March 2013
1 post
The End of Midnight Sales for Record Store Day
(NOTE: If you wish to copy this post for your own blog, forum or social media, please provide a link and give credit. Use Twitter handles @jimhanke or @rythvinyl. Thank you.)
I chatted with Steve Warrenfeltz, the owner of my local record store Kiss The Sky in Batavia, IL, the other day. They had moved to their new location last summer and being that the store is about three blocks from my front...
December 2012
1 post
Top 10 Albums of 2012
10. Nick Waterhouse - Time’s All Gone (Innovative Leisure) // An unassuming 20-something using all analog equipment and blasting classic sounds of 1950’s R&B. No frills, just great songs with astute attention to detail and an honest desire to match. I caught him at Lincoln Hall in Chicago this year, and went in with the expectation that he’d be good. What I got was one of...
November 2012
1 post
Smoking Popes' "Born To Quit" delays + YTVC fun
Hey, long time, no post! My vinyl collection has been growing exponentially. I’ve been to my first Record Collectors Show, and I’ve been communicating online a lot more about records in general as part of the YouTube Vinyl Community, which I suddenly fell upon a few weeks ago. Folks post videos of new treasures, how they care for their vinyl, etc. and I’m really enjoying a wide...
May 2012
1 post
TARGET, BEST COAST, A BEAR AND CALIFORNIA
I was in my local Target store this weekend when I spotted something eerie: A t-shirt for sale that resembles - although awkwardly - the cover for Best Coast’s latest record The Only Place. I snapped the photo on the left, and the album cover is obviously on the right.
Although I can’t think of anything specific offhand, I feel like this is far from the first time I’ve seen...
April 2012
4 posts
Record Store Day 2012: My Report
Being a music enthusiast and not living in or near a major city must be heartbreaking. I’ve resided about an hour west of Chicago for almost five years - after spending most of my life in Milwaukee, where legendary Atomic Records did wonders for my growing up - and my location is definitely on the far left end of the area’s record store map. But I’m lucky enough to have some...
POINT-COUNTERPOINT: Pop-ups on Record Store Day
I don’t offer a whole lot of debate on the blog, but in the few hours we have left up until Record Store Day, I’d like to present the following piece and you can feel free to share, comment or whathaveyou.
The heart of the story is that the Chicago-based Numero Group - responsible for releasing countless great soul/R&B nuggets, usually from artists far underneath the radar -...
PODCAST: CARRIE COLLITON of RECORD STORE DAY
Record Store Day, the five-year-old nationally-organized event intended to celebrate brick-and-mortar retail outlets, is coming soon and it’s one of my favorite days of the year. To help shine a light on the neighborhood shops where we’ve all gone to discuss and discover new and classic albums, some of the biggest names in music put out limited-edition releases, perform in-stores or...
My audio set-up / April Insound Sale: 10% Off
Some folks have asked me to share my audio set-up, so I thought I’d post that today. I’m not much of a gearhead, but in talking with friends who are thinking about improving their current set-up or starting from scratch, it’s discouraging that many make the assumption that a ton of money is needed for a quality listening experience with vinyl.
You really have to decide what...
March 2012
8 posts
Record Store Day 2012 / Official Release List
If you’re like me, you’ve probably been waiting for the official release list from the good folks of Record Store Day to come out.
Some things you’ll personally have to fight me for include the Ryan Adams live 7” of Bob Mould covers, the Civil Wars’ Billy Jean 7”, Cursive’s vinyl Burst & Bloom reissue (pictured above), and The Tallest Man On...
INTRODUCING... RYTH VINYL STORE @ INSOUND
Thanks to the great folks at Insound for following my tweets and noticing the blog, I’ve joined their affiliate program and can now have a storefront through the blog, where you can purchase releases that I’ve covered previously, as well as check out some other current favorites of mine. I’ll keep adding stuff all the time, so keep checking back!
Visit Rather You Than...
Greetings to new followers!
Over the last week, followers of this blog on both Tumblr and Twitter have jumped up a ton, due to some very kind folks sharing particular posts with their own fans and followers. So I wanted to take a few seconds to thank to Minutemen/fIREHOSE bassist Mike Watt for sharing my Minutemen post (above), as well as the fine folks at Record Store Day, Reckless Records (Chicago), Darren Walters (Jade...
As mentioned in my coverage of Double Nickels On...
The Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime // 2009...
“You can’t help when you were born and what you are into,” says Mike Watt in We Jam Econo, a 2005 documentary about The Minutemen. “Some people were born before, some after, some during.” That’s a pretty barebones and truthful statement, and I tend to live by those words when talking about this band, because I was five when Double Nickels came out - often...
the promise ring / jets to brazil - out of print...
There’s not a whole lot I can say about the following releases that hasn’t already been said. The first three albums from Milwaukee’s Promise Ring, and Blake Schwartzenbach’s first post-Jawbreaker album with Jets To Brazil are all classic and seminal in their own ways. They laid the groundwork for literally thousands of bands to come up, and were two of the biggest names...
Conan O'Brien - Third Man Releases // 2010
An interesting fact crossed my mind the other day, both embarrassing and yet somehow kind of cool: I own more vinyl records by gangly late-night giant Conan O’Brien than I do of seminal acts the Rolling Stones or the Beach Boys. Now, this statement isn’t meant to tout O’Brien’s prolificness on wax (he only does have two releases), but more so to point out a lack in my...
February 2012
4 posts
Tin Armor - Life of Abundance // 2011
I didn’t know what to make of Tin Armor when this self-released album arrived. Sporting an odd painting of the band by Nick Stull with dull fonts and muddy colors by designers Laura Sloan and David Leighty, it reminded me of an album that might not have only come out twenty years earlier (the late 80’s/early 90’s was a tepid period for album art, often resorting to similarly...
Waxahatchee - American Weekend // 2012
I knew absolutely zero about Waxahatchee’s American Weekend when it came in the mail, but like a lot of albums I receive for this site, I was immediately excited to listen just via the presentation alone. “These songs were written and recorded… as a result of a snowstorm, a visceral stupor and a personal breakthrough,” state the liner notes, and though I’m usually...
Sharks Come Cruisin - A Past We Forgot That We...
The sound of Providence, RI six-piece Sharks Come Cruisin has a weird dichotomy: On one hand, their chant-along punk anthems beg for everyone far and wide to join in. Yet, it’s a very specific clientele that this sound - which could be deemed either pirate or Irish, depending on who’s hearing it - appeals to. Songs about sailing the open seas or outright mutiny can’t really be...
Trophy Wives - Old Scratch // 2011
This here is the second album I’ve received from Dan Hanke over at Latest Flame Records, a consistently growing and varied label that has been churning out alt-country, punk, power-pop and much more over the last ten years. While I can’t say that this release from Louisville, KY’s Trophy Wives engaged me as hard as labelmates Police Teeth, they definitely have a charming,...
January 2012
4 posts
Shuteye Unison - Discussion re: Our Future Selves
Before I had posted my recent review of Our Future Selves from Oakland’s Shuteye Unison, I reached out via email to see if I could hear from the band themselves on what drove them to dream up - and eventually create - such a unique presentation.
Yesterday, I was able to get a response from guitarist/singer Daniel McKenzie of the band and he provided some nice insight into how it all came...
Shuteye Unison - Our Future Selves // 2010
I hope they won’t take offense by this statement, but in sending me their 2010 full-length Our Future Selves, Oakland’s Shuteye Unison were in a hurry to be a mystery. I was awoken by the FedEx guy on the morning of my town’s first snowfall of the winter and the package he delivered was this outstanding record. Keep in mind, to this point, no other band has rushed an album to...
Psychic Teens - Teen // 2011
I want to start this one out by stating how much I appreciate bands of all sounds and experience sending in vinyl for me to talk about. I fully realized that starting this blog would definitely be a crapshoot. It’s true that I felt since I loved vinyl so much, that I could dissect it by not just the music inside the lines, but on how the cover artist made use of such a grand medium and how...
The Sky We Scrape & Hawkbit - Sound Pets EP //...
Just check out this cover and you can already tell that this is one of the more fun releases that I’ve had the pleasure of covering for this site. The art for this split EP from two up-and-coming Chicago acts is more of a comical wink than a solemn nod to one of the most iconic covers of all time: The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. On the obviously named Sound Pets EP, the legends’...
November 2011
2 posts
Police Teeth - Awesomer Than The Devil // 2011
I’ve known Latest Flame Records owner Dan Hanke for several years. Aside from one of his label showcases being responsible for introducing me to Troubled Hubble - which then led to the ultimate beginning of my current band with former Hubble members - being his “brother” has been an ongoing joke for as long as we’ve been pals. It couldn’t be avoided: Sharing the...
el oso // shameless plug, Vol. I
I’ve been pretty excited lately, so forgive me from this slight detour from the main purpose of the blog to chat about something I brought up in my recent Annabel review.
Some sad news comes first: The Felix Culpa - a fantastically influential band that I’ve been friends with for the last decade - are breaking up next month. These are guys who have toured the country several times...
October 2011
3 posts
Luther - Siblings & Sevens // 2011
Maybe it’s my taste or maybe it’s just luck. Either way, this seems to be the third band I’ve covered here that has a punk rock following that doesn’t sound like punk rock to me. Perhaps my view of punk needs to go beyond the stereotype I’ve built up since I stopped actively seeking it out years ago. In bypassing the genre for much of my twenties and early thirties,...
Brontosaurus - Cold Comes To Claim // 2011
There may not be a duo these days - in Chicago or otherwise - making as large of a sound as Brontosaurus. Drummer Nicholas Kelley and keyboardist Nicholas Papaleo did time in area five-piece Picture Books (Kelley also was a member of Meth And Goats for a spell) before pooling their collective obsessions with chamber-pop and prog-rock to create a duo that’s fast becoming a near force of...
Annabel - Here We Are Tomorrow // 2010
I admittedly have put the blog on the back-burner as of late, but what’s weird is how the reasons I have put it to the side have now coalesced with a new post.
I lived in Milwaukee for the first 27 years of my life and about 18 months before I moved to Illinois, a band I was in called El Oso split up. We didn’t do a lot of touring during our few years together - in fact, we got...
August 2011
5 posts
Elementary I-II and I-III // 1965 flexi disc
Although I’ve set out to focus on vinyl releases in the last ten years or so, there’ll certainly be weird finds from time to time, and this little guy is pretty special.
I had bought a 12” copy of Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue at a local estate sale and when I got it home, the flexi disc above was stuffed inside. Flexi discs, thin and usually square, were formerly a pretty...
Restorations - Restorations // 2011
File this under New Favorite Band. I was turned on to Philadelphia quintet Restorations by the fine fellows of Rock And Roll Brunch. Their concept is simple: Chatting about music over eggs, pancakes and a bottomless cup of coffee. Quite honestly, I would trust the guy next to me who passes the syrup with the swiftness more so than a stranger with a blog. Wait — Whoops. Well, stay with me.
...
The Antlers - Burst Apart // 2011
My history with Brooklyn’s the Antlers doesn’t go back very far, but I thought it began somewhere else entirely. A few months back, I was driving to work and listening to WONC, a college station out of Naperville. A dreamy, swirling little number came on that I swore I had heard before, with no real chorus and no lines repeated. What jumped out was the haunting familiarity that the...
Elliott Smith - Figure 8 // 2008 reissue
Ask music writers or fans which hurts more - spending money on a disappointing album by a new band you’ve known for five minutes or a less-than-stellar print of a record that you’ve considered a classic for ten years - and you will surely always hear the latter. The presentation of any record compliments the sound coming out of your speakers, and vice versa. When either feels...
The Obligatory First Post
Thank you for stopping by, friend / family member / total stranger. It’s here, within these walls of your screen, that I plan on tackling some rather heady subjects regarding my tiny obsession with vinyl records. I can only hope we share that in common.
Although I tried to be brief in the “About” and “Contact” sections, I’ll attempt to explain why I wanted to...
