Gold Million Records

Gold Million Records- A Vinyl Collectors Dream Come True
When the word "vinyl" comes to the mind of a college kid, we often conjure up those acid-fueled, Bacchanalian days of the '60s and '70s, transported to these times through films like "Almost Famous" and more recently "Across The Universe."

In our hi-tech world of iPods, mp3s and LimeWire, vinyl has become a sign of a different generation. But every once in a while, we get curious, we wonder … What treasures might lie hidden under all that dust in the attic?

With that attraction to the unknown, I made my way down the Main Line to a little record shop called Gold Million Records.

Upon entry, I was greeted by a half century's worth of memorabilia and records, culled from shop owners Max I. Million and Harold Gold's personal collections.

For the past 30 years, Million and Gold have dedicated their lives to their passion - the preservation and sale of some of the most important musical documents, paraphernalia and, yes, vinyl records from the past 50-plus years.

"This is our lives; we have a love for what we do - the sound of music, a real deep love of music," says Million of her life and livelihood.

Gold Million is your absolute classic record store, such a treasure trove it seems like something out of "High Fidelity." Tens of thousands of autographed or limited-print 45-inch, 10-inch and 7-inch records line the walls like an art gallery.

Autographed guitars, posters and memorabilia are on display as if you had truly reached the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - the pinnacle of all that is 20th-century music.

And what a life in music it has been for the owners of Gold Million. Over their 30 years in the business, Gold and Million have attracted some of the biggest names in the industry to their quaint conservatory.Artists from Blondie to Iggy Pop, The Talking Heads to The Ramones, Joan Jett and The Jam have all made stops in to the shop for appearances and autographs, always leaving with a few new albums to add to their personal collections.
As digital music has become the standard, Gold and Million have found ways to adapt their business while maintaining integrity and passion for their work. The Internet has been a big part of their demand, with orders coming in from around the globe.

"Since we opened our eBay store, we have had orders from around the world, from people who never would have known we exist," Gold said. "Since just last night we've had orders from Austria, Great Britain and Greece. This one customer from Italy has been really interested in our autographed Ramones albums."

In addition to records, Gold Million has stayed viable among digital competition by offering products unique to the Gold Million name.

If you love "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" by The Beatles, why not get a gatefold wall clock featuring the original art from the album? Always been a fan of The Rolling Stones? You might want to pick up a tissue box made up of assorted panels from the album "Sticky Fingers."

"For fans of the music, it's a great way to appreciate the album art and give the records a whole new purpose," Million says. Though Million and Gold have come up with new ways to stay open amid changing demand, they both stress the importance of vinyl to music and their business.

"Vinyl is a social experience," Gold says. "You bring over a couple friends and just get into it. You study the album's art, the liner notes and take everything in."

Million chimes in, saying, "You get to learn about the artist, why they wrote this or that song - take the album in as a whole as opposed to just individual singles. Also, vinyl just sounds better."

As vinyl stores around the United States shut down due to music industry changes, Gold Million has bought up many collections over the years and continues to add to its priceless collection.

And although the store offers many alternatives to the standard vinyl, Gold says, "Kids will inherit their parents' records and it will spark an interest in collecting."

A Peek Behind Milkboy Records

(Originally posted in the Villanovan, 2008)

Sailboat paintings hang on the lime green couch-cushion walls.

Hip orange stalactite lighting effects dangle over mocha espressos, plush couches and conversation.

Wi-fi beams out to MacBook computers for the savvy college kid or hip young urban professional.

Tommy Joyner, the owner of Milkboy Coffee and Recording Studios, pauses.

"You play the cello, huh?" he says off-handedly to a young girl sipping from a mug, reading the Inquirer.

"Yes, I've been playing for four or five years now."

"Hi, I'm Tommy, and I'm one of the guys who runs this place and our recording studio across the street," he says.

"We're actually looking for a cellist right now. Could I get your number or something?"

"Sure, definitely."

Joyner hands me a large raspberry tea and surveys the scene and we head back to Milkboy Recording Studios to discuss inspiration, local music and, yes, coffee.

Joyner grew up in a middle class part of South Carolina, listening to big band jazz, rock and anything else his grandmother would let him get his hands on.

"Ever since I heard 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' from Glenn Miller, all I wanted to do was music," he says. "Then I started getting into KISS, and that was it.

My grandmother bought me 'Love Gun' from KISS, even though the album cover was definitely inappropriate for a 5-year old, but that was really my first taste of hard rock."

He soon picked up the drums and guitar, joining bands here and there throughout his adolescence. Attending college at USC, the musician nearly traded in his passion for a degree in political science.

"What was I thinking?" Joyner says.

"All these guys coming out of college know so much about music; it's hard to keep up," he says, bewildered by his decision to study political science over music theory or studio engineering.
After graduating, however, Joyner eschewed a career in political science and relapsed into music, starting his own recording studio in 1994.

But studio life became consuming for the young entrepreneur.

"It's just running a small business and a recording studio takes so much of your life," he says. "I remember not too long ago, if this thing was going to work, I had to put in 80-hour weeks. Thank God I've got some support now, but everyone still works their asses off around here."

Joyner has refocused Milkboy Recording Studio as primarily an engineering, mixing and producing studio for local Philly artists.

But as any successful entrepreneur does, Joyner looks to the future of his baby.

"The dream for the future is to one day ratchet up again to full label status, we haven't released an album of our own in about eight to 10 years now."

A pet project started by one of Tommy's new recruits, "Unlabel", is starting to carve out that dream. With promotions and album marketing the focus of "Unlabel," Milkboy helps up-and-coming artists get their name out there.

"A lot of these guys (artists) know how to make their art, but they don't know how to sell it," Joyner says. "You have to know how to hawk it to people. The process isn't over until you get the music out there."

But certain sacrifices had to be made in order to get Milkboy Recordings on two feet. Joyner, now into his 30s has largely had to give up making any music of his own.

"Lets put it this way, my [drumming] chops aren't what they used to be," he says. "I play on about six or eight recordings per year. Sometimes I think, 'Man, I could be the guy playing drums for that band.'"

And as well as things seem to be piping along over at Milkboy Recordings, after three years Milkboy's other front, Milkboy Coffee, is still bleeding red ink.

With two locations on the Main Line, Milkboy Coffee has that Starbucks selection but with a warmer, hipster cache. Milkboy Coffee has become the live outlet for all the talent Joyner sees burgeoning out of the Philly area, a place Joyner has developed a real love for, with hopes that one day Milkboy can be the catalyst for a new music scene organic to the Philadelphia area.
"All the big bands go off to L.A. and lose their grounding," Joyner says, lamenting over the line of deserters from the Philly scene.

"They get so overwhelmed by the whole scene that they forget what made them unique, where they come from. We have so much talent here in Philly that is just untapped. The last big bands to come out of Philly were Laguardia and Dandelion."

That L.A. mentality Joyner loathes has certainly taken its toll on Milkboy Recordings and Milkboy Coffee, robbing the area of its musical treasures in search of the big money and fame associated with the city of flowers, sunshine and broken dreams.

Joyner cites the trend as one of the primary reasons for Milkboys' current impasse.

"The decisions we make here are so important to whether we stay alive or go under," he says.

"Unlike so many decisions in your life that you can correct, right now we need to make the right call," he says.

Joyner is sure that if Milkboy can resuscitate local music, many of its problems will disappear.

Joyner's partners are currently looking at Milkboy Coffee as a lame duck investment, but the effervescent Joyner is ever the optimist about Milkboy's future.

"We're at a very exciting and critical period for us right now," he says. "We're at the edge and looking over into the chasm."

Interview with the Black Keys

(Originally posted in the Villanovan, 2008)

The Black Keys “Attack & Release” + Interview with Drummer Patrick Carney
In New York City the other day, I made a stop in Union Square's Virgin Megastore to check out the new releases.

First thing I saw as I made my way through the crowd was Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney staring me dead in the face on the cover of the full-sized vinyl LP from The Black Keys, "Attack & Release."

I looked around at the hundreds of people crowing around the store in a moment of disbelief, then quickly snapped up a copy of my coveted prize before anyone else might notice the utter gold right in their midst.

I happily plunked down the $20 it cost for the album, which not only came with jumbo-sized artwork and a full page of handwritten lyrics, but also included the bonus incentive of the entire album on CD as well.

What a breath of fresh air "Attack & Release" brings for the crowned princes of Akron, Ohio. Producer Danger Mouse, of Gnarls Barkley fame, has whipped this garage band into shape and put them on the map.

The album pulses with the same hellhound blues we know and love from the duo, but it bounces with a new life thanks to lush, deranged church-esque backing harmonies, twangy banjo lines and hammering piano to fill out the spaces in between the moans of Auerbach's guitar and the pounding skins of Carney's drum kit.

Top tracks include: "I Got Mine," "Strange Times," "Remember When (Side A & B)" and "Oceans & Streams."

I recently caught up with Carney, as the band was on its way to a show in Denver.

The tour bus was loaded with five of his close buddies, all of whom could be heard joking, gibing and hollering throughout our loose, laidback conversation about the new album and the subsequent tour.

Tell me about some fun venues where you grew up in Akron.

Well, there's not a lot there. The Matinee is actually a really cool place; it's pretty new.

We used to play a lot at this place called The Lime Spider.

I noticed a lot of intricacy in this album that wasn't necessarily there before- banjo, keyboards, backing vocals. Have you guys figured out how that is going to translate in the live show?
Well, a bunch of the songs were written before we got in studio.

But as for the other ones, we're just not going to work in keyboards and stuff in the live show.

That's really the only difference.

If The Black Keys could jam with anyone, living or dead, who would you pick?

I don't even know how to answer that question. I know lately Dan's really been into Tiny Tim - loves his guitar stuff.

I don't know how I feel about that one though. Can I rephrase the question? Well, if I could see anybody it would be Captain Beefheart in 1968. He was amazing.

I noticed on "Attack & Release" there are a few collaborations, one being with your uncle Ralph Carney. How was it to bring him into the studio?

Oh, all the collaborations were awesome. Every time we're in San Francisco, Ralph comes to our shows and jams with us on stage.

But having people like Mark Ribot and Jessica Lea Mayfield was really cool too.

What did Danger Mouse bring to "Attack & Release" in terms of overall direction or technique?

Brian [Danger Mouse] was really awesome to have. We bounced ideas off of him. He helped us with arrangements, rethinking our songs.

We had a lot of stuff written going into it like "All You Ever Wanted," "Strange Times" and "Remember When (Side A)," but Brian would slow things down or ask us to take new approaches.

Take "Psychotic Girl" for instance - that song was written with a much faster tempo, but [Brian] laid down a much different rhythm for me to play to, which made it different.

The name "Attack & Release" almost sounds like it has to do with hunting. Where does the album name come from?

We just kind of thought it was a cool title. I guess it comes from audio equipment controls or something, but it sounds cool more than anything.

A lot of bands are getting into song licensing in commercials and TV shows. What is the Black Keys take on that sort of thing?

We're for it … Unless it's something really embarrassing or something, like an Applebees commercial. No, I mean it's cool with us. I actually like Of Montreal's Outback Steakhouse commercial better than I like the original song.

"Raising Sand" An Unexpected Joy-Ride

(Originally in The Villanovan Newspaper)

“Raising Sand,” the duet project from former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant and bluegrass sweetheart Alison Krauss comes as a true revelation. Plant and Krauss silhouette through tender passages, voices melting and swaying to a myriad of delicately picked tunes from veteran producer T. Bone Burnett. Truly a chance encounter, the album is like catching the two perfect fireflies in your summer night’s jar.
The album features a hypnotic potion of Middle Eastern violin, hauntingly serene vocals and a sense of shared artistic vision. With “Trampled Rose,” Krauss’s voice rises up like dark smoke from violin embers, stirred by inflective banjo accompaniment. The pair reinvents and re-imagines the possibilities for a duet album, preferring to concentrate on mood and style over the hackneyed duets form (see Tony Bennet’s “Duets”). The innovation of this album is in T. Bone Burnett’s choices to use the lead vocalists as environment-setters rather than only foregrounding. Some of the sweetest moments come together in the gentle weaving of Plant and Krauss as background harmonization.
This album is an absolute must in the adult contemporary market, but its authenticity and forward-thinking vision gives it a shelf life exceeding that of its contemporaries. It is this innovation that has led the duo to give gushing recounts of the project and hint at the desire to take it on the road, even going so far as expressing the desire to continue this project with another album. So rarely do you see such a balanced matching of such starkly different backgrounds come together for such a unique and rewarding studio performance.
Top Tunes: This album is top-to- bottom amazing. Don’t settle for a download; go pick it up.

Flashforward: Return of the '70s!

In another one of my highly incisive, ultimately pitiable attempts to bridge the greatest era of rock music with todays scene, I am here going to try to reconstruct the 1970's using groups formed over the past decade(ish). Yes, the past does have a way of repeating itself, as I hope this little diversion will show.


Janis Joplin & Amy Winehouse

Turbulence. Soul. Stimulants and abuse. Those are a few of these ladies favorite things. And though Joss Stone may want to claim the throne of the fallen psychedelic soul diva, she hasn't ingested the necessary dosage of MDMA to be considered heir to the Pearl Queen's throne.



Electric Light Orchestra & The Flaming Lips

Always ones for a big show, epic orchestration and off-kilter lyrics, ELO and The Flaming Lips share a passion for space oddity. With just the right mixture of synthetic nonsense, mischievous guitar riffery, and upbeat sing-song lyrics (samples 1 & 2), both of these lighthearted troublemakers have found hold in some of rock's more experimental pop niches.



The Band & Wilco

Sometimes it's the simple things we need to appreciate the most. Both of these harworking bands-made-good share a love for updating that tried and true Americana sound through their own unique voices. I can't hold it against The Band for their Canadian roots, as their internalization of American folk and soul produced some of the most recognizable classics from the late 60's and 70's. And Wilco can't get any more American, hailing from the 'nois, with records built to examine their own nearly Mid-western psyches.



Pink Floyd & Radiohead

It's tough enough to stay on the charts for over ten years, let alone doing it with progressive, weird-as-fuck music. That sort of feat takes a rare breed of creativity that leave even the doldrums of pop clamoring for another innovation. Both Yorke & Waters were known in their own right for lyrics that questioned the social climate and probed the empty spaces left by mainstream culture.



Cream & The Black Keys

It's all about dirty, straightforward blues. It's in the idea that simplicity, big hooks and heavy rhythms can produce something groundbreaking. The Black Keys tip their hand of influences with a tribute to bluesman Junior Kimbraugh with Chulahoma: The Songs of Junior Kimbraugh. Similarly, Eric Clapton and his Cream penned spades of blues standards throughout their 3 year stint- indulging in everything from Robert Johnson to T. Bone Walker.



Bob Dylan & The Roots

Both Bobby and boys from Illadelph have a knack for diagnosing the ailments of their day in song. They both are known for busting out a medical kit of supplies including scalpel, guitar, gauze, and a list of demands- all aimed at undermining social order and hierarchy in the search for a more perfect voice of the people.



Led Zeppelin & The White Stripes

Generally speaking, I consider comparisons to Led Zeppelin to be blasphemous at worst and highly suspect at best. But for the past 10 years, Jack White and his "sister" Meg have been churning out gnarled black-and-blue garage rock, folk balladry and blues send-ups that echo only one predecessor. They have the same reverence for the black American songbook, the same criminal instincts for plundering that songbook, and the same ability to stay on the charts while staying honest in their pursuit of musical purity. I once heard Robert Plant say that Led Zeppelin was successful because they were able to distill all the best of what had come before them and make it their own- that mantle has passed on to the next forward thinking traditionalists, The White Stripes.

Van Gogh & Yorke...Separated at Birth?

Silly geniuses with their weird haircuts and manic eyes... just wait a couple years and Thom will be missing an ear. Granted these dudes were born more than a hundred years apart, 115 years to be exact, but these brothers-in-art share the same wildness that often inspires groundbreaking, out-of-the-box creativity.

Both Thom and Vince (as he will henceforth be known) are well known for their ability to conjure abstract expressions of the world around them from unique, albeit disturbed perspectives. Van Gogh wore his crazies right out on his sleeve- be it the bloodletting, ear gouging moments, or twisted works like Skull with Cigarette. Yorke's eccentricities, though subtle in nature, still scare the living hell out of you once you wrap your head around them. Take for instance his spine-tingling, deranged falsetto that sounds like frostbitten wind whipping through a desolate house. Or take the surrealism of "Jigsaw Fall Into Place":

The walls abandon shape
You've got a Cheshire cat grin
All blurring into one
This place is on a mission
Before the night owl
Before the animal noises
Closed circuit cameras
Before you're comatose

Yeah, not exactly "Love Me Do". This is the kind of stuff I'd imagine Dali painting after a long night of LSD.

But beyond the weird, there is at the heart of both these artists something that connects with us lowly, less deranged humans. There is this looming feeling that everything isn't in it's right place- that at our core there is something very fucked up in each and every one of us. Warm, isn't it? But that's the whole point- life can be a strange fate. It reminds us that for every Mick Jagger and Tila Tequila out there smiling for the camera, somewhere out there is a tortured artist tucked away in his room, pouring out less-than-pretty stories that we so often call life.

Futurology and the Music Machine

As daunting a task as it might be, I'm going to try to sketch out where the music industry is going to be forced to move over the next five years or so. At this point it's kind of redundant to say it's going to be 'online', so what shape will it take online? As information online multiplies like jackrabbits on speed, people are going to want their information customized and centralized. The rise of home pages like Google's iGoogle gives a hint of what the future of music might look like. Cooperative, customizable, and compilation-driven sites featuring streaming audio, video and news items will overtake storefront proprietors like iTunes and magazine sites like Spin.

Now onto the fun part- content. As best I can tell, a good one-stop-shop music homepage would utilize something like what Pandora currently does with it's stations, providing relevant information based on past clicked information and purchases. The compilation site will automatically feed in videos from sites like Youtube and songs from Imeem based on user access and interests, as well as automatically update information based on an RSS feed system taken from users desired sites. Instead of surfing through the entirety of the internet for relevant music and news, that information will be delivered daily to the users homepage. This homepage would include literally anything you point to online. There would be a customized digg feeds section, an AOL Music Sessions section, announcements/pics/vid from your favorite band, the list goes on.

Additionally, the homepage will have a ubiquitous presence online. Love David Fricke but hate Peter Travers? No problem. You can designate favorite writer's pages and blogs right on their page- much in the way digg and Stumble Upon are linkable right now. Your homepage will serve as a broad base of information culled from an unlimited number of places you specifically choose, blended in seamlessly with suggestions.

How about them cash-dolla-bills, y'all? Well, probably the most effective way to make money on a homepage site dedicated to customized information would be to provide advertisements also based on customized information, something like Google's AdSense program. Not only will users be able to purchase any and all video and music featured on your homepage, but all advertisements will come from places like LiveNation, Wolfgang's Vault, as well as major and indie labels that are compatible with user tastes.