Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Chisel Fo' Shizzle

Origami Vinyl's coming! Origami Vinyl's coming!So I finally got to check out what will soon be the highly anticipated Origami Vinyl Record Shop. And by "check out" I mean work on. Last weekend, Neil and I made our way down Sunset—broom, dust rag, cleaner and chisel in hand. Our mission: clean up the floor. We got right to it, no messing around...

In a former life, the floor was covered in carpet... which has since been torn out revealing a beautifully worn cement floor that's perfect for the record shop. The problem? Only about a quarter of the cement was uncovered. The rest lay beneath a layer of what we determined, ever so scientifically, to be particle boardish dry wall stuff. And it was on there pretty good. Hence the chisel.Now, when given the choice between the chisel and the paintbrush, I immediately said chisel because it would be fun. In my mind, I was a hammer and chisel pro... of the Fred Flinstone variety. And it was fun. The novelty wore off when I realized that five minutes of hammering got me a piece of particle boardish dry wall stuff about the size of my finger... the little one. AND my knees started hurting so I had to keep a steady rythm of crouch-kneel-squat-sit positions. We really had our work cut out for us.

Meanwhile, Neil did this:We decided against that color but it was a good try. Still a very productive effort. After a few hours and several different positions with my chisel, we were ready to call it a day. But not before Neil put in a little more.

On the way home we stopped at Masa to wash our hands...and have a beer...

and plate of fries. A hard-earned reward for our work. By the way, word on the street is that Tom over at Masa has the best Guinness pour around. Just fyi.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Introducing...Origami Vinyl!



Wow! The time has finally come to say Origami Vinyl is officially underway. I received the keys to the shop yesterday and will start the build out of the store early next week. Thanks to all of you who have helped so far along the way and for those who continue to offer your help in the coming weeks/months/life. I really appreciate this and could not do it without you.

So here is the plan/story. The shop is located at 1816 W Sunset Blvd in Echo Park, Ca. We sit right next door to Two Boots Pizza (which should be opening soon as well. fingers crossed for them. Oh and yes they are the same famous pizza joint from Brooklyn, in case you were familiar with the name) and 2 doors down from The Echo. The shop will sell Vinyl records, record players, cartridges, and concert tickets for The Echo, Echoplex, Spaceland, and other Spaceland Productions Festivals/Events. We will primarily focus on Independent music with scattered classics from multiple genres throughout the store. All the records in the shop will be new. Since our space is small, we won't be messing around with the used, rare, collectible market. We'll leave that to the guys at Rockaway in Silverlake. In the coming weeks we will be resurfacing the floor, painting the walls, building record bins, some sort of stairway to the loft, installing light fixtures, getting the computer set up, and most importantly checking in all the hot new vinyl from our favorite labels. We are hoping this all takes about 5 weeks to complete. Which would mean an opening date of March 6th. Don't hold me to that date just yet, but that is our goal...Wish us luck!!!

On the right are some pictures I shot this morning of the space so you can get an idea. It is approximately 400 sq feet, 10 ft wide by 40ft deep. As progress is made I will be posting new photos to keep all of you in the loop.

-neil/origami