Fresh-Out-the-Box!

Some retailers give vinyl records a spin - Los Angeles Times June 13, 2008

Some retailers give vinyl records a spin - Los Angeles Times
It was a fortuitous typo for the Fred Meyer retail chain.

This spring, an employee intending to order a special CD-DVD edition of R.E.M.s latest release “Accelerate” inadvertently entered the “LP” code instead. Soon boxes of vinyl discs showed up at several stores.

Some sent them back. But a handful put them on the shelves, and 20 LPs sold the first day.

The Portland-based company, owned by the Kroger Co., realized the error might not be so bad after all. Fred Meyer is now testing vinyl sales at 60 of its stores in Oregon, Washington and Alaska. The company says it plans to roll out vinyl in July in all its stores that sell music.

Other retailers are giving vinyl a spin too.

Joe Farrell’s daughter sueing for the use of Upon This Rock. May 23, 2008

The lawsuit said all the rappers used portions of Farrells 1974 musical composition Upon This Rock in three separate songs – West in Gone, Common in Chi-City and Method Man and Redman in their song Run 4 Cover.

Firrantello is seeking punitive damages of at least $1 million 505,000 pounds and asked that no further copies of the songs be made, sold or performed, according to the lawsuit.

Read full story

The original Joe Farrell LP

Sanzhi Pods, Taiwan May 8, 2008

4:19 pm, Friday, Sanzhi

Originally uploaded by yusheng.

Amazing set of photos taken of this 70s pod resort in Taiwan, abandoned sometime in the 80s.

Record Envelope

Website devoted to the humble 7″ record sleeve.

Record Envelope

Making Cat5/6 LAN Cables April 22, 2008

When making small cables from a reel/ longer cable, following these steps will tell you which plug is bad when a lead doesn’t work.
The only time there’ll be the possibility of 2 bad plugs is in the first step, once that’s sorted the bad plug will be obvious:

1. get it working with a plug either end of the whole length first
2. mark both of the working plugs
3. cut the desired length off
4. put plug on new ends
5. test both the reel and the short cable
6. if either don’t work you know it’s the unmarked plug that’s to blame
7. put a plug onto the now plugless end of the reel
8. test & replace unmarked plug if bad
9. repeat from step 2 for subsequent cables

SAYNOTO0870.COM - Non-Geographical Alternative Telephone Numbers April 8, 2008

0870 numbers are a rip off. Most of the time the companies are making money off you sitting there on hold, so there’s not much incentive to shorten queues and deal with you quicker. Help put an end to this by using an alternate, regular phone number. These should come out of inclusive minutes on your mobile or landline, unlike 0870 numbers. Just do a quick search on the site to find what you need:

SAYNOTO0870.COM - Non-Geographical Alternative Telephone Numbers

Michael Jackson

TeeScott - DJ and Remixer Extraordinaire April 1, 2008

Tee Scott commented on his first nights at “Better Days”: “I went into the deejay booth, and it was real, real, crude. I had to climb up onto this thing; it was unbelievable. There was no such thing as a pre-cue. What they had was a Sony amplifier with a Phono 1 and Phono 2 button, and that’s how you switched fram turntable to turntable. No fading, nothing. It was a large dancefloor; the lights were very basic at the time. They had this automatic light panel, and lights over the whole ceiling. You could change it to, like, 6 or 8 different patterns: a red ring, a blue ring, and a green ring, like a bullseye. And there was a big board on the wall inside the deejay booth, but it wasn’t working when I first started working there.

While adding a new entry for the Whodini Magic’s Wand 12″ that I found in the States into Discogs, I looked up more info on the remixer of side B’s extended mix. Turns out Tee Scott was a pretty amazing guy who was a pioneer in the dance music scene. Read to the end to find out how he gave Frankie Knuckles his first job.

TeeScott

Extraordinaire

Sony BMG’s hypocrisy: company busted for using warez March 31, 2008

After Sony were caught ripping off other people’s software without permission a few years ago, now they’ve been caught using software illegally.

Sony BMG is no stranger to piracy. As one of the most vocal supporters of the RIAA and IFPI antipiracy efforts, the company has some experience hunting down and punishing consumers who don’t pay for its products. The company is getting some experience on the other side of the table, however, now that it’s being sued for software piracy.

Sony BMG’s hypocrisy: company busted for using warez

America Vs Britain March 29, 2008

A comparison between the opinions of Britains Vs Americans