Who’s ready for something new? We’re talkin’ a new band, a new song, AND a new video to go with it. It’s a new band being BACKED by our Dumb Records house band “Witch Bucket.” The new band is called “Balki Bros” (the animatronic band that was already on stage is called Witch Bucket, okay we know this is already getting confusing). Balki Bros is a new band and here they are performing their song “South Fork Slide” on OUR stage with OUR house band “Witch Bucket” backing them. (Witch Bucket is completely Covid-proof and safe, we can not say the same thing for Balki Bros, but either way we are still not close to the point where it is safe to have shows). Check all that out on the player embedded below!
Also check out our vids/pics page for more music videos shot over the years. Balki Bros don’t have any more recorded music or anything else out there, this is all you get.
Many of you out there wanted us to put on a pinball tournament for all of the millions of non-business owner people out there in the world. Well, we can’t do that (especially during a pandemic), but maybe this is the next best thing.
Throughout the month of November we are holding a contest in our game, specifically for the game Ghosts N’ Goblins (which is a game on the Joust arcade machine). How fun! The highest scorers on this game throughout the month of November will get bragging rights and some prizes:
Second highest score will receive a $20 Dumb Records gift card.
Third highest score will receive a Dumb Records t-shirt.
This contest is open to everyone, however normal arcade rules still apply. We are going back to limiting occupancy to 4 this month, masks required. To enter our arcade it is $5 entry, or free with a purchase of $10 or more in our store.
For some helpful tips and tricks on this game or some discussion, you might want to check our underground pinball forum. We will announce the winners at the end of the month and keep track of the high scorers on a board somewhere inside our store. Good luck!
Happy Halloween! Remember the band The Telephone Junkies? Remember bands? It’s hard for us to remember bands sometimes too, but some of them are still out there in the depths, recording music ready to be released to the world.
It turns out The Telephone Junkies have been hard at work on a brand new album for quite some time now, and yesterday they released their debut full length, Dress It Up & Call It Living to the world. You can check it out streaming on the player below! Also go check it out on their bandcamp page, where you can download the album for $1 or more.
The Telephone Junkies have no live shows lined up, but who does? We have added this release on to our Springfield album archive page, where we have kept track of 51 local releases so far this year.
Local hip hop artist NBGR Wooskie has released a new song and video for a new track “Royal Rumble.” It was another one shot and edited by CourtBoy Visuals, and you can find it streaming on the player below.
We are not sure of any other recorded music NBGR Wooskie has out there right now! Check out a number of other music videos shot over the years on our vids/pics page.
The day is finally here – that time of year once again when the results are released for the Illinois Times’s “Best of Springfield” poll. The time of the year when many of us are frustrated with results in the reader-generated polls, and that is okay. It is important to remain positive and focus on all of the great local businesses and people doing things in this city! The Illinois Times wrote a nice intro piece this year explaining how the polls work and answering some frequently asked questions about it.
The results are all available online right here. You can also view the results in the print-issue of the Illinois Times, available all over town.
This year we were fortunate enough to be a finalist as Dumb Records in three different categories: “Best Music Shop,” “Best Music Venue (small),” and “Best Place To Go Downtown.” Best Music Shop went to Recycled Records, Best Small Music Venue went to The Curve Inn, and Best Place To Go Downtown went to The Old Capitol Farmers Market.
We usually do our own “Best of Springfield Music” poll at the end of each year on our site, and the last couple of years have been teaming up with Activator Magazine to publish the results! We are unsure on what we are doing for that this year, but you can probably expect something!
Let’s get spooky! While we would usually be hosting Halloween shows right around now (and can’t this year due to COVID), we are all about doing little things to celebrate this time of the year. Tonight, a number of downtown shops will be participating in “Shop The Haunts” downtown by being open late – until 10:00 pm, including us! These are the shops we know are participating:
The Roost
Springfield Vintage
Studio On 6th
Corrine’s Closet
Dumb Records
Reverie Apparel
Itty Bitty Fashion Truck
Daisy Jane’s
Wild Rose
In addition to just being open late, we are opening our arcade to the public for free tonight, no purchases necessary. We also might have a bowl of candy out for anybody who is dressing up to do some trick-or-treating. We are still limiting the occupancy of the arcade to 5, and store occupancy to 10.
Music! At least, that’s what we think it is. It’s another week here at Dumb Records downtown and we are having fun. Thank everyone who stopped by for a very successful Record Store Day “drop date” this past Saturday, it was our biggest day of the year so far. This week we are getting a little wacky with some additional “extended hours” – tomorrow night (Wednesday) a number of other downtown shops are going to be open until 10:00 pm for “Shop The Haunts” and we are too. We are also going to be open until 10:00 pm the night of Halloween for any of you bored looking for play some pinball (and our arcade will be open for free during those extended hours). Nice. Alright, let’s dive into what is new this week:
New LPs Beastie Boys – We Rock Well: Rare TV Appearances Beastie Boys – Music Belle and Sebastian Bobby Vee / The Crickets – Bobby Vee Meets The Crickets Bo Diddley – Bo Diddley Charles Mingus – Presents Charles Mingus Chubby Checker – It’s Pony Time Clutch – Clutch Daniel Lopatin – Uncut Gems Dick Dale And His Del-Tones – Surfer’s Choice Dillinger Four – Midwestern Songs of the Americas Eddie Cochran – My Way Eddie Holland – Eddie Holland Elvis Costello – My Aim Is True Fugazi – In On The Kill Taker HAIM – Days Are Gone Little Richard – I’ll Never Walk Alone Oscar Peterson – Plays The Harold Arlen Song Book Pallbearer – Forgotten Days Pink Floyd – Animals Regional Justice Center – Institution Secret Shame – Dark Synthetics Slowdive – Morningrise Various – From The Vaults of Federal Ska
Used LPs Andre Kostelanetz – Wonderland of Sound Ben Vaughn – Dressed In Black Brenda Lee – Bye Bye Blues Brenda Lee – By Request The Butterfield Blues Band – In My Own Dream Charlie Byrd – The Look of Love Chet Grayson – Swing At The Country Club Chicago Transit Authority – Live In Concert: Collector’s Edition Chuck Sugar – Master Key Count Basie – Li’l Ol’ Groovemaker… Basie! Devadip – Oneness Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Works Foghat – Booie Motel Foghat – Girls To Chat & Boys To Bounce The Four Ladds – On The Sunny Side Frank Chacksfield – Ebb Tide Glenn Miller – Original Film Sound Tracks George M. Cohan – Yankee Doodle Dandy Songs Gordon Macrae – Gordon Macrae Harvest – Voices The Jack Bruce Band – How’s Tricks? Jefferson Starship – Nuclear Furniture Larry Coryell – The Restfull Mind Lawrence Welk – Early Hits of 1964 Lee Ritenour – First Course The Lords of the New Church – Is Nothing Sacred? Miss Peggy Lee – Sings the Songs of Cy Coleman Mitch Miller – Christmas Songs and Carols Narvel Felts – The Touch of Felts Neil Diamond – Hot August Night Nina Simone – Forbidden Fruit Patti Page – Patti Page’s Greatest Hits Pink Floyd – Meddle The Platters – The Flying Platters Prince Po – Hold Dat Reba McEntire – Whoever’s In New England Rufus Jones – Five On Eight Sonny James – That’s Why I Love You Like I Do Sonny James – The Astrodome Presents Sonny James Spyro Gyra – Morning Dance Steve Hackett – Cured Steve Hackett – Spectral Mornings U.K. – U.K. Woody Herman – Woody The Youngbloods – Elephant Mountain 10cc – 10cc
12” Singles Doug E. Fresh – Busin’ Out Ice-T and Ice Cube – Tresspass Ruff-N-Rugged – Swing Sump’n Ruff! Salt N’ Pepa – Tramp Remix
New / Used CDs Emmylou Harris – Profile II: The Best of Emmylou Harris Freddy Fender – Greatest Hits Front Line Assembly – Implode Glen Campbell – Galveston Glen Campbell – The Very Best of Go Go’s – Vacation Go Go’s – God Bless The Go Go’s Goo Goo Dolls – Ego, Opinion, Art & Commerce James Galway – Greatest Hits Jeremy Enigk – Return of the Frog Queen Lee Greenwood – Ring On Her Finger, Time On Her Hands Lee Greenwood – Super Hits L’il Kim – La Bella Mafia The Love Doctor – Moaning & Groaning The Makers – Psychopathia Sexualis Master P – Ghetto D Master P – Gameface Mark Eitzel – The Invisible Man Michael Feinstein – The Songs of Jimmy Webb Philly’s Most Wanted – Get Down or Lay Down Pretty Willie – Enter The Life of Suella Primal Scream – Evil Heat Red House Painters – Old Ramon Relative Ash – Our Time With You… Right Said Fred – Up Too $hort – What’s My Favorite Word Usher – My Way Various – Punk O Rama 4: Straight Outta The Pit
The Zippir Collective, a group of local hip hop artists, have released their first official release as a collecitve called Zippir, Vol. 1. As far as we can tell this is only streaming on Spotify right now (which we have not figured out how to embed yet), you can check out all five tracks of that right here. Artists featured on this release and part of the collective include: Kid Ziggy, Papa Luke, Junior Pasare, RJC, Jayy Alejandro, and Danny J.
The Zippir Collective also recently launched a brand new website recently, which you can check out right here. We are also adding this release to our Springfield album archive, bringing us to a total of 50 local releases we have kept track of so far this year.
Here we are once again! Seems like there are Record Store Days happening once every month anymore, and October’s big Record Store Day “drop date” is happening today on this cold Saturday. This is actually the biggest of the three drop dates in terms of what we ordered for the store, and we have about 40 exclusive titles hitting the shelves today. We posted photos of most of this stuff right here on our facebook page.
Our store opens today at 10:00 am and is open until 7:00 pm. The arcade is open to the public during those same times, either with $5 admission or with purchase of $10 or more in the store. We are limiting the number of people in our space to 10 total, and masks are required. Recycled Records is also participating in getting the Record Store Day exclusive releases, and of course we encourage the support of Elf Shelf Books & Music downtown as well!
We are once again trying something really stupid that we might regret later on. Now introducing: Dumb Records holiday hours! Where we don’t cut back any hours – we add some… for fun! And for Halloween! Our store is usually open every day from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm. For these select days we are adding more hours:
• October 26th (the night of the 25th) we will be open from midnight to 3:00 am.
• October 28th we will be open until 10:00 pm along with a handful of other shops downtown!
• October 31st (halloween) we will be open until 10:00 pm! We might even have candy!
Then for all of these extended hours, we are opening up our arcade to everybody (no fee to enter). However, our limit of 5 people to the arcade at a time does apply, and masks are still required.
Dumb Records 