The Wombats: Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life

Found Art

Double Exposure

Unidentified Polaroid found inside of a record sleeve.

Love, Bubbles

Click here to listen!

Happy 86th Birthday, Chuck Berry!

T. Renner, "Chuck Berry Statue," 2011, digital photograph.

Happy 86th Birthday to Chuck Berry!

This photo is of a statue of Chuck Berry, who still lives and performs in St. Louis (including just last night!), located on Delmar Boulevard in University City. Harry Weber, sculptor, created this bronze work.

Chuck Berry's official web site says:

Born in St. Louis on October 18, 1926 Berry had many influences on his life that shaped his musical style. He emulated the smooth vocal clarity of his idol, Nat King Cole, while playing blues songs from bands like Muddy Waters.

Chuck Berry's music has transcended generations. He earns respect to this day because he is truly an entertainer. Berry, also known as "The Father of Rock & Roll", gained success by watching the audience's reaction and playing accordingly, putting his listeners' amusement above all else. For this reason, tunes like "Johnny B. Goode," "Maybellene" and "Memphis" have become anthems to an integrated American youth and popular culture. Berry is a musical icon who established rock and roll as a musical form and brought the worlds of black and white together in song.

Hiatus, "Brain"

This weekend, Vintage Vinyl is having a buy 2, get 1 free sale on our $3.99 used compact discs.

To celebrate, we'll be skimming the bins and posting about some of the gems to be found.

Up now is Brain by the crusty punks Hiatus.

On Anarcho-Punk, Crusty Beckham said:

Here you have Hiatus' last two recordings on one cd, namely "The Brain" from 1996 and "El Sueño" from 1995. Hiatus was one of the very best European bands of the 90's as far as good and powerful crust punk is concerned. They started out in the late 80's as a Doom/Sore Throat/Discard band but had the great taste to add some Antisect influence in the mix. To be honest, Hiatus didn't put out a bad or even an average record.

The first 8 songs of the cd are from the last 10" and they may surprise some with their melodic, almost emocore undertones in the guitar and the drumming (you can hear that Unhinged wasn't too far away by then) while keeping a distinctive crust backbone. The remaining songs are all from the 2nd Lp and here we are in traditional Hiatus territory: fast, potent, catchy crustcore, the way the genre was meant to be played. The vocals are awesome and the drum is just pummelling its way through crusty greatness. Lyrically, Hiatus really wrote their best lyrics on these last two records. Gone are the dischargey haikus and instead you have political songs from a personal point of view, and by this I mean from actual experiences, from the guts, they are stories one can easily relate to.