Crate Digging at The Groove, Nashville, TN

Ready to dig at The Groove, Nashville, TN

Related to Elements: Crate Digging, DJ

So today after a long day of work, I made a quick trip to go crate digging at one of my favorite record stores, Nashville’s own, The Groove.  There isn't really much of a story to tell as far as this particular trip goes, but I gotta drop a few words about this local record store.  When you first walk in, you might think that this is a small store.

 

The Groove's Unassuming Store Front

However, as you start to flip through the records, you’ll soon figure out why.  There is little to no filler in the shelves.  While the vast majority of filler in the store lives in the dollar bin, there are still some diggers’ treasures to be found in those bins too.  None of the different genre sections are very big, but the amount of great music in them is overwhelming.

Michael Kiwanuka - Home Again LP.  Copped some laid back new soul, got a free 7"

I literally have to have a game plan before I walk in, or I would go broke in no time.  I can walk out of a lot of shops empty-handed, but this isn't one of them.   These guys have to spend a lot of time weeding out the garbage, because I never see any.  The best part of digging through their stacks is that they have great prices on their records.  They are usually comparable to anything online, and lower than most of the other local shops.

The Meat and Potato Stacks of Must-Have Wax

Another highlight about this shop that should be stressed is the nice atmosphere.  It is in a great old house in an awesome area in East Nashville.  Yeah, I may be a little biased about this area because I grew up a few blocks away, but there are a lot of (sometimes hidden) charms in that neck of the woods.  Inside the store is very cozy, which can make digging a little tight on a busy day, but I have yet to really see this as an inconvenience.    

You are always greeted as you come through the door, by whoever is working the register (usually by John or Louis the owners).  There is always some good music playing on the decks, and because of that I have found a lot of good records that were off my radar by simply by asking what was on at the time.  I also really appreciate the fact that every time I have a question about vinyl, or music in general, they always have the answer.  They seem to genuinely enjoy discussing anything music related.

Co-Owner John Moore Knows Wassup

To sum up, I really enjoy this spot, and I almost hate to put the word out (don't want any other suckas that didn't know about this place to put their greasy paws all over my future records!), but the Groove deserves props.  So, if you are in Nashville, stop by The Groove located at 1103 Calvin Avenue, Nashville ,TN.  See their website for directions or further information.

-Written by Jay Brown

Old School Hip Hop Mixtape - Anti Drug, Pro Education, Crack Rap - Parental Advice

Related to Elements: Crate Digging, DJ, Old School, Parental Advisory, Dope, Conscious Hip Hop

Since I started digging in the crates for Hip Hop many moons ago, I have always had a special place for Old School Hip Hop.  It was one of the only eras that focused on the innocence of just having fun and one of the only times when it was "cool" to rap about making positive changes in the community.  Sure, there was a cheesiness factor to Old School Hip Hop, but they somehow managed to make it appropriately fresh for the time.  

Back then everyone said Hip Hop was a fad and it wasn't meant to last, and on top of everything, they said it was foul and a bad influence on urban youth.  Back then, just about everyone tried their hand at rapping, even non Hip Hop musicians, or little kids, or even preachers got their rap on.  Before rapping was exclusively a career for rappers, the market was literally flooded with rap records, a lot of it was frankly wack and forgettable and it gave ammo to the naysayers.  But also during that time a lot of rare underground Old School Hip Hop boasting of positive messages, anti-drug lyrics, anti-gang\anti-crime, and pro-eduction rap songs were released that actually sounded just as good as the typical rap being dropped in the 80s.  This mini-movement was pre conscious style Hip Hop that helped pave the way for the upcoming and more memorable conscious movement.

This compartmentalized music (sometimes called crack rap)  was something kids could even play for their parents to prove them wrong if they said it was all negatively influential music on the youth culture.  Some of this music was produced with top notch techniques, scratching, and qualified street spitters, and the good stuff is no less important than the "bang, bang", "shoot em up" music that followed in the late 80s.

Finally, after years of crate digging for rare early crack rap and anti-drug rap, I have accumulated enough 12" singles in this category to put it all on a mixtape for fans of early Hip Hop culture.  

Please spread the news of this mix to all who will appreciate the fun-loving, wholesome, feel-good throwback feeling contained in this mixtape.

DOWNLOAD... or Play the mixtape, and get more information about it HERE.  (including a collectively compiled track listing of this mix)

ALSO... DISCUSS this early Moral Based Positive Rap at our new crate digging forum, the Cratedigging Co-Op.  Please join and build with us!

Enjoy, and comments and feedback is always welcome!

r

 

Crate Digging at Electric Fetus, Minneapolis MN

Electric Fetus' Main Entrance

Related to Elements: Crate Digging, DJ

When You Google "Minneapolis Record Stores," Electric Fetus is the first store listed on Google Places.  That fact alone coupled with favorable Google reviews was enough to make it a crate digging destination for my wife and I on Saturday, July 21st.  We basically had to kill a few hours before our Jazz show\dinner reservations started and, as you know, there is no better way to kill time than digging for records.

Expectations were high since we were in one of the largest cities in the Midwest, and it was ranked so highly at Google.  But almost immediately after walking through the front doors my anticipation for the dig fizzled as the expected smell of new and used vinyl was lacking, replaced by the overpowering scent of patchouli.  Upon first glance it appeared as if we stepped into the wrong store.  No music was in clear sight at all, only rows of incenses, smoking paraphernalia, dorky hippy dresses that looked like they were made out of recycled burlap sacks, novelty items, flower power related gifts, and other massively outdated merchandise in terms of style and function.  If I were a DMB fan or a Grateful Dead head I would have felt right at home amongst all the pot leaf logo stamped trash blocking my path to the music section.

I walked right passed all the hippy gimmicks to the now apparently miniscule record section.  Glancing down the 3 tiny aisles, (tiny in comparison to ANY record store I have ever been in, and tiny in comparison to the rest of the store) I noticed that a majority of all the records were brand new still sealed, and many of them were either official represses or newly released records.  The buzz kill became even more prominent when I started looking through the records at the prices which were, quite simply, expensive as hell.  

Basic Electric Fetus Floor Plan (Click to Zoom In)

 
Not one to give up without a thorough dig, I made my way around the display shelves, patiently avoiding the way too numerous newbie cratediggers who cluelessly pawed through the overpriced new stuff, looking for that one record to add to their inevitably bland collection at home.  

"Oh sweet!  New Adelle on vinyl!" exclaims one oblivious kid

Patiently I dug through the new Hip Hop and rock.  Everything new that was decent was at least 8 bucks more than what everyone else had it priced for online.  Literally everything that was in the new Hip Hop section was predictable, common, over-priced and available everywhere else.  I dug through the joke of a new Electronic section and found one record that I had to have and never got around to buying online. 

Literally digging through shit to find Shit Robot

I already had a few Shit Robot 12" singles, and they are all really good so I figured the album would be too.   Even though it was over priced, I bought it since I didn't feel like leaving empty handed.  Shit robot turned out to be a shit album, by the way, not nearly as good as the instrumental 12"s that grace DFA's catalog of records.

Tired of looking at absorbadent prices and common new wax, I started digging through the used wax section next.  It was even more of a let down.  I'd estimate there were less than 200 used records on the shelves, all of them thoroughly picked through.  The used hip hop section consisted of less than 30 records, and there, thankfully, I found one super dope definitely noteworthy record that was at least average priced for the title...

Compton's Most Wanted - I'm Wit Dat 12" on deck

Regretfully I made my final selections, and reluctantly paid too much for them to an overly perky staff member.  I left with a mere 3 records, 2 of them overpriced and ultimately mediocre, one average priced and dope.  This was not at all the crate digging experience I was expecting before I stepped into the store.  This so called "Mineapolis Record Store" is NOT a record store, it's a neo-hippy catering CD store that happens to have a joke of a record collection.   I'd give them a rating of 3/10 as a record store, if their staff wasn't so friendly they would have gotten a 2.  

Crate diggers, if you ever end up in the Twin Cities, steer clear of Electric Fetus, it's not worth your time.  In hindsight,  I should have gone to the more familiar (to me) Cheapo Records instead, where at least there I'd find hoards of reasonably priced new and used records and would have walked away with a smile and a stack of special records. 

Death of a Forum Pt.2 - Justus League Hip Hop Forum is Dead

"There's no Justus, it's just us"

Related to Elements: HH Forum 
See also: Death of a Forum pt. 1


Apparently music discussion forums (just like that cat "Church" from Pet Semetary) can come back from the grave. DJForums successfully pulled a zombie forum resurrection after the entire site was literally erased from existence.  After a long hiatus it was relaunched as the almost identical DJForums 2.0, and slowly but surely it is growing back into the huge conglomeration of DJs that it once was.  I'll admit, I didn't think they would come back, but they had the desire to move past the huge hurdles, and the loyal members to help encourage the come back.

DJForums never meant to go down, it was ultimately a series of bad mistakes and bad luck that took down the site for months at a time.  Now, unfortunately, it's time once again to mourn the loss of another community, this one strictly Hip Hop releated, but unlike DJForums, the Justus League's Hip Hop Forum "The Lawn" pulled the plug on purpose.  There were no server problems, on the contrary, the servers sat almost idle, basically waiting for member activity.  As a part-time contributor to the forum, I'd pop in and read the latest about Hip Hop releases and what real heads were saying about this or that.  The posts gradually became more seldom, until there were hardly any recent posts being made.  Some of the longtime members got bored of the inactivity and seemed to move on to greener pastures.  Eventually, talk of various positive changes to the forum went unanswered, and finally threats of shutting down the forum by the Justus League heads due to inactivity actually materialized.

(Don't even bother clicking this link>) THEJUSTUSLEAGUE.COM, it's gone, unlike the "coming soon" or the "server not found" messages, only the ad vultures will now get paid by your clicking that link.

The Lawn was a very unique Hip Hop forum, lots of true school cats dropped real advice and album recommendations daily, especially in their heyday.  It was a place where regular Joes could comment to Justus League crew-mates and coherts like, for example, Phonte, of Little Brother, about their latest releases.  Ultimately it became a huge knowledgebase of Hip Hop articles and comments by true fans, and now that knowledgebase is non-existant with the push of an off button.  Like watching your favorite library burn down in one day, all those books and any reference to them are now gone forever.  Using the waybackmachine to find the old posts brings nothing since they apparently blocked robots from searching them.  That was a dumb move, BTW, now it's as if the site never even existed except in the minds of the displaced members.

The forum was founded by one of the forefathers of North Carolina's Hip Hop crew, The Justus League, Cesar Comanche.  He promised that without growth and current activity he would pull the plug on the forum, because, after all, a forum is only as good as the members and their combined contributions.  Running a forum, is a heavy burden, a regular monthly expense, and dishing out money every month for a few regulars trying to hold it down and a whole heap of waning lurchers that are too timid to talk can seem like a waste of time and money.  Years ago, the Lawn was alive and well fueled by sometimes ridiculous internal beef, which made the site entertaining, but volatile and intimidating to others unaccustomed to this banter.  Apparently fed up with the beef, a thread called "A New Day" was created that graced every sub forum which essentially threatened to squash any beef before it started.  Lines were crossed, members were either banned from or got bored and left the online community. The new "treat everyone as a brother" philosophy that arose was certainly a good intention.  But lets face it, beef can be entertaining, and there are those who live by beef and will die by beef, and they become disinterested and jaded as soon as disagreements themselves became so closely monitored.  For the record, I don't think it was the lack of beef or too much beef that killed the forum, but I do think that in a way, it was the way beefs were handled that marked the beginning of the end for the Lawn.  Not to mention, the confusing layout of multiple sub forums where everything was neatly packaged into their own section and no one knew where the proper place to post anything was, unless you were a regular who reread the forum descriptions several times.  Of course, not everyone is that OCD, so you might have a member drop a video in the "Tape Deck with Auto-Reverse Hip Hop Discussion Board" and suddenly it's been moved to the "Media Place" since it's technically a video.

Another thing that killed the Lawn, probably moreso than anything else is the social networking giants like Facebook and Twitter.  Forums and blogs in general have suffered from lack of participants as semi-regular posters in a once small online niche community suddenly became focused on their own smaller cliques that seem to successfully stroke their own self importance.

Despite the quirks at the Lawn, (hey, we all have our quirks) they were a place I counted on to catch up on latest Hip Hop news, and read funny and interesting comments from real heads, real fans of Hip Hop.  I will miss the insight and banter that came from that community.  Many of the regulars there are now displaced, almost like Kung Fu, wandering from forum to blog to facebook and then twitter, looking for others like themselves to build with.


(Insert Shameless Plug Here but keep it subtle)

^Hey, look, here's a music forum with a few old regulars from the Lawn already signed up!  Cratedigging.co is a crate digging forum by crate diggers for crate diggers. The Cratedigging Co-Op is a Hip Hop forum that caters to Hip Hop heads with a passion for a wide variety of music styles.  It's purpose is simple...  Crate diggers, producers, DJs, MCs, and general music aficionados dwell and build here.  No bells and whistles, just real music talk with good people.

Fellow moderator Uptownkid and myself along with other like-minded staple members would be honored to have any of the ex-Lawn members join and build with us if you haven't already.  We are still a very new forum and are always looking for good heads in the place.  Of course, we'll never be anything like the Lawn was, nor are we trying to fill those shoes, but just as the Lawn was, we are equally passionate about learning and building with real heads that want to contribute and learn as much as we do.  Please sign up and build with us.


RIP Justus League Forums!  Peace out, much love and respect!  I think I can safely speak for a lot of Hip Hop fans when I say I hope this doesn't mean the end of any of the great music that we have been graced with over the past decade or so.  Keep doing what you do guys best, stay busy, stay real.

Crate Digging at Strictly Discs, Madison WI

Brainchild at Strictly Discs

Related to Elements: Crate Digging, DJ

Time doesn't matter whilst crate digging.  Well it shouldn't, but this Easter Weekend, family obligations took precedence over digging through records despite my strong protest.  Traveling across the state gave me the opportunity to hook up with fellow crate digger brainchild for a short excursion.  Our reluctant wives gave us a stern look and an hour time limit to check out the local Madison shops before we had to pack up and head out with our family to see our crazy relatives.  1 hour minus drive time to Strictly Discs gave us a mere 45 minutes.  We parked on the street and the meter had 37 minutes left from the last guy, so that was our real time limit.  I hate time restrictions when I'm in my happy place but there was nothing I could do about it, I had to dig fast.

When we walked in the store I saw how small it was, so I realized 37 minutes was plenty of time to flip through the stacks.  It was fairly crowded for it's size, there wasn't much room for you to maneuver between the sections.  Every time someone wanted to walk by me I had to suck in my gut and press against the stacks of wax to make room for them to pass.  There was a dirty old hippy sprawled out on the floor in front of the bargain bin section making it impossible for me to peruse the cheapies.  No big deal, because I could see even though there wasn't much room to move, what records they did have were really nice.  A lot of great rock graced the back wall and they had a section just for Numero records, so I was happy.  But the clock was ticking so I focused on the Hip Hop section as soon as the space wasn't occupied by another crate digger.

Suddenly I spotted this...

Da King & I - Contemporary Jeep Music

BA BOOM!  My heart jumped, I lost my cool and shouted in the store "Oh my GOD, Da King & I's Album for only 18 bucks!!!"  From that outburst I got a leer from a long hair in the death metal section and a sly smile from the store clerk who was amused by my bliss.  I couldn't help myself, I had been looking for this album for years and I never found it priced reasonably.

"If you guys like good Hip Hop, you should check out our basement." the store clerk said with a grin.

"Basement?" replied Brainchild.  He had been there before but was unaware the store was bigger then the crowded first floor.   

Brainchild immediately went down the stairs while I stayed put and continued quickly flipping through the remainder of the Hip Hop stack.  After all, if that was there, then there could be some other grails in the same stack that I didn't want to miss out on.

20 minutes to go, and I finally headed down the stairs.  As I went down, I passed a few bargain shelves, halfway between the basement and the first floor.  It seemed like the owners took every square inch of retail space to display their records.

At the bottom of the stairs the basement opened up into a large room literally loaded with records.  Brainchild stared at me with a big smirk and said, "Dude, this ain't even all of it, there's another huge room over there"

Then it became crystal clear that I didn't have nearly enough time to even scrape the surface of this store.  Hell, I could have spent an entire day digging there and still wouldn't have even come close to making a dent.  We had both seriously underestimated just how vast and deep this store's record collection was, on of all days, Holy Saturday.

It was now or never, so I got uber-focused and headed directly over to the soundtrack section quickly looking to fill some holes in my collection when I found this...

Benji Original Soundtrack

"OH SNAP, I have been looking for this forever!!!!" I squealed.  I literally jumped up in the air and clicked my heals together like a kid in a candy store.  Yes, the Benji Soundtrack is dope!  I saw the movie on Netflix with my kids years ago and it became clear to me that this soundtrack must reside in my collection.  It's got some fantastic 'chase-scene disco' and funky country breaks just begging to be tapped into on it.  Crate diggers should not sleep on the funk that resides on the grooves of this record.

"What time is it?"  asked BC.
"It's been 36 minutes."

"Damnit, I gotta feed the meter.  Got a quarter??"
"No, sorry. " I said with a blank stare while flipping furiously through the jazz section.

He ran up the stairs, got change, and flew out the front door while I milked the remainder of our time.  "Come on, he lives in Madison, he can come back any day, so I gotta stay a little longer" I justified. 

I had collected about 5 records from the dig so far and I knew I had to prioritize and put back a few especially after I saw this...

Brian Eno  Jon Hopkins Leo Abrahams - Small Craft On A Milk Sea

"New Eno, NICE!!!"  It's an expensive record for how new it is, but as with so many Brian Eno albums it is absolutely well worth the money, so I reluctantly put back a few other finds and we made our way to the checkout.  (read more about these albums at cratediggers.co)

It was a great dig, we both got a few golden eggs that day.  Over all I'd have to rate Strictly Discs a solid 9/10.   It's deceptively huge, it's got some of the best records I have ever seen, and if time wasn't an issue that day (or money) I would have cleaned em out of their best wax.  Next time you are in Madison, bring 10 bucks in quarters for the parking meter, give yourself a full day of time, and flip through their hoards of wax.  You'll go home with a big smile on your face and some very special records for your crates.