Norton!

Perhaps you missed the news about a "Frankenstorm" called Sandy that slammed into the Eastern Seaboard just before Halloween, leaving unavoidable destruction of the natural disaster sort.

As residents of New Jersey, New York, et al. clean up and assess damage, the staff at Norton Records found that their Brooklyn warehouse took quite a bit of water damage.

There are few things that make us sadder than books and records (CDs, LPs, 45s and such) being destroyed. And Norton does good work, providing new and re-issued music that concentrates on the r&b, soul, early rock, surf, garage, jump blues and general outsider tunes from the first half of the 20th century. They've also been re-issuing obscure pulp paperbacks too, which you can imagine got us all in a dither.

Norton's staff is still cleaning up the mess, but when they're done, help 'em out by buying something. The wheels of Capitalism are greased with your hard-earned dough, so you might as well grease the wheels you like, no?

Music Break

YouTube member blacflag posts numerous 1950s and '60s r&b, rockabilly and garage-rock videos -- well-crafted entertainment using performance footage, educational movies and other ephemeral film.

Here he stitches together scenes from horror-themed cartoons (a Silly Symphony and perhaps a Merrie Melody?) to accompany Cris Kevin's "Haunted House." Enjoy.


[courtesy blacflag]

Fun fact: Cris Kevin is actually rockabilly and country singer/guitarist Warren Miller, who has a pretty interesting history.