Company presses your ashes into vinyl when you die [Wired]

I saw this first on the VC Message Board, but a recent Wired article discusses A UK company called And Vinyly who are offering people the chance to press their ashes in a vinyl recording of their own voice, their favourite tunes or their last will and testament. I recommend reading the article and while doing so, think about the following: What album would you want your ashes pressed into? Man, that is one tough question to answer. Nada Surf’s Let Go might be one of my all-time favorite records, but I feel like N.W.A.’s “100 Miles and Running” might be a more appropriate album to go out on. How about you?

Neil from Anchorless tagged me on this 15 albums thing; maybe you have received the challenge to name 15 albums. Maybe you haven’t. Maybe you are on Facebook, maybe you’re not. Either way, I recommend you take less than 15 minutes to name 15 Albums that will always stick with you. Below are the rules and below the rules are my quick list. If you are on facebook, tag me. If not, just post it in the comments of this blog post or on our message board. Have fun.

The rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you’ve heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends, including me, because I’m interested in seeing what albums my friends choose. To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note.

Nada Surf “Let Go”
Lifter Puller “Fiestas and Fiascos”
Lemonheads “Come on Feel the Lemonheads”
Green Day “Kerplunk”
Lenny and the Piss Poor Boys “Cambridge Port Saloon”
Lucero “That Much Further West”
Jawbreaker “Dear You”
Portugal the Man “The Satanic Satanists”
DJ Quik “Born and Raised in Compton”
Rx Bandits “Mandala”
Scared of Chaka “Scared of Chaka”
Titus Andronicus “The Monitor”
Joe Pug “Messenger”
Justin Townes Earle “The Good Life”
The Black Keys “Attack and Release”

Last year, the Onion’s AV Club did a feature on Suburban Home where they asked me to think about Suburban Home’s 14 biggest mistakes. It was a lot of fun coming up with those mistakes, but this year, The AV Clubs’ Matt Shild outdid himself. He asked me to discuss 15 great labels who are no longer with us that made an impression on Suburban Home. I will wait to share with you the 15 labels that I chose, but I wanted to invite you to discuss the great labels who are no longer with us. I actually challenge you to come up with your own list of 15 labels. I’m just afraid some of you might come up with some labels I had forgotten to include. Good luck!

LP / 7″ Mailers, Corrugated Pads, and more [Indy Boxes]

While I give all the credit to Justin from Underground Communique for putting Indy Boxes on my radar, I wanted to share this with the rest of the world. After using Associated Bag Company for years and years, I think that I have found a new vendor for my LP Mailers and Corrugated Pads. While Associated Bag have been great and are always speedy in delivering orders, the prices at Indy Boxes cannot be beat (if they can, let me know). The LP Mailers are sturdy and you can ship between 1 and 8 LPs (give or take) with their LP mailers. The corrugated pads are simply the best at Indy Boxes. The reason being is that they are 12 1/4 inch by 12 1/4 inch which is a quarter inch more on each side than the Associated Bag counterpart. Why is this important? When you put the Indy Boxes corrugated pad in with an LP, the pad covers the entire area of the LP plus a little more giving the record that much more protection. The corrugated pads at Associated Bag don’t typically cover the entire area of the LP which could more likely lead to corner damage if the package is dropped or mishandled.

They also offer 7″ mailers which are great for shipping multiple 7″s along with a bunch of other products.

I highly recommend Indy Boxes. If you know of another great option for LP Mailers, pads, etc, let me know.

Suburban Home Records Mix Tape Volume 5, Someone’s Gonna Die

Have you downloaded our latest Suburban Home Records Mix Tape yet? If yes, what do you think? If no, what are you waiting for? The above link is a new link to download the mix through yousendit. It could be because the mix is brand new, but this could be my favorite mix tape yet. I can’t stop listening to it. 30 songs clocking in over 100 minutes, there are so many great bands worth checking out. Please download the mix and share the link with at least 4 friends. We appreciate the help.

What are some of your favorite tracks from mix tape volume 5?

Fighting to survive a deepening financial crisis, the Postal Service said Tuesday it wants to increase the price of first-class stamps by 2 cents – to 46 cents – starting in January. Other postage costs would rise as well. The agency’s persisting problem: ever-declining mail volume as people and businesses shift to the Internet and the declining economy reduces advertising mail. ”The Postal Service faces a serious risk of financial insolvency,” postal vice president Stephen M. Kearney said, an indication that without significant changes a time could come when the agency would be unable to pay its bills.

While I cringe every time another postal increase looms, I understand why it must happen. Not that anyone in a position to do anything about it will listen, I will offer a suggestion. Why not create a department that focuses on the industries that continue to use the the US Postal Service and think of new ways to capitalize on that business while offering those industries tools it could use. For example, let’s say that this department worked with the mailorders and labels that are sending out millions of packages collectively around the world. I suggest the Postal Service create one of their Flat Rate boxes geared specifically at mailing LPs. Many of us use media mail or UPS to mail larger boxes of records. Take for example a 20 pound box (probably around 25 to 30 LPs) sent from Denver to Los Angeles. With Media Mail, this would cost $9.79 and take between 7 to 10 days for delivery. With Priority Mail, the cost is closer to $35.00 and takes between 2 to 3 days for delivery. With UPS ground, the cost is $16.00 and takes 3 business days for delivery, but UPS has far superior tracking. Why not offer a more competitive option for those of us that would typically use UPS to ship a 20 pound package. If USPS offered a flate rate box that held 30 to 50 records and charged $10 to $15 to ship that box, I am certain many of us who would normally choose UPS would consider using USPS. Why not make USPS LP mailers that could be shipped media mail or priority mail. USPS makes so many boxes each year, they could certainly offer a less expensive LP mailer than the ones we all buy. Imagine going to your local post office to buy LP or 7″ mailers instead of having paying to have them shipped to you by Associated Bag or Uline. Figure out a better system for tracking packages domestically and especially internationally. Offer eduction to Labels and Mailorders so that they know how to more efficiently and economically ship packages. There is so much that can be done that just isn’t being done. UPS offers bulk discounting to companies who ship a lot of packages via UPS. Why not do the same with USPS?

What are your thoughts? Do you have any ideas the Postal Service should consider to get themselves out of their ever increasing hole?

My friend Josh recently emailed me the following Paragraph:
i’ve started a new collecting obsession. i’m on a mission to collect (ultimately on vinyl, but for right now, any format will work) the entire lookout records catalog. I couldn’t find a definitive list online, so i did some digging (both online, and in my own records, for old catalogs, zines, etc) and made this Google Spreadsheet.

While I know that some of you are too young to appreciate this quest that Josh has embarked on, I know that plenty of you got into punk rock like I did with the legendary catalog of Lookout Records. My own personal experience found me as a hip-hop/R&B minded freshman at the University at Colorado at Boulder in 1993. I met some really great guys (who would later start one of Suburban Home’s first bands, the Fairlanes) who let me borrow CDs by Green Day, Screeching Weasel, and Operation Ivy, and I can say without hesitation that these albums changed my life. Not only were these incredible albums, but the entire aesthetic that was Lookout Records grabbed me by the neck and had me wanting more. The fact that you could send Lookout $8.00 back in those days and get a copy of the CD sent to you just blew my mind. The catalogs that they sent out with mailorder were so cool (they typically folded out ino a really rad poster and I would spend hours looking at every release they had put out).

Enough about me; if you look at the spreadsheet, Josh did some really great research on Lookout’s catalog. He has a lot of work ahead of him, but I figured this post would get folks talking about their own Lookout collections which I have to think some of you must have a pretty close to complete collection of.

When you look at this list, you will see a few odd things, namely the Rancid/Avail split 7″ that was never released. I told Josh that the next time I spoke to Tim Barry, I would ask him about it. I spoke to Tim this morning and when asked, he laughed. The split was supposed to come out before the release of 4 AM Friday and both Rancid and Avail recorded 2 songs. Lookout went so far as to print up 7″ labels for the release, but the release never saw the light of day. The release was planned around the time Rancid signed to Epitaph and apparently that signing put a stop to this 7″. I am sure those close to Rancid could explain the situation differently, but Tim said that he was glad the release never came out. After going back to listen to those 2 songs, Tim said they were just not that good and those songs were later re-recorded and put on 4 AM Friday. Avail’s two songs were never released. He did say that he has seen people selling the labels and at one time, he said he had a few at his house, but he has know idea where they are now.

Take a look at the spreadsheet, add your two cents, share any Lookout related stories, and maybe Josh will put his contact info in the comments or on our message board so that anybody willing to help Josh out can get in touch with him. Josh is currently making an Ikea run to Salt Lake City since Denver doesn’t have an Ikea yet (not til Fall of 2011). You can also see Josh’s collection at this Google Spreadsheet. Maybe, he will get around to doing a Vinyl Collector of the Day submission (Josh, come on buddy).

I was hanging out with a good buddy last night and I noticed this book on his book shelf. Another friend had told me that it was a really good read and being a big Replacements fan, it just made sense to borrow this book. I figured if any of you were looking for a good book to read, this post might serve as inspiration. While I have heard numerous stories at the chaos that was the Replacements, I am excited to read first hand accounts and interviews about the legendary Minneapolis band. I always find that reading about your favorite bands somehow makes the albums that much better to listen to. If anyone starts reading this or has read this, please feel free to post your thoughts.

And as has been done before, what is everyone reading? Any recommends for our imaginary book club?

“All Over But the Shouting” is available at Amazon and I’m sure wherever books are sold.

We think that Paper and Plastick are doing some really interesting things in independent music and plan to do an interview with Vinnie Fiorello, owner of Paper Plastick. We figured that many of you are likely to think of way better questions than we could ever come up with. If you have a question that you would love to have Vinnie answer, just post a comment on either the blog post or the message board post.

Thanks!

While we are thinking about Vinnie and Paper and Plastick, let us know what your favorite P and P release is. It’s hard for me to pick just one, but a few that I absolutely love are the latest releases from Riot Before, Cheap Girls, and of course the Seven Degrees of Stephen Egerton.

A friend through music, Andy Vasquez, is getting married next year and mentioned these cufflinks. He said he got some that are very similar from somewhere else, but wanted to show me these. At $115, they are too rich for my blood, but wouldn’t you agree that these would make a classy addition to your wedding attire?

Available from Cufflinks.com, here.