Heaters wear out the groove

When Kyle Miller founded Durham-based Churchkey Records his goal was to produce vinyl records. That was the vision he had for his label: producing honest-to-goodness vinyl records with ornate artwork that people could buy and collect.

With Saturday night's Duke Coffeehouse celebration of the release of Fatty Don't Feel Good" a 7"" single from Durham's Dirty Little Heaters"" Miller and the label have reached the goal.

""It's the first one we've done"" he said. But moving forward there are going to be a lot more.""

But like anything else"" the first time provided some unknown hurdles.

""In a way" the process of making records and CDs is similar" Miller said.

But we've had to learn some things just because this is the first time. The mastering is a little different and there are just different people you have to go through.""

Despite the hurdles"" Miller said he adopted a do-it-yourself approach to finish the packaging of the records.

""We got the records back from the plant and we got the artwork done by a local printer and then we went out and bought some plastic sleeves" sat down and did all the packaging ourselves" he said.

Reese McHenry, lead singer of Dirty Little Heaters, doesn't even own a record player.

She used to.

But not anymore. She still buys records, though, just for sentiment and collecting.

I think things like this are sort of collector's items" she said.

When Kyle approached us about it we were like ‘Hell yes" absolutely.'""

This run" with only 500 individually numbered records printed may well produce a hot item for Triangle music fans.

Especially since Miller called Dirty Little Heaters and the songs on this record" ""perfect for this format.""

""There's such a market for garage rock records out there.""

""I think people will be excited; vinyl is back.""

The statistics bear out that claim as well. According to figures from the Recording Industry Association of America"" sales of vinyl in 2007 were up 36.6 percent from the year before.

McHenry said that the experience of being able to buy a local record on vinyl is only augmented by the two brand new songs on the release.

""We're working on a full-length record right now"" she said.

But I really love the idea of having two brand new songs absolutely available now for people to hear. We passed over a bunch of songs because I think these are really perfect.""



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