NEW DVD/BLU-RAY: DESPICABLE ME IN LIKE A GAZILLION DIFFERENT FORMATS

BUY DVD HERE
BUY BLU-RAY HERE
BUY 3D BLU-RAY HERE
BUY DOUBLE PACK (WITH MINION MADNESS) HERE

Despicable Me is a compelling animated comedy about an aging supervillain’s falling popularity at the hands of a younger supervillain and three young orphan girls. Gru is a true, bad-to-the-core evildoer who’s earned the title of the world’s No. 1 supervillain. But when young upstart Vector steals the Pyramid of Giza, Gru’s status suddenly sinks to No. 2.

Gru counters his fall by speeding up his plan to shrink and steal the moon, enlisting the help of his army of minions and the elderly Dr. Nefario, but a lack of funding and the difficulties involved in stealing the needed shrink-ray gun threaten to derail everything. Adopting three young orphan girls is an unlikely, but seemingly effective means to further Gru’s evil mission, but Gru quickly discovers that caring for three young girls is more work, and distraction, than he could ever have anticipated.

What unfolds is an unexpected shift in attitude that will forever change the lives of Gru, Vector, and all three young girls. A visually appealing film produced by Chris Meledandri (Ice Age, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, Horton Hears a Who), Despicable Me is full of weirdly shaped characters and settings that are somehow a perfect fit for Sergio Pablos’s story.

What’s especially refreshing is that in this film, 3-D effects are used skillfully and effectively: even when the effects are exploited for comic reasons, they don’t become a distraction, as is all too common in many recent movies. The film is full of corny banter and silly antics that inspire plenty of spontaneous laughter, and the minions, while not the best-developed characters, sure are comical. Ultimately, there’s also a wholesome message about following one’s heart.

Steve Carell is the perfect villain-gone-soft in his role as Gru, Jason Segal is quite funny as Vector, and Julie Andrews makes a surprising appearance as Gru’s very un-motherly mom. Despicable Me celebrates silliness in a way that’s satisfying and highly entertaining.

OTHER NEW DVD/BLU-RAY RELEASES:

The Other Guys DVD and Blu-ray
Cyrus DVD
Micmacs DVD
Exit Through the Gift Shop DVD
Frank Sinatra Concert for the Americas DVD
Nanny McPhee Returns DVD
The A-Team DVD
The Nature of Existence DVD

RX INDIE STORE EXCLUSIVES: THE KNIFE, RACONTEURS 180-GRAM VINYL, CARBON LEAF, LAURA MARLING AND MORE!

What is a Record Exchange exclusive? It’s a CD, vinyl LP, 7-inch, DVD or other product you can only find at the RX — no big box, corporate record store chain or uncle’s basement will have it.

NEW EXCLUSIVES:

Carbon Leaf Christmas Child CD
The Knife Seeds 12-inch
Fitz and the Tantrums Santa Stole My Lady 7-inch
The Greenhornes Saying Goodbye 7-inch
Laura Marling Blues Run the Game 7-inch
The Raconteurs Broken Boy Soldiers 180-gram vinyl LP

OTHER RECENT EXCLUSIVES:

Dead Weather/Third Man vinyl: Tons of new 7-inches, 12-inches and full-length LPs from Jack White’s label, including six Dead Weather titles as well as new cuts from Jack White, Dex Romweber Duo, Conan O’Brien, Carl Sagan, Dan Sartain, Wanda Jackson, Jon Wayne and Secret Sisters.
Keith Richards Life book
DJ Shadow 4 Track Era vinyl LP
Widespread Panic Johnson City 2001 3CD set
The Shipping News One Less Heartless to Fear CD
The Answering Machine Another City Another Story CD
Scott Miller Christmas Gift CD
Wingless Angels (Keith Richards) Wingless Angels CD EXTREMELY LIMITED!
Wingless Angels (Keith Richards) Volumes I and II CD Box Set
Bad Books Bad Books CD
Bobby Long Stranger Songs vinyl LP
California Guitar Trio Andromeda vinyl LP
The Shipping News One Less Heartless to Fear vinyl LP
Jill Cunniff City Beach vinyl LP, available on red/yellow or orange/pink colored vinyl; both versions come with a bonus 7-inch! Limited to 250 copies (that’s in the entire universe).
Keith Richards Vintage Vinos CD (retrospective from out of print studio albums, plus live tracks)
Matisyahu Shake Off the Dust … ARISE CD (reissue of out-of-print, fan-favorite indie debut!
Biffy Clyro Only Revolutions CD
Broken Spindles Document No. 2 (handmade CD, extremely limited)
Dapose Positive Feedback limited-edition vinyl LP
Touch People Everyone Is Not Alive limited-edition vinyl LP
Brendon Benson Well & Goode 7-inch
Paul McCartney and Wings Band on the Run 7-inch. Taken from the forthcoming Paul McCartney Archive Collection reissue of Band On The Run, this limited-edition, highly-collectible vinyl 7-inch replicates the original U.S. single release that shot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 back in June of 1974. Housed in a deluxe picture sleeve and digitally re-mastered from the original tapes, this is sure to become a sought after Paul McCartney single release for years to come.
Elvis Costello This Year’s Model 180-gram half-speed master vinyl LP (only 5,000 made!)
Elvis Costello Armed Forces 180-gram half-speed master vinyl LP (only 5,000 made!)
Pixies Bossanova 180-gram half-speed master vinyl LP (only 5,000 made!)
Klaxons Surfing the Void CD
Puscifer “C” is for … vinyl LP
Wingless Angels (Keith Richards) Volume I and II
Shadow Shadow Shade Shadow Shadow Shade CD
Soundgarden Telephantasm 3LP vinyl version. Read more HERE.
Amy Correia You Go Your Way CD
Darden Smith Marathon CD
Fever Ray Mercy Street 7-inch
Lloyd Cole Broken Record CD
Nicole Atkins Vultures 7-inch
Cee Lo F**k You CD single, only 99 cents! Read more HERE
Maroon 5 Hands All Over Indie Store Version with bonus tracks
Weezer Raditude Photos 144-page color photo book
Puscifer Sound Into Blood Into Wine CD
Puscifer “C” is For … CD
Sea Wolf Turn the Dirt Over 7-inch
Hayley Taylor One Foot in Front of the Other CD
Mason Jennings Live at First Ave. CD
Brad Best Friends? vinyl LP
Corinne Bailey Rae The Sea vinyl LP
Paper Bird When the River Took Flight CD
Record Store Days book
Coconut Records Nighttiming vinyl LP
Crooked Fingers Forfeit/Fortune vinyl LP
Josh Ritter Golden Age of Radio CD
Josh Ritter S/T CD
Patton Oswalt 222 CD
Right Away, Great Captain! The Eventually Home CD
Warren Haynes The Lone EP
William Fitzsimmons Derivatives CD
Brad Best Friends? CD
The Coral Butterfly House standard/deluxe CD
The Damnwells Golden Days DVD
John Wesley Harding Sings to a Small Guitar Vol. 1 CD
Kristin Hersh Crooked CD
Neu! Vinyl Box Set
Earl Greyhound Suspicious Package CD
Shonen Knife Live at Mowawk Place 2009 DVD
Donavon Frankenreiter Revisited vinyl LP
Various Artists Eat, Pray, Love soundtrack CD
Beck Sea Change half-speed master vinyl LP
Cowboy Junkies Whites Off Earth Now! half-speed master vinyl LP
Elvis Costello My Aim Is True half-speed master vinyl LP
Faith No More Angel Dust half-speed master vinyl LP
Megadeth Countdown to Extinction half-speed master vinyl LP
Pixies Surfer Rosa half-speed master vinyl LP
Pixies Doolittle half-speed master vinyl LP
Bad Brains Live at CBGB 1982 vinyl LP
Builders and the Butchers Where the Roots All Grow CD
Earl Greyhound Soft Targets CD
Filter Inevitable Relapse 7-inch
Junip (Jose Gonzalez) Rope and Summit vinyl LP
Matthew Ryan Dear Lover Acoustic Version CD
Via Audio Animalore CD and vinyl LP
William Fitzsimmons Derivatives CD
Donavon Frankenreiter Revisited CD
Guggenheim Grotto Universe is Laughing CD
Hurricane Bells Tonight is the Ghost CD
I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody’s Business The World We Know CD
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds The Mercy Seat 12-inch (limited edition white vinyl!)
STS9 Ad Explorata vinyl LP
The Glitch Mob Drink the Sea CD
Mz Streamz It’s Alive CD
Shannon McNally Coldwater CD
Snow and Voices Anything That Moves CD
Toots and the Maytals Flip and Twist CD
Record Store Day exclusives. We still have limited quantities left of select titles!
Nirvana In Utero 180-gram yellow colored vinyl LP
Nirvana MTV Unplugged 180-gram red colored vinyl LP
Nirvana Nevermind colored vinyl LP
Slacktone Warning: Reverb Instrumentals CD
Randall Bramlett The Meantime CD
Lou Reed Satellite Of Love 7-inch
The Replacements I’ll Be You 7-inch
The Ramones California Sun 7-inch
Kate Nash My Best Friend is You Indie Store Version with bonus track.
The Ravenna Colt Slight Spell CD and vinyl LP.
Vampire Weekend Contra indie-store version bundled with a limited-edition bonus CD featuring three exclusive tracks!
BlakRoc BlakRoc CD and vinyl LP, ONLY VERSION WITH LUDACRIS/ODB TRACK “COOCHIE” and it’s going quickly! Get it while you can — very limited quantities remaining of this first pressing!
Old Crow Medicine Show Greetings From Wawa limited-edition CD reissue.
DJ Shadow In L.A. 10-31-09 CD
Jack Johnson Brushfire Fairytales limited-edition CD
Josh Ritter Hello Starling vinyl/double CD reissue
The Beatles Abbey Road vinyl box (w/ t-shirt and poster)
Zac Brown Band Live From Bonnaroo CD EP

IN THE RECORD EXCHANGE GIFT SHOP: 2010 BEST TOY WINNER UGLYDOLL!

Congratulations to Uglydoll, winner of the 2010 Best Toy award from the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio, the independent guide to children’s media!

Here in The Record Exchange Gift Shop, we’ve been big fans of Uglydoll for a while, and we’ll give this one a quick “what they said” and let the Oppenheim folks tell you why:

“It will be hard to choose just one of the terrific new Uglydolls this season. Consider Ninja Batty Shogu, a black fleece fellow with big blue eyes, red nose and three yellow teeth. Or consider Wippy, a pink rabbit-like creature with tall ears and gray eyes and two yellow teeth. There is also coral-colored Mynus, who has a singular bump on her head and a goofy smile. Her tag says she’s the one you should turn to when you are in trouble.

Also a good choice, Pointy Max, a green fellow with a very pointy head and one all-seeing eye smack dab in the middle of his face. Oh, there are others, such as Pink Flatwoodsey with a tall pointy head; Ket, a bluish looking dog-like doll; MIJ, who seems to be asking a question; and Picksey who claims to be able to inhabit several spaces at the same time.

Honestly, you’ll have to make up your own mind. Dolls in series often run out of steam, but this year’s Uglydolls are really even better than in the past.”

The Uglydoll family comes in three different sizes and a multitude of colors, plus Uglydoll beanies! Pay a visit to the RX Gift Shop and check ’em out today!

HOT SELLER: PINK MARTINI’S NEW HOLIDAY ALBUM ‘JOY TO THE WORLD’

BUY THE CD HERE

The brand new Pink Martini holiday album Joy to the World is here at The Record Exchange, and it’s been flying off the shelves the last few weeks.

In true Pink Martini fashion, the band has created a globally-inclusive holiday album for the 21st century, performing 14 festive songs in eight languages. Featuring traditional holiday favorites alongside gorgeous, lesser-known discoveries, the album is enhanced by an array of guests, including Japanese pop star Saori Yuki and NPR correspondent Ari Shapiro, backed by a fabulous gathering of Portland choirs.

A buoyant collection of multi-cultural songs of the season, Joy To The World’s 14 selections include Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” … sung by China Forbes in English and by the incredible Saori Yuki (the Barbra Streisand of Japan) in Japanese, a Fela-inspired version of “We Three Kings,” and “Silent Night” in the original German with verses in Arabic and English, too.

The band also recorded — with the Pacific Youth Choir and the handbell choir Bells of the Cascades — “Shchedryk,” known in English-speaking countries as “Carol of the Bells,” with the original Ukrainian text and a Hebrew prayer “Elohai N’tzor” with Ida Rae Cahana and Ari Shapiro and Patricia Costa Kim.

There’s a Chinese New Year song from 1946, a song in Ladino (the intersection of Spanish and Hebrew), Christmas favorites “Santa Baby” and “Little Drummer Boy,” a Pink Martini original “A Snowglobe Christmas,” and the album ends with a samba parade of “Auld Lang Syne” with choruses in English, Arabic and French over the incredible percussion of the Lions of Batucada.

The package even unfolds like a cityscape. Sweet.

Track listing:

1. White Christmas
2. White Christmas (part II) featuring Saori Yuki
3. Shchedryk (Carol of the Bells)
4. Santa Baby
5. Elohai, N’tzor
6. Little Drummer Boy
7. Congratulations – A Happy New Year Song
8. Do You Hear What I Hear?
9. La Vergine Degli Angeli
10. We Three Kings
11. A Snowglobe Christmas
12. Ocho Kanelikas (Eight Little Candles)
13. Silent Night
14. Auld Lang Syne

NEW LOCAL CDs AT RECORD EXCHANGE: HILLFOLK NOIR AND FRIM FRAM FOUR!

Three new local CDs arrived this week at The Record Exchange, and we’re here to tell you about them.

The first two come from Hillfolk Noir, who just held an album release party to celebrate the simultaneous release of two new albums, Live at the Old Idaho Penitentiary and Skinny Mammy’s Revenge. How very Guns ‘n’ Roses of them!

Live at the Old Idaho Penitentiary is documentation of a period of evolution in the band’s instrumentation and sound. The band was shifting away from electric instruments and more toward an old-time sound; and in the middle of that shift there was an opportunity to create a concert and recording event at the historic Old Idaho Penitentiary in October 2009. Hillfolk Noir invited four additional local musicians to join them for the event, which was recorded unplugged in an old cell block to 11 microphones for a live, multitracked record. Each song was played only once, so all of the recordings are fresh and raw. Hillfolk Noir is proud of the saturated acoustic vibe created by this unusual lineup in an unusual and emotionally-charged setting. The album includes a bonus DVD. ($19.99)

Skinny Mammy’s Revenge: The Gage Street Market Sessions was recorded “session style” at the old Gage Street Market in Boise, Idaho. Hillfolk Noir met several evenings a week for two months, always recording live around one ribbon microphone to a vintage Nagra 1/4″ tape machine. The songs were then mastered by Jon Mullin. Very little modification was made to the original tracks, just a bit of EQ work and noise reduction. All of the singing and playing sounds just the way it happened, with mistakes, quirks and a heavy dose of mood. ($14.99)

Then we have a great little holiday album from the Frim Fram 4 entitled A Frim Fram 4 Christmas. The 8-song collection features some well-known holiday standards done up Frim Fram 4 style, recorded live — vocals and all. ($9.99)