Lookin’ for records in
Belgrade? We‘ve done a bit of research and we have discovered some quite
handy places where you can find both vinyl-old and new releases. In
Belgrade you can buy records in antique shops, street vendors, markets
and flea markets and records stores. We have chosen some good ones worth
your while.
Let’s start with a famous Yugovinyl.
This store is a genuine treasure house for lovers of ex-Yugoslav music.
All the records are second hand, bought from street vendors,
collections, antique shops and from the internet. Here you can find the
most rare and obscure ex Yugoslav releases from pop, rock new wave to
jazz but also the ones which were banned by the Communists back in the
day. Interesting one is a compilation Ex Yu Electronica. Go there and
dig deep and you will find very interesting tracks for DJ sets and
mixes.
“My favorite record shop in Belgrade is
Yugovinyl. I think I know the stock there better than the owner.
Yugovinyl is more than just a record shop; it’s a cultural institution, a
museum. It’s famous among the vinyl diggers all over the world. If you
ever wanted any old Yugoslav record, the chances are you’ll find it
there. It’s also a place where you can socialize and learn a lot about
the alternative history of Belgrade, Serbia, former Yugoslavia. I only
have words of praise for it” says DJ Brka for Still in Belgrade.
Address: 35 Toplicka St. 11000 Belgrade
Another one is Metropolis music bar
and store located in Makedonska. This window like space is great to go
and have coffee, attending live gigs at the weekend and searching for
CDs and carefully selected new and old releases. It’s definitely a
place worth checking out.
Address: 21 Makedonska St. 11000 Belgrade
Pinball Wizard
is online shop that sells only selected music classics and new
releases. Owners created their offer according to demand and personal
preferences, because they noticed that people tend to buy selectively,
picking their favorite albums to add to their collection. Besides the
old classics you are bound to find new releases, and there is a special
section for jazz aficionados. All records are purchased from a
distributor, among the most expensive one is a deluxe reissue of debut
album of the famous Led Zeppelin.
The last but not least is Leila
a record shop and a bar situated in Kralja Petra St. in the borough of
Upper Dorcol. Here you can buy records, drink coffee during the day and
enjoy DJ and live gigs during the night. Leila store has more than
10,000 titles, amongst which one can find rare items like the ex Yu jazz
album. The number of customers has increased significantly in recent
years, and the reason lies not only in sound quality, but also in
nostalgia value and the cardboard boxes they are stored in that seem to
have been fallen into oblivion and as if long forgotten. But then again
there is the fact that the value of the record increases with age. The
most expensive record in their collection is the first release of the
album Miles Davis from 1967, which costs 200 euros.
Berza gramofonskih ploca u Nisu odrzace se u subotu 15.08.2015.u prostorijama Truba cafea od 10.00-14.00 h. Pozivamo
kolekcionare longplejki, singlica i originalnih CD izdanja, ljubitelje
pucketavog zvuka zaboravljenih vinila, radoznalce, istraživače,
pregovarače i razmenjivače na berzu ploča i diskova, koja ce se
tradicionalno održati u prostorijama Truba cafea.
Yugovinyl is specialized in selling rare vinyl records (LP, SINGLES,
12“, 10“), from ex Yugoslavia. Also we offer a large amount of original
and licence pressings from USA, Asia (India, Japan, Taiwan…), Europe and
from other parts of the world.
Thirty years ago this month, Dire Straits
released their fifth album, Brothers in Arms. En route to becoming one
of the best-selling albums of all time, it revolutionised the music
industry. For the first time, an album sold more on compact disc than on
vinyl and passed the 1m mark. Three years after the first silver discs
had appeared in record shops, Brothers in Arms was the symbolic
milestone that marked the true beginning of the CD era.
“Brothers in Arms was the first flag in the ground that made the
industry and the wider public aware of the CD’s potential,” says the
BPI’s Gennaro Castaldo, who began a long career in retail that year. “It
was clear this was a format whose time had come.”
As Greg Milner writes in his book Perfecting Sound Forever,
the compact disc became “the fastest-growing home entertainment product
in history”. CD sales overtook vinyl in 1988 and cassettes in 1991. The
12cm optical disc became the biggest money-spinner the music industry
had ever seen, or will ever be likely to see. “In the mid-90s, retailers
and labels felt indestructible,” says Rob Campkin, who worked for HMV
between 1988 and 2004. “It felt like this was going to last for ever.”
It didn’t, of course. After more than a decade of decline, worldwide
CD income was finally surpassed by digital music revenues last year.
With hindsight, it’s clear that technological changes had made that
inevitable, but almost nobody had foreseen it, because the CD was just
too successful. It was so popular and so profitable that the music
industry couldn’t imagine life without it. Until it had to.
In 1974, 28-year-old electronic engineer Kees Schouhamer Immink was
assigned to the Optics Group of Philips Research in Eindhoven, Holland.
His team’s task was to create a 30cm videodisc called Laservision, but
that flopped and the focus shifted to designing a smaller audio-only
disc. “There were 101 problems to be solved,” Immink says. Meanwhile, in
Japan, Sony engineers were working on a similar project. In 1979, Sony
and Philips made an unpredecented agreement to pool resources. For
example, Sony engineers perfected the error correction code, CIRC, while
Immink himself developed the channel code, EFM, which struck a workable
balance between reliability and playing time. “We never had people from
other companies in our experimental premises,” Immink says. “It was
unheard of. Usually you become foes, but in this case we really became
good friends, and we’re still friends after so many years. It was
remarkable, actually.”
In June 1980, after complicated negotiations in Tokyo and Eindhoven,
the so-called Red Book set standard specifications for the compact disc
digital audio format. The story goes that the size (12cm) and length (74
minutes, 33 seconds) were changed at the 11th hour when Sony’s
executive vice president Norio Ohga insisted that the disc should have
enough space for the longest recorded performance of Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony, his wife’s favourite piece of music, but Immink suspects that
is a myth. There were so many technical and financial considerations
that it’s unlikely such a key decision came down to one woman’s love of
Beethoven.
The CD was introduced to the British public in a 1981 episode of the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World, in which Kieran Prendeville mauled a test disc of the Bee Gees’
Living Eyes to demonstrate the format’s alleged indestructibility. It
caught the public imagination, but Immink found the claim puzzling and
embarrassing because it was clearly untrue. “We should not put emphasis
on the fact it will last for ever because it will not last for ever,” he
says. “We should put emphasis on the quality of sound and ease of
handling.” (Paul McCartney recently recalled the first time George
Martin showed him a CD. “George said, ‘This will change the world.’ He
told us it was indestructible, you can’t smash it. Look! And – whack –
it broke in half.”)
The CD, demonstrated on BBC1’s Tomorrow’s World.
The engineers were evangelical about the CD’s superiority to vinyl
and cassette, but the industry and public still needed persuading. “I
was not convinced we would be a success at the time because I had seen
the failure of the videodisc, which was a nice product, technically
speaking,” Immink says.
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So,
in April 1982, representatives of Sony and Philips set off to
Billboard’s international music industry conference in Greece with a
spring in their step. The record industry was suffering a painful
recession (“Is Rock on the Rocks?” asked Newsweek) and this new digital
marvel was surely the solution. To the labels, however, it was an
invitation to gamble millions of dollars on a potential white elephant:
an alien format that was expensive to manufacture and expensive to buy.
Jerry Moss, chairman of A&M Records, claimed that the new format
would “confuse and confound the customer”. It was a rough conference.
“There were many black-disc lovers who didn’t want to change and said:
‘We don’t see why we have to go digital,’” Immink says.
At least Sony and Philips had their own record labels – CBS and
Polygram, respectively – so they pressed ahead. CBS released the world’s
first commercially available CD, a reissue of Billy Joel’s
52nd Street, in Japan in October 1982. Philips missed the production
deadline so the international release was put back to March 1983. It’s
hardly surprising that only 5.5m CDs and 350,000 players were sold that
year when so few titles were available.
Faced with low manufacturing capacity and high costs, labels trod
carefully. Jeff Rougvie, who later worked for the pioneering CD-only
label Rykodisc, was in retail at the time. He couldn’t even order
individual titles from Sony, only a predetermined box of six: “A couple
of classical titles, a couple of rock titles and Thriller. And of course
you’d sell Thriller and the other five would sit around. Labels thought
it was an audiophile-only product that was going to sell primarily to
classical music buyers. They did not see it as a mass-market format.”
Jon Webster, who worked at Virgin Records between 1981 and 1992,
remembers that the label’s first batch of CD releases included Mike
Oldfield’s Tubular Bells and Phil Collins’s
Face Value: albums likely to appeal to affluent early adopters with the
means to buy the discs and the expensive players. The first US CD
plant, in Terre Haute, Indiana, debuted in October 1984 with Bruce Springsteen’s blockbuster Born in the USA. Enter Dire Straits.
Aware that most consumers didn’t even know what digital audio was,
Sony and Philips had launched a promotional campaign on multiple fronts,
including advertisements, public demonstrations, product placement, and
special promotions for clubs, bars and radio stations. They also
courted studio engineers and artists. While analogue loyalists such as
Neil Young and Steve Albini railed against translating music into
soulless binary code, some high-profile audiophiles felt that this was
how music was meant to be heard. On first hearing a CD, the great
Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan memorably declared: “Everything
else is gaslight.”
Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler was an early convert (the second track on
Pure, Perfect Sound Forever, the motley 1982 compilation that came free
with early CD players, was Dire Straits’ Once Upon a Time in the West).
Knopfler insisted on recording Brothers in Arms on state-of-the-art
digital equipment, so a promotional partnership was a natural fit.
Philips sponsored Dire Straits’ world tour and featured the band in TV
commercials with the slogan, attributed to Knopfler: “I want the best.
How about you?”
“Brothers in Arms was an iconic release,” says Gennaro Castaldo. “The
CD came to symbolise the so-called yuppie generation, representing new
material success and aspiration. If you owned a CD player it showed you
were upwardly mobile. Its significance seemed to go beyond music to a
lifestyle statement.”
Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, quick to see the potential of CD as a format. Photograph: Fin Costello/Redferns
Brothers in Arms coincided perfectly with an economic recovery, more
affordable CD players and the music industry’s post-Live Aid uptick.
Philips had predicted that annual worldwide sales would surpass 10m that
year while Sony anticipated twice that number. In fact, the figure was
61m, rising to 140m in 1986.
Yet the industry was still half-hearted when it came to back
catalogue. Rykodisc (“Ryko” is Japanese for “sound from a flash of
light”) realised there was big money to be made from consumers upgrading
their record collections to CD if enough care was devoted to
remastering, programming (ie, bonus tracks) and packaging. The newcomer
made big back-catalogue deals with Frank Zappa and David Bowie
because the majors weren’t interested. EMI, which had first dibs, told
Zappa: “No one will ever buy your stuff on CD.” “There wasn’t a real
good understanding on the majors’ side of what some of this stuff was
worth,” Rougvie says.
Eventually, even the slowest labels caught on. When Rob Campkin
started work at HMV’s flagship Oxford Circus, London, store in summer
1988, the entire CD inventory filled just five five-foot racks. By the
following summer, there were almost 40. “In those days, vinyl was very
flimsy,” he says. “Cassettes were completely disposable. When CD came
along and said this will last you a lifetime,customers really did lap it
up. It felt new, it felt shiny, it felt exciting.”
By the 1990s, the CD reigned supreme. As the economy boomed, annual
global sales surpassed 1bn in 1992 and 2bn in 1996, and the profit
margins were the stuff of dreams. The CD was cheaper than vinyl to
manufacture, transport and rack in stores, while selling for up to twice
as much. Even as costs fell, prices rose. “It was simple profiteering,”
says Stephen Witt, whose new book How Music Got Free
chronicles the industry’s vexed relationship with the MP3. “[Labels]
would cut backroom deals with retailers not to let the price drop. The
average price was $14 and the cost had gotten down almost to a dollar,
so the rest was pure profit.”
Jon Webster bristles at this claim. “What’s fair? The public says.
Supply-and-demand says. There were ignorant campaigns by the likes of
the Sun and the Independent on Sunday saying that these things cost a
pound to make. Well, that’s like saying a newspaper costs 3p to produce.
That doesn’t include the creativity and the marketing and the money it
costs to make the actual recordings.”
Whether or not the prices were justified, CDs sold in their billions
and flooded the industry with cash like never before. This enabled
labels to invest more heavily in new talent – Campkin suggests that
Britpop might not have happened without the CD windfall – but it also
funded misguided A&R frenzies, wasteful marketing and excessive pay
packets. “In the 90s we were awash with profitability and became fat, to
be honest,” says Webster.
Philips and Sony also reaped extraordinary sums from royalties on the
discs themselves, including billions of CD-Roms, although none of it
reached Immink and his colleagues. Under Japanese law, engineers were
entitled to a cut, but their Dutch counterparts had to settle for a
salary and a token one-dollar fee for each US patent they filed. “I’m
not saying it happened,” Immink says drily, “but what could have
happened is you work with a Japanese guy from Sony and he can buy a
yacht and the Dutch guy has to be happy with one dollar.”
Philips promotes its new compact disc.
As the decade wore on, there were tremors of unease. The industry was
running out of albums to reissue, battling over price with supermarkets
and big-box retailers, and disturbed by the introduction of CD burners.
“Arguably, it’s why they missed the MP3, because they were so concerned
about compact-disc burners,” says Witt. “If you read corporate
literature about forward-facing risks to the business in the late 90s,
this is one of the top things they’re talking about, if not the top. And
the impact was real. If bootleg discs flood the market they kill sales,
no question about it.”
Bootleg CDs were a danger the industry could get its head around –
you could hold one in your hand. What it couldn’t comprehend was the
threat of the MP3: the idea that music could transcend physical formats.
“That happened for two reasons,” says Witt. “One was they were enjoying
unbelievable profits. Two, the studio engineers hated the way the MP3
sounded and refused to engage with it. A lot of artists hated the way it
sounded, too.” What the audiophiles didn’t realise was that most
consumers couldn’t tell the difference. “What was the audio experience
before the compact disc?” says Witt. “It was cheap vinyl or an AM
transistor radio on the beach, and MP3 sounds better than either of
those.”
Rougvie suggests a third reason: fierce resistance from retailers
who, understandably, considered the MP3 an existential threat.
“Distributors and record stores were threatening to return every Ryko
title they had, just because we were selling 10 or 12 MP3s every week.
If that’s what we were feeling, I can only imagine what kind of pushback
EMI or Warners were getting.”
Just like their predecessors in Greece in 1982, 90s executives were
too busy worrying about the next quarter to consider the next decade.
The status quo was perfect, until it wasn’t. “My biggest bugbear about
this industry is that they all think short-term,” says Webster. “Nobody
ever thinks long-term. All these executives were sitting there being
paid huge bonuses on increased profits and they didn’t care. I don’t
think anyone saw it coming. I remember the production guy at Virgin
saying, ‘In a few years, you’re going to be able to carry all the music
you want around on something the size of a credit card.’ And we all
laughed. Don’t be ridiculous! How can you do that?”
The iPod, CD’s ultimate foe. Photograph: Sarah Lee
“The MP3 wasn’t just a new format, it was a whole new way of doing
things,” Castaldo says. “There was also the first dotcom boom and bust,
and I remember some people around me saying: ‘I told you it would never
take off. That’s not how people want to buy music.’ Obviously a
brand-new player like Apple could write the future as it saw it, but the
rest of us didn’t have such a blank sheet to start from.”
Only a handful of people predicted the CD’s downfall way back in
1982. German computer engineer Dieter Seitzer, the forefather of the
MP3, immediately considered the CD “a maximalist repository of
irrelevant information, most of which was ignored by the human ear,”
writes Witt. If music could become digital data, he thought, it wouldn’t
be bound by the Red Book. Webster remembers one industry Cassandra,
Maurice Oberstein – who ran CBS and then Polygram in the UK – making a
similar point. “He was the only one who went: ‘We’re making a huge
mistake. We’re putting studio-quality masters into the hands of people.’
And he was absolutely right in that respect. Once you made a CD with
ones and zeroes it was only a matter of time before that was converted
into something that was easily transferable.”
The fall of the CD, like its rise, began slowly. When file-sharing
first took off with Napster in 1999 and 2000, CD sales continued to
ascend, reaching an all-time peak of 2.455bn in 2000. Tech-savvy,
cash-poor teenagers stopped buying them but most consumers didn’t want
(or know how) to illegally download digital files on a slow dial-up
connection. So the market remained steady, artificially buoyed by
aggressive discounting.
It was the 2001 launch of the iPod, an aspirational premium product
which made MP3s portable, that turned the tide. “Before that the MP3 was
an inferior good,” Witt says. “Once you had the iPod, the CD was an
inferior good. It could get cracked or lost, whereas MP3 files lasted.”
Not pure, not perfect, but sound for ever.
The compact disc has proved surprisingly tenacious. It still
dominates markets such as Japan, Germany and South Africa; it makes for a
better Christmas present than an iTunes voucher; and it has some
hardcore enthusiasts. Jeff Rougvie is even planning to set up a boutique
CD label to reissue rare and out-of-print albums. “It defies
conventional wisdom but so did Ryko at the time. There’s an audience.”
But, insists Stephen Witt: “It’s dying. It will go obsolete like the
floppy disc did. It just always takes a little more time than you’d
think.”
Rob Campkin recently opened a record shop in Cambridge called Lost in Vinyl.
He only stocks a handful of the discs that were once the most lucrative
product in the history of music. “Margins are very slim,” he says. “I’d
have to sell three or four CDs for every one copy on vinyl. It wouldn’t
be worth my while.” How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt is published by Bodley Head on 18 June.
Nemački bendovi i
muzičari inspirisali su umetnike iz celog sveta i oblikovali mnoge
muzičke stilove, kao na primer elektro-pioniri Kraftverk, koji u Berlinu
upravo počinju niz koncerata, ali oni nisu jedini.
Izvor: Tanjug
Kraftwerk
Sedamdesetih godina svet pop muzike je bio čudnovato
raznolik. Na top-listama tih godina bili su disko i glem rok, pored
legendarnih rok bendova poput Dženezis i Pink flojd, prenosi Dojče vele.
Tu je i pank, ali i umetnici kao što su Aba, Elton Džon,
Flitwud Mek. Onda na scenu stupaju Nemci. U Zapadnom Berlinu sastaju se
umetnici koji su uglavnom posvećeni elektronskom zvuku, koji istražuju
mogućnosti svojih sintisajzera, a jedna od tih grupa zove se Tangerine
Dream.
Za bubnjevima sedi izvesni Klaus Šulce, koji je tokom
vremena otkrio svoje interesovanje za sintetički zvuk i ubrzo se
posvetio sopstvenim projektima. Godine 1972. izdaje prvi album
"Irrlicht" kojim postavlja naglavčake sve što se do tada moglo čuti.
Šulc svoje delo naziva "kvadrofonična simfonija za orkestar i
električne mašine". Ritam je u pozadini, odjednom su tu zvučni pejzaži i
psihodelični zvučni tepisi.
Sve više muzičara, širom sveta,
zainteresovalo se za ovog čudaka iz Nemačke. Tako je, na primer, došlo
do saradnje sa poznatim japanskom "elektroničarem" Stomuom Jamašitom.
Njegov album "Gonastao" je pod velikim uticajem Šulcea. Zvuk Klausa
Šulcea je početak nove ere u muzici i on će se razvijati dugi niz godina
i biti osnova za mnoge današnje stilove elektronske muzike - od
ambijenta do transa i tehna. Za mnoge je Šulce čak "Kum tehna".
I u Dizeldorfu su dva muzičara sa sintisajzerima u potrazi za novim
muzičkim horizontima: Ralf Hiter i Florijan Šnajder koji osnivaju duo
Kraftverk. Oni angažuju nekoliko muzičara, prave dva albuma koji odmah
privlače pažnju.
"Veliki prasak" se dešava izlaskom trećeg
albuma "Autoban" koji je proizvoden isključivo elektronski i smatra se
prvim elektro-pop albumom.
Rammstein
Elektronska muzika kakvu poznajemo danas nezamisliva je
bez Kraftverka, kažu i muzičari i stručnjaci. I lista onih koji kažu da
ih je Kraftverk inspirisao veoma je duga: Dejvid Bouvi, Dipeš mod,
Djuran Djuran, Mobi i Nju order.
Francuski elektronski duo Daft
pank doveo je do savršenstva ideju Kraftverka - da se na sceni
predstavljaju kao "ljudi-mašine".
Duo Kan je osnovan 1968. u
Kelnu, na basu jedan od učenika Štokhauzena, Holger Čukai, i na
bubnjevima džez muzičar Jaki Libecajt.
Od samog početka je bilo
jasno da neće svirati uobičajeni rokenrol, pošto napuštaju kalupe,
improvizuju, ugrađuju etno muziku, kasnije i razne zvuke i elektroniku.
U Nemačkoj ta muzika prolazi samo kod avangarde, a na tržištu se teško probija.
Tek 1975. napravljen je ugovor sa jednom velikom izdavačkom kućom i tek
posle mnogo godina, muzičari iz celog sveta otkrivaju Kan.
Indi i alternativni bendovi poput Portished, Radiohed, Sonik jut, navode
muzičare iz Kelna kao važan impuls za svoje stvaralštvo.
Trijumf
benda Skorpions počinje sredinom sedamdesetih. Prvo su osvojili
Englesku, nastupajući kao predgrupa velikih rok bendova kao što su Kis
ili Juraja hip.
Album "Virgin Killer" je 1976. u Japanu bio
zlatan, nakon čega je rasprodata i Nipon turneja. Tri godine kasnije,
bend je pokušao da se probije u Sjedinjenim Američkim Državama, nastupom
na festivalu pred 60.000 ljudi - pored AC/DC i Aerosmita.
Na prvoj svetskoj turneji Skorpionsa, 1982. kao predgrupa nastupa Ajron mejden.
Album "Love at first Sting" katapultirao je bend 1984. godine na nebo "metal scene".
Sven Vath
Ploče se prodaju u ogromnim tiražima, na koncerte dolazi i
do 400.000 posetilaca. Kao predgrupe sviraju Metalika i Motorhed - s
tim što im menadžeri poručuju da dobro obrate pažnju na nastup tog
nemačkog benda, kako bi znali kako moraju da se ponašaju na bini.
Najpoznatija balada "Wind of Change" je postala zvučni simbol pada Berlinskog zida i kraja Hladnog rata.
Širom sveta ima obožavalaca "nove nemačke tvrdoće". Ramštajn je samo u
SAD prodao više od dva miliona primeraka albuma "Čežnja" (Sehnsucht).
Dva puta su nominovani za Gremi.
Ramštajn je za mnoge konačno
nešto zaista nemačko. Sviđa im se teški zvuk, mada tekstove isprva ne
razumeju. A onda fanovi uče i na uvek rasprodatim koncertima gromko
pevaju: "Achtung! Verboten!" (Pažnja! Zabranjeno) ili "Heirate mi" (Udaj
se za mene).
Mnogi drugi muzičari iz Nemačke smatraju se
posebno uticajnim i inspirativnim. Dipeš mod se intenzivno bavio zvukom
benda Einsturzenden Neubauten - eksperimentalnim muzičkim projektom iz
Berlina.
Bend oko pevača Bliksa Bargelda koristi više otpad nego instrumente za stvaranje i oblikuje takozvani industrijski zvuk.
Sven Fet je jedan od prvih tehno di-džejeva. Tehno iz Nemačke pojavio
se u ranim devedesetim i brzo je osvojio ceo svet, međutim koncept ne
potiče iz Nemačke. U novom pravcu su spojeni različiti muzički stilovi
poput Chicago House, Electronic Body Music ili elektronska avangarda.
Sven Vet je sve to iskombinovao i još je jedan od najbolje plaćenih di-džejeva na svetu.
Frank Farijan je sedamdesetih godina svetu donosio disko zvuk. Prvo je
sa Boni M osvojio međunarodnu publiku, a potom pod ugovor uzima američku
pevačicu Donu Samer i proizvodi sa njom nekoliko disko klasika.
Krajem osamdesetih, on i njegov pop duo Mili Vanili postižu ogroman
međunarodni uspeh i čak su dobili i Gremi. Međutim, potom se ispostavilo
da je sve bilo laž i prevara: Mili Vanili su pevali na plejbek, a Gremi
im je oduzet.
Although there are numerous great shorts floating around
on YouTube focusing on vinyl culture, digging and record collecting,
here is a list of some must-see feature length documentaries and
mini-series that capture all that it means to be a vinyl fanatic and
look at record collecting from every possible angle.
Records Collecting Dust (2015, 57 min)
Written and directed by San Diego based musician and filmmaker Jason
Blackmore, Records Collecting Dust documents the vinyl record
collections, origins, and holy grails of alternative music icons Jello
Biafra, Chuck Dukowski, Keith Morris, John Reis, and over thirty other
underground music comrades. "...a documentary film about the music and
records that changed our lives"
A documentary by canadian filmmaker and record collector Alan Zweig
who investigates the wacky world of record collecting and tries to get
to the bottom of his obsession. In the film, Zweig seeks not to talk to
people who collect records to discuss music, but rather to discuss what
drives someone to collect records in the first place. Zweig spends a
large portion of the film in stylized self-filmed "confessions", where
he expounds on his life in regard to record collecting, feeling it has
prevented him from fulfilling his dreams of a family. Between others,
collectors who he taks to include a car wash employee who claims to own
over one million records and claims to have memorized the track listing
of every K-Tel collection he owns, a government employee who refuses to
organize his collection because he doesn't want people to come over and a
man who threw out his large record collection rather than sell or give
it away because he didn't want anyone else to own it.
A documentary portrait of the very last surviving vinyl record shop
in Teesside, North East England. A cultural haven in one of the most
deprived areas in the UK, the film documents a place that is thriving
against the odds and the local community that keeps it alive. Directed
by Jeanie Finlay who grew up three miles from the shop. A distinctive,
funny and intimate film about men, obsession and the irreplaceable role
music plays in our lives.
Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton: This Is Stones Throw Records (2013, 94 min)
Our Vinyl Weighs A Ton is a feature-length documentary about
avant-garde Los Angeles-based record label Stones Throw Records. The
film weaves together rare concert footage, never-before-seen archival
material, inner-circle home video and photographs and in-depth
interviews with the artists who put Stones Throw Records on the map. Our
Vinyl Weighs A Ton gives an exclusive look into the label's
left-of-center artists, history, culture, and global following. The film
features exclusive interviews with Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Common,
Questlove, Talib Kweli, Mike D (The Beastie Boys), Tyler the Creator,
and many more.
Directed and edited by Doug Pray, the film explores the world of the
hip-hop DJ from the birth of hip-hop when pioneering DJs began extending
breaks on records, to the invention of scratching and beat juggling, to
the more recent explosion of turntablism. Throughout the documentary,
many artists explain how they were introduced to hip-hop while providing
stories of their personal experiences. While Scratch is not a movie
about vinyl collecting, it's a definitive chronicle of the history,
theory, and practice of turntablism.
A documentary feature by Brendan Toller, examining why over 3000
independent record stores have closed across the U.S. in the past
decade. Greedy record labels, media consolidation, homogenized radio,
big box stores, Ecommerce, shoddy "stars" pushed by big money, and the
digital revolution all pose threats on the very well being of our
favorite record stores and the music industry at large. Will these
stores die? Will they survive?
The documentary focuses on an eccentric record collector, Joe
Bussard, who has devoted his life to preserving the raw music of the
American South, including blues, hillbilly, bluegrass, gospel and jazz.
In combing the region for masterpieces primarily from the 1920s and
'30s, Bussard has amassed more than 25,000 records. Bonus features
include rare footage of John Lee Hooker performing "Never Get Out of
These Blues Alive" and Son House with "Death Letter Blues.".
Vinylmania: When Life Runs at 33 Revolutions Per Minute (2012, 75 min)
A trip into the grooves, Vinylmania is a 75 minute feature length
documentary about an object that has never lost its soul: the vinyl
record. An epic love story, the film is filled with fascinating
characters and internationally recognized artists including Philippe
Cohen Solal (Gotan Project), Winston Smith (Dead Kennedys, Green Day
record sleeve artist), Peter Saville (Joy Division, New Order record
sleeve artist) and Dj Kentaro (2002 DMC World DJ Champion). Devotion,
ecstasy, infatuation, agony - all feelings that the director of the
film, Paolo Campana, has experienced from childhood and shares with
like-minded record collectors, Djs, musicians and artists (the said
vinylmaniacs) in the documentary. Set in 11 different cities worldwide,
the director sets out on a global road trip to find out what role vinyl
records play in the 21st century.
Last Shop Standing: The Rise, Fall And Rebirth Of The Independent Record Shop (2012, 50 min)
Last Shop Standing inspired by the book of the same name by Graham
Jones takes you behind the counter to discover why nearly 2000 record
shops have already disappeared across the UK. The film charts the rapid
rise of record shops in the 1960's, 70's and 80's, the influence of the
chart, the underhand deals, the demise of vinyl and rise of the CD as
well as new technologies. Where did it all go wrong? Why were 3 shops a
week closing? Will we be left with no record shops with the continuing
rise of downloading? Hear from over 20 record shop owners and music
industry leaders as well as musicians including Paul Weller, Johnny
Marr, Norman Cook, Billy Bragg, Nerina Pallot, Richard Hawley and Clint
Boon as they all tell us how the shops became and still are a part of
their own musical education, a place to cherish and discover new bands
and new music.
A BBC documentary that tells the story of the long playing album -
the unsung hero in popular music's epic history. Between the mid-1960s
and the late 1970s, the long-playing record and the albums that graced
its grooves changed popular music for ever. For the first time,
musicians could escape the confines of the three-minute pop single and
express themselves as never before across the expanded artistic canvas
of the album. The LP allowed popular music become an art form - from the
glorious artwork adorning gatefold sleeves, to the ideas and concepts
that bound the songs together, to the unforgettable music itself. Built
on stratospheric sales of albums, these were the years when the music
industry exploded to become bigger than Hollywood. From pop to rock,
from country to soul, from jazz to punk, all of music embraced what 'the
album' could offer. But with the collapse of vinyl sales at the end of
the 70s and the arrival of new technologies and formats, the golden era
of the album couldn't last forever. With contributions from Roger
Taylor, Ray Manzarek, Noel Gallagher, Guy Garvey, Nile Rodgers, Grace
Slick, Mike Oldfield, Slash and a host of others, this is the story of
When Albums Ruled the World.
A film which tells of the world of record collecting as seen through
the eyes of the collectors themselves. Listen as they share there
thoughts on the subject of vinyl digging as you enter the realm of the
last true culture where music is key and collecting is a part of life.
Rather more upbeat immersion in stacks of wax as an array of hardcore
diggers trace the roots of their vinyl love and show off prize
obscurities while the camera lovingly pans across musty record-shop
basements and apartment walls covered with floor-to-ceiling shelf units.
The part two of Red Beans & Rice spins up another cool set of
spine-tingling tales from the world of the record collector. Look.
listen and learn from our latest bunch of vinyl addicts as they wax
poetic over the captivating hobby known around the world today as "vinyl
digging."
A documentary film made by Elaine Shepherd, for BBC's Channel 4. It
is about a small private collection of the British radio DJ John Peel
who died in 2004 at the age of 65. His archive contained more than
100,000 vinyl records and CDs. This collection contains 143 singles -
some of them doublettes - stored in a private wooden box representing
some of his own favourites. According to the documentary, there are no
singles by Peel's favorite group, The Fall, because he kept them in a
separate box. The film features interviews with John's wife Sheila
Ravenscroft, radio DJs and artists like Mary Anne Hobbs, Sir Elton John,
Ronnie Wood, Roger Daltrey, Fergal Sharkey, Jack White, Michael Palin
and Miki Berenyi.
In an age of digital downloads, the documentary looks at why fans
still love and need to love vinyl records. The film uses archive footage
and current interviews with leaders of music explaining an audiophile's
holiday and some of their favorite records and what Record Store Day
means to them.
This documentary film by the dublab.com creative collective is an
experiment in sound recycling. Secondhand Sureshots features four
amazing, LA-based beat makers: Daedelus, J-Rocc, Nobody and Ras G in a
secret mission to create new musical magic from the dusty remains of
thrift store vinyl. Shot on location at Out of the Closet Thrift Stores
and bedroom studios in Los Angeles.
The film celebrates the culture of independent record stores while
examining the effects of downloading and the recent resurgence of vinyl
record sales. The documentary profiles a number of Chicago's independent
record stores, and features interviews with store owners, employees and
customers as well as insightful commentary from national music critics
Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot (of National Public Radio's "Sound Opinions"
program).
The award-winning digital series by Fuse, profiles musicians through
the thing they hold most dear - their record collections. New episodes
every other Wednesday!
Serbia’s most recent difficult history dates back to the 90s where
the country suffered through the initial ramifications of the breakup
of Yugoslavia, civil war, high inflation and high unemployment rates.
For some reason the Western world’s idea of Serbia hasn’t fully moved on from that turbulent period.
Despite this Serbia’s local music and arts scene has flourished in the years since.
Why its nightlife still remains largely uncelebrated in comparison to Paris or London
is baffling when you consider that even during the 90s Belgrade managed
to not just to maintain is fervour for nightclubbing but actively
improve it.
When the 1999 NATO bombs dropped down on Yugoslavia Belgrade still
managed to have its own huge outdoor concerts in city squares and on
bridges, just as the city’s nightclubs started operating during the
daytime.
With that period behind them, Belgrade may not be as architecturally
as splendid as its European counterparts, but its nightlife rivals all.
There are countless nightclubs citywide and on the metropolis famous splavs, that is music venues on barges for the uninitiated.
Nightclubs reverberate everything form house music to progressive,
tech house and Serbia’s own turbo-folk, which incorporates folk music
with electronic and pop elements.
While a wide variety of other genres are represented across the
board, there’s an underground scene that has emerged from the scars of
the past.
Canadian bred, but Serbian born producer Ensh takes The 405
through his birth place’s music scene, detailing a “myriad of small
clubs, cultural centres and re-appropriated spaces. Like Fest, KC Grad
and Inex Film”.
Primarily though he introduces outsiders to an establishment called
BIGZ, which is an multilevel abandoned publishing house that has been
transformed into a creative centre for artists.
The building is home to underground venues, practice spaces and recording studios.
Ensh’s most interesting statement though, is where he describes the artists that make up the creative scenes in Belgrade.
“No one involved in the Belgrade alternative scene plays music
because they have any pretense of “making it”, they just want to play
music. It is that very same passion that has drawn in DIY tours from all
over Europe to Belgrade. It just feels like the right place to be.
There is a combination of naiveté, devotion and wonder that would give
any musical cynic a glimpse of hope.”
As both Ensh and the city’s large number of thriving nightclub’s
demonstrate Belgrade’s music scene is thriving on a number of fronts.
Whether you’re interested in dancing the night away or immersing
yourself into avant-garde culture the Serbian capital is one of Europe’s
must-visit music destinations. Read on for the 12 things every music fan must do in the Serbian capital.
Having
just won the ‘Best Major European Festival’ award at the 2014 EU
Festival Awards, Serbia’s biggest music event is continually recognised
as one of the greatest music festivals in the continent. Despite it
being held outside of Belgrade in Novi Sad the event is too integral to
the country’s music scene not to be included here. Its foundations are
important to note as well. Founded in 2000 as a student movement
fighting for democracy, it still to this day is an important promoter of
social equality. Held over four days Exit books big name acts such as
Arcade Fire, Portishead, Guns N’ Roses, Bloc Party, Faith No More, Lily
Allen, The Prodigy, Arctic Monkeys, Sex Pistols and Pulp to name just a
few.
Visit A Splav
Splav literally translates to raft in English, although it’s known more
for being a barge restaurant than a floating device. These restaurants
are typically located along the Sava and Danube rivers, which define the
city. Most turn into nightclubs by night with no cover charge on entry.
The music at the splav’s range from folk, pop and rock acts to dance
inspired DJs. You can’t visit Belgrade without hopping aboard at least
one of these floating restaurants or nightclubs.
Toplička 35 Zvezdara
A favourite amongst locals this record store is true to its name.
Selling a variety of vinyl from ex Yugoslavia with titles from major and
minor labels Yugovinyl provides a fascinating insight into the music of
Yugoslavia. There’s even Yu editions of international legends such as
The Beatles, Queen, The Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley.
At the forefront of the ‘New Serbian Scene’ – a collective of pop/rock
artists formed after the year 2000 – this seven-piece outfit has a large
following in the ex-Yu region. With their name translating to ‘Everyone
One The Floor!’ it’s not hard to distinguish just what the band’s
dancefloor aims are. The pop ensemble were voted best band in their
local music scene in 2009 and were awarded best local concert in 2011 by
Serbian website Popboks
Toplička 35 Zvezdara Sava River dock
If there’s any splav nightclub you should visit first it’s this one.
Situated on the banks of the Sava River 20/44 is open all year round.
The sound system echoes a broad range of sounds from Detroit techno to
soul, disco, funk, house and dubstep. The venue is most famous for its
‘Disco Not Disco’ nights which allows the city’s best DJs to experiment
and surprise their audience. Its cheap entry and you can also get a
pretty great view of old Belgrade from the splav in summer.
Take A Walk Down Skadarska Street
Tourists venture down this street because it is filled with quality
restaurants and cafes in the heart of old Belgrade. Paved with
cobblestones and characterised by buildings with impressive murals you
won’t remember a more lively daytime Belgrave than when you’re down
Skadarska. You’ll also experience plenty of live bands and string
orchestras along your walk. Just remember to stop off for some Serbian
cuisine while your walking down this pedestrian street.
Buy vinyl from The Wall
The Wall, Balkanska 29 Toplička 35 Zvezdara
While this record house has no online presence to speak of it’s more
than worth checking out in person. Centred towards metal, punk and rock
it sells vinyls from these genres at pretty competitive prices. Band
merchandise such as hoodies and t-shirts are also for sale here, along
with badges and other forms of memorabilia. The Wall is open Monday to
Friday from 12pm to 6pm and is located on the first floor of a mini
shopping mall.
Known internationally as the maker behind ‘Why Don’t You’ which reached
the #12 spot in the UK charts, Marko Milićević is one of Serbia’s most
famous DJs. The producer has released a wide array of DJs and a string
of singles to follow up the success of ‘Why Don’t You’, won a European
MTV award and played festivals across the continent.
Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, the historical
compilation of hard-to-find Roma pop classics is set for release in
2013
Part of the record collection amassed for the compilation / Photo: Philip Knox
For the past year, British music aficionados Philip Knox and Nat
Morris have been indulging in a dulcet love affair with a relatively
obscure pop culture niche. After stumbling upon a bootleg copy of
‘Romano Horo,’ an early 1960s single by Esma Redzepova (the
self-proclaimed ‘Queen of the Gypsies’), these two star-crossed music
junkies fell head over ears in love with Roma pop music from the former
Yugoslavia.
This long-distance love triangle spawned a journey to the former
Yugoslav republics to recover the endangered gems from the jaws of
oblivion and preserve them for future hip-twisters and head-bobbers.
Beginning in the 1960s and lasting until around 1980, this particular
breed of pop music flourished in Tito’s Yugoslavia, where Roma culture
was able to collide with contemporary European and American influences.
Feeding off these and other diverse sources, while keeping their feet
grounded in the rich and colorful Roma heritage, these Gypsy virtuosos
spun some dainty delights, music as tight now as it was forty odd years
ago.
The emotional range and talent of these artists will send you on a
journey of self-discovery: you’ll cut the rug to some sylvan accordion
keys, weep relentlessly to the swoons of tragic lovers, and maybe even
find your next favorite morning bus ride foot tapper. In short, Tito’s
Roma rockers give Fleetwood Mac a run for their money.
Philip Knox and Nat Morris with the legendary Esma Redzepova. Note the multiple portraits of herself in the background.
Knox and Morris spent last year travelling the Balkans ferreting
about for old LPs and bootlegs cassettes. Their travels took them from
the outskirts of Skopje to the heart of Belgrade, from stanky alleyways
to gaudy mansions, from flea markets to gypsy weddings, all in the hopes
of squirreling away some almost-forgotten ear candy of the Roma
variety. Heck, they even got to meet the Gypsy Queen herself.
After collecting their euphonic booty, the duo ran a successful Kickstarter campaign
to fund the release of a compilation of the music they collected, the
result of their yearlong adventure. Now we can all feast our senses on
the visceral wealth they brought back with them.
In the meantime, Knox sat down to answer some questions about his wacky escapades: What is it about Roma music that got you jazzed up in the first place?
Roma music is incredibly diverse, with different regions fusing and
incorporating different musical traditions. Nat and I had always been
interested in the Balkans, and there were lots of great Roma bands from
the region who had broken through to the UK: Koçani Orkestar, Fanfare
Ciocārlia, Mahala Rai Banda. They’re all amazing. I suppose part of the
reason that the ROma have such a great musical tradition is that they
were exlcluded from mainstream jobs for such a large part of their
history. But, also, music really is a central part of life for Balkan
Roma.
I suppose part of the reason that Roma music has become a global
success is its rawness and passion. But it’s also about subtlety and
control, it’s about tone. That’s what makes it so compelling. While traveling through the Western Balkans did you ever get lost in translation? If so, do you have any stories to tell us?
After getting a haircut from Redžep Musa in Šutka, Macedonia
Many times. Everywhere we went we would ask people about old and
often forgotten Roma singers and instrumentalists, about where we could
find ploča gramafonska (vinyl records), or for directions to a buvlijak
(fleamarket). Although we found a couple of great record stores and
collectors, for the most part peole thought we were insane. Kind-hearted
people would tell us to wait while they brought us an MP3 CD of all the
Roma music we could want, and it coudl be hard to explain that we
wanted the vinyls because those songs couldn’t be downloaded.
Our worst case of lost-in-translation blues was when tried to
hitchhike from Belgrade to Sarajevo. We had to be in Sarajevo in two
days for meetings, but we were broke. We hitchhiked as far as Northern
Bosnia on the first day, and were told that we could get a short bus
ride to a place where there were cheap coaches to Sarajevo. We asked the
driver to drop us there, a crossroads of tiny mountain tracks with a
petrol station. The arsehole of nowhere. The guys in the petrol station
were the first unfriendly people we’d met on that trip.
We eventually convinced them to call us a taxi to the nearerst place
to stay – the taxi was their friend, a tattoo artist whose car had no
back seats. The hotel, in Milica, was owned by a mining franchise, with
framed pictures of mining machinery everywhere and a huge statue of
Vladimir Putin in the town square. We were only a few miles from
Srebrenica. Dark times. Anything interesting to eat or drink while abroad?
I love Macedonian food. Lots of amazing tomatoes and aubergines and
garlic. One day in the market in Skopje we bought a delicious hard
sheep’s cheese and had it on bread with black honey from bees fed only
on tea flowers. One of the best meals ever.
As far as drink goes, I have a weakness for rakija. The best stuff is
always made at home, and of all the home-brews we tried, my favourite
was made by the grandfather of the owner of Yugovinyl, a brilliant
little record shop in Belgrade. When we whent there to check out his
record collection he plied with the stuff until the bottle was empty.
This is probably why we bought so many records there. What was the funkiest smell you encountered? How about your worst bathroom experience? Give us the scoop on your poop.
The worst smell in the Balkans is the stink of bullshit coming off
most of the politicians. We were in Macedonia for its national holiday
last year, where they unveiled an enomrous and obscenely expensive
bronze statue of Alexander the Great in the town square.
Meanwhile, up the hill in Šutka, the biggest Roma settlement in the
world, there are still huge infrastructure problems, bad roads and
rolling blackouts. Of course, Alexander the Great wouldn’t be a
political bargaining chip for the nationalists if it weren’t for Greece
blocking Macedonia’s claims to be called Macedonia or associate itself
with anything that might be considered Macedonian. Corruption is rife in
Serbia, Bosnia, everywhere, and people’s lives aren’t getting any
easier. Very stinky indeed. They say nightlife is pretty wild around these parts. Tell us about your craziest nocturnal romp with the Romas.
Black Panthers, things getting out of hand. Spoonman is there, too
We had an amazing night in Crni Panteri [Black Panthers] in Belgrade.
It’s a live music venue right on the Sava – but it feels like it could
be in deepest Mississippi. Most of the staff and musicians are Roma,
though they don’t always like to openly self-identify as such.
On the weekends they mostly play Serbian folk music, always a crowd pleaser, and people are dancing on the tables by midnight.
We went another time, mid-week, where the vibe was much more intimate
but very raw. We stayed still five in the morning chain-smoking and
drinking with the owner and roaring along the words to Roma music
classics from the region – the players really weren’t holding back.
At one point a massive motor yacht turned up and docked beside the bar
and all these young Serbians jumped in. Everyone was sharing the fun and
the love of the music. It was a great night.
*More info: standuppeople.co.uk
ako
moze april u beogradu, moze i decembarska berza u novembru, enivej,
posto imamo nameru da pravimo i novogodisnju 28.12, ovu smo pomerili
malo ranije...e da, sad imamo i agregat, tako da elekotrodistribucijo
skapaj u jarmu bola.
Having
just won the ‘Best Major European Festival’ award at the 2014 EU
Festival Awards, Serbia’s biggest music event is continually recognised
as one of the greatest music festivals in the continent. Despite it
being held outside of Belgrade in Novi Sad the event is too integral to
the country’s music scene not to be included here. Its foundations are
important to note as well. Founded in 2000 as a student movement
fighting for democracy, it still to this day is an important promoter of
social equality. Held over four days Exit books big name acts such as
Arcade Fire, Portishead, Guns N’ Roses, Bloc Party, Faith No More, Lily
Allen, The Prodigy, Arctic Monkeys, Sex Pistols and Pulp to name just a
few.
Toplička 35 Zvezdara
Toplička 35 Zvezdara Sava River dock
Toplička 35 Zvezdara
