​Creed frontman and Boca resident Scott Stapp has decided to do a massive amount of purging for 2012 and is liquidating a ridiculous collection of studio gear. (This comes not long after his "White Christmas" showing in Delray Beach.) Owning a piece of equipment that has been at least near, if not touched by, Stapp has never been easier!
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Photo by Monica McGivern

​How far will you go to get the finest musical gifts of the season? If your answer doesn't involve waiting in the dark in a Walmart parking lot with a lot of screaming mommies, perhaps Radio-Active Records can provide some needed cachet for the competitive giving season.

Black Friday is very nearly upon us, and the venerable Fort Lauderdale music emporium -- now in a convenient, beautiful new location at 845 N. Federal Highway -- is hosting an event. There will be music courtesy of Mr. Entertainment and the Pookiesmackers and Humbert, and there will be a wealth of special releases. (We hear Sweat Records has something going on too.) County Grind tracked down Radio-Active's Mikey Ramirez and Richard Vergez to get the dish on their recommended platters for this holiday.
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Lotusflow3r, we hardly knew ye.

​Plenty of Prince albums will always sell at a decent clip -- Purple Rain and 1999 among them -- but it's a sign o' the times that the three-disc Lotusflow3r is getting pulled from shelves.

Two years and seven months after its physical release, available exclusively at Target stores, the backstock of piles and piles of unsold copies is finally exiting the music department, according to Kelvin Mitchell, who works at the store in Miami's Tropicaire Shopping Center.

Earlier today, Mitchell (who also plays bass for area darkwave outfit Möthersky) posted a photo of the boxes of unsold copies of Lotusflow3r set to make their journey out of Target stores as part of the store's quarterly inventory scan. "It's been a long-running joke with all of the employees here," he says. "There would always be new release inventory to send back, but the Prince album was always a mainstay. Today we scanned it, and finally it told us to send them all back."

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​Radio-Active Records' days in the Gateway Shopping Plaza are numbered, which means its grand opening at 845 N. Federal Highway is steadily approaching. We recently announced that the longtime music retail source is moving to a more visible spot, and today there are details of the opening celebration.

The daylong, blowout bash with food, live music, and some cold chillin' on Saturday, November 5, will be a righteous introduction to the new space. (It'll also be a test run for the hordes that'll be out for Record Store Day's Black Friday releases on November 25.)

Musical entertainment for the day comes courtesy of Miami's Little Beard and a couple of Death to the Sun III stars, Luma Junger and Möthersky. The latter act includes Radio-Active's own Richard Vergez, who designed the snazzy logo at the right.

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​Fans of jangly indie rock across South Florida would be wise to visit Radio-Active Records' website this Friday for a revolutionary moment of internet music synergy: Matador Records act Girls will perform a live in-store show for your viewing pleasure.

Although the concert, which will feature material from the San Francisco band's heralded Father, Son, Holy Ghost, technically takes place 900 miles away at Grimey's in Nashville, a special Girls Across America event hosted by many of the finest independent record retailers will pipe Girls into anywhere that has an internet connection. A complete listing of the participating stores is here.

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Meta as it gets.

​What better way to find new love than to reach for the same Serge Gainsbourg record as your potential mate? Until iTunes' Ping social networking (this does exist) really catches on, the hunt for the perfect music boo still must happen in spots like Fort Lauderdale's Radio-Active Records.

Miami singer/songwriter Kim Drake uses the vinyl section in the back of the store (that conveniently stocks her CD) as her heart's playground in the video for "Modest Man," the first single from Surrealist's Dream. Filmed by Fernando Perdomo, the bright colors within match the sunny song along the Jenny Lewis route. Things get violent when it comes to a copy of Pet Sounds, though.

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One way to have a twisted Christmas.

​No, County Grind is not a consistent source of couture commentary, but everyone needs a clean T-shirt or a ready-made gift idea from time to time. Since this one comes courtesy of a brick-and-mortar music purveyor, we'll bite. Add that Radio-Active Records' line of T's is not emblazoned with the store's name (unlike this blog posting) and there's something borderline subversive going on here.

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This album cover is not a 10.0.

​"Moving Units" has many connotations, including this crappy dance-punk band and selling mad records, but herein is an album that moved Radio-Active Records' Mike Ramirez and County Grind to have an effusive discussion about it.

The setup:
No shocker that Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was a top-seller at Radio-Active Records (so was Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine reissue). In addition to Rolling Stone, Spin, and Pitchfork all proclaiming that this album is, like, awesome, the album is actually, like, awesome.

Was Ramirez impressed? Read on.
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Re-formed and pissed as hell.

​"Moving Units" has many connotations, including this crappy dance-punk band and selling mad records, but herein is an album that moved Radio-Active Records' Mike Ramirez and County Grind to have an effusive discussion about it.

The Setup:
Absolute Dissent, Killing Joke's 13th album, finally welcomes the long-awaited return of the original lineup from their formative years of 1979 to 1982. Regrouped after the momentous blow of the death of longtime bassist Paul Raven, Absolute Dissent captures the early postpunk fever combined with the melodic grandeur of their mid-'80s gothic/new wave tenure. Drummer Paul Ferguson, away for more than 26 years, has shown no signs of slowing down as his machine-like precision perfectly complements the dubby low-end of bassist Youth Glover. Guitarist Geordie Walker and lead singer/keyboardist Jaz Coleman have been the Jagger/Richards of this band's output and the only two members to survive every incarnation of the band.

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​County Grind and Fort Lauderdale's Radio-Active Records hook up to discuss each week's finest new releases in Moving Units. This week's top-seller is the atmospheric Glass EP by Glass Vaults.

"This New Zealand duo releases their debut EP of grandoise ambient/orchestral bliss that would make Biosphere & Sigur Ros proud," says Mikey Ramirez, Radio-Active Records' operations manager. "Synths and strings sweep in and out of the tracks while the melodic vocals and drum machines simply add another layer of sound rather than dominating the songs in reverb. Glass is the first release off of the Jukboxr label. The lush soundscapes dominate this 12-inch, pressed on beautiful two-toned vinyl and limited to 500 copies."

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