the vinyl is final
My mother bought me this record for my 6th birthday. I still have it, and it is one of my most cherished items. But when I played it recently we noticed our orange cat covering his ears and howling! He has never done that before. We tested it later, and he did it again! Must be some high frequency weirdness.
I have come across this a couple times, and it is usually less expensive than I think it should be.
Rest in peace, big guy. See you in DJ Heaven.
My favorite single piece of music is Rhapsody in Blue, composed by George Gershwin. Specifically, the version with Arthur Fiedler conducting the Boston Pops, Earl Wild at the piano, pictured above. That’s the record I bought for $2.99 at the Payless on Del Paso Blvd, back when I was 12 or 13.
The music thrilled me, and I listened to it every day, usually after coming home from school. It was my caffeine, my pot, my 5 hour energy when I didn’t have those things. I still love it and rank it #1 on my favorites, though it has had to fight off a few challengers from time to time. Don’t fuck with Arthur Fiedler.
I do see this in Thrifts from time to time. If you see it, buy it. Many of the records in this Time Life series are excellent.
Or you could easily start collecting all Rhapsody in Blue vinyls, there are a plenty of those, like a gerzillion.
It’s been years, maybe decades, since I have blissed out in the highest of highs while listening to music. That zone when the music is all there is, dominating all senses, and is “really” good.
As a teen in my room, air drumming to an 80s club remix. In my 20s, dancing at a rave. 90s club remixes on a stony living room floor, or a 6 year old listening to In A Gadda Da Vida with my father. And now, from picking up treasures at thrift and other record stores.
These ultra-highs happen – maybe only happen – when listening to AAA 100% analog music. Either turntables or live performance, but rarely if ever with digitized music. Don’t get me wrong, I love the advantages of digital, but it took away something lovely that has now returned. I love analog music and the tremendous feelings it inspires.
And it only costs a few dollars, and has no unpleasant side effects. Dear government, please do not make vinyl records illegal.
First we bought vinyl, and it was good.
Then we bought digital, and it was better.
Now we buy vinyl, because it is best.
Sandy is spinning a set, not just a set, but A set, as in only artists beginning with the letter “A”. Abba, Alphaville, Alice Cooper, Arcadia, etc.
She spins the Art of Noise, and I says, “cool vinyl Sandy, you spinning cutting edge old school!” and then I go, “ooh, that’s a good phrase, ‘cutting edge old school!'”.
That’s what this is: cool, new obscure music that’s been around forever.
The best treasures popup most unexpectedly! I’m at a Goodwill in Springfield, and they had four rows of records, but it ended up being 95% Christian music. It was disheartening to have made the long drive only to find endless praise to God! I have nothing against that, mind you, and perhaps I should make it a new hobby to delve into that parallel reality of non-satan-worshiping rock and roll.
So this one really surprised me – smack in the middle of the third crate I flipped through – sitting all alone among endless adorations of Jesus!
I’ve been wanting this one for a long time, ever since I saw it on the 101 Strings discogs page. Nice cover and in mint condition, one of the best in my collection! Bonus: excellent muzak too!
And there it was:
The finest music experiences I’ve ever had, and I’ve had hundreds of thousands of them, were listening to the Greentown Jazz Band. Finding their first album on vinyl – in the most obscure, unlikely location, a novelties shop in Ashland, OR – was like winning the billion dollar powerball for me. Because it was inexplicable.
“90% of everything is crap,” but the Greentown Jazz Band are not just in the 10%, they are in the 1% of Dixieland Jazz Bands. Featuring Borut Bučar – the best clarinet player I’ve ever heard!
No one knows or talks about this band, they are my secret, and a major part of my life. I once made great effort to go to a show they were doing in Sacramento, at Cal Expo, just so I could purchase their 1st album on CD from the merch table. My cassette was wearing out, and I didn’t have turntables back then. I finally get to the table, breathless (I’m not kidding), and the guy tells me they sold the last one 15 minutes ago. Fuuuuuck.
My first time seeing the band was when I was 14 or 15, so it would have been 1982-83? It was at an Italian restaurant in Old Sacramento. I was typically angsty back then and not in a good mood that day. I recall having a bad headache as we got there and had dinner. Because we were there early, we got a great table in front of the band, and when dinner was over, they started to play.
Years later, when I fooled around with acid, e, and the like. I had many powerful and blissfully positive experiences. But nothing since then has matched what I felt that night, listening to this amazing music. My headache lifted, mood brightened and energy heightened, and all due to a couple woodwind instruments. A clarinet and sax. Oh how they wailed, loud and clear and beautiful, twisting and stretching, taking us up and then down and then higher.
And when we thought we had just heard the most amazing song ever (and by we I mean the entire crowded restaurant. It had filled up and the applause was deafening), they started up a new one. I don’t even know how to describe it ore.
I made sure to see them next time they came to the Sacramento Jazz Festival. They we on an outdoor stage in the early evening, and while not as intense an experience as the restaurant, it was still the best music I heard the entire festival. I went backstage after the show and shook Borut Bucar’s hand, telling him how impressed I was, and he quickly smiled and thanked me and moved on.
That was the last time I saw the Greentown Jazz Band or Bucar again. I had a cassette of their first and second albums. The 2nd album always seemed wrong to me, in some way I can’t define. I lost it long ago and never digitized it. The 1st album, on the other hand, is a priceless possession, one of the few cassettes I have kept. It was one of the first things I digitized and turned into CD and mp3, when that technology became available. But I never did have them on vinyl.
Fast forward many years, and I’m doing some crate digging while on vacation. Ashland has a really good record store, owned by a guy who has done it a long time and knows the biz well. I spent a lot of time there and thought I was done shopping for the day, but Sandy told me there were used records at a store down the street. So I walk over, and it’s a novelties place with t-shirts everywhere and tons of crippy-crap, but there were about ten crates of cheap used, just like Sandy said.
I hate crates on the bottoms of shelves, where I have to squat to go through them. My back and legs get tired quickly. I found a few things, but not much. I almost passed on going through the last few crates. Sandy was ready to go.
But I love crate digging, and the pleasure overrides the pain and nagging. So I dug through them, flip, flip, flip. flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip…
And there it was… ask Sandy sometime how I reacted, she’ll laugh and tell you, and I’ll be embarrassed.
This score reminded me of the line by Darryl of Storage Wars, “You never know when you’re going to find something big…”, referring to a excellent treasure in the most unlikely of sources. I found this treasure at the tail end of digging at two different stores. I was tired, and the second store had a really long aisle packed with records, too many for me to ever go through at one time. I almost missed the shopping cart at the end of the aisle. This was likely the new additions.
A bunch of 80s-90s movie soundtracks in really good condition, and I should have bought Backdraft, because it contains the Theme to Iron Chef. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. But screw Backdraft, one of the very last flips was this. Passion by the Flirts! And it was in mint condition!
Of great interest to the highly fanatical group known as Pet Shop Boys collectors, this single was produced by Bobby “O” Orlando, who not only influenced the boys with this track – one of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe’s favorites – but went on to produce their first singles before they replaced him with Stephen Hague (who really kicked it up a notch, sorry Bobby). Few have heard the original version of West End Girls produced by Bobby “O”, and finding that in a thrift store would be a “shit your pants” moment.
Married to Andy Williams, backed by top LA producers and session musicians, the albums of Claudine Longet are a delight. They are easily found alongside her hubby’s albums in thrift stores everywhere.
It looks as though love and life in the fast lane took it’s toll on Claudine. The cover to We’ve Only Just Begun was taken soon after her separation (and eventual divorce) from Andy Williams, and near the end of her career. A fascinating but sad story: she was found guilty in 1976 of negligent homicide of her boyfriend, but sentenced to only 30 days in jail, and has spent the rest of her years in relative solitude.
Sandy was the first to play her music via itunes, and I was dismissive for many years. But that was mainly because she only played the “Happy Talk” mp3 that was too happy even for me. But a glorious $0.10 sale at Goodwill allowed me to pick up a couple of her early albums (Claudine, The Look of Love), and I was surprised to hear a few excellent tracks in the mix.
Claudine’s records fall into another collector category: they feature the Wrecking Crew. Being married to Andy Williams gave Claudine access to the best of everything in terms of music production. Tracks like “Sunrise Sunset”, “Man in a Raincoat”, “How Insensitive” and my favorite version of “Both Sides Now” are glorious works of music. But each album has it’s fair share of stinkers and hits.
She is no longer a household name, though I’m guessing she would have kept a bit more in the public eye if it were not for her legal problems. We’ve all seen her on tv in the Peter Sellers movie The Party, and her album cover for Colours is iconic. Yes, I have the hots for Claudine Longet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudine_Longet
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Claudine-Longet