OldBoy Rhymes "Rage" 7-Inch Record PRE-ORDER
Please read carefully! ALL pre orders will be held until the ship date. ALL other items in your shopping cart will also be held until the ship date. If you have items that you may want to receive sooner we suggest placing a separate order for those items.
Orders will ship sometime in October 2025*
*ship date is subject to change in the event of manufacturing delays,
CURLY HEAD, the sophomore album from OLDBOY RHYMES (produced by ARIANO) drops August 22 everywhere you listen to music!
Check out the whole collection of OldBoy merch here - available exclusively at StrangeFamous.com!
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Orders for this product page will receive:
1x "Rage" b/w "Never Leave Me" 7-Inch Lathe Cut Record
- limited to 30 hand-numbered copies!
1x "Curly Head" full album 320kbps MP3 Download upon request on/after August 22
- if you'd like to receive a digital download, please email stormdavis at gmail dot com with your order number + they will respond with a Dropbox link or Bandcamp code within 48 hours.
- MP3s must be downloaded on a computer, not a mobile device
1x OldBoy Rhymes or SFR Sticker [design randomly selected by SFR staff]
1x selection of our trademark 'WTF SFR?!' random nonsense extras
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Questions about our shipping practices & policies? Wondering how long it will take for your order to arrive?
Please read the Frequently Asked Questions section of our website here before you order! Thanks!
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From the dark tundra of Alaska to the heaving jungles of Papua, OldBoy Rhymes has experienced a lot. He's befriended billionaires, kids in "third world" slums, and people at all levels in between. OldBoy Rhymes has lived a crazy, multi-polar life, and his lyricism is drenched in the love and angst he soaked up along the way. His debut LP, 2024's The Sane Asylum, painted these experiences in broad strokes and viewed them through a widescreen lens. On Curly Head, OBR focuses his vision to take a deeper look within, and everything from the song lyrics to the album title tells his story:
"I have very curly hair, and so does my son, " OldBoy explains. "When I was a little kid in Alaska, bullies called me 'curly head.' I’ve shaved my head since I was 10 years old, which is when I moved to Jakarta. A dichotomy exists within me between the nerdy curly head and the troublemaker who’s fought his way through a lifetime of extreme experiences.
This album explores that duality, telling some of the stories I didn’t detail in my debut album The Sane Asylum — from a stabbing, to a home invasion, to my son’s medical challenges, to personally searching for and finding my wife’s biological mother in the Philippines. That curly head became a fighter in both body and spirit, which has allowed me to persevere and achieve in life, but it also built defense mechanisms that haven’t always served my mental health.
This album is dedicated to my younger self.
It’s also for my beautiful, curly-headed son and my wife, who safeguards the light in his eyes.
I dedicate Curly Head to my friend Aaron M, who knows what it’s like to fight for a childhood dream and achieve it and David J who has always taken the time to understand and support me when others didn't. David was the one who found me after the home invasion I detail in the song "Interpol."
Curly Head is produced entirely by and features vocals from Ariano, an industry veteran whose exceptional versatility has earned him unwavering respect, enduring collaborations, and coveted stage time with some of hip-hop’s most iconic figures. His impressive list of collaborators and performance partners can be found at his website, https://arianomusic.com. Over the past decade, Ariano has masterfully blended genres, releasing standout solo albums and numerous collaborative projects that showcase his range and creativity.
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7-INCH SINGLE TRACK LIST
Side A: Rage
Side B: Never Leave Me
ALBUM TRACK LIST:
Cover artwork by Tai Taeoalii | ArtByTai.com
OldBoy Rhymes logo by Inkymole
Layout by Storm Davis
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SOME INFORMATION ABOUT LATHE CUT RECORDS:ARE LATHE CUT RECORDS AND VINYLS THE SAME THING???
No, because "vinyls" don't exist. Don't say "vinyls." Ever. The plural of 'vinyl' is 'vinyl.'
Fine, smartass. Are lathe cut records the same as vinyl records?
They look similar, they both play music when you set them on a turntable and put a needle to their grooves, but they're manufactured from different materials by a different method. This difference in materials and method allows for smaller quantities to be created. Read on for more details.
Lathe cuts will always have some degree of surface noise/pops/crackles, which tends to largely disappear once the music starts, especially for full, loud recordings. However, these lathe cuts are not audiophile records, or even comparable to standard pressed records. They will sound slightly different than the master, because the plastic reacts to certain frequencies differently. They are made from materials that were never intended to be records. Sound quality varies slightly from one record to the next, and some audio tracks translate better than others. There are many factors that determine the sound of the record; the material, the number of records that have been cut by the stylus, the climate, etc… But we drop-test them all and throw away any that are not up to standard. They are all totally listenable, but intended to be used more as playable art pieces. These lathes are not meant to be the way your track is regularly listened to.
Are these as loud as a normal record?
Unfortunately, No. Our cutter heads are 70 years old and utilize a magnet that has, over the years, degraded a little. They were also made before the loudness war and were never intended to produce the kind of volume that modern stereo cutting heads made in the 70s and 80s were geared for. On top of that, the plastic that is used is harder than a lacquer that is used to master a pressed record, and the heads has to work much harder, resulting in less volume (about 75% that of a modern record). So, you will have to crank up your amplifier a few notches past where it usually sits.
Will these play on any turntable?
These records do not always play well on all turntables, especially cheap turntables without a weighted tonearm. However, they have all been play tested to make sure that they track on a properly weighted record player. Lighter tonearm weight and neutral anti-skating works best. Sometimes the needle will get caught in between the grooves and sound awful. You can usually gently nudge the needle sideways into the bottom of the groove, which should fix the problem.
Inexpensive players with red cartridges/needles in particulars tend to have more problems than professional cartridges.
Will these records degrade or hurt my needle?
Absolutely not. These records are made out of hard polycarbonate plastic and will last as long as a pressed record. And your needle will not know the difference between this plastic or the PVC that pressed records are made of. The old adage that Lathe Cuts ruin your needle is a product of lacquer “dub plates” or “acetates”. Lacquers are extremely soft, and with repeated plays, the lacquer would wear off and build up on your playback needle. We DO NOT use lacquers and DO NOT have this problem. We listen to lathe cuts 12 hours a day in the studio, and rarely change out our playback styli.