Another Semester and RSD Passes
Crate Diving in Modern America
I started full time teaching in 1986 after serving as a Teaching Assistant for the six previous years. In less than two weeks, our semester will end, and it’s not just a cliche that the years are getting shorter. Years, days, our very stature—what else do we have a shorter and shorter supply of?
Well, maybe vinyl records.
The tariffs—and if you love or hate that word and didn’t catch SNL’s clip of the orange plague repeating it ad nauseam while claiming not to relish it at all, then find your nearest YouTube and think about how there used to be a Theatre of the Absurd and now it’s just the last word. In any case, when new vinyl is imported from Germany, Denmark, Spain, or wherever, and it already costs between $21 and $50, and that’s for single, non-Deluxe records—then…well, I’m glad I already have my copies of Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee, Panda Bear’s Sinister Grift, and Ethel Cain’s Preacher’s Daughter.
Speaking of Panda Bear, he’s playing on NPR’s most recent Tiny Desk concert.
https://www.npr.org/series/tiny-desk-concerts/?
Speaking of NPR—will we still be hearing it before the next teardrop or budget axe falls?
Speaking of colleges, cheers to Harvard and to Columbia for standing strong. I swear, I value my college years above any other set of life changes except for fatherhood. And I know not everyone does and not everyone could afford to go, and not everyone who did got what I got out of the liberal arts. Clearly the orange turnip got nothing out of it because the only education he needed was how to lie and cheat from his father and from that American “hero,” Roy Cohn.
We all know this, and yet, maybe we don’t and maybe too many who say they do just don’t get why if you only have one life, you would choose to live it as a knowledgeable college graduate and not a guy who still believes his now blondish hair and his health are “perfecto.”
Really, listen to that Panda Bear set—I think “Defense” is the song of the year, though I know that Miley and others are producing cool sounds, too.
But you came here to find out what I found in my record stores on RSD! I did buy some of the special new releases, like the American version of The Rolling Stones’ Out of Our Heads, and the reissue of The Replacements’ Tim, and the double set of the best of Francoise Hardy 1962-67. And I also dug through the stacks looking to begin the completion of my Kinks fetish.
Ever since I pulled out my old copy of Misfits, I’ve gone on a tear of trying to find every Kinks record that I don’t already have, though sometimes that leads to buying a copy of an album that I do already have because I’ve yet to compile that spreadsheet of all my albums, like my son-in-law insists would make my life easier. I insist that if he’s so insistent, he should please do this for me. So far, we’re at that impasse. And I do have two copies now of Give the People What They Want, and what they want is Face to Face, or at least that’s what I want.
What I got, Kinks-wise, however, are these:
The Kink Kronikles (Warner Bros, 2XS-6454, 1972 VG+). Ok, I paid $35 and you might ask, as my daddy used to, “But you already have many of these songs on other records!” True. And your point would be? Do you not understand how precious and few copies of this are? Or at least that’s what I tell myself when I think that I’m not obsessing as a collector. On “Lola,” they do sing “coca-cola” and so you know they know that the real thing is always better than the cherry kind, though cherry is what I first heard on the single which I still have from back in 1971.
Kinda Kinks. Ok, don’t hyperventilate. This is the Re-Release from somewhere north of the original 1965 recording on Pye records. I paid $25 for it and it still has its shrink-wrap, though slightly torn. One of my favorite songs—”Nothin’ in the World to Stop me Worryin’ About That Girl”— is featured, along with their version of “Dancing in the Street.”
Sleepwalker (Arista AL 4106, 1977). Snagged for $5.00. Featuring the title track, “Juke Box Music,” and “Life on the Road.” Maybe not the greatest album, but when it costs what it used to, then who can complain?
Preservation Act 2 (RCA CPL2-5040, 1974). $12.00. It contains “Shepherds of the Nation” and “Scum of the Earth.” Nothing to add to those statements. I found some other Kinks gems, but I’ll save those for another day. Because I also found things I didn’t know I wanted, like…
Marianne Faithfull, Go Away from My World (London PS 452, 1965). Her second American album, sitting in that used bin for only $5.00. The cover is in acceptable shape, but the vinyl itself is clean and beautiful. Someone once loved this…and her. It features the title song, “Yesterday,” “North Country Maid,” and “Scarborough Fair.”
Soul Survivors, When the Whistle Blows, Anything Goes (Crimson Records LP-502, 1967) Still in shrink-wrap, cost: $22, though if I had found it back when, I could have had it for only 99 cents or so the special sticker from “Dept. 245” tells me. I wonder what store, what state (of mind or confusion)? Featuring the big hit “Expressway to Your Heart.” Apparently the group formed after cars holding the two parts had wrecked. Well.
The Rolling Stones, It’s Only Rock and Roll (Rolling Stones Records FC 40493, 1974). $20, which means I didn’t pay $6 for it back in my college days. Too bad for me, though what’s the difference now when you consider inflation, tariffs and the only band that matters? Oh yeah, that was The Clash. Either way, I think I have every Stones album I want now. What will I think tomorrow, though, this time?
DIG IT!!!
Another great haul, Terry! I just saw that Francoise Hardy release this morning and listened while at work today. Gorgeous! It's now on my list for the next time I get over to our local shop.