Forumusic
Update: October 2013
Forumusic; pronounced 'Forum Music,' is an on-going celebration of music, records, record collecting and music forums.
With social media like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube increasingly absorbing hours of browsing time the turnover of threads on music forums has decreased considerably in the past year but they’re not over yet!
Forums like Soul Strut, Waxidermy, DJ History, G45, Soul Source, Terminal Boredom and Very Good Plus continue to be thriving communities whose members are continually out and about trawling the
charity shops and thrift stores of the world for under-appreciated music from the past on shellac, vinyl, cassette and CD.
This 21st century habit of sharing music 24 hours a day online continues to expose the true extent of the stranglehold record labels, radio stations and the media had over the music we got to hear in the past.
Many talented artists who never squeezed through the narrow bottleneck of major label approval from unsigned to signed or who self-financed their own recordings but never had access to local or national airplay are finally being appreciated and discussed internationally.
It's timely then that in 2013 message board moderators have been running polls for members to choose recordings they feel best represent the
unsung music they share love for in addition to discoveries exclusive to their forums.
Soul Strut is close to completing their Top 100 and we have an interview with forum founder Raj ready to upload as soon as their No.1 is announced.
Waxidermy completed their members poll in an ad hoc fashion in five weeks flat, though completed is a misnomer as voting is still open. Click on our Waxidermy 100 article under Canons for how the voting looked after five weeks.
For anyone wanting to know more about these recordings and hear sound clips, further information about all the recordings are being added our Waxidermy 100 threads on the Forumusic forum. Just don't expect to find Beatles, Stones, U2, Led Zepp, Radiohead, Floyd, Dylan et all represented.
Record collectors late to these fresh canons of music are discovering to their cost that a large number of vinyl retailers and Ebay sellers are already on the case.
In this update we’ve also added scans of the VG+ and the Waxidermy 2011 CD Swap* sleeves. You'll find them in Swap CDs under Scenes.
These are probably of no interest whatsoever to anyone right now but in future and with permission from the compilers themselves we’ll be adding sound clips of selected tracks or mix segments that we think are well worth hearing.
Check back halfway through October to see if our new soundclip buttons work on your Ipad or Iphone.
*For the uninitiated CD Swaps are explained on the Waxidermy Swap 2012 page.
With all this forums, canons and browsing talk it’s good to remind yourself occasionally that going out is the new staying in. Based as we are in East Anglia UK we are spoiled for choice for great vinyl-related nights out and they don’t get much better than Mark Chamberlin’s Backstreet! Soul Nights at the Keir Hardie Hall in Norwich.
Yes we’ve featured Backstreet! before but in July 2013 an almighty Northern Soul Party night was thrown to celebrate the fact it’s been running for 30 years. That’s a huge achievement for any club and photographs can be found at Backstreet! 30th under Scenes.
We think the very best way of recovering from a busy Saturday night out dancing to old-fashioned is to hit the Sunday morning boot sales to find some vinyl of your own for cheap. Members of the most excellent
Very Good Plus forum have been advocating this for years.
Even though it's Autumn now some hardy VG+ers are presently filing their Charity Shop Challenge (CSC) reports on the forum. Check out the CSC reports there now to see the goodness they're finding for buttons.
Whilst it shouldn't be said out loud near record collectors, Forumusic has recently been taking a lively interest in the boxes of CDs that line tables at car boot sales the length and breadth of the land.
We're particularly interested in Private Burns and Pop CDs but this focus hasn't stopped us picking up anything else that looks interesting. Let's face facts; there's loads of music from the past 20 years that was only ever released on CD and when it's just
sitting there for 50p it would be rude not to try it..
Check out our fresh article In Praise of Car Boot CDs under Scenes explaining Private Burns other delights to see if we can persuade you to check CDs out the next time you're at a car boot or charity shop. Just don't tell record collectors about it though!
Regular readers know that Forumusic is joined at the hip with Spoke Records and October sees the release of the latest 45rpm single which actually plays at 33rpm. How cool is that?
33rpm is all the better for squeezing on the extra minutes of Soundhog's superb remixes of some alternate takes of The Dakotas - The Spider and the Fly and The Open Mind - Magic Potion.
Trialled as vinyl carves at a few Psych/Mod nights a
while ago the remixes were so well-received everywhere they were played that Spoke couldn't ignore them for any longer.
Thanks very much for visiting our site.
Feel free to join the forum too as there are some very special offers happening for free in 2014 which will be exclusive to Forumusic members regardless of post count. If you're reticent about posting up your finds, thought or opinions just feel free to lurk.
We hope you’ll bookmark Forumusic and Spoke Records and add both to the long list of Favourites you regularly browse on your laptop or tablet when you really ought to be watching television.
Ian Townsend , Col Wolfe, Andy Cann
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