How (not) to clean your vinyl

Last week a friend of mine rescued a big bag of 45s from the skip at the charity shop where she volunteers. Knowing how much I love my vinyl she invited me over to do some cherry picking over a lovely pint of Cornish ale. She would give the rest of the records to a friend, who makes bowls out of them. To be honest I thought it was going to be 99% rubbish, but I was amazed of what came out of that bag! These were all singles from the sixties, I think from a jukebox (as they had no sleeves). There were The Beatles and The Stones, there were some crooners (Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Tom Jones), some rock 'n roll (Elvis Presley, Chubby Checker, Brenda Lee) and some Motown and soul (Al Green, Sam Cooke, Ike and Tina, The Supremes, The Four Tops). I also took a few with intriguing titles, like The Human Jungle/Onward, Christian Spacemen by The John Barry Seven. Lucky me!!

Now I didn't expect these records to be in mint condition (they came in a plastic carrier bag - without sleeves...). But the biggest problem was that they were disgustingly dirty! So I went on the internet and Googled for cleaning advice for vinyl. Enter Nerdworld. I found all sorts home made recipes for cleaning fluid, using various amounts of distilled water, washing up liquid, isopropyl alcohol, acetone, Triton X-100, and/or tile cleaner. There was one guy who swore by using a diaper (a cotton one that is). Big no no's are using ordinary tap water and playing your records wet. A good way of drying them is putting them on a drill and then spinning them at the highest speed! Though this might be a myth.

They probably need a good clean in one of those machines, which "will apply the record cleaning solution, properly scrub the record and finally vacuum the dirt and liquid off leaving you with a dry and pristine vinyl record". But with these records 'a blind horse couldn't do any damage' (as we say in Holland), so I thought I'd just give it a go with some water with a few drops of washing up liquid and some cotton pads. I probably broke all the golden rules of record cleaning, but it helped. Somewhat. Just look at the dirt that came off!



Ieeew!! It took me an entire evening to brush and wipe them all off, but here they are now, nicely stacked in crisp white sleeves that I ordered on eBay.


Listen to a few of the treasures I received. Luckily for you guys I don't have one of those USB record players, so these MP3s are with out the crackles, scratches and dust :-)

I am extremely happy that Fingertips I and II by Little Stevie Wonder (aged 12 at the time!) was saved from the bin. It's a live take cut in two, so the jam just continues on the B-side. "Stomp your feet, jump up and down and do anything that you wanna do!"

Little Stevie Wonder - Fingertips I & II. Get it here (YSI).

Nice bluesy swing/big band tune, until 'Raelette' Margie Hendrix rips it up after a minute and a half. Holy shit.

Ray Charles - You Are My Sunshine. Get it here (YSI).

Another gem is Al Green's beautiful Tired Of Being Alone. But the B-side Right Now, Right Now is also a great track. Very funky, very Papa-Was-A-Rolling-Stone-esk.

Al Green - Right No, Right Now. Get it here (YSI).

Worth a clean right?!

the Berliner Skank a la Dutch Dolls

So after a little over five weeks I'm back in Cardiff. Except for the rain, it feels nice to be at HOME again. Surrounded by all my stuff, having a closet full of clothes to choose from, being called 'love' by the cashier at Tesco's, a PROPER INTERNET CONNECTION... The latter, plus the fact that we worked/partied/relaxed a lot, were the reasons for the infrequent postings the last couple of weeks. But I'll make up for it now by giving you some of Berlin's highlights according to Dutch Dolls...

Like this tiny Greek restaurant called Thalassa (Körtestrasse 8) in Kreuzberg. No live music, no tacky decor, no colums. This family run restaurant serves finger licking yummy food, prepared by a big mama. Highly, highly recommended!

Does fermented cabbage sound appealing to you?! To me it never did! But in Korea they love the stuff: kimchi. I've never been a great fan. So when I made a bet (trying not to drink alcohol for one day..) my challenge would be to eat kimchi. Of course I failed... So off we went to Kimchi Princess, a new, stylish Korean restaurant in Kreuzberg 36 (almost too stylish for its surroundings). I had a kimchi crêpe and it was de-li-cious! I'm converted :-)

One of my best nights out ever was probably at Kiki Blofeld: dancing to obscure soul & funk music in a boathouse, chilling outside by a campfire and playing foosball under the stars. Brilliant!! This picture of the (then empty) boathouse doesn't do it justice at all!


Dutch Dolls had another memorable night out at Cassiopeia in Friedrichshain. The ruins of an old factory house two concert venues, a beergarten (check out the pic), an open air cinema and skate hall. Very raw, but the atmosphere is very gemütlich. We shaked our booty to some live R'n B (!), hip hop and dancehall till dawn!


Two nice dives in the neighbourhood of the Falkensteinstrasse in Xberg are Madame Claude and Konrad Tönz. In Madame Claude you can play ping pong or play your musical instrument at one of their open mic nights. Sometimes they have bands playing in their tiny and very damp basement. Oh I just love Konrad Tönz! The bartender is superfriendly and he blends in neatly with the retro interior of the bar... The DJs spin their records (boogaloo, schlager, (ost-)beat, soul and jazz) on two mono record players. Dutch Dolls recommends buying a bottle of sekt (German sparkling wine) there. The bartender will keep it chilled for you in the fridge and he'll fluff you up every now and then.

They say "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". So when in Berlin, go to the fleamarket! The one on Arkonaplatz has a very nice selection of old junk (I should say vintage - go to Mauerpark for a massive amount of just junk). Once a month the legendary punk club SO36 has a Nachtflomarkt. The quality of the goods isn't that great, but it's cheap. So at least you still have a chance of finding a real treasure here. Another big plus is that you can 'trödel' here with a beer in your hand and excellent soul music in the background!

More legendary punk is to be found at the Ramones museum in Mitte. On display are Ramones memorabilia from some obsessive fan. Which is great! There's a framed pair of Johnny's pants, old report cards and of course lots of pictures and posters (there are actually some pretty cool photobooth photo's and contact sheets). Every punk-ish band that visits Berlin drops by at the museum and they often do an acoustic live show. For FREE!! I went there to see the Riverboat Gamblers! I enjoyed it a lot, even though they couldn't rock out as much since they didn't want to trash the museum. On YouTube I found the video that the guy in front of me made. He was clearly into it as well; the camera is bouncing to the rhythm...



Bye bye Berlin, until next year!!

shake rattle & bowl

Should you ever be in London and feel like BOWLING, go to the basement of Tavistock Hotel for some good clean fun!
A friend of mine celebrated her birthday here last Saturday and WE HAD A BALL (sorry, that was too cheesy). DJs were spinning rock 'n roll, soul, garage rock, girl groups and boogaloo while I was guttering every single throw. The place got packed; cardigans, petticoats and polkadots galore! There was some serious hipshaking going on at the dancefloor, while the bowling continued and burgers were being served in the diner. Ace!!

There are Shake Rattle & Bowl clubnights in Bristol as well!
www.shakerattleandbowl.com