On the record
Record Store Day returns with Tyson Meade, Flaming Lips beer vinyl and a lot more
yson Meade thought somebody was joking when he learned that his new album had been picked as a featured Record Store Day release.
“I thought Jarrett Koral, who owns Jett Plastic, was screwing with me when he told me it had been selected,” the Chainsaw Kittens singer said of his new solo record, “Robbing the Nuclear Family.”
The album is being released by the Detroit-based Jett Plastic Records, which navigated the Record Store process.
“I am proud of the honor,” Meade said from his home near Oklahoma City’s Plaza District.
Saturday marks the 11th anniversary of Record Store Day, a worldwide celebration of the old-fashioned brick-and-mortar music shops that still deal in vinyl, analog cassettes and rare compact disc recordings in the age of online digital grab-bag formats, which most “old-fashioned audiophiles” consider inferior to the warmth and realistic clarity of clean plastic grooves tracked by a surgically precise stylus on a high-quality, precision-speed turntable.
These aren’t chain stores, but mom and pop operations (sometimes just pops, sometimes just moms, sometimes both), who truly care for and understand their discriminating music-loving patrons, and they meet these customers’ desires with these yearly in-store events that include concerts, signings and special product releases from bigtime and barely known international recording craftsmen that are often limited editions and
soon-to-be out of print.
Meade is one of a handful of local artists in this category, also represented by another official RSD special, the first vinyl version of “Chainsaw Kittens (1996),” the fourth fulllength album released by this Norman-based band.
The biggest of these local RSD celebrations will take place at Guestroom Records, on the corner of NW 36 and Western, where people begin lining up at the door hours before the 10 a.m. Saturday opening, hoping to latch on to these instantly rare limited edition RSD releases before they’re all gone.
Drink up
Making a personal appearance at Guestroom’s NW 36 store will be OKC’s best-known alternative rock luminary, Wayne Coyne, of The Flaming Lips. He’ll be on hand from noon to 1.p.m. hawking a limited edition, beer-filled, 7-inch vinyl single by the Lips, called “The Story of Yum Yum and Dragon.”
That’s right — “beer filled.” Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and OKC’s favorite indie band have collaborated to create a beer with specially selected ingredients, and music to accompany the consumption of
the concoction.
Coyne himself was inspired to add the flavorful additives — dragonfruit and yumberries — and use them as characters in the two songs on the record “The Story of Yum Yum and Dragon,” and “Pouring Beer in Your Ear.” These became the recipe for such lyrics as: “Yum Yum and Dragon went out for a drive / But Yum Yum doesn’t have any eyes … Yum Yum and Dragon, they’re happy their friends.”
This limited edition 7-inch release, 100 translucent records filled with the actual Dragons & YumYums beer, will be available while they last.
In a news release, Coyne said, “Working with Dogfish Head has been a meeting of two, seemingly opposite product makers. We as The Flaming Lips (being completely unaware of our branding and marketing potential) and them, Dogfish Head (being sooo well branded, I thought they made dog food, fish sauce, bongs AND beer) … turns out they, the Dogfish Head, thought we, The Flaming Lips, were a well branded and marketed entity … they thought we were perhaps a cult, a cartoon, a religion, a candy company and an Art Rock Group ,,, ha … so … Us coming together to make, what might be, the world’s first vinyl record filled with pink colored beer … is somehow … perfect!!”
The Jones Assembly, 901 W Sheridan Ave., also will host a Dogfish hangout and toast with Coyne and brewer Sam Calagione starting at 6 p.m. Saturday. Expect a DJ set from Brothers Griiin and a ton of giveaways throughout the night, including a limited edition Crosley record player featuring artwork by Marq Spusta and another super-collectible Dragons & YumYums beer-filled copy of The Flaming Lips record “The Story of Yum
Yum and Dragon.”
Lost classic
For added Oklahoma musical flavor on Record Story day, Guestroom Records owner Justin Sowers said his store is offering a release, for the first time on its own new label, a reprint of “Soulful Proclamation,” the sole 1972 LP from Oklahoma City’s own Messengers Incorporated.
Original band members
Charles Burton, Barbara Burton and Maurice Love will be present at the OKC Guestroom store to sign customers’ copies of this limited LP (only 1,000), which will be available for purchase.
“It is a lost classic, and originals now fetch upwards of $1,000,” Sowers said. “This reissue is fully licensed, pressed on 180 gram vinyl.”
Meade for Congress
Unfortunately, Meade will not be present at Saturday’s event to promote “Robbing the Nuclear Family,” the follow-up to 2014’s “Tomorrow in Progress,” which was his first release after a nearly 10-year hiatus spent teaching English to Chinese students in Shanghai.
Now a permanent Okie resident again, the master of avant-garde glam, experimental pop and esoteric rock will be playing a show in upstate New York to help raise funds for his just-announced campaign for the congressional seat in Oklahoma’s 5th District, running as a Democrat.
He’s quick to note Tyson Meade for Congress T-shirts will be on sale at Guestroom, along with his records.
“I think I have totally taken leave of my senses running for office,” he said.
He also revealed that talks are underway for a possible Chainsaw Kittens
studio reunion.
“You know we recently lost (drummer) Eric Harmon, and he was an integral part to who we are,” he said.
But he noted the Kittens have several other drummers in mind that the late Harmon probably would approve of as his replacement.
“I’ve written a couple of songs that could definitely be Kittens songs,” Meade said. “In 2020, it’ll be 20 years since we’ve put out a record. So I’d like to have a record out in 2020.”
Sounds like another perfect Record Store Day special inthe future.
Meanwhile, Sowers recommended that music junkies would be smart to arrive well before Guestroom’s 10 a.m. opening time on Saturday, as the line of people usually stretches around the corner and winds out into the parking lot and along the curb on NW 36 in the early hours of the sale. People will be allowed inside the store at a rate of about five or 10 at a time.
Competition for the rarities inside, especially among the early birds, Sowers said, is pretty fierce.
The event will also include RSD specials by Brian Eno and Kevin Shields, a live album by the National, Arcade Fire, David Bowie, Sufjan Stevens and Led Zeppelin to name but a few.