VoxBox - Edinburgh record shop

After putting out some feelers I am happy to say that VoxBox now stock the brilliant “Sound It Out” documentary. This was the official film for Record Store Day last year. It was released on DVD only a few days ago.

Watch the trailer here:

I watched it last night and I give it the twa thoombs up. It’s a story about community, economic decline in Teeside, record collecting and the colourful collectors, the love of music, it’s emotional power and strangely, an undercurrent of the love that dares not speak its name among working class metalheads. All told in a wryly funny way. Think of The Office set in a record shop.

This is a really fine piece of independent film-making with real human subject matter and deserves to be seen by everyone. Yes, everyone in the world. Or failing that, everyone who appreciates a record shop as a special place and laments their decline.

The film also shows an in store performance by Saint Saviour. A teeside lass and singer songwriter who, with a little luck could even go somewhere. Have a look at this haunting and gloriously warbly song “Fallen Trees”.

The DVD has a few extras too. Two short films and music videos (including Saint Saviour).

Please get hold of a copy (only £8 from us) and let me know what you think.

With Whitney Houston’s funeral passing.

Is it time to reappraise other artists who have  fallen blow their expected standards and down the artistic radar?

I am thinking of my long time hero Iggy Pop. He is not dead of course. Long live Iggy Pop! But what if Jimmy’s demise were tomorrow?  What would happen?  Would it be “Punk Music Legend Dies On Golf Course?”

Since he has been doing the insurance adverts he is “off the artistic roll call forever” if you agree with long dead comedian Bill Hicks.

“Here’s the deal, folks. You do a commercial – you’re off the artistic roll call, forever. End of story. Okay? You’re another whore at the capitalist gang bang and if you do a commercial, there’s a price on your head. Everything you say is suspect and every word that comes out of your mouth is now like a turd falling into my drink.” – Bill Hicks

Whasssgoingonnn? How can you go from I Wanna Be Your Dog to end your career with selling Swiftcover insurance Iggy?

I’m >morethan confuseddotcom. [We don’t get paid for this]

Have you become a Corporate Stooge?

I was incredibly disappointed in Jim’s decision to accept the advertiser’s shilling. But I’ve been disappointed in a lot of Iggy’s output in the last wee while too. Skull Ring? Beat ’em Up? I bought Beat ’em Up when it came out with some other albums too. I put them in my CD autochanger and put it on random. Hey! This is a return to form and yet completely different! Well done Iggy! But no it wasn’t….. This was not Iggy. It was The Strokes, “Is This It”. Soundalike and wishful thinking.

But if you are dead, all kinds of things are forgiven or brushed under the carpet.

So if Iggy really was or were dead what would we do?

Obituaries would mention two great Stooges albums, a Bowie inspired great third Stooges album comeback. A hiatus, then another Bowie inspired comeback with the brilliant Lust for Life and The Idiot. Some dodgy 1980s albums. Some forgotten gems like Zombie Birdhouse and New Values. A Trainspotting inspired resurgence. The Stooges reunion concerts. An excellent “Come up on the stage!” Glastonbury appearance. Death of Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton. Ex-Stooges guitarist James Williamson starts playing again. We’re back in business! Then Iggy does adverts….

“I’m Bored” is used for an advert. Something is happening here and who knows what it is. Insurance Co. adverts covered billboards rapidly. Swiftcover doesn’t cover musicians so chances are that he doesn’t even use the sponsor’s company himself and there is an Advertisings Agency Investigation.

Two lyrics stand out from Iggys “Brick by Brick” album.

“And the material singers will fade into dust
Like forgotten merchants of disgust
If I don’t crap out
No I won’t crap out
No I’ll never crap out
Oh I won’t crap out
I won’t crap out “

“We are played for suckers all the time
Phony rock and roll
It’s a crime
I don’t want to dip myself in trash
I don’t want to give myself for cash”

The album is still good but goes to show he has crapped out big time. Not only crapping out but becoming a hypocrite. Atlas shrugged, Mohammed coughed, Jesus wept and someone went Om Sri Ram Jai, Ram Jai, Jai Ram.

On the plus side, it has taken Iggy 25 years since saying he wouldn’t crap out (or 40 or so since he began) until he gave in. Or was it the first time that he was offered the dough that he accepted? Hmmmmmmmmmm., a lot of thinking, and more hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Anyway and in whatever way it happened, I played again The Stooges debut album the other day and heard Iggy again -as Iggy Stooge, at 21 years old. A Surly  Shoegazer from Ann Arbour Michigan. He feels he is Trailer Trash. He is in the studio with a band of prototype punk rockers, long haired three chord hardcore shoegazers, and they are making one of the rawest, pounding, hardest, most stripped down, tribal and most unique of the dirtiest of the greatest albums ever to make it on to your record shelves. It was before it’s time in 1969.

Bring up the footage of Iggy 35 years later. That energy!

And all is forgiven.

I woke up this mornin’ to the blues news that Whitney Houston is deid.
I was saddened of course. She was and is an icon. I admit that I’ve not yet shed a tear but I lay in bed eating  my fruit ‘n’ fibre with a puzzled expression on my face.

Then the usual tirade. It is hard not to cast a cold eye on the routine that always follows a celebrity death.
Praise, praise, pity, pity, praise, what a waste of talent and so on.

I’m sure that the record companies will milk it and put out a retrospective best of. The albums will be remastered and held up as forgotten masterpieces and sold back to the masses at £24.99 on 180g vinyl with a free download ticket and bonus tracks thrown in.

Dolly Parton who wrote “I Will Always Love You” and already physically can’t stop smiling will become even more like Jack Nicholson as the Joker when the royalties flood in again. I like Dolly a lot so good for her : )

Dolly Parton. Big Hits.

So shouldn’t VoxBox also get involved in the new Whitneymania? Well, no. Having never stopped trying to sell Whitney Houston I feel we have the moral high ground here. She’s never been away from VoxBox. George and I have had what feels like the entire Whitney Houston back catalogue in our Backroom at a wallet friendly £1.50 (7 for £10) since we opened.

No-one wanted to dance with Whitney yesterday.

Maybe she’s been taken for granted. She sold so many millions that it was inevitable that the used record market would be swamped by her brand of catchy soul pop disco. Ironically, it is truly a mark of extreme success to have so many unwanted records cluttering the bargain bins of record shops. I am happy not to have a bad word to say about Whitney and hope that some people will decide that they’re not bad records to own and appreciate after all. In a non ironic way too.  Not everyone’s cup of tea but if you grew up in the 1980s and 90s they are undeniably genre defining classic pop sounds that for better or worse are indelibly stamped into our collective consciousness. Wow!

So I am happy to say that we will not exploit the death of Whitney Houston. George has been in charge today and may very possibly have moved some of the mintiest Whitney records to the £3 section in the Front Shop but that is just to make them easier to find when word gets out and the inevitable stampede inevitably comes.

The quote at the top is from Paint a Vulgar Picture by The Smiths. A song about the exploitation of dead pop stars. It is found on the album Strangeways, Here We Come priced at an affordable £8 and available from VoxBox Music Ltd, 21 St Stephen Street, when I’m in on Thursday. Oh! Darn the exploitation.

Thank you for reading this far and welcome to the VoxBox Music blog.