Heartland Records

Heartland Records.
Now at:
420 Victoria St,
North Melbourne 3051
Ph: 93299636
having just moved from
61 Peel Street,
West Melbourne, opposite the Victoria Market.

Visited Heartland Records yesterday and was really impressed with its modern new premises and broad selection of vinyl on offer. 
Initially it was located opposite Victoria Market and has just 6 weeks ago moved into a new shop around the corner on Victoria St, apparently the old shop and building are being demolished (more apartments probably).
The new double fronted shop is spread over 2 rooms with all the juicy vinyl out the back. The shop is fresh and light and makes for a very pleasant browse/search experience. The vinyl is arranged loosely according to genre, with Metal taking pride of place, then Punk/Hardcore and Indie/Alternative. All sections are very well stocked and arranged in A-Z and with the usual suspects carded by name. There was also an older 'decades' section and some miscellaneous but choice second hand records including some nice collector pieces.

All albums are presented in their own Polypropylene sleeve and the prices are pretty reasonable, especially considering the choice nature of a lot of the stock i.e. picture discs, colour discs and limited editions. I ended up picking this sweet Lost in Translation soundtrack picture disc and Sleep's final opus on purple vinyl, just to reprise my Om concert experience. 

All in all a solid shop and definitely worth a revisit.

222 Retro and Vintage

Retro and Vintage
222 St Georges Rd.
North Fitzroy

Dropped into this shop today mainly to tick it of my list.
I'm about half way through my tour of all of Melbourne's Vinyl Record shops and have just about covered all the good shops on this side of town. With the remainder on the shops are south of the Yarra I'll have to be a little more strategic with my trip plans.

Retro and Vintage bills itself as stocking 'Vintage clothing for guys and gals, retro and industrial furniture and a large quantity of LP's'. However there was nothing boutique or retro or vaguely interesting about this place, just mildew and mothballs, dust and worn-out furniture.

It had rained heavily overnight and there was a lot of moisture in the air, so it was sad to see the 3 or so crates of very second hand looking vinyl strategically placed near the open back door and even on the ground leaving them directly exposed to the moist air, dirt and dust. Consequently on flipping through the first few albums you could feel that the cardboard jackets were soft and damp.
Now for some items and in some circles a bit of wear and tear might add character and history but for me a record is and artifact, something which if you look after it, it will reward you with years of listening pleasure. 
These albums on the other hand looked crap and to see them treated like this was like Buzz and Woody watching Sid take to a new toy with his pliers.

The $20-$25 per record asking price was a bit of a joke too. Although there was the odd decent album the lot probably cost the owner $5 -$10 per crate at some deceased estate... forget about it!

Discurio/Title Space.

Discurio, (Title Space)
113 Hardware Street Melbourne 3000
Ph: 03 9600 1488 (another brick and mortar now close)

Visited Discurio today, soz 'Title'.
Discurio was the classical music specially shop back in the day, however it has since been brought out by Title Space a local music/book shop franchise. Which is a bit of shame because I remember Discurio as being a real patron of the Melbourne classic music scene, sponsoring local concerts and stocking albums you just couldn't find anywhere else.

The Title buy out may have kept the doors open but they have brought their own safe, homogenized, pasteurized and franchised version of a record shop to the store. There are still a few examples of character and flavor and at least some of the original specialist catalogue. But overall the programed tastes of corporate wantabies hold rein and the vinyl collection was so sad looking I went straight to the CD's picking up Stravinsky's Rite of Spring to drown my sorrow. 














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Licocrice Pie and Quality Vinyl records

Licorice Pie Records,

249A High Street Prahran
Victoria Australia

Visited Licorice Pie Records Saturday and was unsure of what I would find as in their own words, "We stock all sorts".
There was definitely a serious amount of vinyl to wade through, however despite generally accurate catalogue titles covering genres as diverse as 'Pre war blues' to 'J-pop' looking through the sheer volume was a bit of an effort.
The major categories were so board as to cover up to 10 crates which were stacked so tight it was difficult to discern titles without fully removing them first.

Strictly second hand, the records are generally in good nic, however I was a little disappointed to find the Red Crayola album I picked up missing an inner sleeve.
Prices were ok with a few bargains to be found but things were generally >$30 mark.


There were some great titles lined up on the wall such as the Yatha Sidhra's Krautrock classic A Meditation Mass for $150 and a good looking copy of a Radio Birdman live in Sydney which turns out to be a bootleg.

All up my browsing experience was a little n.q.r. which I can only attribute to mash-up collection. Sometimes what you leave out can be as defining as what you put in and throwing in everything just leaves gives blaaaaa!
















Quality Records
269 Glenferrie Road Malvern Vic 3144
Tel: 03 9500 9902
Wow, what can I say: punch this guy in the face and I'll give you $10.

If I hear another shop owner or patron trying to whistle along to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts and improve over A Day In The Life...sacrilegious.

If you have to visit this shop they have mainly new vinyl with a small selection of cheaply priced second hand albums. They also have a collection of over priced 'Audiophile' records if you have cash to splash.

I did pick the Pixies Surfer Rosa because the album is perfection and Portishead's second album because Geoff Barrow if a synth legend. Check out Drokk.

Om at the HiFi bar

Om
HiFi Bar
125 Swanston St
Melbourne
OM at the HiFi Bar last night were an immense, epic and awesome experience.
From the first stroke of cavitating bass to the final smash of the zildjians these guys were tight, deep and immense.
Al was total absorbed in the sound generated by his bass and projected with devastating effect from a stack of Ampegs, even to the extent of causing harmonic distortion to the vocals and to voices in the crowd. If I was synesthetic I'm sure this would appear as sheets of purifying white opalescence burning away the gray dross of the corporeal.  From the very first note which opened like a dam breaking until the lights came Om were simultaneously totally heavy and disorientating but equally totally natural and hypnotic.

The new drummer Emil worked tirelessly on his 10 piece Drumworks kit, making heavy use of the cymbals and only pausing once for the whole set. Emil's kit was tight with his base sounding as sharp as his snare which was like a repeated Shakti touch and perfectly complemented Al's bass and provided progression and cathartic release.

Rob Lowe, aka Lichens was an unexpected but welcome presence playing some sort of electronic sound board with oscillator, a collection of tambourines and a white guitar played upright like a tambura. He also contributed some amazingly angelic vocals which blended seamlessly with the rhythm and bass.

All in all an inspiring show from a creative well spring of a band.

Aummmmmmmmmmmmmm for ever. 

Crate Digger record fair

Yah Yahs
99 Smith Street
Collingwood.

Today was the first Crate Digger record fair of the year which is advertised as happening 4 times a year. I'd been looking forward to checking it out after picking up their flyer a few weeks ago and hooking up to their facebook site. http://www.facebook.com/cratedigger.recordfair

The fair was set up above a shop/café-bar at the top end of Smith Street and was pretty easy to find. Once inside what seemed to be an old night club, there were 4-5 vendors set up with their records arranged in crates on tables around the walls of the club. The vendors were more or less organized and each had their own focus (Aussie rock, some Jazz/blues, lots of metal and a fair bit of contemporary rock/pop), there was also a mixture of both new and used vinyl. Although there was a lot of content on offer the arrangement was a little random, giving the fair a smorgasbord/luck dip feeling.

However a quick flip through any of the crates soon showed that despite the seemingly random presentation there was some nice vinyl on offer.
The atmosphere was also very friendly and after I purchased an Italian bootleg Black Sabbath compilation I chatted to the owner for a while about the Sabbath concert in Melbourne the previous night, I think the guy had a divine experience.
I also picked up a near mint copy of Beach House's Teen Dream and the Scientist's Blood Red River E.P. from Au Go Go which is freek'in awesome and a nice addition to my Scientists collection.
All in all a fun and well curated fair, worth a look. 

Missing link and Collector's Corner Records.

Missing Link and Collector's Corner

Level 1, 387 Bourke St
Melbourne, VIC, 3000
Australia
Missing link was one of my favourite record stores back in the day; however it has since moved from it's original subterranean home to an upstairs location close by, it has also merged with Collector's Corner which was previously located on Swanston St. Although the merger was most probably a matter of mutual viability I feel the Collector's Corner' selection has slightly diminished the metal purity that was Missing Link 1.0.
That said and despite the hybridisation there is still a solid collection of vinyl on offer, so don't be put off.

That said and despite the hybridisation there is still a solid collection of vinyl on offer, so don't be put off.

On the Missing link side there were still significant portions of vinyl devoted genres such as punk, metal and sludge, these are then lovingly broken down into subsets such as industrial, gothic, noise, doom plus much more. While the Collectors Corner collection is weighted toward pop-rock with a contemporary Aussie independent focus.
 

All in all still a damned fine independent record shopping experience, just requiring a bit of work on its ambiance.

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