Record Collecting Miscellanies: Shuffling Through The Wax in Search of Obscurities and Forgotten Favorites

I recently hooked a portable record player up in my office, so I could listen to more music while I work. Before I was relegated to listening to MP3s and podcasts, but now I can listen to most of my music collection, allowing me the opportunity to listen to scores of records that somehow got lost in the shuffle.Thus, I've been rediscovering many records that I barely remember listening to. Many of my LPs have been purchased either in bulk or at the thrift store over the years, so there are a lot of older records that I have not spent an appreciable amount of time exploring. Needless to say, it has been an excellent experience, and I have been able to run the gamut on genres, listening to every weird little record and major seller in my collection, even finding those albums that should reward repeat listens, but have barely made a blip in my daily soundtrack.

Of course, genres such as traditional folk, punk, classic rock, metal, rockabilly must live on my shelves in an interesting symbiosis, and they also must blend acceptably, or not so acceptably, in earshot of my wife and cat. Both Carrie and Otis dig horns, but I am still not sure if they are sold on extreme metal.

Being able to listen to records in my office again has helped me relax and get more work done, while allowing me to discover and rediscover music. I have rekindled my love for Joe Jackson, Nick Lowe, and even Gerry Mulligan by constantly shuffling through my wax. I also found some obscure gems that I virtually ignored because I forgot about them: several Ella Jenkins' Folkway records, Poetry Readings in the Cellar with the Cellar Jazz Quartet featuring Kenneth Rexroth and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Verve records of live jazz in Japan, Jeremy Gluck's Buffalo Bill with Nikki Sudden and Rowland S. Howard.The list could go on: Live Stiffs, Siouxsie and the Banshees, etc. I'm hoping to get through everything again and start posting more "Track This" entries and album reviews of older records in the vein of my Jerry Reed and Ben Atkins reviews. Excuse me, I'm going to throw on something else that I forgot about. I think there's an Edna St. Vincent Millay poetry record or a Dave Edmunds LP I have not really listened to yet.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

USA Up All Night, or Why I Watch B-Movies

Image
Even before I knew I was a film buff, I watched USA Up All Night, which ran from 1989 to 1998 for over 900 episodes on USA Network, learning more about B Movies than I probably ever needed to know as a teenager. I would enthusiastically tune in most Friday and Saturday nights to watch Rhonda Shear or Gilbert Gottfried screen a particular doozy of a b-movie. Before commercial breaks and between the films, they provided humorous commentary on the films and performed in skits. A notable one with Gilbert Gottfried involved him contending for the position of the fifth Ramone. The films on the show varied in quality and classic status, but many of them were movies that would not have had so prominent a platform on other networks during the time period. Many became cult classics. These films included much of the Troma catalog, including The Toxic Avenger (1984) and Class of Nuke 'Em High (1989). Both of these movies blew my mind as I was unprepared for the low budget film making, lev
Read more

Realities: Jean Shepherd and Randy's Only Defense

Image
“The reality of what we really are is often times found in the small snips, way down at the bottom of things.” - Jean Shepherd I watched Bob Clark's  Christmas Story (1983)   for the first time on TBS, years before TNT started broadcasting the film twenty-four hours a day in 1997. I soon became an obsessive fan of the film, watching it over and over again every Christmas. Now I probably watch it once a year, but its lessons and humor have affected my life significantly, and I quote the film more than I should. I started reading Jean Shepherd's short stories and listening to his old WOR radio show. Many of these have been archived on the internet spanning a period from the early 50s to the late 70s.  According to lore, Shep usually told his stories without a script, ad-libbing about certain characters and scenarios, and commentating on culture and society.  I particularly identify with his stories of the Midwest because I grew up there fifty years later, but not that
Read more

Contractions: Henry Standing Bear's Ethical Code

Image
I recently finished watching the last season of Longmire , a show that I believe only got better when it moved to Netflix. A & E cancelled it, despite good ratings, because it did not directly appeal to the 18-35 age demographic. The writing and plot development improved as the show started focusing more on major themes and story lines and not story-of-the-week subplots. While the show's general premise is typical cop show fare, the strong characterization and settings give the show a primacy over similar procedurals. While I enjoyed the show, I never got around to reading the books even though I watched dutifully for six seasons. Once I started reading The Cold Dish , I realized how hard it will be not to binge the book series. The books are a treat. Craig Johnson's prose is punchy, and the characters are even better realized. Walt Longmire's love for Rainier beer and obscure literary metaphors, as well as other character's predilections and habits, become crys
Read more