New Vinyl Record Talk Tuesday March 29th 8pm ET/ 5pm PT

We change gears this week with a new collection of vinyl LPs. A sweet and neurotically cared for personal collection of LPs has been consigned to us, and its full of 60s and 70s treasures.

So we're moving away from the obscure soul and psych 45s. This week we have original vinyl from The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Ruth Brown, and the box sets of Bob Dylan's "Bootleg Series" release in the early 2000s.

Plus, we get into the minutiae of first pressings of Meet The Beatles and Please Please Me, and banter on the nixing of the Yellow Submarine remake. Also, Ringo's birth home nearer to demolition in the news, and last week's Top 5 vinyl sales on eBay.

Vinyl Records Top 5 eBay Sales Week Ending 03/26/2011

Another "Please Please Me" tops the list this week, followed by rare issues from Nirvana, an Australian tour record, and U2, their first self-produced 3 track 12". Two Blue Note classics round out the list.

1. LP - The Beatles "Please Please Me" Parlophone UK Bold Black labet 1st Stereo - $13,351.38

2. LP - Nirvana "Hormoaning" Clear Marbled Blue Red Purple Press - $6000.00

3. 12" - U2 "Out of Control" numbered #287/1000 - $5,100.00

4. LP - Hank Mobley self titled Blue Note 1568 - $3,618.00

5. LP - Lee Morgan "City Lights" Blue Note BLP 1575 - $3,494.00

More on this week's top 5 on Vinyl Record Talk, Tuesday 8:00PM Eastern / 5:00PM Pacific on Radio Dentata.

Lowest Prices Ever On R&B and Soul

Lowest prices ever on R&B Soul 45's. Over 700 under $4.00 and international shipping is $1.00 for first item $.50 for each additional. No offers will be considered on sale items. This is as low as we can go! 5 Days Only.

Visit: Vinyl Record Talk Store

Disney Nixing Of The Beatles Yellow Submarine 3D Adds To Beguiling List Of Rock 'n' Roll Movie Might Have Been's

Looking back at my own experience, rock and roll brought many things to any and every venue. Two biggies I remember were not favorites of any indoor venue owner/operator (say i.e. a movie theater manager), namely pot smoke and vomit. Such was brought by both the band and the audience during a certain period of history. So right from the start producing a rock 'n' roll movie must have been like going through a maze full of high jumps at all ends and throughout.

However, time and tastes have moved on; the pot smoke and vomit has largely been replaced with, as only an example, Ambien and Prilosec, at least for those of us getting on in years. Hurtles should be fewer today. But Disney's canceling of the Yellow Submarine remake, reportedly because of the bad box office of Mars Needs Moms, shows that rock flixs still make movie executives nervous. I am not sure where a kids' movie compares with a movie that would be primarily for those of us who can get cheap car insurance rates, but so it goes.

Yellow Submarine's demise has made me think about a number of other rock related films that at one time excited me, only to also have been heartbreakingly (or thankfully) dumped for some reason. Below are three attempted but never made films, or versions of films, from the time of pot smoke and vomit.

1. Dune (1974)

No, not David Lynch's tragic effort that I still pull out my old VHS of every year or so, and cannot take my eyes off of while it's playing.

The one that I'm thinking of is the greatest rock film never made and was the second attempt at bringing Dune to the silver screen.

The above artwork and a few storyboards are as far as this attempt got. But the names involved seem as if they come from a dream vision for the film spouted by a peaking acid head sometime in 1974. Moebius and HR Giger were to create the artwork. Salvador Dali was to play the emperor. Orson Welles was approached to play Baron Harkonnen. The music was to be composed and played by Pink Floyd (who did spend a week or so in the studio working on this particular Dune project).

Director Alejandro Jodorowsky created a 14 hr script with plans to release part of the story as a theatrical movie and part of it as a television series. The effort ran out of money and time. Some websites have quoted Jodorowsky as claiming that one contributing factor in the film's demise was that a young director from California had stolen his best production people for a film he was making in London, a film called Star Wars.

2. Lifehouse (1970 ish)

If you've read this far, you probably already know of this most famous of failed rock movies. Well, it was for a time to be more than a movie. Part computer engineering, part psychology test, and musical project as well as a movie, Lifehouse brought Pete Townshend to a nervous breakdown.

Filming of ongoing live concert experiments in London sometime around 1970 have never surfaced, nor has the existence of any remaining film been verified.

3. A Clockwork Orange (1965)

This would be the Rolling Stones version. Five years before Stanley Kubrick made A Clockwork Orange, the Rolling Stones's manager attempted to secure the movie rights from author Anthony Burgess. Burgess, plagued by fears about his health, took a better offer. What droogies they would have made!

Vinyl Records Top 5 eBay Sales Week Ending 03/19/2011

We get one from each major food group in this week's smorgasbord, except no soul food. Classical records have been making the list week after week lately, which does nothing for me except make me look stupid during the show. I know nothing about classical records and often can't pronounce the performers' names. The only record on the list never to have made the Top 5 before is Lee Morgan's Blue Note LP.

1. LP - The Beatles "Please Please Me" Parlophone UK Bold Black labet 1st Stereo - $4,471.90

2. LP - Leonid Kogan "Plays Lalo & Tchaikovsky" Columbia SAX 2329 - $4,150.00

3. LP - Lightnin' Hopkins "Mojo Hand" Fire - $3,375.00

4. 45 - The Fix "Vengence" / "In This Town" - $2,910.49

5. LP - Lee Morgan "Sextet" Blue Note 1541 orig - $2,602.00

More on this week's top 5 on Vinyl Record Talk, Tuesday 8:00PM Eastern / 5:00PM Pacific on Radio Dentata.

New Vinyl Record Talk Tuesday March 15th 8pm ET/ 5pm PT

We pull out several new 45's we found, including a French EP from the Denny Laine era Moody Blues (music crime of the last century is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame snubbing the Moodies - both of them).

We discuss the passing of Bear (Owsley Stanley), and why its never been so profitable to learn Spanish in the Top 5.

Plus, we review last week's Charlie Sheen as zombie poll, and Jane gets out this week's poll.

Vinyl Records Top 5 eBay Sales Week Ending 03/13/2011

Learning Spanish was never so profitable. Since it first showed up on the Top 5 about six weeks ago "Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish" has been popping up on auction and making the list every other week. Andy Warhol provided illustrations for the album cover and the book, but the album is much more rare than original copies of the book. This record was available through mail-order only out the book of the same name.

The rest of this week's list consists of small label and private press funk, psych and rockabilly.

1. LP - Margarita Madrigal "Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish" Warhol Cover - $6,300.00

2. 45 - Andrew Brown "You Made Me Suffer" / "Blue Monday" Brave - $4,370.00

3. EP - The Fringe "self titled" Private Press Canada - $3,993.04

4. LP - Margarita Madrigal "Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish" Warhol Cover - $3,673.00

5. 45 - Larry Brinkley "Move Over Rover" / "I Hate To Leave You" Westwood - $2,705.77

More on this week's top 5 on Vinyl Record Talk, Tuesday 8:00PM Eastern / 5:00PM Pacific on Radio Dentata.

Now We Know: The Beatles More Popular Than Jesus, And 110 Other Things Too

On this week's VRT our news featured a story about the 45th anniversary of John Lennon's comment that, while it has been variously quoted different ways, suggested that the Beatles were more popular than Christianity.

In 2011 we can get a snapshot which while not rigidly statistical, is at least good for a laugh. The website allfacebook.com keeps a daily scoreboard of different "stuff" all default sorted to a running total of fans or "likes". If you use Facebook, you know that for everything from cheeseburgers to the Dali Lama you can press a button called "Like" and updates about that subject will appear in your timeline. This act of "liking" also scores a sort of "point" for the subject matter.

From this we can get an idea of just whether John Lennon was correct.

First thing to consider is that subjects have numerous fan pages duplicating activity. For example, all subjects relating to Christianity, from Facebook's imported wikipedia page for Jesus Christ to pages offering daily prayers of the Christian variety, total many dozens of pages. The Beatles themselves have about a half dozen different fan pages including the official version.

Allfacebook.com does not take this into account, and keeps statistics for each unique page only.

So understanding that, we first took an effort to total all "likes" of the many pages related to Christianity and The Beatles. Now there is likely crossover in that some users "liked" across multiples pages, so the numbers are on the high end of possible unique users. Too much work to weed out, so screw it, vote early, vote often.

What we came up with was roughly this:

The Beatles: 15,000,000 "Likes"

Christianity: 9,000,000 "Likes"

Now compare the above to the top five pages from allfacebook.com:

1. Texas Hold'em Poker - 38,139,591

2. Facebook - 35,179,657

3. Eminem - 30,013,135

4. Lady Gaga - 29,795,290

5. Michael Jackson - 29,707,338

Not even The Beatles come close to the top of the list. In fact, The Beatles rank right around Skittles and Avril Lavigne. And Christianity and Jesus appear to be about as popular as Dr. Pepper and Ashton Kutcher, and would rank around 110th on the Allfacebook list when all "likes" on Christianity related pages are totaled.

So 45 years later John Lennon's observation proves, in a way, to be true. Though taken in context, what Lennon meant by his comment was, more or less and simply stated, that something fun but trivial has more appeal than something arduous and meaningful.

FAT TUESDAY SALE!! 47% Off All R&B, Jazz, Rockabilly, Psych, Rock and more . . .

We just added 800 records to our store!

Prices reduced 47% on over 2000 items!

Vinyl Record Talk Store

HAPPY FAT TUESDAY! - New Vinyl Record Talk Tuesday March 8th 8pm ET/ 5pm PT

It's Fat Tuesday and we start out with the Dixie Cups and Professor Longhair - then on to the poll! Inspired in part by Saturday nights CRAGG interview with Night Of The Living Dead's Bill Hinzman and Charlie Sheen's crash and burn decent into the world of internet webcast, we ask just what type of zombie would be Charlie Sheen?

We've got more southern R&B from Rufus Thomas and Esther Phillips, and Mardi Gras seems just the right time to bring back "The Pussycat Song".

In the news we use 21st century technology to evaluate the 45th anniversary of John Lennon's, "the Beatles are more popular than Jesus," comment. Plus the top 5 and why the hell hasn't anyone gotten their grubby hands on our Don Lee Wilson (The Ventures) find.

Vinyl Records Top 5 eBay Sales Week Ending 03/05/2011

A 70's re-release on an RCA red label with a mis-spelling of Elvis Presley tops the list this week. Two classical records make the list, one an artifact from the CCCP comrade. A Diamond Dogs with the dirty doggie parts makes the list, along with another Dead Weather 7" from the opening night of Third Man Records.

1. 45 - Elvis Presley "That's All Right Mama" / "Blue Moon Of Kentucy" RCA 447-0601 (Misspelled Preseley) - $6,000.00

2. LP - Wilhelm Furtwangler "Beethoven 9th Symphony" Soviet Union Pressing - $5,300.00

3. LP - Gioconda De Vito "Mozart Violin Concerto No 3 and the Bach Violin Concerto in E Major" His Masters Voice 429 - $3,618.20

4. LP - David Bowie "Diamond Dogs" w/ Genitalia - $3,500.00

5. 45 - Dead Weather "Hang You From The Heavens" / "Are Friends Electric?" Test Pressing "Opening Night" $3,051.00

More on this week's top 5 on Vinyl Record Talk, Tuesday 8:00PM Eastern / 5:00PM Pacific on Radio Dentata.

New Vinyl Record Talk Today March 1st 8pm ET/ 5pm PT

We have a very rare Sunny and the Sunliners 45 that almost never surfaces, "I'm A Practical Guy" / "The One Who's Hurtin' Is You", and we'll play both sides. There's more soul from Syl Johnson and Joe Simon.

Plus, 60's psych from Brass Buttons and The Underground.

News this week about artist Daniel Edlen and his work for the David Lynch Foundation.

Turns out your Mom was right. Baby boomers are going deaf at an alarming rate. One doctor blames years of rock n roll in the news. And then there's this week Top 5 vinyl auction sales.