redneck riviera record hunting!

man, so rewind back to October 2013, yet again. A month of rawkin, but not much talkin. October is the month that I traditionally go to the "30-A" area of the beautiful panhandle of Florida with my family for our annual beach vacation. I love it there, and since its close to Panama City Beach, aka the Redneck Riviera, I always just refer to it as such (even though I'm sure the good people of 30-A would beg to differ.)

to be honest I always kind of hate leaving Atlanta in October, because the weather is just getting perfect, but I can easily get over that once I get to the beach. This was a kickass drive this time- I got up at the buttcrack of dawn and got on the road by like 8-ish on a Saturday! Which meant I got to listen to Reeling in the Years with your host Jeff on 88.5, which I love. I Shazamed a bunch of shit he was playing, because it was awesome, and then I used my Cymera app to cobble it together with a screenshot of the map, which I then instagrammed and posted to facebook. all while driving. i know thats illegal, but im really good at multitasking.

I believe I took this photo in Columbus, Ga / Phenix City, Al. They are border towns that are basically one city but separate municipalities. I think I may have to move there so I can work at this pharmacy.

I do enjoy a scenic drive

at last! the beach!

but thats not what this post is about really. because this is RawkTalk and this post is about my extreme vinyl haul in the Redneck Riviera.

Whenever we get down to the RR I like to take a short drive over to Central Square Records, located in the lovely (albeit sorta yuppie) town of Seaside. I would say that the prices at this store are slightly elevated, being that its in a prime tourist district, but no matter, they always have a kickass selection, and everything is in great shape, and sometimes its ok to pay a little bit more when your record store has got an oceanview. 

besides used vinyl they also have a great selection of music related bric a brac and merch, as well as new releases, etc. its kind of like the Criminal Records of Seaside, because once I started following them on facebook I realized they also have in-store shows and participate in record store day, etc. they are also connected to a bookstore downstairs, that i never have time to go in because i get too bent out of shape in the records store. 

sweet decor

heres a load of records that I didnt get but took photos of, cause im a total dork like that:

fucking strawberry alarm clock. why do I ever have a budget? why cant i just buy everything I fancy?

WHY DIDNT I BUY THIS? this is such a great jam to whistle to, I couldve been whistling the WHOLE DAMN ALBUM by now.

Oh man! I remember when I had my nails that color! Gosh its so great to be off work so I can focus on things that really matter, like painting my nails to match my chewing gum and shit like that. I still dunno what this album is but it was looking intriguing....

Midnight star rule. I shouldve gotten this too. 

HA HA. This shit. I got a copy of this when I was in high school. Who knew they released it on vinyl.

Shouldve got this too, instead I just took a photo of it and text it to mi madre, Nancy. 

OMG I LOVE THIS SONG thanks to my neighbor, Thunder. WHY DIDNT I BUY THIS??

HOLY FUCKING SHIT: DOPESMOKER? Please tell me you bought that, Burg! Nope. whole bunch of nope. WTF. 

Well jesustittyfuckingchrist what the hell did i buy??!

Well, its been so long ago now that its difficult to piece together what I bought, but I can summon some memory... So I think I got that Cactus album that day, and I know I picked up the Blue Cheer vincebus eruptum because that opened some dialogue betwixt me and the record shop keeper. I asked if we could play it because I was timid about its pricetag (clearly I was timid about ALL pricetags this day because I didnt seem to buy any goddamned thing). Of course it sounded great and I think I asked him to play maybe one or two other things (things which clearly went back in the stacks). More on the recommendations of said shopkeep in a moment. 

I know I bought that FAT album there honestly just because it was looking cool, but turns out to be a really great record. I remember googling it while I was in there because it was next to a Fat Matress album, which also looked intriguing but was ultimately returned to the stack. (prolly shoulda just gone on and got it too) These dudes were from Massacheusetts, which is odd, and according to this one blog they opened for the Allman Brothers! sweet. unfortch before they could release their second album they got busted for drugs by the Man, maaaan. BUMMER.

So after listening to some records, and talking a bit of shop with aforementioned shopkeep, I was cruising the new releases (and re-releases, as it were) and lo and motherfucking behold: DOPESMOKER. Well I paused to scope it for a sec (and again with the damn thriftiness, I didnt get it, boooo) but the shop keeper was like, "oh hell yes! I knew you were gonna stop for that!!" (it must not take long to get to know me in a record store) so based on that we had some conversation that let to a perfectly apt recommendation of two current bands: Radio Moscow and Boogarins. I ended up getting the Radio Moscow album brain cycles, and it RULEZ. Its was heavier than you might think looking at photos of them (i initially though they looked all young and sweet and flower child-y, but then im realizing after I followed the Obelisk's on the road coverage of their tour opening for Pentagram (mothereffing Pentagram!) that they are not, even flower child-y)

here they go:

heavy on the cowbell and the facemelt, bonus: drum solo! jam du jour. in fact boogarins are playing the psych fest, and i had previously wished that radio moscow would play the psych fest too, but not gonna happen i reckon since they are touring europe right now. NEXT YEAR, YALL. 

UGH!!! REDNECK  RIVIERA I MISS YOU!!!

Later on during our stay, my family united to do one of our favorite activities: junkin. we took a cruise inland to find the goodwill. now typically most thrift stores have crap for vinyl and you leave wishing you could wash the mold off of your hands, like, rightnow. and to be honest this thrift store was a bit of a departure from the norm. for one, I actually found some gems, in decent shape at that! as well as some sehr interessant other lil thangs. 

shoulda got it just for the WOW factor, seeing as how I work at the ol cabbagepatch babyland general. 

PRAISE HEEEYUM, PRAISE HIS LIGHT

(love that waterfall, tho)

and look! I actually bought some shit! love some damn johnny winters albino ass, got the woodstock album, and that songs of new nations deal- that turned out to be kinda cool, although like orchestral or choral or whatever. We ended up listening to it when I got back while we were carving our pumpkin for halloween: THATS HOW LONG AGO THIS WAS. 

Well, at least this post was so late in the making that now its only 6 months away instead of a full year until our next redneck riviera vacation! id better save up so i can clean out the stacks next time! NO JAMZ LEFT BEHIND!!!!

holyfuckingshitballs: neutral milk hotel at the tabernacle!!!

[area.personality]: Hahahahaha Dawg posted this placeholder ages ago, and I finally opened it to edit it and add my 2 cents, and it's totally blank. Awesome.

[iwishuwould]:Yes, and then many eons ago you wrote your part, and I totally. fucking. slept on it. Which is really quite a shame because I did oceanloads of research leading up to the show, trying to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of NMH. You gotta think, it was like a fucking lifetime ago that they were recording songs and played on heavy rotation on our stereos. So whats a couple more months on the review of their show? Behold: the Official RawkTalk Review of Neutral Milk Hotel at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, Georgia Last October (thats right, this show was 7 months ago, but still worth bloggin about!!)

 

Its really also astounding that this post was so late in the making as we were both soooo fucking stoked for it! The show was originally only a one night deal at the Tabernacle, and it was instantly sold out. 

But by some magic they added another date? more tickets were released? and I got us some: SCORE!

So we went to the Sunday night show, but arrived slightly later because I had to fucking werk that day. The oddest thing about this show: everyone was totally our demographic- I mean like totally our age- no youngers, no olders. I felt like because NMH was such a brief period of time, and so intense, like no one else got the memo? Or hell maybe people our age are the ones with the little remaining energy, yet also the bread to fork over for tickets like that. who can say, but that was def worth commenting on.

[area.personality]: We got there during the Elf Power set, which was perfect. It gave us time to browse the merch, which was meh, and then ascend to the lunar module balcony of the Tabernacle, which was sold out. I actually got nostalgic looking at the merch and thinking about when all this old timey branding was still cutting edge cool. 

In other words, it's not any more. IJS

Srsly the Tabernacle, the lunar module balcony is unsafe. When people up there start stomping, I go straight to ready.gov because something apocalyptic is about to happen. Otherwise we had a great view once our ears popped from the pressure change. Shout-out to Katie and her man Steve for randomly joining up with us post-ascension!

[iwishuwould]: I had a great time immediately following the show perusing instagram for photos tagged #nmh and #neutralmilkhotel. Here are some (very sadly, uncredited (sorry i was just grabbing them at the time and its been like a 100 months ago now and theres no way back)) photos of the tabernacle that night. Gazing up at the lunar module balcony:

As well as gazing down from the lunar module balcony:

Man I always think the Tabernacle is not such a great place for a show, but I think I'm wrong. The lights are always killer and the sound is actually quite good. Its unfortunate that the damn thing collapsed not too long after the show. I would totally still go see a show there. 

[area.personality]: So Elf Power had no affect on me. They neither made me want to spew fire nor download their tunes. Not sure why they were there.

 [iwishuwould]: I also wasnt really feelin Elf Power, no offense yall- its just not really my scene. Although you would think they would be-being that its all that Elephant Six Collective-ness from Athens. I have to wonder if I would have been more into them had I actually listened to them during the time (turn of the millennium?) that i was so into NMH. We shall never know. We did also get to see Rob Schneider play a quick lil set, which was cool because he was also the Apples in Stereo, who I did actually use to love, way back when. But he didnt play anything I recognized, and it honestly didnt bring the house down. heres a quick vid of apples in stereo tho! they are fun jangly psychedelic poppiness:

[area.personality]: Neutral Milk Hotel ruled, as I'd hoped they would. They looked like some awesome troupe of freaks, which I never really knew about them. This was my first time seeing them live, and I'd been waiting like a decade for this night! Unfortunately, the whole night was really colored for me because sadly, my sweet doggie Chibi went to heaven the previous day. I mean how could it not? So I tried to combat the melancholy in the traditional manner and wound up in Ho Chi Minh City really fast and without really meaning to, or knowing what that meant, but I knew when Dawg started yelling it out that I was there. It was very confusing. Anyway, long story short, what I previously thought was a theremin in their tunes is a dude playing a saw. A fucking saw. Was I the last to know? Maybe. There was also this chick trumpetess that I kept thinking about what kind of chick plays trumpet in high school and then aspires to play in a rock band? Then there was this portly kid who played all manner of brass and what-not, I dunno. They didn't allow photos and Dawg asked me to recreate the scene in ms paint, but I could barely focus my eyes by that point, so I don't think I can do it.

 [iwishuwould]: No worries, dawg. I drew us a stickfigured rendition. It is alarmingly accurate, but you all will never know because of the no photos/recordings policy. Which actually and truly was quite nice. There is always gonna be someone taking better photos than me at these things. Hence our hallmark of kind of posting shitty photos. Also its nice to put the damn phone down and focus sometimes. [Don't ever tell yourself to "focus" unless you are ready to hear the riff from Hocus Pocus by Focus on your internal radio for the remainder of the day.] Its also SUPER nice to look at the stage and not into a sea of glowing rectangles.

Behold: my stickfigure rendering of NMH at the Tabernacle, all the way the fuck back in October of 2013. Note the array of fucking SAWS down in front. 

(a side note: i thought the drummers New Mexico shirt was rad, so i googled him {side side note- i mean i googled them all, all hard} and found out on his wiki that he is a post man- JUST LIKE REINE from (now defunct?) Dungen! incrediballs!!)

 In between acts, however, we did braid our hair together and photograph that, behold:

  

 

which totally reminded me of gregg allman and cher's hair together:

Some days I still cant believe they were ever a couple. Although Cher was actually quite hot back then, it just seemed like a square peg/round hole situation. (Not unlike the Allman Brothers as the HourGlass).

[area.personality]: Homeboy has grown out a troll beard, which I guess is the fashion now. Sigh.

 [iwishuwould]: Before:

After:

[iwishuwould]: I, personally, am a big fan of the troll beard (although I may refer to it as a wizard beard, a mountain man beard, ZZ Top beard, or a Taliban beard, depending on the man, and the beard.) Anyhow, on to the actual fucking review:

[area.personality]: They sounded amazing though. Very true to the studio recordings except richer, fuller, more epic. They did my two favorite songs of theirs in the encore, too!  Namely, track 10 (untitled) from In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, which I always thought was bagpipes for some reason, but it was a crazy mishmash of instruments that I couldn't comprehend fully at the time. Magic! And also Two-Headed Boy Part 2. I thought I would want to belt the whole concert out as I belt out the whole album when I listen to it, but listening was actually better.  Drowned my sorrows in sound and it was so excellent. Well worth dragging my sad ass out the house.

 [iwishuwould]: Oh man, it was just fucking fantastic wasnt it? I mean, I would say they played all the hits, but really they arent like a hits kind of band, are they? Like all their songs just work. So they played them! and it was incredible. I srsly havent been that mesmerized by a show in a long time. All those fucking songs are just so powerful. I mean they wrote a whole album about death. And its beautiful. Its what people describe as "achingly beautiful" I would say. And they played every fucking note spot on- it didnt sound like they havent played together in like ten years. And Im with you, dawg- I never, in my wildest dreams, would have imagined that they were playing a fucking SAW. I still cannot grasp the modality of that, despite scoping the wikipedia page and scoping them playing it live. (although we were in the nosebleeds, to be fair). I, too, thought I would be singing along to every last word, at the top of my goddamned lungs, but it was too beautiful to do that. But so many people were! And you would think that would be annoying, but it was like everyone in that audience had played those albums the fuck out, in their cars, driving alone, at top volume, or in their rooms, crying, blackout drunk on jaeger and 420 on their birthdays. everyone sang right along, and it was actually fucking beautiful. The song I would have been most likely to belt out along with would have been Oh Comely, but it was too intense, maaaaan.

Im glad NMH were there to play for us, and I'm glad they soothed your spirit following the departure of dear, Chibi.

 RIP Chibi-chee <3

internal radio: never tell yourself to "FOCUS"

never tell yourself to "FOCUS" unless you want to hear the riff from Hocus Pocus by Focus on internal radio for the rest of the day.

i made that same mistake the other day and that riff is still kinda swirling around in my head now.

Man, so RawkTalk has been away on a world tour for a few weeks, followed by an intense return to my motherfucking job, as well as a heavy dose of rawking in the interim. but the time is nigh to resume talking about rawking, so please bear with me as festering blogs come to a head over the next few days. I need to purge my mind prior to heading off to the Austin Psych Fest.

Last night I dreamt about rawk talk all night, and I dreamt I went to go see Jack White perform, and found my way to the back of the venue and sort of snuck in, I'm pretty sure because I was reading this article about scamming before I went to sleep.  It reminded me a bit of blogging because I feel like an imposter in a way, but motherfuck, I'm not. I'm a goddamned rawk blogger and I need some damn press passes for shit, stat! The dream turned into a bad scene when I decided I needed to go to the bathroom and they wouldnt let me back in (because the restrooms were located in the parking lot, of course). But I managed to sad eye my way back in somehow (that tactic would never work for me IRL). So all that being said, its time to FOCUS, burg, and write some shit!!!!