Technology Generation Gap

    In the "Digital vs. Vinyl" debate, I favor the former, while my son favors the latter.

Listen To The Rain

        Laugh if you will, but I once bought an LP that consisted of nothing but random jungle sounds, none of which were in the least bit exciting.  Someone apparently just set up a tape recorder and let it go for 40 minutes or so, figuring there were idiots out there who'd buy anything.  Like me.

    And I won't even mention the 3-LP boxed set I once got, with nothing but all sorts of trains blowing their whistles at railroad crossings.

Hoarding

    This is kinda my goal when it comes to LP's and books.

Why Vinyl Sounds Better

    Another secret revealed.

Record Stores

    Anytime I make t to two used-record stores in one day is a great day.  Finding two Johnny Cash albums I've been looking high and low for for quite some time is just icing on the cake.

First Album

    Why yes, I do remember the very first album I bought with my own money.  And I still have it.

Christmas is coming...

    ...and it's never too early to start making one's list.  So here's the first item on mine.  Feel free to let me know you're buying it for me.

More Vinyl

   Went to one of the local Half-Price Bookstores this afternoon after work  And scored the following albums :

Outlaws - Outlaws

Outlaws - Ghost Riders

Molly Hatchet - Flirtin' With Disaster

JJ Cale - Okie

JJ Cale - Five

Styx - Equinox

   We'll be digitalizing them all over the next few months.  Oh yeah, I got a couple books too.  Manifold Origin and The Time Ships, both by Stephen Baxter, a Sci-Fi author I've been meaning to get into for quite some time now.

Turntables

    Sad but true.  Once upon a time, every electronics store carried phonograph needles.  Not anymore.  I bought my present turntable online at a place that sells the whole kit-and-kaboodle, but not just the needle.  So god only knows where I'll find a replacement.

RockZome Saturday

I made another foray to RockZone on Saturday.  Sold 45 albums; got $19 of in-store credit, which I thought was quite fair.

   More importantly, I managed to walk out of there with only 15 new albums - nine "normal ones", plus 6 freebies.  RockZone has no use for classical LP's, so they all get dumped into the "buy one, get one free (out of this "nobody-would-want-these" pile).  I even walked out of there with $5 in-store credit remaining.

    I picked up the three albums shown here, plus three Kingston Trio records, two Leo Kottke LP's and one Michael Quatro (Suzy's brother) album.  The freebies were six classical ones, including two by the fabulous pianist Artur Rubinstein. 

   Overall, I reduced the LP glut in the computer room by about 30 discs.  Plus there are another 16 waiting for a friend to drop by and take them off my hands.  This leaves about 250 still in the computer room, but only about 100 on the floor.  Which are the source of Liz's criticism of my hoarding habits.  Progress is being made.

Paring down the vinyl

   Okay, I'm a pack-rat.  And I'm OCD.  And although those two terms aren't synonymous, they do go hand in hand.  So when Liz demanded I start getting rid of some of the LP's that have taken over the computer room, I knew better than to argue.

    I admit her logic is persuasive.  These are albums I've already converted to MP3 files.  I paid anywhere from $2 to nothing for them, and for the sole purpose of converting them.  They have no resale value whatsoever.  There's no earthly reason to keep them.  But still... 

    So I packed up a milk-crate's worth of them and headed to RockZone Saturday afternoon.  RockZone only gave me $6 trade-in, but really, that's just fine with me.  I had done my due diligence, and was ready to leave.  When...

    ... I just had to go through the 50-cent aisle.  And the $1 one.  And the $2 one. And there were just such great finds there!

   There were three Kim Carnes albums.  I've been listening to her a lot lately.  And four-count-em-four Brothers Four LP's.  I've only found two of theirs in the past year or so.  And other obscure gems as well.  The Blues Project.  The New Riders of the Purple Sage.  Pure Prairie League.  The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.  Another Doug Kershaw album.  Kingston Trio albums from their Decca days.  The Alan Parsons Project.  The Ventures.  Leo Kottke.  A Bette Midler album I'd never seen before.  Eric Burdon & The Animals.

    In the end, I walked out of there with 24 albums, two of which were double-albums, and a third which was a triple-album.  Grand total of discs : 27.  Total cost : $7 (plus another $6 trade-in allowance).  Grand total of disks sold or given to RockZone : 32.

    Liz of course was not surprised to see me lugging in an armload of albums upon my return from RockZone.  Nor was she pleased.  Which I don't understand.  I did reduce the number of LP's in the computer room. By five. Which means there are now only about 300 in the room anymore. Waiting to be converted.

    Really, what did she expect?

The White Album

   The Beatles' White Album wasn't my first LP, but it was in my first dozen or so.  I bought it "hot" my freshman year at Penn State, from the guys in the dorm room next to ours.  Basically, they spent their whole year shoplifting and selling their wares.  The really kewl thing was you could "order" LP's from them.  And that's what I did for this one.

    The White Album is arguably the Fab Four at their finest.  Back in the USSR, Rocky Raccoon, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, (They Say It's Your) Birthday, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Piggies, Helter Skelter (calling Charlie Manson - we want this song back), Savoy Truffle, Revolution 1, etc.

    Unfortunately, they only had 3 sides' worth of songs.  Which means some had to go and they'd issue a single LP.  Or some worthless filler had to be added, and they'd issue a double LP.

    Thus it was that "Revolution Number 9" was born.  Which is really just our boys, obviously stoned out of their gourds, playing around with all those kewl sound effects in the studio.  I'm sure it seemed awesomely radical at the time.  But jeez guys.  Did you listen to it the next day when you were straight again?

A dozen LP's

This is why I love to visit The Rock Zone used record store every so often.  I picked up 12 albums today (highlighted by the two shown below), for the total cost of $3.28.  That's 6 each at 50 cents apiece; and 6 free LP's (buy one; get one free) thrown in for free.  Plus 28 cents tax.

 Yeah, the fifty-centers are in fair shape omly.  And the freebies are albums that are either in poor shape or are from genres no one gives a hoot about anymore.  And it helps that I can convert these to MP3 files and automatically take the scratches out.  Any skips on these cannot be automatically dealt with, though there are the old, manual ways.  Penny on the tone arm, and all that.  Still, it's a cheap way to listen to a lot of new music.

Here's the whole haul, with the 50-centers first :

01) Genesis - Abacab
02) Kiki Dee Band - I've Got The music In Me
03) Arlo Guthrie - Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys
04) Phoebe Snow - Phoebe Snow (RIP, Phoebe)
05) Linda Ronstadt - Hand Sown...
06) John Denver - Windsong

07) Soundtrack - Doctor Zhivago
08) The Young Americans - Time For Livin'  (cheery folk)
09) The Brothers Four - The Big Folk Hits  (cheery folk)
10) Soundtrack - Exodus
11) Soundtrack - Man of La Mancha
12) Bud & Travis - In Concert (missing one of the 2 LP's)

Frank Sinatra - September of My Years

Artist : Frank Sinatra

Album : September Of My Years (1965)

Genre : Easy Listening Overall Rating : 7½*/10

. I must be getting old, cuz I never used to be able to listen to Frank Sinatra. I converted this LP for a friend, and was surprised how many songs I recognized and how ...um... pleasing-to-the-ears the music was. . And it isn't just me. My carpool partner's 18-year-old son recently became a fan of Sinatra as well. Wow! I know The Beatles maintain their popularity from generation to generation, but I didn't know Old Blue Eyes has the same gift. . All in all, this was a pleasant surprise. I don't think it'll become one of my top ten favorite albums, but if you force me to do Easy Listening (and take away my Sarah Brightman CD's), this will be my first pick. . Album Tracks : (my favorites in pink) :

01. The September of My Years (3:15)

02. How Old Am I? (3:30)

03. Don't Wait Too Long (3:04)

04. It Gets Lonely Early (2:57)

05. This Is All I Ask (3:03)

06. Last Night When We Were Young (3:33)

07. The Man in the Looking Glass

08. It Was A Very Good Year (4:25)

09. When The Wind Was Green (3:22)

10. Hello, Young Lovers (3:41)

11. I See It Now (2:50)

12. Once Upon A Time (3:30)

13. September Song (3:30)

LP-Swapping

Sad to say, the RIAA has been on a roll lately, shutting down a lot of the music file-swapping sites. And the ones that still remain are infested with viruses. . Which is kind of a good thing for me, since most of the music I like goes back to the days of vinyl, and I am set up to convert LP's to MP3 files, then burn them to CD's. And with about 3,000 albums, there's no shortage of music to convert.

Just Wrong - Memories of Steam

Okay, it's not so much "Just Wrong" as it is "What Were They Thinking?" I am the proud owner of the 3-LP set shown below. AFAIK, there is only one other copy of it in existence. . The other copy is on sale at eBay for $9.99 (as of last night). And it is from there that I snatched the above image. I picked up my copy for $1 about a year ago. So I stand to make a 900% profit if I can find a buyer. . Ah, but there's the rub. This set of albums (Full name : Memories of Steam : past and present) consists solely of ...um... train whistles. There are steam engine whistles and diesel engine whistles (so sez the back of the box). Some were recorded as the trains roared by whoever taped these. Others were recorded as the trains pulled into a station (you can hear the brakes and a couple background voices). . The first question is - why would anyone feel compelled to record train whistles in the first place? Second, is there any reason at all to record and hour and a half worth? Third, how in the heck did they talk a record company (in this case, Murray Hill Records) into putting these out on vinyl? Fourth, who in their right mind would pay full price for this? Fifth, why would anyone buy these LP's today? . Now I hear you say that I for one was suckered into paying money for them. But it was only a buck, and hey, I'd even buy a Barry Manilow LP for a dollar, just for the vicarious thrill of watching the seller trying not to snicker as he rang me up. But someone once paid full price for this, as did at least one other person for the copy that's on eBay. . I suppose we'll never know the answers to these riveting questions. Murray Hill Records is long gone, RYM doesn't list this album, and Amazon.com doesn't offer it on vinyl or CD. I wish the eBay seller luck in selling his copy for $10. Anyone reading this who wants my copy can have it for free - just pay the postage. The LP's are a bit warped, but they don't skip, and there are almost zero scratches after 40-50 years. Which isn't all that surprising. How often do you think these ever got played? . And needless to say, I have no intention of converting these to mp3 files.

Vinyl Happiness...

... is finding a great new LP store in downtown Phoenix called Revolver Records. Their website can be seen here. . My two used-album sites here in the East Valley have become really sucky lately. $5-$7 for scratchy records, and not a single rock-&-roll LP in the $1 record bins at either EV site. . I spent two hours in vinyl nirvana today at Revolver Records, and didn't even get to their 30 or so boxes of $1 albums. I cleaned them out of their Kingston Trio stash, including the one pictured above. It was $1.99, without any skips or warps, and with a reasonably small number of scratches. . Next Saturday afternoon, we've tentatively planned to visit another Vinyl site in Phoenix called Tracks In Wax. You can view their website here. I visited TIW once, about 15 years ago, and its LP inventory was unbelievably huge We'll see if that is still true.