You old bag! #1

I’ve been carrying my golden age hip hop around in this old carrier bag from Beggars Banquet. It’s from around the late eighties. Classic gold on bin liner style black plastic. The record shop is still there. It was bought out from the previous owners, changing it’s name to Banquet Records in the process. They’ve just celebrated their 10 anniversary under the new name and the shop is pretty much the go to place for anything remotely cool in Kingston Upon Thames!

This growing trend for old record shop carrier bags is about to blow up big time in 2015 so remember where you read it first! 😉

The BIG sound of 12″ singles : The Bigger, The Better!

Smash Hits advert circa December 1984

When Kellogg’s Rice Krispies ran their own record label

In amongst the pile destined for the charity shop was this 7″ record. A split vinyl record from 1984, featuring Herbie Hancock’s ‘Rockit’ on one side and Wham’s ‘Club Tropicana’ on the other.

We should forget Record Store Day. What we need is to do is encourage more record buying over breakfast again!  Save a few tokens, attach some coins for postage and packing. Then wait up to 28 days for delivery.
There is little information on these on Discogs, but if I remember rightly you had maybe 5 or so choices. Obviously I went for the one with the electro classic on it rather then the sun tanned delights of Wham! ; )

You can’t take it with you…part 1

The  music collection cull begins. First victim, half that box of sevens in the spare room you only pulled out when really, really drunk.

I’ll miss that Keith Harris and Orville track.

These are ALL on Spotify now I’m sure…

Something to do on a sick day > Melt some records

I had the day off  work today, as I’m full of snot, so I decided to have a go at something I saw on Kirstie’s Homemade Home last week (its not me – its the other half who is the fan – though it is alright for stuff like this)

Making bowls out of vinyl records! This is something we’ve all seen before but I’ve never given it a go. I used the instructions from here as I guide.

Here is how I did it…

Scan the collection for some suitable victims...

At the same time turn the oven on to around 200 degrees.

Then single out your victims. On this occasion its 2 white label copies of  Walter Meego – Through A Keyhole EP. A 12″ on Minds Of Fire. A record I’ve been trying to sell on discogs for quite a while. Its better to have a record with a printed label copy in the middle, but I thought I would test these first.

 

Pop the vinyl on top of an up-turned mug and place that on top of a baking tray.

Then place carefully into your pre-heated oven.  The website above says look out for the “flop” which can be about 4 – 8 mins. However mine started to wobble straight away and flopped after less then a minute. So unless you are going to use a thick, limited edition, 120g vinyl re-press its best to keep looking through the oven door (pretty difficult, if like me, you have not cleaned the oven in maybe, 2 years)

 

Once it flops get it out of the oven. Best use an oven glove or cloth here.  You can either leave it as it is, or whip it off on top of an upturned bowl and shape until it cools. I guess you can experiment. I messed up on the second go, so I just stuck it back into the oven to re-flop.

 

There you go! The finished product.  I guess those inner labels would be better if the records were The Beatles or some rare Led Zep mono edition.

Perfect for storing that small collection of bar matches you’ve had kicking around for too many years.

Note: Children and young adults. You will never be able to do this with your iPod or Spotify.

Done similar? Got any tips or advice then please leave a comment.