're sold out…)

I IMMEDIATELY grabbed two copies from Academy Annex.  So heavy!

Thursday nights are for Afro Funke!  For over 8 years, the team of Cary Sullivan, Rocky Dawuni, Jeremy Sole, and Glenn Red have provided Los Angeles with a quality event, dedicated to african rhythms, from reggae to afrobeat.  Definitely one of LA's shining stars in the music scene, this is a place to come hear music you've never heard before, and to dance to music you've never heard before.  And EVERYONE is dancing.  That's what makes this so special to me.  There's a lot of wallflowers in LA, but not at Afro Funke.  Everyone is vibing out.  Even if someone is not on the dancefloor, they are moving their feet. When I got the email about Frank Gossner guest DJ'ing at Afro Funke this week, all my other plans got cancelled.  This cat spent quite a bit of time travelling through Africa, sometimes not in the safest of places, in search of the rarest and funkiest of African records.  He documented this journey on his blog, Voodoo Funk.  Lots of photos and music for you to check out.  Frank played some SERIOUS heat, from afro-disco cuts to slow funk burners.   And if you're wondering what kind of records he was playing, they were all original pressings.  No compilations.  I couldn't help but remember what Jeremy Sole said when introducing Frank: "Think of it like this, one of these records can pay for your rent this month!"

I cannot get enough of this track, and can’t wait to see what’s in store for this UK singer.  The UK’s making the states look bad on the music end, y’all!  Always quality material coming from across the pond, and I can’t hate.  You can find Lianne La Havas music anywhere.  Go check it out on Spotify, or do what I did and buy her vinyl direct from London.  My receipt said “expected delivery date: June 23.” WHAT?!

Her “Lost & Found EP” is available now, and be on the lookout for the Forget EP.

The homies Shred One and Meaty Ogre debuted the first release on their new 7-inch label, Cherries Records, last night at midnight, Chicago time.  Two tracks from Cermakk & Doug Shorts, both well produced 2012 r&b joints for the early/closing set.  Spaced out beats with solid vocals.  I'm so proud of them! Support independent vinyl and get your copy at http://cherriesrecords.bigcartel.com/

Holy crap this place has a lot of records…and comics, and musical instruments, and dvd’s, and all sorts of fun things to geek out on!  I spent about three hours at Jelly’s literally going through every single record that they had, with the exception of their 45 section because there were just way too many and I didn’t see anything really solid in the first couple boxes that I went through.  Plus, I had such good luck at Hungy Ear Records that I just didn’t feel like searching for 45’s anymore.  I started with their regular bins, which I suppose might’ve been a mistake as those were the more expensive records. They had a really great Latin section, with lots of records from the Fania, Combo, and Discos Fuentes labels. While I’m not extremely familiar with all of these labels, I was able to pick and choose the ones that look pretty good, based on what I did know.  Jelly’s has a listening station, too!  That made a huge difference.  I was able to take stacks records and kind of sift through what really was worth buying and what was something I can live without, based on sound and price.  After spending about an hour and a half going through the main bins I finally discovered the 45’s section, which looked like this.

It was just too much for me to really go through after already spending that much time in the other sections.  I ended up going through the lower bins for the next hour and a half, which were all $2, and I found a few gems including albums from Raydio, Players Association, Quincy Jones, and much more. Somehow, someway I only ended up spending about $75 at the spot, closing out a great day of diggin!  I was hoping to pick up a last minute gig where I could play my new finds, but unfortunately that did not happen.  I had to wait a couple of days to get home and throw them on the tables in the lab.  I can’t wait to share them with you at one of my events!

I heard from a couple different people that if I was going to be in Honolulu I should definitely check out Hungry Ear Records, which is located in Kailua.  It is a relatively small shop, but very well organized with high quality, good condition records.  This calls for a little bit of a higher price but nothing drastic.  I started going through their jazz section and found quite a few really good pieces for about $5-$10 each.  Then, I found a small mini crate of funk and soul 45’s below the main bins.  I combed through a couple of them and they all looked interesting, and then I realize that the whole crate was good. I ended up buying practically the entire crate which was about fifty 45’s.  Did I mention they were all a dollar each?  I’ll post some of my finds later…
The owner, Ward, and his wife were mad cool.   We started talking about jazz records. They were okay with me taking pictures of the place, and told him I would do a little write up about my digging excursion there.  It’s really cool to meet record store owners who love music, and are quickly open to geek out on music with you.  I felt very welcome there!

I read on yelp that Requests Music has a basement with a ton of records, so I had to go there during our two days that we were in Maui. Once we got there, though, it was quite a bit of vinyl that was unorganized, dirty, water damaged, and pretty much unacceptable. I did manage to find a couple pieces, from new Jack to some soul stuff so it was cool overall.  The dude working there was really nice and he gave me a couple extra Record Store Day items including this cool tote bag. If you can spare A LOT of time to go through all these records, I highly recommend you check out request music in Maui.  I, however, was aching for some beach time, so I only stayed for about an hour.

My man, DJ MZA, asked me to come play some jazz records on his radio show last month, and he mentioned that he was having a band called The Monophonics come through the following week.  I was not in the know, but I did some research and now I’m officially a fan!  Good timing, too, since their new album, In Your Brain, is scheduled for release in May, courtesy of Ubiquity Records (pre-order here).  A super fresh heavy soul, psych, and funk sound from this bay area outfit.

In doing my research, I was able to get a hold of this older 45, thanks to Colemine Records in Ohio (big up to Terry Cole for putting out some amazing music!).

Then I realized they performed in LONG BEACH (what?!) this past December at Harvelle’s.  Yet another example of me sleeping on some quality stuff in my own city.  Check their cover of “Love & Happiness.”

And here’s a quick look at one of their tracks from the new record.