After much anticipation all year, Smashing Pumpkins played the Illinois State Fair. Way back when this was announced on April 1st, we thought it was an april fools prank as there’s no way a band that important and cool would be playing.

Billy Corgan spent time last week visiting museums and shops around downtown Springfield including this very record store! Unfortunately we didn’t get a picture as it turns out there is a member of our staff who couldn’t recognize him. I suppose that will be on all job applications from here on out. He did at least post a story on his feed of one of his records on our wall. Thank you Billy!

This Friday’s Hot Vinyl!
– SABRINA CARPENTER with her album “Short N Sweet” featuring hit songs “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” – we should have plenty of copies of the indie store exclusive variant (not 100% sure what color it is, but the one pictured for now is blue).
– two 30th anniversary albums out Friday, the first of which is for BUILT TO SPILL’s 1994 album “There Is Nothing Wrong With Love” on jade colored vinyl.
– The second 30th anniversary is for 311’s album GRASSROOTS on double LP clear / brown splatter vinyl.
– A new one from country artist LAINEY WILSON “Whirlwind” on double tan vinyl.
– A 20 year anniversary for Randy Rogers Band “Roller Coaster” on red smoke viny.
– RETURN OF Halloween Nuggets!

This week Pepperoni picked Love Supreme

“My pick this week – John Coltrane’s “A LOVE SUPREME” originally released by Impulse Records in 1965! It’s been a minute since I’ve had a hot jazz release and this one is crucial for all jazz collectors! This recording featured a quartet of Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones. Coltrane is tearin’ it up on the tenor saxophone throughout. This re-issue behind me is the Verve Acoustic Sound Series re-press on 180 gram vinyl! Pick it up at my store next time you are in!”

And there’s another hardcore this Saturday

We’re still waiting for lil Wayne to stop by today, but wanted congratulate our sponsored ITPA tractor puller Jesse Black on his 2nd place finish last night in the Classics division!

Here’s this Friday’s releases!
– A new album from POST MALONE, “1 Trillion” (is this his country album or something?) we will have it on indie exclusive green vinyl.
– PISSED JEANS with their hit album “King of Jeans” getting a re-issue treatment, this album goes hard the whole way.
– GEL, east coast hardcore MVP’s who played one of our biggest shows here last summer with their second album “Persona” on colored vinyl.
– CREED with a 25th anniversary pressing on marbled vinyl of “Human Clay” you all know you want it.
– Two Blue Note Tone Poet reissues we are highlighting – Wayne Shorter “Juju” and Lee Morgan “The Gigolo”.
– Father John Misty “Greatish Hits” on white with blue, green, and purple splatter viny..
– 90’s rock band THE MUFFS with their great self-titled album being reissued.
– Also not picture, but we will have the new Falling In Reverse album “Popular Monster”.

This week Pep picked Lauryn Hill

“Oh boy music fan’s, I’ve had this pick hiding up my paws for quite some time now – here is Lauryn Hill with “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”. Her debut solo album, this was released in 1998 just two years after her group The Fugees released their masterpiece album “The Score” (which is also a Pepperoni pick). Combining elements of R&B, hip hop, and soul, this album topped the Billboard charts and won several Grammy’s. Essential record to pair up with The Fugees “The Score” in your record collection.”

This Friday we have another hardcore show featuring Michigan loud bands Big Deal and Suffer No Fools along with local bands Fatal Dose, Martyr, and Extort

Starting this week it’s 1999 and Star Wars Episode 1 has just hit theatres!

We’ve got this big show happening Saturday. All tickets have been sold but you can still line up at the door and maybe get a ticket from a punk who doesn’t know how to use a calendar.

Here are this Friday’s releases!
– some band called SMASHING THE PUMPKINS that I have never heard of have their greatest hits “Rotten Apples” out on vinyl for the first time or something.
– KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD with their 26th studio album “Flight B741” out on black vinyl as far as we can tell.
– PANSY DIVISION with their 1993 album “Undressed” re-issued and re-mastered – it might be purple but no promises.
– OSEES with their 29th (!?!? more albums than King Gizzard??) studio album “Sorcs 80” (pretty sure we just are getting black)
– DESTROY BOYS, this is only the band’s fourth album “Funeral Soundtrack” on transparent red vinyl.
– CONWAY THE MACHINE with the double black LP “Slant Face Killah”

This week Pepperoni picked the other Twilight record

“Yeah, yeah I might as well pick the other TWILIGHT soundtrack. This Soundtrack IS better than the other movies – it’s got Death Cab For Cutie, the best St. Vincent song, OK Go, Grizzly Bear, The Killers, and more. I’m not sure if it ranks as my favorite Twilight movie though – in this one Bella turns 18 and she gets a paper cut (which draws blood so uh-oh) her vampire family then tries to attack her, but Edward runs away to Italy. Oh yeah, Jacob turns into a wolf man for the first time so that part is kind of cool.”

Oh did you know that we’re taking preorders with anyone in person in the store for this deluxe version of Chappell Roan’s album that comes out on Sept 20th?

It seems our elephant has gone viral a bit lately. We finally got stocked up with the brat record and wanted to participate in the fun. I guess people really dig it or something.

This Friday we have another big loud hardcore show featuring Doubt from Maryland, Lead Spirit from Florida, Rest Assured from Indiana and locals Shroud, Carnal, and Meta-stasis

This Week’s Friday Releases!
– The third album by South African country singer-songwriter ORVILLE PECK – “Stampede” is coming! Available on a few different colorways, I think one is a creamy color and another pink, maybe a green.
– Re-issue of QUIET RIOT’s 1983 album “Metal Health,” come on feel the noise!
– California based Punk rock band X with their FINAL STUDIO ALBUM “Smoke & Fiction” available on a few different colorways (did you know John Doe in this band was born in Decatur)
– 10th anniversary of DIRTY HEADS “Home… Phantoms of Summer… Acoustic…” or something.
– X-RAY SPEX: “Live At The Roxy Club” in 1977! I have no idea if this is colored vinyl or what.

This week Pepperoni chose brat

“Bumpin’ that”

We just installed fans to keep all you weirdos and baddies cool at shows.

This Friday’s new releases!
– GRATEFUL DEAD reissues of 2 of their studio albums “Shakedown Street” and “Go To Heaven” both on sea blue vinyl. After this we are done listening to the Grateful Dead in the store because me and Jeff are sick of it!
– LINKIN PARK with a white/gold/red splattery pressing of their 2003 hit album “Meteora” and also a colored vinyl 10 year anniversary pressing of “The Hunting Party”
– MARIAH CAREY with the double LP greatest hits compilation “#1’s” on silver vinyl with some bonus tracks!
– 1990 Industrial album from SKINNY PUPPY “Too Dark Park” getting a 140 gram black vinyl re-issue.
– And TALKING HEADS with a repress of the “Stop Making Sense” deluxe double LP vinyl that we had a hard time getting ahold of last year around the time “Stop Making Sense” was playing in theaters.

Pepperoni picked the Vampire Weekend Contra album this week

“This week, I pick… Vampire Weekend’s second studio album released in 2010, “Contra”. It’s more of that feel good indie pop music that blends plenty of other genres. Favorite track for me would have to be “Holiday” (I am telling you, it’s a really good ska song). Also hey, their new album that came out this year is also really good and we should have a few copies in stock still?”

Tonight we have a hardcore show featuring Spit My Rage and Grimoire from Texas, and locals Fatal Dose, Reject Modernity, and Change of Heart

Also this Saturday is our next Drag Show!

So far the Smashing Pumpkins haven’t given us tickets to their show despite us selling their albums all the time. But do feel free to hang out with us for the free performance of Marshall Tucker Band at the State Fair on August 13th!

Tonight! we have a show featuring Chicago CYBERGRIND band Blind Equation, also Houston CYBERGRIND CPU Buddha, twin cities straight-edge band Bejalvin, and local hardcore bands Subversion and Bruxism

Here are the Friday Releases!
– GLASS ANIMALS with their 4th studio album “I Love You So F***ing Much” – note: we mostly just got the black vinyl version of this one because the indie exclusive variant was considerably more expensive!
– TYPE O NEGATIVE with the 30th anniversary of “Bloody Kisses” with alternative artwork!
– HOZIER with a deluxe, double-vinyl, special color variant version of their album “Wasteland, Baby!”
– SLEEP TOKEN re-pressing of “Take Me Back To Eden” on a couple of different splatter variants, one of them being gold with black splatter. everyone asks about this one.
– VINCE STAPLES the sixth studio album by American rap artist on black vinyl… hey haven’t enough artists aready done a plain black album cover??

This week Pepperoni picked N.W.A.

“This week I’m picking an all-out hip hop CLASSIC, and that is N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” from 1988. In this all-star group we’ve got members Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, MC Ren, DJ Yella, Arabian Prince and Ice Cube. This album was huge for rap music in a direction towards “gangsta rap”, and they even made a movie about it a few years ago.”

We also got some shiny new stickers recently!

This Saturday we got a good ol rock show for you featuring Zuzus Petals from Kansas, local rockers The Local Drags, and local folk punk from Yardwaste. Unfortunately the Pets went to live on a bright beautiful farm and will not be playing this show.

New This Friday!
– PHISH with their 16th studio album “Evolve” on very pretty colored vinyl.
– BILLY STRINGS has a “Live, Volume I” double LP coming! We might have some of that exclusive blue vinyl, but the black was a few dollars cheaper in this case so we will have that as well.
– The third album by singer song-writer CLAIRO called “Charm” looks like is out on light purple vinyl.
– CIGARETTES AFTER SEX is a “dream pop” band and this is their third album, “X”. There are a couple of different variations, including a deluxe version.
– Love that Blue Note Tone Poet series and this week we have ordered a few of LEE MORGAN’s album “The Sidewinder” originally released in 1963.
– CIRCA SURVIVE (are they some type of emo band?) with a fancy very colorful splatter re-issue of their 2010 album “Blue Sky Noise.”

This week Pepperoni has picked the Twilight Soundtrack

“Meow! You know what our #1 selling record here at Dumb Records was last month? It was the newly re-issued Twilight Soundtrack! The film was originally released in 2008, and the teens today still agree – they all want to be vampires and fight each other in teams like in this movie! Edward and Jacob fan’s, we have the soundtrack for you right here at Dumb Records! Also find the link to buy it from us online in the comments!”

We have a pinball named Dale now

This Friday’s new releases!
– JOHNNY CASH “Songwriter” – believe it or not this is actually an album of previously unreleased material Johnny Cash recorded in 1993 in Nashville.
– NATHANIEL RATELIFF & THE NIGHT SWEATS new album “South Of Here”, we should have on exclusive green and regular black vinyl.
– Hip hop artist LUPE FIASCO’s 9th studio album “Samurai”
– IMAGINE DRAGONS are here with a new EP of some sort called “Loom” and there are a couple of different variations with vinyl color ways and alternate artwork we are getting
– SPECIALS “More Specials” is getting re-issued from this 2nd wave British ska group, originally released in 1980.
– NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE “Early Daze” – a collection of rare and unreleased studio recordings from 1969 from this legendary group.
– LORD HURON “Strange Trails” – a reissue of this 2015 indie folk album on clear blue vinyl.
– CAMILA CABELLO “C, XOXO” the fourth studio album from singer songwriter, blue raspberry flavor.

This week Pepperoni chose RUSH

“It’s about time that I made a move on picking a RUSH album as a pick of the week! Any band that has their own pinball machine deserves a Pepperoni pick. This is their second album “Fly By Night”. I tell you what, it is harder and harder to come across this album used (original copies go for a lot), so I have decided it is time to stock up on the newer copies.”

Yesterday was surreal. A building the next street over from us suffered a major fire and total loss of the building. Nobody was hurt but multiple businesses are affected. The spaces for the Cat’s Pyjamas, Electric Quill Tattoos, Elf Shelf, and the Moving Pillsbury Forward exhibit are gone. It sounds like the parking garage next door with offices and apartments is also heavily damaged. Other businesses next door are also impacted. It is unknown right now how much Cafe Moxo is affected as it sounds like they may have suffered damage. I just ate there the day before, one of my favorite downtown restaurants. Also the Wakery and Daisy Janes is reporting not opening today.

We always feel the more businesses downtown the better. The more there is to do, then more people are going to come check things out. This will certainly set all of this progress back. It’s a scary reminder how important fire safety is and how possible this could be us.

Here are this Friday’s releases:

– 24 year old indie pop singer GRACIE ABRAMS with her sophomore release “The Secret Of Us” available on indie exclusive and black vinyl.
– A 50th anniversary / remastering of GRATEFUL DEAD’s live album “From The Mars Motel”
– A ton of new re-issues from 2000’s pop punk queen AVRIL LAVIGNE – the ones we chose to stock up the most on are “Under My Skin” and “Let Go”.
– A few people have been asking about “PETTY COUNTRY” an all-country artist tribute double-album all of Tom Petty covers. Should be here on black and indie exclusive vinyl.

This week Pepperoni picked the Dead Kennedys

“Certified classic. Essential 1980 California punk. It’s fun, it’s political, it’s surfy, even scary, it’s got guitar solos. The singer sounds like Daffy Duck if I close my eyes.”

Sometime in the next couple weeks or so we’re bringing something big to the Dumb Records Arcade!