RPM Turntable Football: Vinyl You Play

Okay, I need you to pay close attention to this one. Yes, this is an article and interview about a vinyl record. It is about one which is a Record Store Day Exclusive release. But this is no ordinary slice of licorice pizza, served up by a group of very good bearded musicians. No, no my friends. This is vinyl that you don't just play. This is vinyl you play.

Each year when Record Store Day drops its Exclusive Releases list, music fans pour over the titles in search of favourite artists, reissues, unusual split singles and head turning oddities. This one induced a bit of welcome whiplash after doing a double take to make sure what I'd read was what I thought I'd read.

"RPM Turntable Football is a game of American Football played at the speed of sound (33 1/3 RPM) using your record player and Decagonaphonic 10 Groove technology."

You had me at 33 1/3 but "Decagonaphonic 10 Groove technology"?! What sorcery be this!? To get the play-by-play about what is obviously one of the most unique pieces of vinyl to be released for Record Store Day, I spoke with Jay Millar, owner of Microfiche Records and co-creator of the RPM Turntable Football.

LinerNotes: Explain what exactly RPM Turntable Football is, as simply as possible.

Jay Millar: We've created a two-player, American football-based sort of board game that's played on your turntable. It's all done on a special 7" record that uses what we've coined as Decagonaphonic Sound technology, meaning these records have five grooves on each side totaling ten grooves, or sides if you will. Each side represents each players' team. The game is played by dropping the needle on your team's side and waiting for the announcers to tell you the football based outcome and whether or not to add points to your score, try again, flip the record, etc.

LinerNotes: Okay, this makes sense, but one point of clarification: You put the needle down at the start of the record and it can potentially pick up any one of the five grooves, if I follow you correctly.

Jay Millar: Correct. And the five grooves are so close together that it's impossible to accurately aim your drop.

LinerNotes: That is utterly fantastic! Monty Python did a double grooved side for the Matching Tie and Handkerchief album in 1973 and didn't advertise it. So you would get one of two different sets of comedy on Side 2 depending which groove you hit and you found out about it by just having it happen.

Jay Millar: Yes, we're aware of the Monty Python one and a few others. The closest we're aware of to what we've done is some horse racing games from the 60's where depending on the groove a different horse would win. We believe ours may be the first that requires multiple drops and flipping of the record instead of a sort of one and done approach. It's a formula we plan to repeat with some other ideas we're stockpiling.

The interview continues following this video.


RPM Turntable Football - A Two Player Game Played at 33 1/3 RPM from Microfiche Records on Vimeo.

LinerNotes: That is a fantastic concept. What has the reaction been like thus far? Especially now that the RSD Exclusives list is in the wild?

Jay Millar: The reaction has been pretty tremendous so far. Most has simply been based on the video we made to promote the project. We have another video we shot that we'll launch closer to Record Store Day. (Ed. Note: That video can be found below.) Few have played the game as it's basically been limited to our friend circle as testers and things. Cameron James Henry is my partner in the project and he's the wizard who put in all the technical work to perfect the Decagonaphonic technology at Welcome to 1979, where he cuts lacquers.

The reason I bring him up is that he and I brought out a test copy of RPM Turntable Football at a party they had at 1979 and it immediately put a hush on the room as people hovered over us wide eyed and slack jawed to take it in. Really we did it because we wanted these games and knew we weren't the only ones. We like to think it'll be a hit with parents who are into records and folks who are into drinking games as it seems the rules could easily be twisted into a drinking game. As best we can tell these will disappear quickly as the demand seems well beyond the 1000 we've made. Which is great because this should pay for itself and hopefully finance our next Decagonaphonic idea.

LinerNotes: So where exactly did the idea for this spawn from? Was it from Cameron and his work cutting lacquers in part?

Jay Millar: Cameron and I were both aware of the horse racing games and he just took it as a personal challenge to see if he could figure out how it was done. Once he figured he'd gotten his head around it he came by excited saying that he'd finally got it. We were excited and started tossing out ideas at one another and wanting something that required multiple drops and spins. I'd said something about wanting to try to emulate the old magnetic football games which at first we didn't think was possible but after about 20 minutes of thinking about it we had pretty much worked out functionality/rules of the full game.

So really, Cameron knew what he could do and we just worked to find an idea that worked well as we didn't want to just make something that had the wow factor of ten grooves but something really fun that we could be proud of.  We love the game and are truly proud of it. That said, I think we have even better ideas in queue after this one... but we've got to get passed this one first.

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With games played between the Red and Blue team and called by Jay Grainer and Barry Dingle, RPM Turntable Football stands to be one of the most unique pieces of vinyl ever to be released as part of Record Store Day. If you manage to intercept a copy on Record Store Day, come back and here and let us know in the comments how it is as an experience!


RPM Films Presents: RPM Turntable Football - for Record Store Day 2014 from Microfiche Records on Vimeo.

Check out the complete list of Record Store Day releases, here!

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