Do you like it hard and heavy? Then come to The Record Exchange and visit The Headbanger’s Wall, a listening station devoted to some of today’s best bands pummeling you with raw power and raw emotion.
The Headbanger’s Wall currently features Mushroomhead, Five Finger Death Punch, Underoath, Jackyl, Suicide Silence, Nachtmystium, Cradle of Filth, Blind Guardian, In This Moment and Oceano. Come melt your face with us.
At The Record Exchange, you give a little, you get a little, and we have tons of free stuff to give away when you slap your dirty money down on the barrelhead.
NEW FREEBIES THIS WEEK:
• Band of Horses “Dilly” movie poster with purchase of Infinite Arms.
• CTI 40th Anniversary sampler CD with purchase of one of four 180-gram vinyl CTI Black Friday reissues (Deodato Prelude, George Benson White Rabbit, Freddie Hubbard Red Clay, Stanley Turrentine Sugar).
• Psychiatric ward ID bracelet with purchase of Disturbed‘s Asylum.
• The Melvins Electric Flower remix 12-inch – absolutely free courtesy of Scion A/V! How do you get one? Just come in and ask for it. Simple as that.
OTHER RECENT FREEBIES:
• Black and white 8×10 lithograph with purchase of Bruce Springsteen‘s The Promise — indie store exclusive!
• Large, two-sided color poster with purchase of Underoath‘s O (Disambiguation).
• 7-inch with purchase of Matt and Kim‘s Sidewalks.
• Remix EP with purchase of N.E.R.D.‘s Nothing.
• Color lithograph with purchase of Good Charlotte‘s Cardiology.
• Button pack with purchase of Four Year Strong‘s Enemy of the World.
• T-shirt with purchase of Rise Against‘s Another Station: Another Mile DVD.
• 7-inch (two non-album tracks) with purchase of Belle and Sebastian‘s Write About Love.
• Turntable mat or lithograph with purchase of Slayer‘s The Vinyl Conflict box set or any Slayer catalog title!
• T-shirt with purchase of David Bowie‘s Station to Station Deluxe Edition.
• Postcard set with purchase of Soundgarden‘s Telephantasm.
• 7-inch with purchase of Jimmy Eat World‘s Invented.
• Poster and button pack with purchase of The Posies‘ Blood/Candy.
• 7-inch with purchase of Salem‘s King Night.
• Plastic beer cup and paper koozie with purchase of Billy Currington‘s Enjoy Yourself.
• Puffy sticker set and red balloon with purchase of Maximum Balloon‘s self-titled debut.
• 7-inch (two live tracks) with purchase of Matt Costa‘s Mobile Chateau.
• 7-inch with purchase of Les Savy Fav‘s Root for Ruin.
• Yep Roc/Bella Union CD sampler with purchase of Jukebox the Ghost‘s Everything Under the Sun or The Acorn’s No Ghost.
• Lithograph with purchase of Serj Tankian‘s Imperfect Harmonies.
• Numbered, appropriately psychedelic lithograph with purchase of The Black Angels‘ Phosphene Dream (on sale for $9.99 — one week only!).
• Jean jacket-ready button with purchase of Of Montreal‘s False Priest (on sale for $9.99 — one week only!).
• Extremely limited cloth wall banner with purchase of Justin Townes Earle‘s Harlem River Blues.
• Two-track 7-inch with purchase of The Walkmen‘s Lisbon.
• Lanyard redeemable for a free mix CD with purchase of Cloud Cult‘s Light Chasers.
• Lithograph with purchase of The Drums‘ self-titled album.
• Autographed poster or CD booklet with purchase of The Gracious Few‘s self-titled album.
• Rare single — one side vinyl, one side CD/DVD (no kidding) — of “Impossible,” featuring an unreleased track and video, with purchase of Anberlin‘s Dark Is the Way. Light Is a Place.
• 45 adapter with purchase of limited-edition 45-rpm vinyl version of Interpol‘s new self-titled album.
• 4-song 12-inch vinyl EP (including Four Tet and Born Ruffians remixes) with purchase of The Acorn‘s No Ghost.
• Button pack with purchase of Jenny & Johnny‘s I’m Having Fun Now.
• Arts & Crafts sampler CD with purchase of any Arts & Crafts title.
• Calendar with purchase of Hey Monday‘s Beneath It All.
• Hand fan with purchase of Katy Perry‘s Teenage Dream (extremely limited).
• Lithograph with purchase of Disturbed‘s Asylum.
• Free split 7-inch featuring Cheap Time and Bad Sports, courtesy of Vice Records and Scion AV — no purchase necessary, just come in and ask for it!
• 7-inch with purchase of Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs‘ God Willin’ and the Creek Don’t Rise.
• Lithograph with purchase of Brian Wilson‘s Reimagines Gershwin.
• Limited-edition 7-inch (with non-album tracks) with purchase of The Budos Bands‘ III.
• Out-of-print Casual Nostalgia Fest Sub Pop 20th anniversary live compilation with purchase of any August Sub Pop Sale title.
• Sassy large-sized lithograph with purchase of Queens of the Stone Age‘s Rated R Deluxe Edition.
• Sticker with purchase of Los Lobos‘ Tin Can Trust.
• Range mixtape (hosted by DJ Drama) with purchase of any hip-hop title.
• Black Lips/Pierced Arrows split 7-inch free to the first few people who come in and ask for one — no purchase necessary!
• Lithograph with purchase of Sky Sailing‘s (Owl City) An Airplane Carried Me to Bed.
• Mixtape with purchase of Capone-N-Noreaga‘s The War Report 2.
• Magnet with purchase of Wolf Parade‘s Expo 86.
• Full-sized movie poster with purchase of Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse‘s Dark Night of the Soul.
• Free pink vinyl 7-inch featuring two versions of “XXXO” (the album cut plus a Blaqstarr remix) with purchase of M.I.A.‘s Maya (only $9.99!)
• Hand-numbered lithograph with purchase of Paul Thorn‘s Pimps and Preachers.
• Autographed CD booklet with purchase of Jackie Greene‘s Till the Light Comes.
• Sleigh Bells and Tokyo Police Club 7-inches are here — finally! After a long delay, these limited-edition 7-inches are now available with purchase of Sleigh Bells’ Treats and Tokyo Police Club’s Champ.
• Autographed lithograph with purchase of Local Natives‘ Gorilla Manor — seriously limited quantities!
• Lithograph with purchase of Derek Trucks Band‘s Roadsongs.
• Indie-exclusive numbered lithograph with purchase of Ozzy Osbourne‘s Scream.
• Sticker with purchase of The Chemical Brothers‘ Further.
• Lithograph with purchase of Nas and Damian Jr. Gong Marley‘s Distant Relatives.
• Indie-exclusive lithograph with purchase of the Iron Man 2 soundtrack.
• Postcard set with purchase of The Gaslight Anthem‘s American Slang.
• Poster with purchase of The Cure’s Disintegration Deluxe Edition.
• Limited-edition concert poster with purchase of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals‘ new self-titled album.
• Etched blue vinyl 7-inch with purchase of Jack Johnson‘s To the Sea. Read more about it HERE.
• White vinyl 7-inch with purchase of The Futureheads‘ The Chaos.
• Lithograph with purchase of Marina and the Diamonds‘ The Family Jewels.
• 3D lenticular poster (5×5 for CD buyers, 12×12 for vinyl buyers) with purchase of Widespread Panic‘s Dirty Side Down.
• Limited-edition lithograph with purchase of LCD Soundsystem‘s This is Happening.
• Button set or laminate card with purchase of The Dead Weather‘s Sea of Cowards.
• Two-sided color poster with purchase of Everest‘s On Approach.
• Mannequin Men/Jack Oblivian and the Tennessee Tearjerkers split 7-inch, free to the first four humans to walk in the door and ask for one — no purchase necessary! Seriously. A free record. Just for having a face.
• Record Exchange exclusive autographed Josh Ritter CD booklet with purchase of So Runs the World Away. (online orders available!)
• Togetherness 7-inch, featuring three covers of songs by the Detroit band Outrageous Cherry, with purchase of The New Pornographers‘ Together.
• Limited-edition autographed poster with purchase of Minus the Bear‘s Omni.
• Limited-edition autograph poster with purchase of Plants and Animals‘ La La Land.
• La Blogotheque: A Take Away Show Barcelona, Spain limited-edition DVD with purchase of Josh Rouse‘s El Turista.
• Whoopee cushion — that’s right, a whoopee cushion — with purchase of comedian Brian Posehn‘s Fart and Wiener Jokes. Whoopee!
• 12-inch, six-track EP with purchase of The Apples in Stereo‘s Travellers in Space and Time.
• 7-inch with purchase of Freelance Whales‘ Weathervanes.
• Numbered lithograph with the purchase of MGMT‘s Congratulations.
• Numbered lithograph with purchase of Coheed and Cambria‘s Year of the Black Rainbow.
• Lithograph with purchase of Rogue Wave‘s Permalight.
• Lithograph with purchase of Liars‘ Sisterworld.
• MVD Visual DVD sampler with purchase of any new music DVD or Blu-ray disc.
• Poster with purchase of John Butler Trio‘s April Uprising.
• 7-inch with purchase of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings‘ I Learned the Hard Way.
• Gorillaz postcard set with purchase of Plastic Beach.
• Lithograph with purchase of Flobots‘ Survival Story.
• Lithograph of original Jimi Hendrix artwork with purchase of Valleys of Neptune.
• Lithograph and sticker with purchase of Johnny Cash‘s American VI.
• 7-inch with purchase of Citizen Cope‘s The RainWater LP.
• Mixtape CD (choose from two) with purchase of RDJ2‘s The Colossus.
• 7-inch with purchase of Hot Chip‘s new album One Life Stand.
• Digital download card for a free bonus EP (“Mistake” remixes) with purchase of Moby‘s Wait For Me.
• Download card to redeem a free Manchester Orchestra live EP from ThinkIndie with purchase of Mean Everything to Nothing.
• Many more — just ask an RX clerk!
BUY THE CD HERE
BUY THE VINYL HERE
Let’s talk about magic. Because music, at its best, is a kind of magic that lifts you up and takes you somewhere else. “I want my music to sound like throwing yourself out of a tree, or off a tall building, or as if you’re being sucked down into the ocean and you can’t breathe,” says Florence Welch. “It’s something overwhelming and all-encompassing that fills you up, and you’re either going to explode with it, or you’re just going to disappear.”
Florence writes her best songs when she’s drunk or has a hangover, because that’s when the freedom, the feral music comes, creating itself wildly from the fragments gathered in her notebooks and in her head. “You’re lucid,” she explains, “but you’re not really there. You’re floating through your own thoughts, and you can pick out what you need. I like those weird connections in the universe. I feel that life’s like a consistent acid trip, those times when things keep coming back.”
Florence herself is a mass of contradictions: she’s tough yet she’s terrified, a bundle of nerves and passion, of darkness and pure joy. “I feel things quite intensely, which is why the music has to be so intense. I’m either really sad or really happy, I’m tired or completely manic. That’s when I’m at my most creative, but it’s also dangerous for me. I feel I could write some good songs, or break some hearts. Or tables. Or glasses.”
As a performer she can seem fearless, but she’s also far too quick to pass judgment on herself. This is the woman, after all who got into Camberwell art college by making a huge floral sign telling herself “You are a twat.” She says she’s a geek, who loses all control when in love. She’s also something increasingly rare and precious in a time of karaoke pop: an artist who has found her own, authentic voice.
Her soaring, epic vocals, quirky melodies and self-contained musical world have already won her the 2009 Critics Choice Award at the Brits. Some compare her to Kate Bush. You’ll also find touches of Tom Waits and Nick Cave in her dark visions, and if you heard a little of Bjork too, she’d find it a compliment. But mainly, Florence is out on her own: an exhilarating place to be, she points out, but also a little scary.
Her debut album Lungs is made of harps, choirs, drums, elevator shafts, bits of metal, love, death, fireworks, string quartets, stamping, sighing, strange electronic wailing, lambs, lions, sick, broken glass, blood, moon, stars, drink, coffins, teeth, water, wedding dresses … and the silences in between. The songs are full of Gothic imagery, of fairytale flights of fantasy, and although much has been read into her lyrics, Florence says it’s usually simple. “Everything is about boys!” she laughs. “The whole album is about love – and pain. People see my lyrics as crazy, but to me it’s an honest, heartfelt album. I didn’t set out to be wacky. I just want it to be emotive.”
Florence grew up in Camberwell, south London, the oldest of three children. One of her earliest musical memories is standing on top of the trunk where her dad kept his vinyl collection, dancing with him to the Rolling Stones. She started singing along to Nina Simone and Dusty Springfield at home, expanded her vocal range with arias, then became a pre-teen skatepunk before getting into drum’n’bass and dance music at squat parties. It’s an eclectic mix, but for her, the common thread is always the emotion. “Anything that has real feeling in it always excites me. Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change is Going To Come’, Eva Cassidy singing ‘Wade In The Water’, even Rhianna’s ‘Umbrella’- I’m obsessed with music. I’ll play Beyonce, Lil Wayne, Bob Dylan’s ‘Hurricane’, Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Going Down’. I can’t stay in one place or genre. That’s why I had to make my own genre.”
After her parents had separated, her mum fell in love with one of their neighbours. The two families moved in together and at the age of 13, Florence was suddenly one of six teenagers “I grew up in a weird Brady Bunch family, it was more like a tribe of teenagers than a regular upbringing. I had to share a room with my sister and my little brother had to sleep in a cupboard! Now, it’s nice having a big family. But then, it was a completely fraught environment. No wonder I went off the rails, because there was never any space at home. In that sort of situation, you have to become an individual.”
Florence found her own space by going out to clubs and pubs, by singing onstage and in her bedroom. By the time she left school, she’d already written songs like ‘Kiss With A Fist’, and knew she wanted to make music but not how to go about it. So after a year working behind a bar she went to art school, making tents under the desk to sleep off her hangovers while trying to convince her tutors she was an installation.
It wasn’t until she wrote the haunting ‘Between Two Lungs’ that it all came together. Instead of percussion, Florence pounded the studio walls with her hands. She built the melody on the piano even though it’s not an instrument she knows how to play, and recorded the backing vocals first, before writing the top line. It’s bonkers and totally unconventional, but of course it is also glorious – a strange but yearning song about losing yourself in love. “I’d found my voice, and I just felt euphoric,” she recalls. “It’s been a real process of me learning that the way I wanted to do it was actually the right way. This whole album has been about having faith in myself.”
As for The Machine, it’s a flexible beast. It can go right down to Florence and a drum kit or a piano, but right now it’s a seven-piece band including long-term collaborators Rob Ackroyd (guitar), Chris Hayden (drums), Isabella Summers (keyboards) and Tom Monger (harp). “I’ve worked with most of them for a long time and they know my style, know the way I write, they know what I want.”
Live, Florence and The Machine become an entirely different beast. No two performances are ever alike, and clad in clothes often culled from local second-hand shops that day, Florence goes at it like a woman possessed. “It’s just this sense of total freedom,” she says. “It sounds so cheesy, but I want to touch people. Not in a weird way. I just want to help them feel what I’m feeling.”
BUY THE 4CD/1DVD BOX SET HERE
BUY THE 8LP VINYL BOX SET HERE
BUY THE CD HERE
BUY THE DELUXE EDITION CD/DVD HERE
West Coast Seattle Boy – The Jimi Hendrix Anthology tracks Jimi Hendrix‘s remarkable journey from little known R&B sideman to international stardom through an unprecedented assemblage of previously unavailable recordings.
This long-awaited career-spanning box set is not a collection of existing Jimi Hendrix albums, but instead 45 unreleased Jimi Hendrix live and studio recordings, including demos and alternate versions of songs from Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love and Electric Ladyland. West Coast Seattle Boy includes Hendrix’s never before heard version of Bob Dylan’s “Tears Of Rage,” solo acoustic recordings of Electric Ladyland favorites like “Long Hot Summer Night” and “1983 (A Merman I Shall Turn To Be)”as well as never before heard live performances from Berkeley and the legendary Band Of Gypsys Fillmore East concert on New Year’s Eve 1969, combined together with such new Hendrix songs as “Hear My Freedom,” “Hound Dog Blues,” “Lonely Avenue” and more.
West Coast Seattle Boy offers the most complete collection of Jimi’s pre-Experience R&B performances (including his singles with the Isley Brothers, Little Richard, Don Covay, King Curtis and more) to ever be officially anthologized while bringing together the most comprehensive and revelatory set of unreleased, fully realized songs, never before heard live performances, alternate studio takes, acoustic and electric demos and other rarities drawn from every chapter of Jimi Hendrix remarkable life and career.
West Coast Seattle Boy includes the 9- minute DVD Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child, a new documentary directed by the Grammy award-winning Bob Smeaton (Beatles Anthology, Festival Express, Beatles: The Studio Recordings). The acclaimed documentary tells Jimi’s incredible story in his own words. The documentary features some of Jimi’s greatest performances, as well as rare and never before seen footage and photos. Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child also includes — for the first time ever—examples from the Hendrix family archive of the late guitarist’s personal drawings, postcards home to his father, song drafts, sketches and lyrics. Jimi’s interviews and private writings shed new insights within the extraordinary life and career of the greatest guitarist of all time.
BUY THE 2CD SET HERE
BUY THE 3CD/3DVD BOX SET HERE
BUY THE 3LP VINYL BOX SET HERE
Bruce Springsteen‘s The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story comprises over six hours of film and more than two hours of audio across 3 CDs and 3 DVDs or 3 Blu-ray discs. The music and film are packaged within an 80-page spiral-bound notebook containing facsimiles from Springsteen’s own notebooks from the original recording sessions, which include alternate lyrics, song ideas, recording details, and personal notes in addition to a new essay by Springsteen and never-before-seen photographs.
Containing a wealth of previously unreleased material, The Promise (also available in 2CD or 3LP versions) offers an unprecedented look into Springsteen’s creative process during a defining moment in his career.
“Darkness was my ‘samurai’ record,” Springsteen writes, “stripped to the frame and ready to rumble. But the music that got left behind was substantial.” For the first time, fans will have access to The Promise – two discs containing a total of 21 previously-unreleased songs from the Darkness recording sessions – songs that, as Springsteen writes, “perhaps could have/should have been released after Born To Run and before the collection of songs that Darkness on the Edge of Town became.”
Highlights of The Promise include the extraordinary rock version of “Racing in the Street,” the never-before-released original recordings of “Because the Night” and “Fire,” the supreme pop opus “Someday (We’ll Be Together),” the hilarious “Ain’t Good Enough for You,” the superb soul-based vocal performance on “The Brokenhearted,” the utterly haunting “Breakaway,” and the fully orchestrated masterpiece and title song “The Promise.”