In Celebration Of Independence
In lieu of July 4th falling on a Saturday this year, we have decided to take Friday off and leave all this killer stuff up on the site for you to ruminate over during the long weekend, or better still place in your shopping carts for us to pull on Monday morning. It’s certainly the best selection we have ever offered, so dig in! But, hey! don’t forget to take some time out to let off those fireworks, chug a few brews and squeeze in some vinyl listening time. Cheers, John
A Scheduling Note
Hey, we’re going to be experiencing some diminished retail hours over the next 24 hours, and we wanted to take a moment to let you know we will be out of the office this Friday, June 25th. John is on a buying trip, Marjanne is cruising the western coast of our near-bankrupt state and Kevin will heading off for a Wilco gig. (Yes, it’s in the evening, but I’m getting a head start – Wilco Parking Lot!)
So, in light of the above, and thefact that Marjanne, who is primarily (okay, solely) responsible for sending out our lovingly packaged orders is also out oday, you may experience a slight delay in receiving your next order. So, please keep that in mind if you feel your highly anticipated order is not yet there in the usual short period of time, please know it’s coming. That said, we will be sending some orders out today, but any orders received from Friday to Sunday will be addressed on Monday. Have a great weekend.
156 Boxes Of Vinyl And A Very Sweaty Brow
Miles, our vicious 14 year old schipperke guarding the lastest haul
I had plans to spend father’s day finishing off Richard J. Evans brilliant “The Third Reich At War” with my feet up poolside (in the shade) perhaps with a nice cool glass of Hoegarden beer and capping off the day with the new blu-ray release of “Clockwork Orange.” Instead I spent all day Saturday delving through 156 boxes of LPs and all day Sunday humping them from five stories up in San Francisco, down two flights of entry way stairs and into a truck (I’ve finally quit saying lorry after 30 odd years of California residency) then unloading them here at our ‘World HQ’, with the much appreciated help of friends and family. Kevin and I are now confronted with the monumental task of uploading thousands of LPs mostly in a Rock-Pop-Motown-Soul vein (with many being sealed). Visit us daily to check out the goodies.
Vinyl Shipping Becomes A Tad Pricier
Welcome to the working week. Just a little heads-up to let you know that the United States Postal Service, in addition to upping the price of a stamp by two pennies, has also upped postage rates across the board. So, when you’re checking out on the site and thinking “man, that seems a little high this time,” well, it truly is. Here’s hoping it doesn’t crimp your record budget! Cheers, kevin
Ashkenazy Plays Skriabin (London Japan; SLA 1029)
Rolling the dice here to see if we might be able to locate the customer who attempted to purchase this record from us a few weeks ago. We recently “rediscovered” it during our office move. If you’re out there, and by chance read this, let us know! Cheers, kevin
On The Move…Again
Hey, it’s moving weekend for Audiophile. I know, I know…it seems like we just got here! But we’re only moving downstairs. There are a number of good reasons why we’re moving from our upstairs space to downstairs. I mean there has to be – it’s like moving 25,000 records from one room to another. If, of course, those rooms are seperated by a flight of stairs. Ugh.
As much as we all could use the exercise, those of you that have been there know how hellish moving vinyl can be. But hey, a weekend of pain can lead to a lifetime of happiness. Did I say lifetime? Sorry, I meant, ummm, weeks of happiness. After that, we go back to our old and jaded ways.
Seriously, we have gobs of new records just sitting here waiting to be addressed and researched. John recently returned from a buying trip in LA, and we just purchased quite the eclectic private collection from a guy in the central valley (Thanks Daniel!). All kindsa stuff, including some pretty cool metal albums. Word.
Okay, back to hauling stuff downstairs. Thought I’d pound out a blog post as an excuse to sit down for a minute or three. So, if you feel like it might be taking some time to receive a response or, uhhh, an order, you now know why. Honestly, we might find ourselves a day or two behind early next week. But please know we’ll get orders out the door as soon as we can. And by the end of next week, be ready for an onslaught of new stuff.
Have a great weekend. Cheers, kevin
Bud Shank 1926-2009
News recently in that Bud Shank, a driving force in the West Coast cool jazz scene, passed away late last week. You can find his New York Times obit here…http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/arts/music/07shank.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries.
You can also check out our current instock listing of available Shank titles, including a beautiful Japanese pressing of his classic session with Bob Cooper-”Blowin’ Country”-and all three volumes of “Braziliance” here…http://www.audiophileusa.com/display.cfm?days=9999&mode=Artist&text=Shank%2C%20Bud.
Audiowood
Howdy there…Long time, no blog. But hey, isn’t that what you’ve come to expect from us (as sad as that statement inevitably is). Anyhoo, had something cross our radar lately that we thought your inner gearhead might enjoy – there is a company in Oakland, CA called Audiowood (actually, more like a guy, I believe) that is hand crafting these beautiful burlwood turntables. You can check out a nice little sampling of his offerings here…http://audiowood.com/turntables.html.
Oh, and make sure to read the “About” page. The guy has got a cool little business bubbling over there, with the ultimate goal to provide customers with quality, reasonably priced gear. And in this new era of, ummm, non-excess, quite refreshing.
Blue Moods
So, we had this customer place an order a couple of days ago for all three remaining copies of Presley’s “Blue Moods.” Blue vinyl version, of course, as the black vinyl is pretty tough to come by. He then hipped us to the fact there are a number of other colorways that are way tougher to find – green, yellow, red, splattered and speckeld versions. We had no idea.
But then, the guy-Greg Pickens-blew our mind. He sent us a bunch of jpegs of his Blue Moods room. And we felt, with his permission of course, we had to share. This may be one of the ultimate tributes to a single record that we have ever come across. Thanks, Greg!
Peep (Through) My Vinyl
Records…there not just for playing anymore. A company in Budapest is now offering a line of eyeglass frames fashioned out of vinyl records. We kid you not. In fact, it’s from a pretty upscale manufacturer. We highly doubt you’ll be finding these in your local Lenscrafter outlet.
Apparently the early prototypes were actually assembled from old records found at flea markets, but are now being crafted from their own, ummm, private pressings. The line is called Vinylize-get it-and each frame is named after a hipster jazzbo icon. So you have the Grapelli, the McRae, The Goodman, The Basie and, of course, the Fitzgerald, along with a few others.
You can check ‘em out here, but be warned that the site requires your computer to have Flash to be viewed…http://www.tipton.hu/vinyl.html
