Ruminations on Small Rooms

Did you even know the Eagles Club in Seward had a 3rd performance space? If you check their website to inquire about it, you’ll see no information on the so-called B Room. Members of the actual fraternal order will tell you they’ve never even noticed the brown accordion-style door that leads to the forgotten club game room.

It’s easy to miss even if you’re a non-dues-paying regular at the bar. On a typical weekend night, you might hear a square dance gently blaring from the Main Hall and a godawful punk racket from the North Hall. Unlike many cross-generational bars in the Twin Cities, Eagles 34 hasn’t had its regulars and old-time members driven away by hipster influx. On the contrary, the patrons come together in a friendly/hostile hodgepodge not unlike our own beloved radio station.

It’s in this spirit that KFAI Vinyl Voices launched our Every Other Friday series in the secret space at the Eagles. Legally holding no more than 67 people, the room’s wood-paneled walls feel like the perfect backdrop for a pre-smoking ban poker night or a Larry Clark photo shoot. In a city full of bars blasting EDM and the occasional rare soul 45 shindig, what better venue could there be for a non-pretentious, come as you are record night?

Though every event will feature a bonafied (autocorrect wants me to change that to “boneheaded”) KFAI mixmeister, the 2nd slot is open to YOU. Yes, you, the record buying public. The average radio listener. The thrift store dabbler and the new vinyl junkie. Just as KFAI opened the airwaves to community folks that didn’t own their own transmitter and equipment over 30 years ago, KFAI Vinyl Voices levels the playing field for those with a few dozen records but a modest turntable setup at home.

We want you to sign up for a shift and learn the (seriously not that hard) art of playing one record after another. We’ve got two turntables and a basic mixer that say you can do it. We’ll promote your upcoming gig on-air and make you look cool in front of your friends.

Drop us a line now at kfai.vinyl.voices@gmail.com. Being a bi-weekly event, space is limited. If we get a good enough response, I bet we can expand to Every Friday. After all, we’re meeting in a secret room that even the club forgot.

Fresh Drew Comin’ Through – Beep Beep

A few weeks ago, it was suggested that we should start taping some of these Vinyl Voices sessions. Why not give the people a taste of what goes on or a reminder of what happened if they were there?

Well, resident platter-spinner Drew Miller has taken to the suggesting whole hog, delivering something close to 5 hours of mixed content to his blog. Check out a few solo sets and a trade-off session with fellow heavy hitter Tom Novak over at Omnium Design.

Tom, who you probably know from the MN Record Show, will be bringing his talents to the Every Other Friday record night at the Eagles Club THIS Friday along with Dead Media’s Joey Franklin. We’ll likely be taping this one too for potential posting/airing on KFAI.

By the way, did we mention that Mason put together a 4-hour spin session of his own directly after the previous Every Other Friday? It’s archived over at KFAI Presents for at least the next week. You could conceivably fill your entire work week with our sweet streaming sounds. Can you dig it?

Hey Hey We’re the Junkees!

Vinyl Junkees, is what I’m talkin about. Yeah it’s all the rage with the hipsters and whoevers…whatever…I guess they’re carrying little record players around with them to coffee shops and stuff – well, good for them I say, good for them. But the djs from Vinyl Voices clearly do not fall under that hipster category. Even the very young Vinyl Junkees have a passion for the music and the medium that is not easy to fathom or understand; it’s obsession, really.

I started out as a little kid in the 60s with Beatles and Rolling Stones albums, Santa brought those to me and I dug the shit out of those. But then as I turned 10 or so I started using my allowance money to purchase my own records…7 inches, 45s. Little affordable black disks with big holes. My little girlfriends and I were absolutely obsessed with The Monkees, our favorite group and tv show. My friends all were in love with Davey Jones…I liked Peter Tork, just to be different, I suppose. We’d take our allowance money over to Kresge’s every Saturday, buy a halter top, a pair of jeans maybe, and at least one or two 45s to add to our collections. We quite often wouldn’t buy the same records, but would go back to someone’s (not mine…my parents were against this activity) house and just play everything we bought. Our collections all put together was what was important to all of us, I guess. We were a music collective. Sometimes trades were made, on the level of boys trading baseball cards. We did think very highly of ourselves when we’d see someone trade a Pleasant Valley Sunday for a Herman’s Hermits’ Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter, knowing full well that PVS was a much higher value. An Ike and Tina Turner 7 inch was maybe equal to a new Rolling Stones single – that would have been a tough call back then. We used to do things like call Cousin Brucie at WABC in New York City to ask him what his favorite song really was. We’d giggle like schoolgirls – oh, wait, we were schoolgirls. We were doing this stuff from ages 10 through 12.

My friends Bunny Mellish and Patty Botta had the coolest 45 carrying cases –  I had to settle for a plain, non-psychedelic one…that really bummed me out. I wasn’t allowed to do many things that Bunny, my very best friend, could do, but learned how to come up with really great, plausible accountings of where I had been and what I had been up to back in those days. I really earned my fun I guess. So I had to store many of my 45s at Bunny’s – her basement was like my secret life.

That’s just one story of one Vinyl Voices Junkee – there are 8-million stories in the Naked City – ok, well, maybe more like dozens and dozens. Look here for more heart-warming tales.

-Patti

Sun City Girls Spun

Here’s a re-posting from my popforunpop.wordpress.com site, wherein I am twording and nerding out about The Sun City Girls. Tword along with Patti Walsh….

Pop For the Unpopular

I DJ’d at Harriet Brewing in Mpls tonight and played nothing but the Sun City Girls. I provided the below info about them and thought I’d share here, so, here:

KFAI’s VINYL VOICES, September 30, 2014

Sir Richard Bishop, Charlie Gocher, Alan Bishop

I will delight in playing the legendary Sun City Girls for you tonight. For the uninitiated, it’s often hard to find the words to describe them; I’m not a music writer, per se, just a dj and lifelong fan of SCG, and have had the honor and privilege of getting to know them.

Since I am much better at presenting the music rather than blabbing about them, I thought I’d share this article by the fabulous Mike McGonigal of Yeti Magazine from back in 2002: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/sun-city-girls/Content?oid=10798 – check it out sometime….

Since that time, SCG’s drummer (well, he was really so much more than that), Charlie Gocher…

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