So I’m launching that new site….now.

Go check it out, it’s called Mostly Retro.

So what is it?

Well, that’s been one of the reasons why it’s taken me so long to launch it (aside from technical issues). Figuring out exactly what I wanted out of this secondary site was a bit challenging. I knew I didn’t want it to be just another MP3 blog. I already got one of those, obviously, and to be honest, I wanted to create something where I might be able to make some sort of money without worrying about the legal ramifications of selling ads and whatnot on a site that illegally hosts music. That’s not to say I’ll never post MP3s on the new site, but when I do they’ll be so obscure or random that I can’t imagine anyone associated with them would have any problem with me sharing them.

As the site name suggests, most of what I’ll be covering on it will be “retro” in nature. Older games, movies, music and such. However, not everything will be strictly nostalgic in nature. As you’ll see from going there, the first article is a guide to buying record sin Japan. As far as specifics, I’m still trying to work that out, to be honest. I’m shooting for something that’s fun and silly at times, but not afraid to have more serious or introspective content as well. Something between Dinosaur Dracula and Unwinnable is the tone I’m shooting for.

I already got some cool stuff lined up, at least I’d like to think so. Later this week you can expect a cool post on Kraftwerk and the first post in what I hope will be a recurring feature. Upcoming articles will include a multi-part post on Red Book audio in video games, a possible interview with an early synthesizer pioneer, and a marathon series of posts where I review every Tangerine Dream album from 1970 to 1990. Seriously.

I got a lot of stuff planned with this site, and I hope you all (and more) enjoy it. If you do, please share it with your friends. Tweet it, Facebook it, Google+ it. Whatever. Get the word out. The more people who read it, the more I’ll feel compelled to create content.

And finally, and this is the only time I will ever mention this, I have put up a “donate” button at the new site. People have asked me in the past about doing that here, and I’ve always been against it due to the nature of this site. But since Mostly-Retro is a different beast, I thought it would be more appropriate there. So if you like what I do and want to help me out…I won’t protest. But if you’re thinking “Pay? For articles I read for free? Fuck that!” hey, then that’s your prerogative and I’m not going to slight you for it.

Also, you might want to consider a career as a website editor.

One more thing, Mostly-Retro is still very much a huge work in progress. There are kinks I need to work out and some design issues I want to change. I know it’s not perfect. But I wanted to launch the damn thing already and I was going crazy trying to make it just right.

Anyways, I hope you like the new site. I’ll have a new post here tonight as well.

Stomach flu bad.

Remixes good.

Late Of The Pier
Best In Class (Soulwax Remix)
Blueberry (Simon Bookish Remix)
I bought this 12″ single because it had the words “Soulwax Remix” on the front cover in all caps. I didn’t even know who the original artist was when I picked it up. I’ve heard enough Soulwax remixes to know that when they take hold of a track it they own it so much that they practically own it. This one is no exception. I checked out the original version on YouTube and the remix sounds nothing like it at all, and it’s also way, way better. This is a hardcore club banger. Pulse-pounding beats to the nines, 808s coming at you in full effect, madness. Fucking love it. The Simon Bookish mix isn’t half bad either, but I keep coming back to the Soulwax mix just because it’s that damn great.

Mantronix
Who Is It? (Freestyle USA Club Mix)
Who Is It? (Who’s Dub Is It)
Who Is It? (Freestyle Radio Version)
Who Is It? (UK Club Mix)
Who Is It? (Bonus Beats)
Electro up in your face like…someone who would be all up in your face (look I’m writing this at 9:30 in the morning so my metaphor skills haven’t really kicked in yet).

This shit makes me want to breakdance, which is kind of unfortunate considering that I can’t dance, let alone breakdance. Maybe I should start that up. Big tall dude tearing it up at breakdancing competitions, that would be a sight I bet. I could team up with that six-year-old girl and we could set the world on fire. It would be dope.

What? Sorry, got sidetracked. These are great, great remixes of a great, great song. Nothing tops early Mantronix. Grab this shit.

While my in-depth articles on buying records in Beijing and Tokyo are still  in the works, I thought some of you might like to see some of the stuff I snagged. So here you go. No music tonight, I’ll have something up tomorrow though.

YMO (Yellow Magic Ochestra) are an amazing synthpop act from Japan who have been around since the late 1970s. One of the members is Ryuichi Sakamoto, who would later go on to some American success as an Oscar-winning film composer for his work on The Last Emperor. They’ve served as a major international influence on electronic music, but most of their best albums aren’t available in the states, so I snatched up as many as I could while in Japan. I bought almost all of these CDs at Tower Records(!!!) while I got the LPs from a variety of stores. All great finds. The live CDs are especially good.

 

I also grabbed some YMO-related albums, mostly solo projects and spin-off groups from the band’s three members. Of the ones I’ve listened to so far, I like The Beatniks one the most. That Summer Nerves album by Sakamoto is some ultra-cheesy disco and I love/hate it.

 

Boom Boom Satellites are another one of my favorite Japanese bands. Only their first album was released on CD in America, and most of their others aren’t even available digitally, so I had to grab as many as I could. Turns out they’re one hell of a prolific group, with nine albums and countless singles to their credit All these records are great by the way, if you like 90s-style electronica or electronic-rock ala Garbage then I highly recommend them. Their newest record, Embrace, is excellent.

 

One of my big goals in this trip was to find some X Japan on vinyl, but this proved much harder than I thought it would be. The only proper X Japan LP I could find was this picture disc of their last studio release, Dahlia, and it set me back about $50. I found a picture disc of one of their singles, but the store was asking (a fair) $200 for it and I passed.

 

I did find some cool X Japan-related material though, including their late guitar player Hide’s debut CD Hide Your Face (in deluxe packaging) and a copy of the band’s massive 2CD live album “On The Verge of Destruction.” The real treat, however, was that black box you see there. That’s not a CD nor an LP, it’s, in fact, a USB drive shaped like a heart!

 

Inside is the complete Hide discography in high quality MP3, including all his studio releases, both his live albums, and all his singles. Even better? I got it used for $40 at a camera store! Score!

 

Time for some wacky soundtracks. Of course I had to pick up some Godzilla LPs.

 

A selection of anime film scores.

 

The requisite Gundman BGM collections (spoiler: Japan LOVES Gundam)

 

And a nice assortment of Lupin The 3rd soundtracks. That one on the bottom right is especially interesting. It’s a two-LP set, and the front and back cover of one of the sleeves are pairs of interlaced images. On their own they look like a scrambled mess.

 

But when you slide the outer sleeve over them and adjust it accordingly, the real images become clear.

Simple but cool.

 

I really wanted to get some video game soundtracks on vinyl when I was in Japan, but this proved to be a near impossibility. In fact, I only found one but it’s a goodie. You can expect that on here soon.

 

While I couldn’t get much in the way of video game vinyl, I did end up snagging a good deal of game soundtracks on CD. Got some good stuff including some Sega and Nintendo greatest hits. The Bare Knuckle (Streets Of Rage) CD was a real find, and cost accordingly.

 

Some other great soundtracks. Breakin’ 2 and Warlock, together at last!

 

Got some great soundtracks on CD as well. That 2CD set of The Fog is a real nice find.

 

Of course, coming across this one made me really happy. I think I scared some clerks with my yelling. Or maybe it was because I’m 6’6″ tall?

 

I was hoping to pick up some Nirvana when I was there, and thankfully the local stores didn’t disappoint. All of these are first printings, and all look flawless. Definitely stoked to pick these up. On a related note, I now own six different versions of Nevermind on CD and vinyl, and four different versions of Incesticide. No, I don’t have a problem. I can stop anytime I want to.

 

You know who’s big in Japan? Japan.

 

Public Image Ltd. is also apparently big in Japan, if the wealth of PiL vinyl I saw was any indication.

 

Also got this pretty radical CD box set.

Who likes brit-pop singles box sets?

 

Wow!

 

Wow again! I now own the America, German and Japanese pressings of this record. No wonder I’m running out of shelf space for my LPs.

 

I’ve never seen so much 90s vinyl in my life as I did in Japan.

 

Came across a lot of Dinosaur Jr. and Dinosaur Jr. related records while I was in Tokyo as well, I don’t know why. I sure bought a lot of it though.

 

Some random silliness.

 

Random silliness continues. Once I bought one I had to get the other.

 

Some lovely nostalgia. Seeing The Muppet Show soundtrack made me squee with joy, while I picked up the Saturday Morning Cartoons compilation just for fun, I bought that CD the week it came out, it has some of my favorite tracks from the era (Sponge’s take on “Speed Racer,” The Ramones tearing up the theme to “Spider-Man”).

 

If there’s a more appropriate record to pick up in Japan I don’t know what it is. Thank you very much Mr. Roboto.

Of course, there was plenty more where that came from, but I don’t want to ruin all the surprises!

Hoped you like this, stay tuned for a lot of music this week!

I just have a nasty head cold and hella jet lag.

New post coming soon.

PS: I bought all the music in Japan. It’s all gone. Sorry.

As this post goes up I will probably be finishing up my trip in China and getting ready to head off to Japan. That will be the closest I ever make it to Australia, so I thought I’d share a concert that was recorded down under to mark the occasion.

Why will I never go to Australia? Because I don’t want to be killed by any of the deadly spiders, snakes, insects, fish, jellyfish, dingoes, kangaroos  bats or koalas that seem to roam around that country with impunity.

That, and records cost a fucking fortune there.

Nirvana – Live In Melbourne, February 1st, 1992 (Complete concert link)
Aneurysm
Drain You
School
Sliver
About A Girl
Come As You Are
Lithium
Breed
Polly
Lounge Act
In Bloom
Love Buzz
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Druid’s Jam
Negative Creep
On A Plain
Blew
Been a while since I shared a Nirvana bootleg so I thought I’d ring in the New Year with one.

I do know there are other source recordings for this show, it shows up quite a bit on various bootleg sites in varying degrees of quality. It’s been released on CD at least four times, under the names “In A Land Far Far Away,” “The Druids Jam,” “Melbourne 1992” and “Narcolepsy.” My source for this recording was a 2LP set that came in a plain white sleeve and a sheet of paper with a “Live Wire” logo. Beneath that was the text “Show #57 for the week of October 13.” I can assume then that Live Wire was a radio show that featured live performances, and this was the performance for that week.

I think this version that I have sounds pretty damn good, and the records were very well taken care of so I barely had to do any cleaning to the recordings. About the only problems with the audio are from the source material. Parts of this set are pretty feedback-laden, and Kurt and company didn’t seem to be completely on fire that night, making a few mistakes early on before settling into a nice groove. There is also no talk from Kurt, Dave or Krist for the entirety of the concert. Nirvana was never a band that was chatty with the audience, but most shows I have include at least a little bit of wacky banter from Krist, this one has nothing at all.

As it stands though, this is a pretty good concert, warts and all. It also has an honest-to-goodness rarity, the instrumental “Druid’s Jam,” (a name that a fan probably created). It’s pretty much just four minutes of feedback and noise, but hey, it’s something.

Looking for more Nirvana bootlegs? Well check out this post that has a great Boston show from 1990, and this post for a legendary set from 1991 that was also in Boston.

That is all.

Post with music coming tonight.

Okay.

So I moved my site off Dreamhost to another service. However, that service (a pay per gigabyte service) ended up being FAR more expensive than I thought it would be.

So until this is resolved I won’t be posting any music. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t take longer than a week.

I appreciate your patience. And if anyone out there has any suggestions for good RELIABLE webhosting on a budget let me know.

So far, my efforts to sell my unwanted records have been an astonishing success, both here and on eBay. Thanks to all who have purchased anything from me, you’re really helping me out.

As a result of my success, I have decided to expand my efforts. Below is every album I plan on selling that is not currently on eBay. Want to buy any of these records? Read this:

HOW TO BUY RECORDS
If you see some records on this list you like, contact me at lostturtanble AT yahoo DOT com (formatted to avoid spam). Include in the email subject “I WANT TO BUY” followed with at least one of the records you are interested in. Give me an offer in the body of the email. If you’re looking for multiple records, I’ll give you a discount.

This is not an auction, I will not be playing different offers against each other. If one person offers me $10 for something and someone else offers me $20, I will sell to the person offering me $20, I won’t go back to the first person and give them the chance to outbid the other potential buyer.

After I see your offer I will either agree or counter. Once we come to agreement over a price I will send you a payment request over PayPal. YOU WILL HAVE 48 HOURS TO FULFILL THAT REQUEST. Failure to do that results not only in a loss of the records but a loss to ever buy records from me again. I will ship out your records the following business day. All US shipping will be media mail, unless you specify otherwise. International shipping is also available, but be aware that it is usually very expensive.

This list will occasionally be updated with new product, while items will be removed if they are sold or moved to eBay. I intend on keeping this post up until the first week of December, so if you can’t afford something right away, you have time! Unless someone else snags it up first of course.

When items are added to this list I will mention it both on a blog post and on Twitter. So if you want early dibs to anything, be sure to follow me on Twitter and get the heads up!

Happy hunting!

Oh, and since people were asking, here’s where you can find my eBay auctions.

AC/DC
Let’s Get It Up 12″ Single

Acid Folk
Perplexer

Adam And The Ants
Physical (You’re So) 12″ Single

Afroboogie
Only The Strong 12″ Single

Against Me!
Against Me Is Reinventing Axl Rose (White/Pink) SOLD!
Don’t Lose Touch (Mouse On Mars Remix) 12″ Single
From Her Lips To God’s Ears 12″ Single

Araknofobia
Arachnophobia 12″ Single

Arcade Fire
Keep The Car Running/Broken Window 7″ Single
Neighborhood #3 (Lights Out) 7″ Single
Intervention 7″ Single (Sealed)
Wake Up 7″ Single

Richard Ashcroft
A Song For The Lovers 12″ Single

Ayla
Liebe The Remixes 12″ Single

Baby Ford
Fetish 12″ Single

Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force
Planet Rock 12″ Single SOLD OUT!

Bebop Deluxe
Live! In The Air Age
Sunburst Finish

Bedrock
Set In Stone/Forbidden Zone 12″ Single

Big Audio (Dynamite)
Looking For a Song 12″ Promo SIngle

Big Country
East OF Eden (Extended Version) 12″ Single

Big Star
1# Record 2010 Yellow 180g repressing

Braindead Sound Machine
I’m In Jail 12″ TEST PRESSING
Where The Pavement Ends 12″ Single

James Brown
Living In America 12″ Single
The Payback Mix 12″ Single SOLD!!

David Byrne
3 Big Songs
Music From The Knee Plays

Beck
Sexx Laws 12″ Single (Transparent) SOLD!

Black Eyed Peas
Request Line 12″ Single (Fuck you it’s a great song)

Blackalicious
Blazing Arrow

Bizarre Inc.
Keep The Music Strong 12″ Single

Chris ‘n’ Cosey with The Eurythmics
Sweet Surprise 12″ Single

Elvis Costello
High Fidelity 12″ Single

Crookers
Il Brutto 12″ Single

Billy Currie
Transportation

Dajjamondo
The Phoenix/The Big Hum 12″ Single

Die Warzau
Liberated 12″ Single
Never Again 12″ Single
Funkopolis 12″ Single

Dixie Dreggs
Dregs of the Earth

DJ Krush
The Message of the Depth
Zen

The Doobie Brothers
Listen To The Music (Remixes) 12″ Single SOLD!

Duran Duran
The Relfex (Picture Disc)
Mixing (Includes HUGE POSTER and awesome 8×12 band portraits) SOLD!

Missy Elliot
Cop That Shit 12″ White Label Remix Single

Brian Eno
Fourth World Vol. 1 (w/John Hassell) SOLD!!!
Ambient 2 The Plateaux of Mirror (w/Harold Budd) SOLD!!!
Ambient 3 Day of Radiance (Laraaji, produced by Eno) SOLD!!!
Ambient 4 On Land SOLD!!!

Eon
Basket Case

EPMD
I’m Housin’ 12″ Single

Euphoria
I like Noise/Genocide 12″ Single

Everything But The Girl
Temperamental 12″ Single

Exotic Birds
No Communication 12″ Single SOLD!
Day After Day 12″ Single SOLD!
Exotic Birds SOLD!

Jake Fairley
Crisis

The Farewell Party
Here

Ade Fenton
Ade Fenton vs Wet Musik

Fischer-Z
Going Deaf For A Living
Word Salad

Fishbone
Freddie’s Dead 12″ Single

The Five Man Electrical Band
Good-Byes & Butterflies

Front 242
Tragedy For You 12″ Single

Front Line Assembly
Digital Tension Dementia 12″ Single
Millennium 12″ Single

Game Theory
Lolita Nation, still in shrink wrap

Guns N Roses
Lies

Jan Hammer
Make Love

Jazzy Jeff (the other one)
Rock It (Rock It) 12″ Single

High Priest
Ghost In The Drummachine 12″ Single

Herbie Hancock
Sound-System

Paul Hardcastle
Don’t Waste My Time 12″ Single
Rainforest 90

John Hassell
Personals 12″ Single

Heaven 17
Who Will Stop The Rain 12″ Single

Don Henley
All She Wants To Do Is Dance 12″ Single

Lauryn Hill
G Spot Factor EP (Bootleg Remixes)

Humante
Love Stimulation 12″ Single

Hypertrophy
Beautiful Day 12″ Single

Ice-T
New Jack Hustler 12″ Single

Jacky Dean Foundation
Caravan of Love 12″ Single

Jean-Michael Jarre (With Hank Marvin)
London Kid 12″ Single

Daniel Johnston
Hi, How Are You (2007 Re-Press) SOLD!

Elton John
Honky Chateau (Chinese Bootleg)

Jon The Dentist
Shindo 12″ Single

Grace Jones
Slave To The Rhythm 12″ Single SOLD!!

Howard Jones
The 12″ LP (Promo, no cover)
Things Can Only Get Better 12″ Single

Justice
Waters of Nazareth 12″ Single

Evelyn “Champagne” King
Give It Up 12″ Single

Klubbheads
Discohopping 12″ Single

Interactive
Dildo 12″ Single SOLD!!

INXS
Devil Inside 12″ Promo Single
Disappear 12″ Single
Suicide Blonde 12″ Single
What You Need 12″ Single

Kitchens of Distinction
Love Is Hell 12″ Single

Laibach
Sympathy for the Devil (Picture Disc)

Annabelle Lamb
Riders On The Storm 12″ Single

Paul Lekakis
Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back To My Room) 12″ Single

Level 42
World Machine (The Shep Pettibone Remix) 12″ Single

Love Child Orchestra
Whole Lotta Love 12″ Single

M.I.A.
Paper Planes (Homeland Security Remixes) 12″ Single

Marschmellows
Flash Fried 12″ Single

Mastodon
The Hunter (2LP Deluxe Edition) SOLD!
Live At the Aragon (DVD Missing) SOLD!

Me First And The Gimme Gimmes
Ruin Johnny’s Bar Mitzvah SOLD!

LCD Soundsystem
Tribulations 7″ Single (with poster) SOLD!

Meat Loaf
Paradies By The Dashboard Lights 12″ Single

Bporis Mikulic
Hersey

Mix Master Mike
Atmosfear
Bangzilla

Hugo Montenegro
Moog Power SOLD!!

Muse
Supermassive Black Hole 7″ Single Picture Disc SOLD!

Mussolini Headkick
Themes For Violent Retribution

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
Sex On Wheelz 12″ Single
Sex On Wheelz 12″ Promo
Sexplosion! SOLD!!

Murk
Time 12″ Single

National Lampoon
That’s Not Funny, That’s Sick! SOLD!

NWA
Express Yourself 12″ Single SOLD!!

Mike Oldfield and Roger Chapman
Shadow On The Wall 12″ Single

Pearl Jam
Amonst The Wave 7″ Single (Sealed) SOLD!!

Phoenix
Fences (Pink) (RSD Exclusive) 12″ Single SOLD!

Ariel Pink
Baby 12″ Single

Plastic Little (With Spank Rock and Diplo)
The Jump Off

Portishead
Portishead SOLD!

Roxy Music
Dance Away 7″ Single (JAPANESE IMPORT)

Roger Powell
Air Pocket

Power Station
Get It On 12″ Single SOLD!!

Billy Preston
The Wildest Organ In Town!

Pressure Drop
Silently Bad Minded 12″ Single

Primus
Green Naugahyde SOLD!

Quadrophonia
Schizophrenia 12″ Single
Quadrophonia 12″ Single

R.E.M.
Everybody Hurts (Orange Vinyl) 12″ Single
Everybody Hurts (White Vinyl) 12″ Single
Finest Worksong 12″ Single
Finest Worksong 12″ Promo Single
S. Central Rain (I’m Sorry) 12″ Single
The One I Love 12″ Single

Alex Reece
Feel The Sunshine 12″ Single

Richard Humpty Vission
Alright (The Remixes) 12″ Single
Soul-Tronik “The Musik” 12″ single

Steve Reich
The Desert Music

Chris Rock
Champagne 12″ Single

Sasha + Digweed
Expedition (3 LP Unmixed Version)

Schooly D
Where’d You Get That From 12″ Single

Science Dept.
Persuasion/Repercussion

Peter Schilling
The Different Story 12″ Single

Sebadoh
The Freed Man (Repressing)

The Senate
The Original Sin Megamix 12″ Single

Shiek Moxo
Look Into The Magic Eye 12″ Single

Simian Mobile Attack Disco
Attack Sustain Delay Release

David Sylvain
Gone To Earth
Secrets Of The Beehive

The Smiths
So This Is America (Bootleg)

Snatch
Another Brick In The Wall 12″ Single

Spank Rock
Yo Yo Yo Instrumentals

Bruce Springsteen
Streets Of Fire JAPANESE IMPORT 7″ Single

Sting
If You Love Somebody Set Them Free 12″ Single
We’ll Be Together

Vincent Stormfield
Sweet Harmony ’92 12″ Single

Styx
The Grand Illusion (With original poster)

Morton Subotnick
Silver Apples Of The Moon

Sugar Daddy
Another One Bites The Dust 12″ Single

Supernova
Justice 12″ Single

System Of A Down
Chop Suey! 7″ Single (Clear, numbered)

Geggy Tah
Whoever You Are 12″ Single

Talking Heads
Workshop Image (Bootleg)

Techno Madness
Techno Madness 12″ Single

Tone-Loc
Wild Thing (Peaches RMX) 12″ Single

Torch Song (William Orbit)
Don’t Look Now 12″ Single

Toro y Moi
Causers of This SOLD! 
Undernearth The Pine SOLD!

Two Nice Girls
Like A Version 12″ Single

UB40 with Chrissie Hyde
Breakfast In Bed 12″ Single SOLD!

Armand Van Helden
Flowerz 12″ Single
Kentucy Fried Flow 12″ Single

Various Artists (That’s the name of the artist)
8 8.5. 9 12″ Single

Vector
Please Stand By

The VHB
Beethoven Fifth (Street) Symphony 12″ Single

Violent Femmes
s/t (First Printing) SOLD!!

Joe Walsh
Barnstorm

Whale
Crying At Airports 12″ Single

Whirlwind Heat
Pink 7″ Single SOLD! (To a real prick)

The Who
Live At Leeds (with all the inserts)

Wink
Are You There 12″ Single

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Maps 7″ Single
Pin 7″ Single (Red Transparent Vinyl)
Gold Lion 7″ Picture Disc

Xymox
Phoenix of MY Heart

Soundtracks
2010
Altered States
Antartica
The Awakening
Battle Beyond The Stars
Battle of Neretva
Battlefield Earth (The soundtrack of the Book)
Beastmaster
Black Rain
Bright Lights Big City
Capricorn One
Carrie
Clash Of the Titans
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (MOOG Version)
The Company of Wolves
Cooley High
The Dark Crystal SOLD!!
Dark Shadows (TV Show Soundtrack)
Down And Out in Beverly Hills
Dreamscape
Emmanuelle
Empire State (with bonus 12″)
Enemy Mine
The Final Countdown
Ghost Story
The Green Hornet (TV Show)
The Hobbit (Complete Original Soundtrack including dialogue, music and songs)
The Howling
The Hunger
Intervista
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978 Version)
King Kong Lives
Laugh-In ’69
Listen To The City
Midnight Run
Mishima
The Mission
Night Hawks
A Nightmare On Elm Street 3 (12″ Single for Dream Warriors by Dokken)
The Omen
The Omen II
Poltergeist
Poltergeist II
Quest For Fire
Sacco & Vanzetti
Leviathan
The M Squad (1959 TV Soundtrack featuring John Williams)
Mallrats (Sealed) SOLD!
Modesty Blaise
Mutant
Midnight
The Neverending Story
Night Breed SOLD!
Out Of Bounds
Outland
Rambo First Blood, Part II
Red Faction Armageddon (Video Game soundtrack)
Russ Meyer’s Soundtrack Collection
The Return of the Living Dead
The Seven Samurai/Rashomon
Sex, Lies, And Videotape
Sisters
Scream For Help
The Swarm
The Twilight Zone (TV Series Soundtrack Volume 2)
The Twilight Zone (TV Series Soundtrack Volume 4)
The Twilight Zone (TV Series Soundtrack Volume 5)
The Twilight Zone (Film Soundtrack)
Witness
The Untouchables
Urgh!
Wild In The Streets

Compilations
Back To the Grindstone (Fact 22, Mental Anguish, Nomuzic and more)
A Bunch of Stiffs
California Jammin (Bootleg with Deep Purple, ELP and Pink Floyd)
California Jam 2 (Heart, Santana, Dave Mason, Aerosmith and more)
A Factory Quartet (The Durutti Column, Kevin Hewick, Blurt and The Royal Family & the Poor)
Grid Slinger
Horse Meat Disco III
Live For Life (REM, Jeff Beck, Bob Marley, Bangals…)
Two Revolutions (DNB Mix)
Scream The Compilation (Jane’s Addiction, TSOL and more)
London Funk All-Stars
Maiden Australia
Om Lounge
Platinum On Black II (Remxies of Brand New Heavies, New Order, Everything But The Girl and more)
Y4K Part One (Nubreeed and Dirty Fours)

Longtime readers of The Lost Turntable may know that for the longest time this site was on Blogspot, the free web-publishing platform that is owned by Google. I started this blog on Blogspot back in 2006, but I cut the cord and went solo in 2010, when my blog got three DMCA notices over the course of the year. You can read all about here. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

You back? Good. For those of you who decided not to revisit history, I’ll sum up. Starting in 2009, the IFPA (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) decided that certain posts on my blog violated their copyright (and they were probably right) so they sent out a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notice to Google, requesting that the offending posts be removed. This is in their right. I have no problem with that.

The problem was that Google did that without question, accepting it without ever contacting me. Furthermore, during the process I was never given an opportunity to defend myself, nor was I allowed to look at the DMCA that was levied against me. The IFPA had all the power. I had none.

The fact that I was called out for copyright infringement was fine, I get that. But the fact that I was never once given a chance to look at the claims against me was total bullshit. That was the reason why I decided to migrate my site to my own servers and my own domain in 2010. Since then, I haven’t gotten a single DMCA notice, this is because organizations like the IFPA are as lazy as they are greedy, and only search easily indexed sites like Blogspot and WordPress.

For two years I kept the old blog up, with little more than a “yo, update your bookmarks” post left behind. But I was sick of getting emails about it from idiots who couldn’t find this site, so I finally decided to deactivate and delete the blog earlier this year. Apparently it wasn’t gone for long though, because if you go there now, you’ll see that someone else snatched up the name and is now using my old site address as a spam bot. I found this out only because a few of my readers who never removed the old Blogspot RSS feeds from their aggregators were suddenly getting flooded with spam from this site.

This is relatively harmless, of course. But I don’t like my brand name being tarnished and associated with shit like this. I own the name Lost Turntable. It may not be a registered trademark, but since I used it, it’s mine. It would be like starting a new magazine with the name Newsweek. You can’t do that. And you shouldn’t be able to take an established blog and create your own spam blog using its name.

So, being a fan of irony, I decided to file my own DMCA against Blogspot, claiming that this spam blog was infringing on my trademark. I figured the case was pretty cut and dry, and besides, it’s a worthless spam blog, it should be taken down regardless.

Well, a lot of stuff should happen, here’s the response I got from Google in regards to my claim:

Thanks for reaching out to us.

Thank you for writing in regarding
http://lostturntable.blogspot.com/2012/08/business-management-effective-strategic.html.
We would like to confirm that we have received and reviewed your inquiry
dated 8/13/2012.

Blogger is a provider of content creation tools, not a mediator of that
content. We allow our users to create blogs, but we don’t make any claims
about the URLs or content of these pages. In cases involving trademark, if
a contact email address is listed on the blog, we recommend you working
directly with the author to have the information in question removed or
changed.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

 

There’s a key line there I want to focus on.

“Blogger is a provider of content creation tools, not a mediator of that content. We don’t make any claims about the URLs or content of these pages.”

That is a bold faced, dirty filthy stinking rotten lie.

Let us go back to the DMCA notice I was served with back in 2009.

“We are in the process of removing from our servers the links that allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others. If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits.”

That is a blatant example of them mediating content and making a claim to the what the content is. They are literally working as a mediator there, removing content that allegedly infringes on the IPFA. So they lied to me, pure and simple.

It would appear that if you’re a massive corporation with millions of dollars behind you, Google will do whatever you want at the drop of a hat and remove any blog that is allegedly infringing on your copyright/trademark. They’ll do so without allowing the owner of the blog to challenge it, and they’ll make it nearly impossible for them to find out what exactly they’re being charged with.

However, if you’re a single individual who doesn’t have an army of lawyers, then you can just fuck right off as far as Google is concerned.

So if you are the owner of any kind of content at all, any brand name, any publication, any YouTube video series, anything like that, and you give a shit about how your content is represented on the Internet, then I would strongly recommend you set up a Blogspot account and create a blog there using that name. You don’t have to update it, just make sure you’ve claimed it. Because if someone else does Google won’t do a damn thing to stop it.

(And by the way, if you could all go to Google’s support and report that site as spam, I would greatly appreciate it. Hopefully if enough people complain it can get removed for good.)

Holy Shit!

If you’re seeing spam on my RSS feed that’s because someone has hijacked my old Blogger domain and is using it to send out spam. Delete that feed! The only Lost Turntable feed you need can be found on the right tool bar!

Actual post with music later this week.