Hey, what's with all the Smiths?

It's funny, you'll go for months without seeing something, then all of a sudden you can't get away from it. Case in point, Smiths records have in my experience been pretty hard to come by. (Reasonably priced ones, anyway)

I'd been lucky enough to find "Meat is Murder" (did Morrissey coin that phrase?) at Value Village for $1.50 about a year and a half ago. Then I happened upon "Rank" and "the Queen is Dead" shortly thereafter.

Then nothing.

I saw a few singles sure, but at $25 a pop, I said "no, thanks!"

Until a couple weeks ago when I walked into a record store and saw Morrissey's first single "Suedehead"(not pictured, it made things uneven, sorry!) for only $4!

After a bit more digging I unearthed "Hatful of Hollow" and "Strangeways, Here we Come". Wow, that was pretty sweet.

A few days later, same store, but this time I found the 12" single "the Boy with the Thorn in his Side". Dang, I was having a good week, I thought. Then just a day or two later, I found a 7" single, "This Charming Man" in a thrift store of all places! Holy Crap!

I nearly passed out when I pulled it out from between a Diana Ross picture disc and a Police 45.

Well, after that I figured my run must have ended, but lo, fate had a few more surprises in store, as I found out yesterday when I went to trade in some CD's and found another 12", "This Charming Man". I quickly scoped it out of the "New Additions" bin and headed over to the "S" section to see if my roll was still holding, and there it was, the Interview picture disc pictured above on the bottom left.

And luckily, I was able to trade it all straight across for CD's, yay! Man, you haven't lived until you've heard Morrissey whining at 45 rpm, he sounds like a chipmunk with severe depression!

So, hopefully this isn't the end of my current Smiths finds, but unfortunately, now I'm getting weirdly superstitious about it, I'm hoping it'll pass...

Warped tour for FREE!!

Hey, this isn't about records, but I wanted to write about it anyway, so forget you, pal!

Anyway, Warped tour was coming up and my stepdaughter and I wanted to go, but couldn't afford the tickets. Well, I worked on Monday, and gave Josh of "From Autumn to Ashes" a haircut and he put us on the guestlist.

Thanks again man, that totally ruled.

So we saw F.A.T.A., checked out the Dollyrots and bought their CD's, I FINALLY saw NOFX, (they were as good as I thought they'd be and Eric Melvin came down after the set to make sure some kid who fell in front of the stage was OK. What a rad guy.)

Joan Jett, (a living legend, Joan, please kill Courtney Love, p.s., we're likin' the new CD) AFI, and the Living End.

I didn't shake any hands, but I did get NOFX's setlist, so that was alright. And I loaded up on free stickers and buttons, I couldn't help myself.

I also met some Numbnuts who claimed to be in some band that wasn't even on the tour, I still don't know how he got that laminate...

Anyway, what with the internet, it's not that tough to look people up, so why even bother lying about being in a band?

So all in all, a pretty rad day, even though I'm now the proud owner of a killer farmer tan.

I did see some vinyl there, but there really wasn't anything that exciting, and I didn't feel like lugging around an LP all day so what are ya gonna do?

Dollar Records, Huzzah!

Dollar records and dollar slices of pizza are perhaps the greatest things ever invented. What noble visionary created them? We can only wonder...

The only problem is seeing the same garbage over and over again and wondering, "Who would have bought this, even then?" Kenny and Dolly's Christmas album, I'm looking in your direction!

While recently flipping through a large pile of dollar records, I came across some ok finds. The first was "Let it Be" , probably the Beatles worst album. (though you could make a case for disc 2 of the white album, yech)

Coincidentally (?), I also found the worst Ozzy-era Black Sabbath album, "Technical Ecstasy". The Sabbath album also has quite possibly the most retarded album cover ever, seriously, what the hell is that thing? Good god, it's just awful!

Anyway, these records have a bad rap but they're actually not THAT bad. I've always disliked "Get Back" but otherwise "Let it Be" has some pretty good moments, like "Two of us", "Across the Universe" and "I, Me, Mine". And after reading up on this disc on Wikipedia I found out that I ended up with original "red apple" pressing. neat.

"Technical Ecstasy" is kind of OK, I've only listened to it once and nothing has jumped out at me yet... But for a dollar, I don't think you can really complain!

One thing I cannot stress enough though people, when dealing with dollar records, check for warps, they will totally ruin your day if you don't! There's nothing more heartbreaking than getting home and tossing your new find on the turntable only to have the needle fly off into space off a huge vinyl ramp ala Evel Knievel circa 1978.

Recordnerd.com update!

Hey, I just got a comment from the guy who runs recordnerd.com saying that you can now use the site to search by format! (If you read my earlier post, this will make perfect sense to you. If not, I accept no responsibility for your current state of confusion, just read it, it's only half a page down, how lazy are you?)

Anyway, this makes a great site even better, so for gosh sakes, go over there and sign up, it's free and fun.

How Records are Made!

Yes, I know, this is on about a million other blogs, but it's really cool to see, and after last night's Supernova rant, I wanted to get back to the main reason this blog is here... records! Anyway, not too much for me to say, just watch these videos:
Video 1
Video 2
Video 2 is where it really starts to get interesting, it's so weird to think that all the records you own were just a glob of crap waiting to get squished into something far more interesting.

Supernova = Superlame

Ok, this isn't really about records, but since I have Motley Crue, Metallica and Guns 'n' Roses records, I feel like I can comment on this truly crappy show.

The show itself is pretty average reality fare I suppose, but it's embarrassing to see people you used to think were super-cool being such knobs on TV. And personally, I'm getting REALLY sick of seeing Dave "I'll do absolutely anything to get on TV, please look at my pretty face" Navarro everywhere I look.

I guess the main thing that bugs me is the completely lame songs the contestants sing, Nickelback?, Goo Goo Dolls? A former member of Metallica is "rocking out" to these crap-fests? And all the ass-kissing, basically the show boils down to an hour of hearing "Dude, that totally rocked, you killed it, bro".

Anyway, I guess it's just tough to see childhood idols involved in something so dorky, but you just know I'm gonna watch this whole thing and hate myself for it. Oh well, I'll write more about records later, I promise, your pal, Jeff

Hooray for Canada!

Some of the time, living in Canada can be kind of annoying.

Mail order from the States is usually about double the cost once you figure in the exchange rate and shipping, (though the rate has been pretty good lately...) and everyone thinks we live in igloos and say "eh" all the time.

But sometimes, we flat-out rule.

Mainly when it comes to Canadian-only coloured vinyl pressings. (Yep, there's a 'U' in colour)

So in honour of Canada Day, (which was three days ago, whoops) let's check a couple of them out.

The two I've come across are of the Who - Who are you on Red vinyl (I got lucky and found this one for only one Canadian dollar, roughly 67 cents US, ha) and DEVO - Q. Are we not Men? on super-sweet marble grey vinyl. Unfortunately this one cost me a bit more than a dollar, but I was able to trade some stuff and offset the cost a bit.

The one Canadian colour pressing I haven't been able to get yet is the Beatles -Sgt. Pepper's on grey marble vinyl. I've seen that one, but never for less than $40, and dude, It's just not in the budget, sadly.

Anyway, I guess I don't really know why these were Canadian exclusives. Maybe we latched onto the colour vinyl trend more heartily than other countries and were rewarded in kind, who knows, I'm just glad we did.

I do know there were a lot of different pressings of the DEVO album, picture discs, alternate cover, etc. I guess this was just another variation.

And on a completely different note, I heard on the radio that today is Mitch Miller, the 'Sing Along with Mitch' guy's 95th birthday.

Now, if you've spent any time going through thrift store vinyl sections, you'll have seen about five thousand of this guy's records. Judging from the sheer volume I've come across, he was selling 'em by the truckload. Happy 95th, Mitch.