It’s time for a holiday surprise. The surprise is that we are once again the featured business in Downtown Springfield Inc’s holiday advent calendar (we were featured a different day back in November when we were open). Today’s “Holi-deal” is that if you place any order with us on either of our online stores, you get two free arcade entry tickets good for any point once we open our arcade again. We aren’t sure when our arcade will open again, but based on the numbers for the county we may be opening our store up one step at a time very soon. Find the links to our online stores below:
Good morning, happy Saturday! We hope you are all having a fun time out there. This is a post to let you know a “save the date” has been announced for Record Store Day 2021. That is June 12th, 2021. The annual event, which is usually held every year in April in addition to a smaller event for Black Friday, has been doing their best to navigate these times and do what makes the most sense during the pandemic.
As you may know, this past year’s Record Store Day was pushed back and eventually split into three different “drop dates” in August, September, and October. As far as we can tell this Record Store Day in June 2021 is just going to be all the exclusive releases being released as normal on one date (who knows what can happen in our world between now and then though).
Legendary 217 hip hop artist “Cornbread” has unleashed a new video for his song “Fly.” The song comes from Cornbread’s latest full length album entitled Negros & Jazz, which unfortunately seems to have been recently taken off of bandcamp. Ope, it’s still on Apple Music right here. Either way, you can still listen to the song “Fly” and check it out on the player below. This one was shot and directed by Twenty One Seven Studios.
Negros & Jazz is in the running in the best hip hop release of 2020 as part of our ongoing Best of Local Music 2020 poll. Check out more music videos shot over the years on our pics/vids page.
Happy middle of the week! We’ve been still keeping busy getting our online stores updated as our physical store is still closed over here at Dumb Records. Slowly but surely we are adding more and more new and used LPs, CDs, and more to the online. Don’t forget that shipping and local pickup are options on both our Discogs page and our Storenvy page. We are at our store from 12:00 to 6:00 pm every day for pickup orders. We are still unsure on when we will be opening our store back up to the public.
New LPs Adrianne Lenker – Songs And Instrumentals AFI – The Blood Album Between The Buried And Me – The Great Misdirect Bill Callahan – Gold Record Charles Bradley – No Time For Dreaming Chris Stapleton – Starting Over Chubby & The Gang – Speed Kills Diarrhea Planet – I’m Rick Beyond Your Wildest Dreams Hatebreed – Weight Of The False Self King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Live In San Francisco ‘16 Madlib – Shades of Blue Nirvana – Nirvana Nnamdi Obonnaya – Drool Orville Peck – Show Pony Sigur Rós – Odin’s Raven Magic Smashing Pumpkins – CYR The Smiths – The Smiths War On Drugs – Live Drugs Wayne Shorter – Second Genesis The Yardbirds – The Best of the Yardbirds
Used LPs Alice Cooper – Welcome To My Nightmare Andy Williams – Love Story Benny Goodman – Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert Crystal Gayle – A Woman’s Heart Crystal Gayle – Straight To The Heart Engelbert Humperdinck – Last of the Romantics Engelbert Humperdinck – Miracles Chicago – Chicago 13 Denny McLain – Denny McLain At The Organ Frank Sinatra – Frank Sinatra’s Greatest Hits Vol. 2 Gentle Giant – The Power And The Glory George Harrison – Dark Horse George Harrison – Gone Troppo Hank Williams, Jr. – Lone Wolf Hookfoot – Good Times A’ Comin’ The Ink Spots – The Ink Spots Volume Two Kay Starr – Jazz Singer The Kingsway Quartet – The Kingsway Quartet Kingsway – The Statue of Liberty Linda Ronstadt – A Retrospective Mario Lanza – The Touch Of Your Hand Mario Lanza – The Desert Song Master P – Ghetto Postage Michael Sembello – Bossa Nova Hotel Peter Green – In The Skies Raymond Lefevre – Soul Coaxing Roman Holiday – Cookin’ On The Roof The Royal Guardsmen – Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron Steve Hackett – Defector Stonewall Jackson – The Dynamic Stonewall Jackson Tony Banks – A Curious Feeling Various – Kiss Me, Kate Various – The Jazz Makers Various – Spinning Pups Wanda Jackson – Wanda Jackson Wanda Jackson – We’ll Sing In The Sunshine Wynton Marsalis – Black Codes (From The Underground)
12” Singles Sandie Shaw – Nothing Less Than Brilliant Treacherous Three – Turning You On / U.F.O. Mac Lethal & Murs – Women of Scribble Jam
New / Used CDs Beethoven – For Relaxation Bette Midler – Live At Last Blink-182 – Enema Of The State Brooks & Dunn – Super Hits Chris Cagle – Play It Loud Element 101 – Stereo Girl Emmylou Harris – Bluebird Esthero – Breath From Another F-Minus – Suburban Blight Fine Young Cannibals – Fine Young Cannibals Gary Numan – Tubeaway Army Premier Hits Gordon Gano – Hitting The Ground Green Jelly – Cereal Killer Soundtrack Highway 101 – Latest & Greatest Highway 101 – The New Frontier The Hives – Veni Vidi Vicious Jay-Z – In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 Joe Ely – Live Shots Joe Ely – Twistin’ In The Wind Keith Lockart – The Latin Album Knoc-Turn’al – L.A. Confidential Presents Liszt – The 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies Liszt – The Best of Liszt Lyle Lovett – Anthology Volume One Martina McBride – The Time Has Come Master P – Ghetto Postage Mint Collection – The Collection 1991-1998 New Kids On The Block – Greatest Hits The Nylons – Rockapella Roxy Music – For Your Pleasure Roxy Music – Roxy Music Sawyer Brown – Greatest Hits Steve Holy – Blue Moon Stroke 9 – Nasty Little Thoughts Various – Sweet Dreams: Baby’s First Classics 8 Ball – 8 Ball Presents The Slab
Happy Monday everyone! We are finally ready to launch our big annual Best of Springfield Music poll, once again teaming up with Activator Magazine here in the year 2020! Now’s the time of the year where we want to hear about your favorite local songs and releases that have recently came out.
This year the poll is slightly different than years past – of course the “shows” section has taken a cut. There were a few shows at the start of the year up until March, but we are just focusing on songs and releases this time around. Since the local hip hop scene continues to explode, we decided to put local hip hop releases in it’s own separate poll. There will be a top 10 or 20 in both non-hip hop and hip hop categories. There were a total of 87 local releases that we kept track of so far this year. There’s also a write-in box for any that we may have missed. We will also include that list at the bottom of this post with links to listen to most of the releases.
The poll will run from now until 11:59pm the night of December 15th (we will be gathering results for one week)! Then the results will be featured along with different write-ups in the January issue of Activator Magazine, and we will also post results on our site.
In addition to asking for you favorite songs and albums of 2020, we also have a category this year for you to tell us about any other favorite Central Illinois releases that may have came out this year outside of Springfield. There is also a suggestion box for both Dumb Records and Activator Magazine. Find the results from last year (2019) right here and right here.
Here’s some new music from Peoria-based musician Jared Grabb – a whole new release of recreated cover songs and also a new music video! Normally we keep it to what’s going on in Springfield on our site but this one is being presented by “First Try Sessions“, the newly created organization by Jess and Brandon Carnes of Looming aimed at curating music lessons for 7-17 year olds in the area.
Jared Grabb (Scouts Honor, Angry Gods, The Forecast) is a singer-songwriter hailing from the mid-sized Midwestern city of Peoria, Illinois. Grabb has been performing under his own name since 2001. ‘First Try Sessions Presents: Rest On Us All’ is the sixth full-length album under Grabb’s own name and his first consisting of cover songs. The album’s most recent predecessor was ‘Among Thieves,’ which was released by Jared Grabb Among Thieves (full band) back in June of 2020.
‘…Rest On Us All’ is an acoustic affair with all instruments and recording performed by Jared Grabb himself. Most songs are made up of acoustic guitars with accordion and vocals, while banjo, electric guitar, and piano appear for occasional added flavor. The original performers covered on this album are disparate, including country artist Miranda Lambert, blues pianist Ray Charles, indie rockers The Thermals, electronic artists Sylvan Esso, and 1940s folk singer Woody Guthrie among others.
‘The Body, the Blood, the Machine’ by The Thermals is a classic 2000s indie/punk record about fascism and theocracy. Unfortunately, I missed opportunities to see this band live, but this album has been in my headphones for around a decade now. In 2015, I released an extremely limited run of lathe-cut LPs with live solo recordings of both “A Pillar of Salt” and “Returning to the Fold.” It felt good to record a proper multi-tracked version “Returning to the Fold” for this release. As for the video, it was inspired by my daughter’s recent obsession with the ‘Among Us’ video game. She formed the characters out of clay and then my wife, Becca Taylor, went on to animate them using stop motion. It’s intended to be rough and fun. I get a kick out of it, and I hope you will too.
Check out Jared Grabb’s video for “Returning To The Fold” below!
Good morning everyone! Yes, today we have yet another release from Mark Schwartz recording project, “Forest Saints.” This is the second release under the project of that name of this year for Mark, and it is called The Pensive Innocents. You can stream all 24 tracks of this album on the player below. Also head over to the Forest Saints bandcamp page where you can purchase the digital download of the album and hear more music.
Mark has remained very active putting out music under his own name, and also projects Demons On Wheels, Forest Saints, and Tin Ghost throughout the year. We’ve also included this one in our Springfield album archive as we gear up for our Best of Springfield Music 2020 poll which will be kicking off very soon!
Happy Friday everybody, T.G.I.F., and here’s a dose of local hip hop for you to get ready for the weekend! This is a new new album from local artist DreTheGuy, who may have recently re-located for a job in Oklahoma involved with studio recording. This new album of his is entitled The FALLow Up, and it is the follow up to last year’s Lapis Effect. You can stream all of The FALLow Up on the player embedded below. Also find links to listen to the album on many many other online streaming services right here.
We have added this one to our Springfield album archive page as we are getting ready to launch our big end of the year music poll, this one bringing us to 67 local releases we have kept track up so far this year.
It’s December! We’ve been fairly quiet on our site here because we have been so slammed getting out so many orders from a successful Black Friday / Record Store Day weekend here at Dumb Records. As soon as we’re done being busy with one thing, it’s on to the next! And now is time of the year to once again team up with Activator Magazine to present our annual Best of Springfield Music 2020 polls. Even though the show and live music aspect has been missing from much of this year, we are moving forward still highlighting the songs and local releases that came from local groups this year (which there were still a lot of, maybe even more-so than ever!).
The local hip hop scene continued to explode this year, so we are including the poll for best hip hop release as it’s own separate category. We will likely be featuring a top 10 list for local hip hop releases, and then a top 10 or 20 for everything else.
Before we dive into the polls, we need your help in making sure we have kept track of all local releases that came out this year! Currently we have a list of 69 releases – split into two categories (hip hop and everything else). If you know of anything we are missing, please let us know in the comments, or send us an email to dumbrecs@gmail.com! If you include links to the music as well, that would be super helpful! We are keeping this to Springfield releases only. Mayyybe some of Decatur, Taylorville, or Jacksonville as well.
We are planning on launching our poll to go from December 5th through the 15th. The results will be posted right at the start of January, as well as with the January issue of Activator Magazine along with write-ups of each release.
Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you all sure are thankful for… things. We are thankful for you. We are thankful for music. And… we are thankful for… pinball. But back to the music, today we are bringing you a brand new album from local solo artist Jeff Cowhick. This is Jeff’s third musical album under his own name, called Tempered. You can stream it on Spotify right here, or also on Apple music right here. No streaming services that we are able to embed below, sorry.
We do still have physical copies of Jeff’s first album, Firebrand in our store! We are closed now, but will actually be open tomorrow just for Black Friday. We are also adding this one to our Springfield album archive page… bringing us to 58 local releases we have kept track of so far this year!
Dumb Records 