Unplanned Listening Parties

    I bought Tone Loc's Loc'After Dark on a whim. I thought it would be fun to hear "Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Media" again, and that would be that. Nope. I listened to the whole album.

        I didn't have a choice.

    As soon as the first beats of "On Fire (Remix)" filled our basement, Ellie, our Great Pyrenees, sprinted down the stairs, tore around the corner, and sat right in front of where I was standing. She was wildly wagging her tail. I thought for sure she wanted to go out to the backyard to potty or play, but the tail stopped moving when I asked her.

    I rubber her behind her ears with both hands and asked, "What do you want then?" She stood up, walked over to my chair, and stole my seat in a single jump. 

     "You like this music?" 

    

    She thumped her tail once on the arm of he chair.

      I sighed and look the smaller chair next to her. She thumped the chair a few more times in thanks. Then she closed her eyes. For the next 50 minutes we enjoyed Tone Loc's gravelly raps.

    This has happened before. I knew I could move about the room as much as I wanted. I could even leave the basement. I just couldn't turn the music off. If I did, then she would slide off the chair, slowly walk out of the room looking at me from over her shoulder with her tail dragging on the carpet. Then she would go upstairs to pout. 

    It's quite a performance. 

    

    Also, I'm a pushover. 

    

    A couple of days later I gave John Mayall's USA Union LP a test spin. I brought this home from Goodwill because it was in decent shape and I thought it looked interesting. 

    No offense to the memory of the late "Godfather of English Blues," but I wasn't feeling his no-drum vibe. I was reaching for the tone arm when Ellie and our cat Bo quickly entered the room together.

    Ellie took my chair again, and Bo parked himself on the album's gatefold sleeve. I was stuck again. 

    

    I put my foot down after playing side two and moved onto a different record. Neither one minded. They were asleep. 

A Different Kind of Glorious

I have this quote posted on a wall in my classroom. It's from an online article Henry Rollins wrote for Discogs.

“I never had a good time in school, so Friday became my favorite day. Classes were not so bad because freedom was only hours away. In that brief period between school letting out and midnight, it’s like an extra day, the economy version of a three-day weekend. Those hours are the peak of the week for me to this day. This time period is for playing records.”

 - Henry Rollins

I like how Rollins's theory about Friday evenings echoes my own theory about the evenings before summer vacation. I also like how he uses music to celebrate the end of the week. I do that, too.

I often pick out my Friday record on Thursday night, so it's already waiting for me on the turntable when I get home. When Char and I get there, I'll let Ellie out into the backyard, feed our cat Bo, and then coax Ellie back in with a treat. With everyone taken care of, I'll drop the needle, settle into my recliner (or get ready to dance around if it's been that kind of a week), and let the music play. It's glorious. 

Music can serve all kinds of purposes, but for me it's all about making myself smile. This brings me to this post's topic: records that make me happy even when I'm not playing them.

This is a 2010 rerelease of Black Sabbath's first record. I bought this used LP at ZZZ records, and it's in really good shape. This copy is the measurement that I'll use to explain one of favorite records.

Okay, now check out this bad boy.

This record, also from ZZZ, is so awesomely bad (ass). 

According to Discogs, Stereophonic is a “...South Korean pirate label that issued poor-quality unofficial releases of Western artists' music. The records were copied directly from original pressings using a reverse-molding process, and thus will have the same runout information as an American issue (or occasionally a British or Japanese one). Their releases share the same style of using monochrome printed covers (in various colours) on thin card stock.”

Let's look at these two records side by side.

What?! Just look at that record on the right! I don't know if you would call it a counterfeit or a bootleg, but man, that is just awesome. I love how unapologetic it is. Imagine coming to the party dressed like that and just not giving a damn. If this record could talk, it would say, "Yep, I'm a bootleg. What in the hell are you going to do about it?" So sassy.

I love the murky sleeve and how flimsy the card stock is. I also like the typewriter font on the labels. It's not trying to fool anyone. Loud and proud.

But the thing of it is, this bootleg actually sounds pretty good. I'd rate it at VG. The vinyl is also surprisingly heavy. Using our kitchen scale, this LP weighs in at 150 grams. Most records made in the 80's couldn't boast that heft. 

I suppose a non-collector would ask why would I buy a bootleg when I already had a legit and better looking and sounding copy? To that I'd say simply obtaining records is not why I'm in this hobby. I like the legal Black Sabbath record, but it doesn't make me laugh like the bootleg does. This isn't about making sense or saving cents; it's about having fun.

Let's try another. Hmmm... can you spot the bootleg?

I have no idea who the G-Boys are. 

I do like how the Stereophonic company couldn't afford to put a hype sticker on the sleeve, so they screened a circle on the front with "Don't Stop' Til You Get Enough" in someone's handwriting. Notice they put the unnecessary apostrophe after "stop" instead of in front of "til". I'm not judging; I can't write anything in Korean.

I don't mind that my legal copy of Off the Wall was vandalized by a previous owner.

This one from High Stereo Light is fun because they screened the front artwork onto the back of the sleeve by mistake. LPs seldom exit on the left, as far as I know

Typos and an off-center label are things to celebrate.

Here's a bootleg from Taiwan. I bought it in a downtown Des Moines vintage clothing store in the late 90's.

Fun fact: Under the S FL-18668 A you can see a 58 and a 4. 1911 + 58 = the release year (1969) and 4 represents the fourth month (April). This record turns 56 in just three days.

Other fun facts: "First Record (第一唱片) is a label of questionable legality from Taiwan, catering to soldiers (mostly from the US) stationed there. They also did sell to locals... The albums were usually pressed in batches of about 500, with no two batches looking or sounding the same (ie different covers, vinyl colors). Covers were usually recycled, meaning art for a totally different album was on the reverse side of the paper (covers were thin paper wrapped in cellophane)... Pirate pressings outsold legit pressings 5 to 1. They were sold openly in legit record stores alongside equivalent legit pressings...usually for 1/5 or 1/4 of the price of the legit copy (in 1970 a pirate LP cost around US $0.70 whereas a legit Singaporean EMI pressing of the same album cost around US $3.50)."*

*Source= Billboard article 3/14/1970.

I've got a few others, but here's my last First Record for today.

I like this record's cover because Richard Carpenter looks like he's pissed that you're checking out his sister and not him, "... Really? I'm right here." 

Buying Used Vinyl: Free Surprises Inside!

I've written about thrift store records many, many times, so I won't get into any back stories today. I just want to write about vinyl surprises. 

For instance, I bought this LP last weekend.

It's Stephen Stills', self-titled, first solo album, and it was released in 1970. I knew that Mr. Stills was in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. I also knew the hit song, "Love the One You're With." I wondered, What else is on here? The record was in decent shape, so I took it home to find out.

What I should have wondered was, Who else is on here? Turns out, quite a lot of people. Jimi Hendrix played the lead guitar on song four, "Old Times, Good Times." Then on the next song, "Go Back Home," Eric Clapton takes lead guitar duties. Ringo Starr, using the pseudonym Richie, plays drums on two songs. Graham Nash and David Crosby provide a little help for their friend with backing vocals, as did John Sebastian, Cass Elliot, and Rita Coolidge. Man, who wasn't on this thing? I had no idea. Talk about this record being a surprise...  

But that's not the kind of record surprise I want to talk about.

Hidden Surprise #1:

This doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I'll bring home an LP with more than the vinyl inside. For instance, I also bought this LP last weekend.

This Neil Young & Crazy Horse record from 1979 is "complete," which is nice. It has the lyric sheet and the original, photo inner sleeve. 

I knew the song "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)," but that was it. Luckily, the record's first owner surprised me by adding the original Rolling Stone review from the October 18, 1979 issue. I didn't have to do any research on this record because RS's record review editor, Paul Nelson, had already done the heavy lifting for me.

I have always needed someone to point out the deep layers hidden within art for me to fully appreciate its complexities. That's why I enjoy music and film criticism. I need an artistic tour guide, and that what writers like Paul Nelson are. 

Reading a RS review on newsprint paper really brought me back to my high school days in the 80's. Rolling Stone was my gateway to a musical world beyond Iowa's rural Sioux county. I learned a lot about Rust Never Sleeps, too. (Note: Side two is now cited as an inspiration for the grunge movement of the 90's, but Paul wouldn't have know that was coming. The last song, "My My, Hey Hey (Into the Black)" is so sludgy it would be at home on a Melvins record.)

Hidden Surprise #2:

I didn't remember much about Charlie Sexton when I took this record up to the register last summer, but the clerk sure did. 

I had brought her a small stack of LPs, and the clerk fanned them out on the counter to get an accurate count. She gasped when she spotted Charle's record, "Charlie Sexton! Woa... I loooved Charlie Sexton!" She then placed a hand on her chest and a patted out a quick heartbeat, "I wonder what I did with my record?" She was then lost in thought for a moment, undoubtably trying to trace her steps back to 1985 when Charlie Sexton was a 16-year-old with a hit song, "Beat's So Lonely", mad guitar skills, and a video on MTV. And hair. He had a lot of hair.

It must have all worked for him, though. When I removed the record from its sleeve, several magazine pages slid onto our kitchen counter. The previous owner of this album was quite the Charlie Sexton fan.

I can tell the page on the left was once used as a poster because on the back side each corner has damage from a tape loop being removed.

There is a little irony in that Sexton's album is entitled Pictures for Pleasure. 

Whoever had this picture of Charlie hanging on their wall was hardly alone. The set designers for the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off placed Sexton's poster on the wall behind Ferris's bed.

That's actually cooler than having your video play on MTV. Videos come and go. Bueller is an 80s icon. Talk about bragging rights.

Hidden Surprise #3:

Here's George Michael's Faith LP. Like Charlie's record, I think an 80's teenager used to own it. But I think this teenager was sneaky.

The previous owner made a poster out of the photo on the lyrics sheet.

Again, you can tell from the tape marks. 

But that's not the hidden surprise. That lyric sheet was supposed to be in the LP's sleeve. This is the surprise:

Okay, let's play detective!

1) Using the words "Parents", "dismissal", and "Inservice" suggest this is a note from school.

2) Faith was released on November 2, 1987. November 1st fell on a Tuesday the next year, so we can assume this note from is from 1988.

3) People were pretty conservative in the 80s. I don't think many parents of a junior high student (the phrase "middle school" wasn't a thing, yet) would let their kid put up a picture of the guy who sings "I Want Your Sex" in their room. This is a note for a high school student.

4) Somewhere a school secretary used a typewriter to write this message four times on a single sheet of paper, photocopied it, and then used a paper cutter with one of those huuuuge swing arm blades to slice stacks of paper into four piles of strips. I'm guessing that this note is from a small, Iowa school with an enrollment under 500.

    a) I found this record in an Iowa thrift store. It's probably from an Iowan donor who went to an Iowa school.

    b) If you handed out 1200 strips of paper for 1200 kids to take home, you'd have 1000 strips of paper all over the floors of the school.

    c) It's harder to get away with making a "mess" is a small school (trust me on this). In a smaller school district, most of the notes would have probably gotten home.

Hypothesis: Some sneaky kid who attended a small high school in Iowa hid this note inside the record sleeve.

This note isn't like a picture of a celebrity crush that you hang onto even after you've moved on. It isn't memorable, so why save it? No one has ever said, "Dude, remember that time when the teachers had that sweet inservice? I still have the note! Check it out." 

I think someone got the note from their 8th period teacher. Then while walking to the parking lot with some friends, they decided that if their folks did not know about the early dismissal, then they would have an extra hour or more to do something their folks wouldn't approve of. (Remember, there was no internet, no email, and no text messaging back then. Report cards were handed out on conference nights. In small towns, snow days were announced by the local radio stations.)  I bet the owner of this note discovered it in their back pocket when they were in their room, and they quickly hid it from their parents in a record sleeve their parents would never open. 

And that's where it stayed for the last 37 years.

I could be completely wrong, though. 

Maybe it really was a sweet teacher inservice. 

Thrift Store Show and Tell '23: A Music Haul

It was Saturday morning at the Salvation Army store. I scanned the media and the electronics shelves, breezed through the glassware isle, looked down the sporting goods isle, drifted past the book shelves, and then headed towards the exit. I usually spend less than ten minutes in here. I almost always walk out empty handed. 

But then I saw this guy poking his head out of a shopping cart crammed full of unsorted items. 

Fun fact: "Raven are notable for headlining Metallica's first-ever national tour in 1983."

I have to tell you, an English metal band's EP from 1986 is not the typical record that you find in a thrift store. Not by a long shot. This was exciting. What else was in this magical cart? I started digging... 

Here's what I found. 

On Aretha's This Girl's in Love with You (released on January 20, 1970), she covers the Beatles, Dusty Springfield, and even The Band. 

Fun Fact: "Her version of The Beatles’ “Let it Be" was the first recording of the song to be commercially issued (The Beatles did not release "Let It Be" as a single until March 1970). Songwriter Paul McCartney sent Franklin and Atlantic Records a demo of the song as a guide."

In Person by Ike & Tina Turner came out in 1969, and it too is full of great cover songs. Tina also covers "Son of a Preacher Man" AND she sings "Respect." Daphne likes to say that no one but Aretha should even try singing "Respect," but when I told her Tina recorded a live version, Daphne replied, "Oh! Well, Tina should be allowed to try."

The glue that held the front and back covers' flaps together had given out, and this record sleeve could be opened like a book. I ran a thin bead of regular white glue (not school glue) down each flap, and then used rulers and alligator clips to make a "record sleeve press."   

The new glue was dry after an hour.

This is a different record sleeve, but here's a pic of the "flap" that I was referring to. 

Sly & the Family Stone's Life came out in 1968, but this is a reissue from 1971. Fun Fact: "The opening riff on 'Into My Own Thing' was sampled for Fatboy's Slim's 2001 hit 'Weapon of Choice'".

Love Child by Diana Ross and The Supremes came out in 1968 and was their 15th release for Motown. Fun Fact: Tommy Chong, from Cheech and Chong, co-wrote "Does Your Mamma Know About Me?"  That isn't my favorite track from this LP, though. "Keep an Eye" wins that spot.       

The Temptations' Cloud Nine came out in 1969. Influenced by Sly and the Family Stone's production style and multi-lead vocals, The Temps took a walk into psychedelic territory. The change of style worked; they won their first Grammy that year. At 9:38, "Run Away Child, Running Wild" is a great example of their different direction.

I thought for sure I was going love Bloodstone's Unreal from 1973. A horse jumping over a rainbow that is emitting out of the hats of mimes? C'mon! But it was not meant to be. Sorry, Bloodstone. It's not you. It's me.

Rare Earth's Willie Remembers came out in 1972. I was hoping it would be another of those funky records that came out in the early 70's but side A was a disappointment. It was headed to the "Return to Goodwill" pile, but I changed my mind about 10 seconds into track 7, "We're Gonna Have a Good Time". The next and last track, "I Couldn't Believe What Happened Last Night", clocks in at 12:10. For me, this is the only reason to own this record. I love a Rare Earth jam, and I'm glad I stuck around long enough to hear this one.

Ambrosia's Ambrosia is progressive rock from 1975. I didn't know that I knew "Nice, Nice, Very Nice" until I played the song. I said excitedly to an empty basement, "Hey, I like this song!" Fun Fact: This song uses a poem from Kurt Vonnegut's book Cat's Cradle for its lyrics.

I already knew the songs  "The Night Chicago Died" and "Billy Don't Be A Hero", but they didn't get my attention like their cover of "Sealed with a Kiss". The song begins with cheesy harmonies, but after 25 seconds it morphs into a tight guitar-driven pop song. Fun surprise.

That's quite a custom glitter job on Roger Daltery's first solo effort. Looks to me like a teenager carefully drew a "glue tear" on the left, and then a younger sibling tried to do the same on the right when no one was looking. It's either that or a cat knocked over the glue bottle. 

Also, because of the charcoal pencil price tag, I 'm guessing a previous owner bought this at a garage sale. But when? When did anyone think that getting a nickel for something was a good deal? Hey, I'll trade you this record for half of a stick of gum.

And, yeah, I really didn't care for the music on this one. Sorry, Roger. Maybe it was priced right?

Nickel-priced album #2 is The Beach Boys' Love You from 1977. Fun Fact: "Originally planned as Brian Loves You, it is essentially a solo project by Brian Wilson, who wrote almost all of the material and played nearly every instrument on the record, including keyboards, synthesizers, and drums." "Love You has since been recognized for presaging synth-pop and new wave."

Nickel album #3 is Hummingbird's Diamond Nights from 1977. This isn't a disco album, but it's been overproduced like one. The funk/ soul aspect has been smoothed over. You really can't see the 5 cent mark on this one. The cover, like the music, is too glossy.

In the Queue: 

These are the other records that I bought from Salvation Army that day, but I haven't had the time to really listen to them.

The Impressions' Finally Got Myself Together came out in '74.

The Jeff Beck Group's Beck-Ola came out in 1969.

Jeff Beck's Wired came out in 1976, but this is a reissue from '79. Take what you can get.

This is an actual UK pressing from 1977. Crawler plays classic rock.

I have a few records from the British blues group Savoy Brown, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to be comfortable with 1974's Boogie Brothers.

I thought this was going to be a prog rock LP from the look of the cover art, but Discogs lists Lighthouse as a Canadian "brass-rock" band. Hmmm...

This GTR release is from 1986, and I recognized the artwork as soon as saw it. It's listed as "art rock/ prog rock" on Discogs, so we'll see. 

Okay, that has to be the biggest record haul I have ever taken from one store in one weekend. The first time I took ten records out to the car with the intention of leaving, and then I went back in and bought more. 

They were a buck each. So, why not? If I don't like one, I'll just return to Goodwill and mentally add a nickel to the cost of the other records.

Hey. Wait a minute...