Categories
church thrift stores iowa record store st. vincent thrift store

Idle in Iowa

This is my 4th trip through Iowa in the past 6 months or so, and my second time in Des Moines.  This time I was here for 3 nights and had some downtime.  I checked and while I had perused vinyl in Iowa before, it was a long time ago and not very thorough.  So […]

Categories
equipment

Building my dream system (system #2, DJ setup)

I have been messing with different mixers for a long time now.  I got my system with a very simple Numark.  I recently came across these very early photos of my system back in 2011. The photo above may be the earliest photo of my system.  That blue cable is a very long (30′?) RCA […]

Categories
construction equipment

New (more) speakers!

So after I painstakingly put together my new stereo system, I say back and enjoyed the fruits of my labor (and bank account).  Day after day, I am astonished that finally at the age of 42 I have a system with fidelity as good as this.  But my work is never done! My receiver has […]

Categories
record store suburbs

Technoir Records [Park Ridge IL]

Upon discovering the unfortunate demise of Raffe’s, I simultaneous discovered the birth of Technoir.  As you can see in the store front above, it truly is the spiritual successor. It was a quick dual bus jaunt to take myself from my door step to Technoir’s which was nice on a bit of a blustery day.  […]

Categories
RIP

RIP 2019

At some point I think this blog will just become a time capsule as every single place I have ever visited and documented will be gone.  I heard about one of the below closings earlier this week and got to thinking I ought to sit down and see what other shops I once enjoyed (or […]

Categories
equipment

Building my dream system (System #1, living room)

I covered a few months ago how I attained a bunch of vintage gear from my Uncle Rick.  I quickly purchased the other components I needed to make it work.  I got some speakers on craigslist and a receiver on eBay. The speakers worked out great.  What an excellent purchase.  The turntable has had some […]

Categories
chicago record dump record store

Run to the Record Dump

Made my annual pilgrimage down to the south side to dig through records.  Almost 6 years since I went down there.  I just created a new tag to combine all my visits into one easy link so click away down below.  I have documented 5 trips but I can think of at least one other […]

Categories
nevada savers thrift store

Savers [Las Vegas NV]

I was perfectly happy to check Nevada off my list with my visit to Record City.  But that night I wanted to have a few drinks and selected the Huntridge Tavern at my watering hole.  After a couple fairly wild bus rides I found my way and what do you know – there was a […]

Categories
nevada record store

Record City [Las Vegas NV]

Been planning this trip for a long time.  A week long journey that starts in Phoenix, then ends here.  I was going to take a bus but that didn’t work out, so I flew between cities.  Record City was very conveniently placed, as I am staying (and working) near the convention center.  I loved the […]

Categories
barbershop

Chord

I have written about my love for barbershop music on this blog many times over the years.  As one could imagine, this is largely an ‘underground’ genre…while it has a large and devoted following, you don’t hear of the relevant quartets in the mainstream media, ever.  So 99% of the releases out there are private […]