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Sunday October 18th, 2009
I get a lot of emails on my tax scam write ups. Recently I got one from Japanese collector Takauki Fajikawa who wanted to know if I would object to him borrowing some of the Baby Grand LP images I'd stumbled across. Of course I didn't have a problem with it. You can see his site at:
http://www.geocities.jp/tfgroove/tfsroom.htm
I'd also suggest you look around for a copy of his Rare Groove A To Z reference book. Yes, the text is in Japanese, but the album cover photos are pure pornography for vinyl addicts.
Tuesday October 13th, 2009
Finally got around to listing two of my favorite mid-1960s pop-sike LPs:
The Moon "Without Earth" and "The Moon"
Saturday October 2nd, 2009
Nice to see that BadCat Records appeared on a Yahoo music group posting about recommended album sellers.
Saturday September 27th, 2009
Well, I'll be damned, but Polly Browne did link her website to mine. In fact she labeled the link as 'for a comprehensive overview of Pickettywitch see ..."
She was also nice enough to respond to an email:
Am I active in music ? After the success of 'Up in a Puff of Smoke' and 'Honey Honey' mid '70s and running my Witch Records label in the '80s and '90s I tried a change of style and formed a 'gigging' blues band, then took a break to reconsider. This year I was enticed into recording a new version of 'Honey Honey (2009)' - which can be seen on You Tube - and started a website, where I'll be making some of my blues tracks and other Witch tracks available for download.
best wishes Polly
And for anyone interested, here's the link to the video:
http://www.pollybrowne.com/index.html
Thursday September 24th, 2009
Someone was kind enough to tell me that a bunch of blogs had been reusing BadCat Records reviews without credit. Sure enough, scores of uncredited reviews appear on the Lost-In-Tyme and Ezhevika Fields sites. You think the owners of those sites would at least tell you where they borrowed the words from. Classy there folks.
Wednesday September 23rd, 2009
About once a week I'll hear from someone associated with a band, or group I've written about. Most of these folks were never really famous, but it's always a thrill to realize that the person actually read something I'd put on the web and then took the time from their schedules to contact me. So yesterday I got an email from Polly Browne. Yeah, she's largely unknown to today's generation, but back in the mid-1970s as a member of Pickettywitch and as a solo artist Polly Browne was literally one of the most talented and hottest singers out there. Anyhow, Ms. Browne dropped me a line with some corrections to a review I'd put out on the web on Pickettywitch. Much appreciated. And for those of you who missed Ms. Browne ... You can click on the photo to see what I had to say about Pickettwitch.
Monday September 21st, 2009
Concluded my string on concerts with Robin Trower at The Birchmere. This time out Trower had a far better touring band with Davey Pattison on vocals (he sure reminded me of the late James Dewar), bassist Glenn Letsch, and drummer Pete Thompson. Trower's certainly not the most animated act I've ever seen. He seldom strayed more than a couple of feet from his place on stage and stuck with the same red Stratacaster all night long. An even bigger disappointment for me was that just having released an album where he handling most of the lead vocals ("What Lies Beneath") for the tour he elected to turn vocal duties over to Pattison. He literally didn't handle a single vocal all evening. There also wasn't a great deal of material from the new album - maybe not a surprise given folks want to hear the popular stuff, but still ... Oh well, as a fan I won't complain too much. Mark, wish you could have made it up for the show. Next time. Oh, here's a YouTube clip of 'Time and Emotion' from the new album. Not the greatest sound quality, but it'll do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ1BGCw1zjs
Saturday September 19th, 2009
Went to see Johnny Winter at the Birchmere. I'm not a gigantic Texas blues fan, but I've always liked Winter's stuff and I knew he was getting on in years and not in the best of healthy so I figured I might not have too many more chances. The bad news first. By my calculations Winter's now 65 and years of hard living have clearly taken their toll on his body. Winter had to be physically escorted to the stage and sat through the entire performance which limited his stage presence. His backing band was okay, but the show was miked extremely high which made for an extremely shrill and muddy sound. Winter's vocals were all but lost and I'll be darned if I could here any of his between song patter. Musically there wasn't a great deal of excitement. The performances were all professional and given his age and physical limitations Winter actually wasn't half bad. Unfortunately he only showed real passion and interest on three or four selection, including a nice cover of Jimi Hendrix's 'Red House'.
Now for the good news - the opening act Terry Garland. I had no idea who the hell Terry Garland was. Looking like he was a member of the club's maintenance crew, this big 6 foot plus bald guy, with a large key chain on his belt strolled up to the stage holding an acoustic guitar. I remember thinking to myself, maybe I'll head out to the lobby and get a couple of beers, or something. Garland sat down, mumbled something about what a privilege it was to be at the Birchmere and spend the next 30 minutes kicking the crap out of that guitar and the stunned audience. The man was simply dumbfounding. I've never heard a white guy play the acoustic slide guitar and the blues like Terry Garland. Yeah, I know that sounds like drunk hyperbole and I wouldn't blame anyone for doubting me for a minute. So, here's a link to a couple of YouTube clips of the man. He's the real thing. Can't even begin to imagine what he'd sound like with a real band behind him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnxygBUUHIc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnxygBUUHIc
And here's a link to his website:
http://www.terrygarland.com/biography.html
Friday Saturday 18th, 2009
Added the "No Dice" / "Nutz Too" saga to the BadCat listings. Simply too weird and confusing to rehash here. Click on the album covers to get the scoop.
Thursday September 17th, 2009
Added a bunch of titles and write ups to the tax scam site and even got some positive feedback from a number of folks who stumbled on to it, including praise from a well known Japanese collector.
Monday September 14th, 2009
Wednesday September 9th, 2009
Updated the tax scam web page and added numerous additional album cover scans. Added a new listing for concept LPs.
Monday September 7th, 2009
Wow, Labor Day's here. Summer's officially over and leaves are actually beginning to turn color in Northern Virginia ... where did summer go? As usual there were dozens of things I wanted to do and never got around to them.
So here's my latest run in with PayPal. This one seems to have turned out a little better, though I'm still not completely satisfied. I bought an album from an Italian dealer. It showed up well packed and looked in good shape, but when I took it out of the sleeve the thing was literally in two pieces. I contacted the dealer for a refund and his response was for the to file a claim with the postal service. Well the packaging looked fine. Besides that would have been his responsibility. So I took a couple of photos of the LP, sent them to the dealer and asked for a refund again. Same response. Off to file a claim with PayPal. Couple of weeks later they directed me to return the LP to the seller and to notify them when that had been done. Did so and last week I was told I would be getting a refund. Well I'll still waiting for the refund, but my hopes are still high, even if I'm kind of pissed off at not getting my shipping costs refunded.
Wednesday September 2nd, 2009
Added quite a bit of stuff to the tax scam write-up; chiefly material related to the Baby Grand label.
Sunday August 30th, 2009
Geez, summer's over already. How can that possibly be. All those things I wanted to do and only got around to a handful of them. And what about writing more on my blog page? Didn't happen did it. Come to think of it, I really haven't even spent all that much time on-line the last couple of months.
So I did score a copy of another rare Guinness tax scam LP - B.J. Hood's "You Got To Be Kiddin'". If you're curious you can catch the review by clicking on the album title.
I hit the 700,000 word mark on the Rate Your Music site. I've been sitting in the 3rd place spot for number of words contributed for a couple of months now. I think I have more than enough reviewed to surpass the million word mark, but the novelty of the whole thing kind of wore off so I haven't made an effort to cut and paste old stuff over to their website. Maybe later this Fall.
Friday August 14th, 2009
Saw Crosby, Stills, and Nash at WolfTrap. Sold out show with more than its' share of aging baby boomers (myself included). 40th anniversary of Woodstock and it was Crosby's birthday too boot (the crowd sang happy birthday to him). The first half was devoted to acoustic stuff (kind) of and they served up a mix of standard stuff and a series of covers. Something about their record label wanting a covers LP. To be honest, they were a bit ragged for the first third of the show. Glimmers of their old harmonizing skills were on display. Glimmers. And while the covers were okay, the truth is nobody really wanted to hear them do Stones, Tim Hardin, and Grateful Dead material (okay 'Uncle John's Cabin' was okay due in large measure to the audience sing-along.
The biggest surprise for me was Crosby. For a guy who should have been dead multiple times over, he came off as happy and relatively healthy. And his voice ... wow, never in a million years would I have suspected he could still sing with such energy and passion. Easily the best of the three. The same went for his solos. On record his stuff has always kind of irritated me for being pseudo-jazzy and what Brits would term 'wanky'. In concert most of the highlights came from Crosby performances. 'Almost Cut My Hair' was a stunning piece of rock energy in this setting. Stills was the next biggest surprise. He also performed the best new song which was dedicated to his kids. Wish I'd caught the title since it was quite good.
Once gifted with the best voice of the three, that talent's gone. He literally doesn't have a singing voice anymore. That said, he's still a heck of a guitarist and he turned in a couple of stunning runs. His best moments were actually a series of Buffalo Springfield selections - 'Broken Arrow' was simply killer.
And what about Nash? Well, he seems to have aged the best and also seemed like the most normal of the three (okay the song about tripping in Winchester Cathedral has always freaked me out). His voice really hasn't changed all that much, turning in the most commercial performance with a nice update of 'Marrakesh Express' and he remains a fantastic harmony singer.
The other good news was that as the evening progressed their vocals got better (or my alcohol content increased serving to mitigate the lack of harmonizing bliss). They literally were better when bracketed by a full rock band which helped cover some of the vocal limitations and showed that they could still rock out ('Southern Cross'). Truthfully, they weren't perfect in their prime (just listen to "Four Way Street" if you thought otherwise), so it wasn't fair to expect perfection. Add to that these guys are now in their late 60s and have led rather colorful lives and it's a miracle they're still able to perform at all.
Two brief encores, but no 'Woodstock', 'Suite Judy Blue Eyes', etc. Wasn't perfect, but it was fun and may have been one of the last opportunities to see a touring 1960s legend band. Give it a B+.
Saturday August 8th, 2009
Added another group of tax scam releases to the website - Scott Berry "Morning Glory", Red Sky, and Calvin Keane. Guess I should move on to something more productive than this obsession ... Off to see the B-52 at Wolf Trap with the wife and younger son. Ah, back to the '80s !!!
Saturday August 1st, 2009
Went to the Arlington CIVITAN community flea market and found about 30 albums of interest - virtually all cost $1 - $2. Highlights included releases by Appalossa, Lucifer, bunch of 70s soul groups, and some Van Morrison LPs. Even better than that, I got another Larry Morris sculpture - "Sunbathing". His stuff is simply fantastic and well worth looking for ... whoops, I meant to say his actually his stuff is crap - you don't want to acquire any of it.
Sunday July 26th, 2009
I've collected a large pile of stuff the last couple of months, but just haven't had a great deal of time to go through it. That said, I've added a couple of new tax scam album reviews that may of interest:
- Sonny Bottari "Pickin' Up the Pieces" - Yvonne Hodges "You Never Wanted Me" - Hot Dog "Say What You Will" - Michaelo "Michaelo" - Frank Pisani "Sky" - Carl Thilman 'Carl Sings"
Saturday July 25th, 2009
Got back from a week at Chincoteague Island. Turned out the trip far exceeded my expectations for a vacation (big thank you to my wonderful wife who did all the planning and found a wonderful place for us to stay). The island is quite small and very family oriented. Saw lots of multi-generational families, many who have been going to the island for decades. It sounds kind of quaint and old fashion, but was actually really nice - put put golf, home made ice cream, small town carnival, blueberry festival, etc. Certainly not the place for a hip and happening crowd looking for cutting edge bars and night life, but then with a six year old, that's not on my agenda. So what's that have to do with my small blog?
Surprise of surprises, there's a record store on the island !!!
Location: Grade B+ - This is a qualified grade in that the store is easy to access. It's located at 4102 Main Street (in the old Bank Of Chincoteague Building). There's some parking in front of the store and a large parking lot within a couple of hundred feet. The problem is you'll have to get to Chincoteague Island, Virginia. So ... if you can get to this Virginia island you won't have a problem locating the store. I don't have the exact hours, but as I recall the normal hours are 10:00 am till 18:00 pm. Fridays and Saturdays the store's open until 21:00 pm. I'm not sure if the store's open year around as I've never been on the island during the Fall or Winter seasons.
Staff: Grade A - The owner's a guy by the name of Michael Weldon who's best known for a horror movie magazine and various related books including The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film and The Psychotronic Video Guide he's written and published. He's also a musician (drummer) and hosts a radio show on a local Chincoteague station. Along with his wife Suh Mi Hwa (aka Mia) they owned and operated the Psychotronic store in New York City's East Side (9th St), but relocated to Chincoteague back in 1999. Anyhow, Mr. Weldon was friendly and helpful answering any and all questions from folks who wandered into the store. He made suggestions to folks and even helped a couple of them look through the bins. He even put up with my inane questions about the store. There was actually a small newspaper article about the store near the cash register. If I'd read it first it would have answered most of my questions.
Inventory: Grade B - Technically speaking Psychotronic is more than a record store. Yes they sell records (LPs and 45s), along with CDs, DVDs, movie posters and books, rock flags and pins, comic books, imported clothes, and new and old jewelry. Wife Mia runs a hair saloon under the same roof. The store isn't big - I'm guessing they have 2,000 - 3,000 LPs in the bins, but it's an interesting cross section of stuff. With a little bit of effort you should be able to go through the entire inventory in 90 - 120 minutes. I didn't see a large selection of 45s, or CDs. I suspect Mr. Weldon has a bigger inventory, but space limitations play a major role in what he can put out.
Pricing: Grade A - Most stuff in the store is priced under $10.00. The most expensive LP I saw was a $60 Dylan album and a similarly priced "Dark Side of the Moon" LP that had the original poster and stickers. I found tons of bargains and ended up buying about 50 albums for a total of about $300. One example, Steely Dan's "+ Fours" EP for $4. Try finding it for that price on GEMM, Musicstack, or eBay. I could have easily found another 50 items to buy, but simply ran out of time (and got tired of looking). There are also $1 bins. Some good stuff in there as well.
Facility: Grade A - Yeah it's small, and crowded, but well laid out. The inventory is binned by different genres (psych, soul, blues), though some of the categories didn't make a great deal of sense. US and English/import rock bands were in separate section. (I would have just put it all together.) Customers had also misfiled some of the stuff so look through all of the bins. You'll also find related bands grouped with the parent band - e.g. Jefferson Airplane includes solo efforts and spin offs.
Website: There isn't a website for the store itself, but Weldon has a web presence at:
http://www.psychotronic.com/site/
Saturday July 3rd, 2009
Saw Sheryl Crow and Wolf Trap and 10,000 of our closest friends. Probably the most crowded concert I've ever seen at Wolf Trap. People had taken every square foot of the lawn and were even clogging the aisles. The staff basically gave up trying to keep those areas clear. Beautiful evening. Not too hot, no humidity, no bugs, and a wonderful moon. Crow even remarked on how nice it was. Forgettable opening act ... Seth Hise? I was more focused on borrowing a bottle opener from one of our neighbors (thanks whoever you were). Anyhow, Crow was really good - far better than I'd expected. Yeah, the show was a little pro-forma, but she was in great voice , looked fantastic, and was backed by a first-rate trio. Musically it was a mix heavy on the hits, with a couple of unexpected album choices and covers (Cat Stevens' 'The First Cut Is the Deepest', Johnny Nash 'I Can See Clearly Now'). And thanks to grandma for watching over our six year old. Great evening.
Thursday July 2nd, 2009
Gawd knows I love 45s and on a couple of occasions I've tried to list 45s on the BadCat Records website but it simply wasn't worth the time or effort. The profit margin on LPs was simply much bigger and the frustration factor much lower. Regardless, I'm going to start including occasional write-ups on some of the more interesting 45s I stumble across. Here's the link to the project:
Tuesday June 30th, 2009
I seldom splurge for big ticket boxed sets, but given the rave reviews surrounding Paul Drummond's 13th Floor Elevators' archival project "Sign of the One Eyed Man" I made an exception. I actually ordered two copies - one for personal enjoyment and one to set aside for future use. It's an amazing 10 CD set with tons of extras. I'll report back once I've had the opportunity to wade through it all.
Friday June 18th, 2009
So Paypal just told me that I lost my dispute with respect to a misgraded LP I bought (see the May 29th entry). In a nutshell PayPal told that since the LP was still usable, the cover didn't matter. The fact that the cover was totally misgraded and that the LP was worth a fraction of it's value with the damaged cover did not matter. The LP could still be played. I asked the young PayPal representative to explain that logic to me and got nowhere. I asked what would happen if I had bought a car where the description said nothing about damage to a rear quarter panel and the pictures didn't show that area. The car still ran fine, but there was significant damage and the car was not worth the sold for price. No response. The kicker was that I was told I could appeal, but I would lose. What's the point of an appeals process when you tell people they won't win. So basically I was left with the option of leaving the seller horrible feedback (which I did). Okay, I got screwed out of $100 - time to move on.
Tuesday June 16th, 2009
A couple of months ago I added a blurb for an album by the band Dawson. The son of one of the members stumbled across my review and was kind enough to send me some more info on the band (click on the album cover for more information).
Sunday June 7th, 2009
I'm going to start listing sealed LPs as a separate category on the BadCat Records website. I was surprised to discover that I have quite a few of them and there seems to be demand for them.
Thursday May 29th, 2009
Is there something unique among record collectors that makes so many of them willing to cheat, lie, and outright steal? Is it just the nature of collecting that brings out the worst in people? What gives? I ask because I just received an eBay purchase that was hysterically misgraded. I won't mention the dealer's name, but an album that this person graded VG+ / VG+ should have been graded G / VG at best. This one wasn't even close. The cover had severe water damage to the point where you couldn't miss it even if you were blind. Naturally no mention of that fact in the write-up. As for the LP; well I guess you could play it, though it looked like someone had taken sandpaper to it. I've asked for a refund and we'll see what happens. Since I paid with PayPal I guess I can make his life miserable that way. Still, why would you even bother to misgrade something so far off the mark? Wouldn't it occur to you that the buyer might be smart enough to figure out that you'd screwed him over?
As a small time seller I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a perfect grader. At the same time I quickly discovered that it paid to grade very conservatively. Doing so means I've had very few folks ask for refunds (one so far and I obliged him with a full refund, including the cost to return the album to me). Not only that, but many customers come back because they know that my grading is conservative and they'll get what I've advertised (or better). What is wrong with folks ...
Thursday May 29th, 2009
Packed a stunning $2,100 worth of records this evening. Funny thing is that it only reflected 15 albums. Yes, guess the recession hasn't touched everyone. Oddest sale - a copy of The Memphis Horns "Get Up and Dance" is off to a new home in Ankara Turkey.
And yes I said I wouldn't talk about Rate Your Music word count, however I'm in the top ten at # 6 with 440,000 words.
Saturday May 23rd, 2009
As a belated birthday gift Elissa got tickets to see The Bangles playing at the State Theater. Bassist Michael Steele retired a couple of years ago so this time around it was sisters Debbi and Vicki Peterson, Susanna Hoffs, and a couple of sidemen, including some older guy who didn't seem to have any function other than scowl, occasional smack a tambourine around and boss the sound crew around.
Interesting crowd - I guess they were my contemporaries in terms of age. Not a lot of young folks - I'd guess the median age was in the late 30s, or early 40s. Some major whack jobs in our little part of the theater., including lots of older guys with Bangle LPs they were hoping to get signed. Not that I have any right to point a finger, but as a generation we sure haven't aged very well. Not true for The Bangles themselves. All three look fantastic. The Peterson sisters seem to have gotten even prettier over the years.
A young woman by the name of Lindsay Rush opened up. Getting up there with just an acoustic guitar knowing full well the audience just wanted to hear The Bangles took quite a bit of courage. She was fine. Nothing spectacular, though an off the cuff comment about being too young to remember The Bangles during their heyday saw her showered by boos from the audience. Her apologies were pretty lame.
I have to admit I wasn't all that impressed by the start of the show. From the time Rush got off the stage it took the roadies almost an hour to get everything ready to go. Totally uncalled for delay. When The Bangles finally took the stage it was almost 10 pm (doors opened at 7:00). The first couple of songs were marred by Vicki having some technical problems with her guitar and the feeling they weren't all that comfortable being back on the stage and playing together. Having the keyboard player and bassist physically separated from the rest of the band was also kind of disconcerting, as was the older percussionist I mentioned. Dressed all in black, including dark glasses he seemed to be cultivating some weird attempt to look like a gangster ... The good news is that by the time they got a couple of songs into the set the started to come together and actually seemed to be having fun. A couple of surprises - live they rocked out far harder than their sappy albums for Columbia. Even radio hits like 'Eternal Flame' (which use to irk me) sounded better stripped of some of the MOR production. They were also far more of a band than the Hoffs and company Columbia was pushing. Vicki was an impressive lead guitarist, pulling off some dazzling solos. Debbi kicked the crap out of her drums and was actually the best lead singer of the three - she turned in the set highlights playing acoustic guitar and handling lead vocals on 'Going Down To Liverpool' and 'Walk Like an Egyptian' - the latter had everyone including the State Theater staff dancing. It was also nice to see them playing such an eclectic mix of stuff, including tunes from early in their career and several cover tunes. Other highlights included Vicki doing 'Single By Choice' off of the "Doll Revolution" album and the song they wrote a couple of years ago for the Austin Powers flick. Give it a B+. Nice way to start the summer and I'd see them again in a flash.
Friday May 22nd, 2009
We went to the Herndon Friday Night concert series this evening. Featured band was Black Sheep which is a longstanding local reggae outfit. We had a wonderful time - great weather; great seats; pizza and beer on the lawn. Several hundred families with tons of young kids. Couldn't have asked for more.
Wednesday May 20th, 2009
Yes, I know this is becoming a compulsion. I've now posted about 327,000 words and am at #15 on the rate your music listing. Yes, it's getting kind of boring and the only reason to keep doing it is to see if I can overtake the next person in line and to see if I could really come up with 1,000,000 of words. Get a life ... I know, I know.
Tuesday May 19th, 2009
About an hour of uploads got me to just over 300,000 words and # 22 on the rate your music site. I'm now uploading 'C' artists from the website. I have to tip my hat to the guy that has 1 million words of review material. That is an amazing accomplishment. I'm already getting bored with this tasker so maybe I'll settle for hitting the top-10 count.
Sunday May 17th, 2009
Spent about 45 minutes dumping stuff onto rate your music and am now up to 270,000 words and # 29 on the list. I'm about half way through my 'B' listed artists.
Saturday May 16th, 2009
Kind of a personal milestone for BadCat Records - my small website saw it's 400,000th visitor yesterday. Yeah Google sees that kind of traffic in an hour, but for a small hobby site like mine that's quite an accomplishment. While 300 - 400 visits a day doesn't seem like a great deal of traffic, at my level it continues to be an amazing amount of 'business'.
Many of you are probably aware of it, but there's a cool music review site out there called Rate Your Music -
Free to join and it features millions of album reviews posted by fans. Tons of obscure and not so rare stuff is listed. Anyhow, one of the members recently hit a milestone of sorts having posted over 1,000,000 words. I'd posted a couple of BadCat reviews over the years, but I wasn't even in the top-500 posters. Out of curiosity more than anything I started to dump some of my reviews on their website. I got through the numeric and 'A' bands and hit number 40 on the listing. Admittedly I may be cheating to some degree in that my reviews include the album song titles, along with the writing credits. Still in about a week I went from nothing to over 200,000 words and something like 51st on the list. It was actually harder than I expected. Yes, my long term goal is to smash through the 1,000,000 world. Yes, that's pathetic but I've certainly got enough reviews to do it.
Friday May 15th, 2009
Celebrated my 10th wedding anniversary today. I was blessed in that I married 'up' in every fashion possible. Someone smarted than me; cooler the me; more together than me; funnier than me; etc. etc. I will say I own more vinyl than my wife, though that probably isn't something to brag about. Love you Elissa.
Monday May 11th, 2009
Friday evening I went down to Richmond to pick up my older son from college (end of the academic year). He had to work until 7:30 so I decided to check out local record stores and ended up at Planet 9.
Location: Grade B+ - Planet 9 is a chain with stores scattered throughout Virginia (though no tin Northern Virginia). This one is located at 3012 W. Cary Street. It's in the Carytown neighborhood which is a nifty blend of hip stores and restaurants catering to a wide variety of tastes. There's some street parking and I found a free public garage about five minutes away. No idea about public transportation.
Staff: Grade B+ - The staff seemed to be young college kids who seemed interested in the merchandise. I didn't ask any questions and nobody bothered me during the 90 minutes I spent in the store. I did hear them respond to questions from other customer and the staff seemed quite professional and courteous.
Inventory: Grade B - The bulk of their inventory is CD and DVDs, but they have new and used vinyl. The new vinyl selection was pretty small; perhaps 100 selections. Used vinyl is found in the basement. Not the most extensive collection I've ever seen, but there's enough stuff to keep you occupied for a couple of hours. I'm guessing they had 5,000 - 7,000 LPs. Also had a small inventory of 45s, but I didn't have time to check them out.
Pricing: Grade A - Most of the albums were priced at $1. I'm not making that up. Another group were priced at $3. The rest were large in the $8 - $10 range. I saw a handful of higher priced collectables - mostly on the walls. I think the most expensive album I saw was something for $50. As you'd expect given these prices you're probably not going to find that long sought after UK psych obscurity on the Neon label. Large chunks of the inventory were forgettable 70s and 80s AOR and hair bands, but going through the bins I pulled out at least 50 releases spanning a broad array of genres and timeframes. Purchases included Edwin Starr's "War & Peace", Shirley and Company's "Shame, Shame, Shame", a Pat Travers album I'd never seen, and a bunch of early 1970s stuff that looked interesting though I'd never heard of these outfits.
Facility: Grade A - Big store that is clean and well laid out. (Don't drink or eat a lot before you go since there are no public restrooms.) As mentioned, the used vinyl is downstairs laid out in well marked bins that are broken out into a couple of categories including new additions, dollar and three dollar albums, and then genre breakouts like rock, jazz, country, soul. Again, the bulk of the inventory was dumped in the dollar bins which meant there was relatively little material in their rock, soul, reggae and other genre bins. The inventory is somewhat alphabetized, but don't rely on it. I found stuff all over the place. As an example I found copies of the Shirley and Company scattered in soul, $3 dollar albums, and one copy in a jazz bin. Of course you wouldn't want everything in perfect order. That would take some of the fun out of pawing through the bins.
Website: http://www.plan9music.com/Home
Sunday May 2nd, 2009
Added quite a few new tax scam reviews to the catalog:
Sunday April 26th, 2009
Interesting L.A. Times piece on the re-emergence of vinyl.
http://webmail.aol.com/42679/aol/en-us/mail/DisplayMessage.aspx
I'll also admit to having seen the world's worst film musical - "Mamma Mia". I saw the play several years ago and actually liked it. Harmless froth. Thought the movie might also be lightweight fun. Unfortunately it was bad beyond description. Even my six year old was appalled by some of the singing and dancing. Yech !!!
Saturday April 25th, 2009
Two updates to earlier write-ups:
Thanks to Mr. Chuck Teal who'd seen the band Broken Bow at an early concert date was kind enough to drop me a line with some additional information on the band:
Paul Carlsen actually lived and worked with Rockin' Foo and provided some info on the group:
Saturday April 17th, 2009
I've been selling records online for about five years now and the vast majority of my sales come through two sites: GEMM and Music Stack. Over the years I've noted strengths and weaknesses with both sites and for what they're worth. These comparisons aren't particular in-depth or technical - someone could literally write a book on the subject, so for what they're worth, here are some thoughts on the two vendors.
Overall customer appeal - tie While both sellers have established unique images, GEMM and Music Stack are both set up along roughly the same lines. From both buyer and seller perspectives both sites are easy to use. In terms of pure eye appeal neither really has an edge over the other. GEMM is probably a little bit better known, but that's subject to debate.
Inventory - winner GEMM GEMM: Claims it listing for some 30 million LPs, CD, and tapes. Obviously I've never counted. GEMM also has listings for books and videos
Music Stack: Claims listing includes 25 million LPs, CDs, and tapes. Again I've never counted them.
Search Capabilites - winner GEMM GEMM: Easy to use, point and click search structure that allows you to look for an item across a combination of 18 discrete data elements.
Music Stack: Also easy to use, point and click search structure, however only has eight date elements that can be searched. The good news is that you can still find items without much trouble.
Price and sales structure - winner Music Stack GEMM: When you buy something on GEMM, the company collects the money on behalf of the seller. They then deduct a 13% fee and forward the proceeds to the seller based on a dollar threshold that the seller establishes. (As an example I ask them to send me a check if I have more than $100 in sales.) The advantage is that I get one consolidated check as opposed to having to deal with a multitude of smaller payments. The disadvantages include the high fee and the fact you have to wait to see your money. Depending on how much you earn and the GEMM check disbursement schedule, it can take awhile for you to see funds, One advantage GEMM has stems from the fact buyers can pay with a credit card. The record seller doesn't have to have the ability to accept a credit card himself.
Music Stack: Now charges a one time seller fee of $49 and then 8% for all sales. Unlike GEMM, Music Stack doesn't collect funds. Buyers pay the sellers directly. You are then billed by Music Stack on a monthly basis. The advantages include the lower fee and the fact you get your money quicker. The disadvantages are that you have to deal with each individual sales transaction and you have to pay Music Stack each month; though they accept a multitude of payment structures.
Input screens - winner Music Stack GEMM: You don't have to use them all, but GEMM listings include more data elements so to it can take a couple of additional keystrokes to load up a listing. The big disadvantage is that if you want to put in any type of narrative data you have to include the HTML tags in order to format the material. It's a pain. GEMM will also allow you to import data in a myriad of formats including Excel files. The system will also allow you to upload images quickly.
Music Stack: Fewer data elements and the system will take narrative without HTML tags. Easy to upload files via Excel and other formats. Easy to upload photos.
Site support - winner Music Stack GEMM: Until recently GEMM has been very good at responding to technical questions, however the last two times I've sent them correspondence they haven't responded.
Music Stack: Quick and consistent responses. They are also proactive in terms of monitoring the site for quality and content. If your photos are missing or corrupted they'll contact you asking for corrections which gives the site a very professional appearence.
Ability to purchase material - tie GEMM: Once you register as a buyer it's extremely simple to buy material off of GEMM. You can complete a transaction within a matter of moments though it may take the vendor a couple of hours (or longer) to confirm your order.
Music Stack: Just as easy.
Overall - Music Stack by a fraction Clearly others will disagree, however for me Music Stack's lower price structure (8% versus 13% for GEMM) and the fact their system formats narrative material without HTML tags give them the winning edge.
Friday April 10th, 2009
Happy birthday Ryan !!! Was in a local used record store (one of the few in Northern Virginia). Spring break this week so I was surprised to find the store full of high school kids looking through the bins. Even more surprising was to hear what they were looking for ... Journey, Bon Jovi, Wings (found under McCartney), African pop (playing over the store's sound system), 'the guy who sings the Volkswagon commercial'. Nice to see another generation discovering the charms of vinyl.
Thursday April 9th, 2009
Added another hard to find Tiger Lily release to the catalog - Linda Clarke "Yes, Indeed!"
Wednesday April 8th, 2009
A couple of years ago I stumbled across an album by a guy name Lee Farmer -"To a Western Sky". It was above par singer/songwriter material, but I didn't have any luck tracking down much information on Mr. Farmer. Thanks to the internet his daughter got in touch with me providing a bit of additional information including the fact Farmer had passed on in July 2004.
Sunday April 4th, 2009
The first CIVITAN flea market of the year - bought about $60 worth of LPs including Arrogance, a Beatles-done-as-reggae boxed set by Trojan, and some other obscurities. Also bought some of our Wolf Trap tickets for the coming season. Best place in Northern Virginia to see an outdoor concert !
Sunday March 28th, 2009
Yeah, so much for making a concerted effort to post more often. Unfortunately between work and family events there hasn't been a great deal of time for anything music-related. What little time I've had to spare has focused on 'tax loss' labels. I've been fascinated by them for years and will be updating the website shortly with an extensive archive of material.
Sunday March 8th, 2009
CBS Sunday Morning consistently presents some of the most interesting material on television. This morning they Anthony Mason had an interview with Van Morrison. For a guy who shuns the spotlight with a passion it was a rare and fascinating event. Reminds me that I have to check out the new Van Morrison live Astral Weeks collection.
Thursday March 5th, 2009
I remember reading a brief article about a pair of guys who set out to collect ever record that had ever been pressed. I remember the article said they'd been besieged by a literal flood of donations from people and at that point in time they'd collected a couple of hundred thousand records. I also remember that from the accompanying picture you could tell most of what they'd collected with worthless junk. Anyhow that got me wondering how many rock and associated genre albums exist? Are we talking 1,000,000 releases? That seems kind of low. 10,000,000 releases? Maybe more realistic. More? Does anyone have a count? I've been a collector for some three decades and even with the 35,000 LPs I own, I've just scratched the surface of what is out there. There is literally not a day that goes by where I don't stumble on to something I'd like to hear. It may something mentioned on a blog, a review I've read, something a friend mentioned to me. Every time I think I've come to a dead end I've discovered a solo LP, or stumble on to a back road that lead me into a foreign release, genre, or obscure project that I never knew existed. No matter what the ultimate count is, clearly there's no way I'll ever be able to hear what I already own. A quick back-of-the-envelop calculation that assumes I could listen to all 35,000 LPs at the rate of to two albums a day, every day and it would take me some 48 years to get through the collection I currently own. Since I'm already in my late 40s the likelihood I'd be listening to obscure rock albums in my late 80s seems rather unlikely. And what if I really liked an album and wanted to play it again? What about all those album I have yet to purchase? Crap. So now I need to start thinking strategically. Do I want to spend my time on a top-40 LP, or would I be better off checking out an obscure German beat LP? Yes, in some respects my life was certainly easier when I only owned those 200 albums. Should I ponder this, or simply put on another album? Hum, that Hillow Hammet LP looks pretty interesting ...
Sunday February 22nd, 2009
Not sure why, but I've suddenly been on a 1960s European kick - I've always enjoyed this kind of stuff, but just recently rediscovered just how good many of these bands were. The Blackbirds, The Boots, The Rattles, etc.
Sunday February 22nd, 2009
Portuguese born, Belgian raised soul band who recorded a pair of LP with American jazz musicians and a sought after psych masterpiece ... No I'm not making this up. It's Jess & James with and without the J.J. Band.
Monday February 16th, 2009
President's Day holiday (at least for some of us) which is perfect since the wife and I are both feeling under the weather and going to work would have been a massive pain. Lots of aspirin and cold medicine should help. Hopefully we'll be okay come tomorrow. Anyhow, with little energy to do any household chores, or go out I finally got around to listening to a stack of Sons of Champlin LPs that I've had been in my 'to-listen-to' pile for years. The Sons are one of the lost tribes in the 1960s San Francisco sound. I don't own everything in their catalog and I'll be the first to admit that much of their latter stage career stuff doesn't do a great deal for me (to say nothing of namesake Bill Champlin's work with Chicago). That said the first couple of LPs are quite good showcasing a strange mix of standard late-1960s San Francisco psych with soul and jazz influences. Both familiar and unlike anything you've heard, they're worth checking out. Even better since most of their catalog can still be found on the cheap. If you're bored or curious click on the following image to see what I have to say about The Sons. With a little luck it'll get you interested enough to look for some of their material.
Saturday February 14th, 2009
Happy Valentine's Day. Today's discovery - Barbara Roy and Ecstasy, Passion & Pain ... click on the LP cover for more information about this great mid-1970s soul outfit.
Thursday February 12th, 2009
Yes I'll readily admit that I'm a big Tammi Terrell fan. Her duets with Marvin Gaye are one of my first childhold musical memories. Anyhow, I finally got around to listening to a copy of Tammi Terrell's 1968 solo debut "Irresistible". Certainly not one of Motown's top-10 releases, but given the awful circumstances surrounding it's release the results were thoroughly enjoyable. Any album that has an eight-to-three ratio of good-to-bad material is worth hearing. Click on the above link to see my comments on the album. You can also see comments about her work with Marvin Gaye under one of my June 2008 entries. By the way, has anyone read the book Ludie Montgomery wrote about her sister Tammi Terrell? I'd be interested in knowing if My Sister Tommie - The Real Tammi Terrell is worth reading.
Sunday February 8th, 2009
One of my guilty pleasures is watching CBS Sunday Morning. It's consistently one of the most entertaining slices of television out there ... and this morning Anthony Mason had a brief segment on the ongoing revival of vinyl. Naturally I couldn't find a link to it.
Saturday January 31st, 2009
Over the last couple of years I'd collected a bunch of interesting links, but never had the time or energy to put them into any kind of organized structure. Well, I've started the process today. Still have quite a bit to do, but better than what was there before.
Thursday January 22nd, 2009
I'm a big fan of Apple products and own a bunch of their stock, but I'm about to take a swipe at the company. When our older son went off to college we had to buy him an Apple computer. Apple threw in a iPod Touch and since son # 1 already had an iPod, Dad grabbed the freebie. I love my iPod and over the last six months have dumped hundreds of songs on it, but I wasn't happy that I couldn't get an adapter to hear radio. You can get various download applications that allow you to hear radio (and access the internet) in a w-fi environment and Apple makes a device that will let you access radio for other iPod models, but not for the Touch. I even called their tech help number and was told 'tough luck'. Pardon my English, but BS. There are a number of after-market products available, but Apple wasn't willing to tell me about such products. So after two minutes research on the internet I bought an iFM from Griffin Technologies for $19.99. Yeah, it's a little clunky, but the thing works great giving me ready access to radio, regardless if I have wi-fi access. (Okay, it doesn't work in Metro tunnels, but I can live with that limitation.) Way to go Griffin and shame on Apple.
Sunday January 18th, 2009
It took me a couple of weeks to actually play around with it, but here's one of the cooler Christmas gifts I received - a Mister-Disc. No idea where my brother dug it up (thanks Bruce), but the thing is quite cool.
Yes, a shoe-sized battery powered phono system (you could also buy an AC power unit - anyone got a spare let me know - I'm interested). The Japanese Audio-Technica began marketing the Mister-Disc system in 1983 (it probably ended production the same year). Available in three colors (silver, red, and yellow) and sold under the name 'SoundBurger' in Japan (great marketing move there guys), the system allowed you to listen to vinyl records (LPs, or 45s) via headphones, or you could plug the system into in auxiliary speakers. Even by today’s standards the product is pretty nifty. The only real limitations are that the unit needs a flat surface and can't be moved when playing records. (In a world full of iPod users, my wife's dared me to take the unit with me to work on my morning Metro commute.) For anyone interested, here are the technical specifications: Power requirements: 3 AA batteries providing 12 hours of playing time Platter:
90mm aluminum
For
anyone looking, Mister-Disc units occasionally show up on eBay, but expect
to pay $200 - $300 for one of them.
Friday January 16th, 2009
One last after-work dash over to Orpheus Records who are scheduled to officially close this weekend. Kind of a depressing trip in that the store was all but empty of customers (initially I was the only non-employee in the store) with the remaining staff aimlessly moving boxes and the remaining inventory around. Most of the remaining stock was priced to move (50 cents an LP), but the bins had clearly been picked clean (yes I'd previously grabbed more than my share of bargains). Anyhow, the store had put out about 2,000 new LPs (not priced at 50 cents). Lots of new wave and noise bands, but I found quite a bit of nifty stuff - Jeremy Spencer's rare debut LP, Iggy Pop's "Suck On This", etc., etc. I was also amazed at how physically large the store was ... my memories were of a much smaller and crowded layout. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted and I can only wish Orpehus owner Richard Carlisle good luck in whatever his next endeavor turns out to be - the man got enough of my disposable income over the years ...
Sunday January 11th, 2009
Interesting to learn that a couple of Wikipedia listings now list BadCat Records as references. Not sure if that's good or bad !!!
Wednesday December 31st, 2008
It's a bit of a drive for me so I don't get up to Joe's Record Paradise very often. In fact, this marked my first visit in two years. The place has been around since the mid-1970s and is probably the best known used vinyl dealer in the Washington Capitol region. LOCATION: 1300 E Gude Dr. Rockville, MD, 20850. It's located in a small, non-descript strip mall in an industrial park-ish area. Still the area's safe and there's plenty of parking and a good BBQ restaurant a couple of storefronts down. Good luck if you're dependent on public transportation. STAFF: Three of four staff were there on the day I stopped by. They were friendly and courteous leaving me to browse on my own. They were more than willing to answer questions. INVENTORY: As far as used record stores go, this one is large. No idea how big their inventory is, but I'm guessing they have 20,000 - 30,000 LPs in the racks, along with CDs, new and used DVDs, videos, cassette tapes, a couple of turntables, and music books. LPs are broken out by musical category with further breakouts by group names. New arrivals are kept in a separate area which is probably helpful if you shop there on a regular basis. Clean and neat with lots of interesting stuff on the walls giving it a homey feel. PRICING: Most LPs are priced below $10 with a couple of hundred 'rare' items (priced $20 and above) near the front counter. Give them a ‘B’ for prices considering the high rent location. FACILITY: As mentioned above the store is surprisingly large with wide aisles, plenty of light, and a comfortable feel. WEBSITE: http://www.joesrecordparadise.com/index.html
Thursday December 25th, 2008
The gifts were nice (a couple of music books, couple of CDs, an adaptor that will let me listen to radio on my iPod). Better still was the family time, including getting to hear our older son jam on his Rickenbacker with a neat fuzz pedal. How come I don't have the talent?
Wednesday December 24th, 2008
Christmas Eve - Finally a day off and a chance to thank the powers that be for everything they've blessed me and my family with. Also a chance to post a couple of odds and ends that have caught my attention over the last couple of days.
Clearly there's at least one person out there who needs to get a real life. They picked BadCat Records as one of their favorite websites ... http://prodigalelf.stumbleupon.com/tag/music/
I also got this interesting email from a Japanese record collector (I cleaned up the English a little bit in the interests of legibility):
"I
read your review on "The Art of Lovin'" with great interest as
I have just gotten a copy of this album at a local store here in Tokyo.
No, it's not an LP -- it is a CD, reissued by a Japanese label earlier
this year (P-Vine PCD-25073), digitally remastered, in a paper sleeve,
complete with the single 'You've Got the Power' as a bonus track. It
says it is a limited edition; I am pretty sure it was very limited, but it
is somehow still available (also on iTunes).
Well Mr. Appelbaum was not aware of the P-Vine reissue, or the fact the LP was available via Apple's ITunes store ($10.00). I've suggested he might want to contact both outfits with respect to royalties. By the way you can read my short review of the LP at: http://www.oocities.org/badcatrecords/ARTofLOVIN.htm
Saturday December 18th, 2008
Another addition to the favorite album covers list. In this case it goes under the 'bad' column: John Cale's "Caribbean Sunset". Check out the list.
Okay, here's a late-inning addition to the favorite discoveries of the year ... totally obscure pop and a pleasure through and through ... "Vance or Towers" (click on the link for more details).
Saturday December 6th, 2008
I
was updating the BadCat Records sales catalog and started thinking
about all the music I'd listened to over the last
- Spring "Spring" - Richard Orange "Big Orange Sea" - Capability Brown "Voice" - Andy Fraser Band "Andy Fraser Band" - String Driven Thing "The Machine That Cried" - John Cale "Animal Justice" - Coulson, Dean, McGuinness, Flint "Lo and Behold" - Plain Jane" "Plain Jane" - Andy Zwerling "Spiders In the Night"
and rounding out the list is one that was actually released this year (and I even have it uploaded to my IPod ! In all truthfulness I can't say I love it, but this one is so weird that I keep coming back to hear it anyhow:
- Lindsey Buckingham "Gift of Screws"
Okay, okay going to add one more to the list - A/DC's "Black Ice". Sophisticated compositions, thought provoking lyrics - NOT ! Sure it has the subtlty of a brick, but it's a fantastic set for decompressing after a long day at work.
By the way, except for the last two items, you can see the detailed reviews for each of these on the website.
Sunday November 22nd, 2008
Cheap thrill of the week - Sunday afternoon I was in a local record store (yes there are still a couple in the Washington, D.C. area). I spent about two hours browsing through the stacks which were organized by musical genre, except for the fact the genre divisions didn't make any sense to the point where you found the same artists scattered in different places. The end result was that I ended up looking through virtually the entire store. For my time and effort I ended up with about 20 albums. I don't know about your experiences, but typically store clerks in used record stores are young male dweebs, wannabe punks, or Goths, all with bad skin and sky high attitude. Amazingly this sales clerk was a young and quite attractive young woman. 'Course she was young enough to be my daughter, but judging by what she was playing on the in-store sound system she had admirable and eclectic musical tastes (Krautrock, some incredibly strange funk space opera, Salsa, etc.). Anyhow, to the point of this story - as she was ringing up my albums she repeatedly commented on the stuff I'd picked out asking where I'd heard some of the more obscure LPs and even complementing me on picking up an album that she was thinking about buying (Alex Korner). Yeah, as you get older you start to appreciate the simpler things.
Friday November 20th, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving. Orpheus Records is still open. They've reduced virtually all of their remaining stock to $1 so I went back to see what was left. I actually felt kind of bad walking into the store, but turns out I wasn't alone. I've seldom seen the place as busy. There was still quite a bit of stuff left and I ended up buying about 70 albums including multiple copies of a couple of LPs that I'd wanted to hear, but knew were worth considerably more than the $1 sales price. Unfortunately 75 was about all I could load in my backpack and get home via the metro.
Wednesday August 20th, 2008
On one of the forums I belong to I read a blurb by a guy who bought a couple of magnetic signs for his car. They say something along the lines of 'I buy records'. Not meant as a criticism since I think it's actually a clever way to drum up business, but that got me thinking about the lengths people go to collect records. I know people who scan Craig's List, eBay and for sale ads in the paper on a daily basis looking for vinyl. I know folks who visit thrift and charity stores on a weekly basis. I know folks who literally show up at yard sales at the crack of dawn, just as people are setting up. I certainly can understand their dedication to collecting, but having to put that much energy into anything would seem to turn it into a job ... Guess I'm just too lazy to invest that much time and energy into what is meant to be a fun hobby.
Friday August 15th, 2008
Looking back on the occasional items I've written in my blog virtually all of them center on music in my life. The few exceptions tend to focus on family. Here's one of the exceptions - our older son went off to college yesterday. That hardly seems like a major life crises and it isn't, but at the same time it was a moment of sadness and reflection for me in my role as dad.
Without falling prey to the dreaded too-much-information syndrome, my first wife and I were separated when our son was six months old. Through circumstances I kept the child and for the first couple of years the wife had limited access to him. I'm not trying to sound heroic because I wasn't (confused and clueless would be better descriptors), but at the time I was barely able to pay my bills with child care consuming virtually all of my disposable income (needless to say the ex-wife had even less money than I did and contributed nothing in terms of child care). I was living in a forty year old home in a run-down part of Arlington where my parents were sure we would be killed. (though I had a $600 a month mortgage and later sold the property for a hefty profit). While my friends were enjoying their young adult lives traveling and partying like it was 1999, I was dealing with chicken pox, potty training. and baby food. The funny thing is that it really does seem like yesterday- certainly not 18 years down the road. Like most people I'm so busy that I seldom have time for nostalgia, but in this case the memories just came flooding back - teaching my son how to ride a bike without training wheels; soccer, swimming, whacking wild mushrooms with hiking sticks, walking though the Torpedo Factory ('cause it was free)., etc., etc. Of course there are thousands of regrets; scores of things I wish I'd done differently, but 18 years later there isn't anything to be gained from second guessing such actions. With very little influence from me, I have a son who seems to be smart, empathetic, self-confident, and easy-going. Sure he's occasionally made decisions that weren't the brightest and as a teenager his lack of sensitivity drove my wife and I to fits of rage, but all told those seem minor complaints. When all is said and done I can look in a mirror and honestly say that I tried to do my best. Anyhow, yesterday evening Matt packed up his belongings and headed off to Virginia Commonwealth University. I'm sure he's a little scared, but even more excited about starting his new life. I'm also sure that like most things he's done in his short life, he'll do fine in college. I just hope he realizes how much his dad, Elissa and younger brother Ryan will miss him and that he saves some space in his new life for us.
Monday August 11th, 2008
Interesting to suddenly be confronted with the fact that time does fly when you're having fun.
The last time I saw Peter Frampton was in 1976. He was at his commercial zenith complete with long golden hair, a starring role in the hideous "Sgt Pepper" film, miles and miles of glowing publicity, a double live album that had sold something like 6 million copies (think it's now up to 16 million) and was undertaking international tours with sold out crowds. I was 17 and saw him in Brussels Belgium at the Forest National with 7,000 friends including a bunch of high school buddies (hey there Bruce, Mark, Eloise, and others). I remember it as being a great show, though I have to tell you I don't remember a great deal about it (there was no minimum drinking age in Belgium so by the time I got to the concert venue I wasn't all that focused). So flash forward over the next 32 years and my connection with Frampton has been sporadic at best. I bought a couple of the post-"Frampton Comes Alive" releases, but to my ears none of them were all that great. I'd occasionally hear a Frampton song on the oldies radio station; read a brief review of a new release; or see him in a GEICO commercial. Geez, I probably listen to my old Humble Pie LPs more than the Frampton solo stuff I own. And then I see he's playing The Birchmere August 11, 2008. Tickets cost an arm and a leg, but our older son is off to college in a week and since he's started playing electric guitar, this seems like kind of neat dad-son bonding opportunity. So we convince another father-son combination to go with us. After we get the tickets, the other son can't make it due to work schedule, but the dad gets one of his friends to go. The friend is a former professional drummer so we're off. So this time around I'm 49, not 17. I'm seeing Frampton in a small club that holds 300 - 400 people (virtually all of them my age, or older), versus the 7,000 teenagers last time around. (In fact the only teenager in the crowd seems to be my kid.) Instead of being soaked in Stella Artois, I actually eat dinner and then limit myself to three or four Dominion Ales (The Birchmere serves Stella, but I wasn't sure the other dad and his friend would like it). Just like me, Frampton's lost most of the hard and turned grey. But guess what … Frampton's still a pretty entertaining guy and he seems to enjoy what he's doing after all these years. He has a great touring band featuring keyboardist Rob Arthur, guitarist Adam Lester, bassist John Regan, and drummer Dan Wojciechowski. He's still got a nice voice which has actually gotten deeper and better as he's aged. He's still a capable guitarist (loved the voice box segments), and he's retained a sense of humor about himself and the whole trip he's been on. Amazingly I still remember a surprising number of the lyrics (yes I was singing along with the crowd on 'Show Me the Way' and 'Do You Feel Like We Do', and even had a momentary flashback to slow dancing to sounds of 'Lines On My Face'. Hopefully I didn't totally embarrass the older son … Well, at least he now owns a Frampton tour tee shirt !
Thursday July 3rd, 2008
Here's a brief write up on another local record outfit.
Record & Tape Xchange (RTL) 2448 Main Street. Fairfax, Virginia
Location: Grade 'B': Their store is tucked into an anonymous strip mall located east of Fairfax City. If you have a car it's a pretty convenient location with lots of free parking. If you don't own a car it's going to be more of a challenge for you. There are some public buses that shuttle through the area, but I have no idea about schedules, etc.
Staff: Grade 'B+': Pretty young while I was there, but they left me alone to browse to my hearts content and seemed amused at my eclectic list of purchases. I didn't ask any questions so I can't comment on their subject matter knowledge. They certainly had eclectic tastes playing R&B, Krautrock (might have been Tangerine Dream), and some really good 1960s garage band over the store sound system (wish I'd asked who the garage band was).
Inventory: Grade 'B': They advertises 100,000 items, but much of the inventory takes the form of CDs, DVDs, etc. I'm guessing they have 8,000 - 10,000 LPs in the racks and a couple of 100 45s. There's a large selection of pop, classic rock and soul with some less common material scattered throughout.
Pricing: Grade 'B+': Most of the stock is in the $5 - $10 range so don't expect to find those Fallen Angels albums here (though I did buy a VG/VG copy of "American Spring" for $8). Grading seems to be pretty conservative and I noted that some of the albums carried stickers warning of 'background noise'. I bought one LP with such a warning and the noise was not a problem on my turntable
Facility: Grade 'B': The layout is pretty standard with the store set in a long narrow corridor with racks along the sides and down the middle of the floor. It's tight, but midday there were only a couple of customers in the store, including a pair of older ladies who were going on about dancing to Rick James' 'Super Freak' at their high school prom. Geez I was older than they were, but it still didn't make for a pretty thought. In theory the stock is organized by genre and then alphabetically, but customers had done a pretty good job of messing up the alphabetical order and organization structure. So … Just cause the sign says 'ABBA' doesn't mean you'll find ABBA there. If you're looking through the bins, you probably want to look through everything.
Website: http://www.rtxrecords.com/
Monday June 30th, 2008
As the size of my online sales catalog grows larger I've started to get more and more emails asking me 'what's new?' So I'm going to try a new feature: 'recent adds'. This module will highlight recent additions to the sales catalog, along with lines to more detailed information. Guess I'll see how much effort it takes to keep it up and see if it works.
Sunday June 29th, 2008
Turns out I prematurely buried Orpheus Records. The store was scheduled to close back in May, but the landlord has been unable to find a new tenant willing to take the space at what will be a significantly higher rental rate. Rather than having an empty store, the owner's allowed Orpheus to stay put on a month-by-month basis which means they'll be open through the end of July, though you probably want to check with them before making the trip since their schedule is somewhat erratic. The store has 'going out of business' prices that are pretty impressive; up to 60% off on some items (yes, they've gotten several hundred dollars from me). In fact the only merchandise that isn't on sale are a couple of new releases. In case anyone's interested, the furnishings and fixtures are also available - some guy was talking about buying CD holders when I was in there. I imagine they'll have one final blow out sale towards the end of July. Almost makes me tear up since I can remember shopping at Orpheus when they were still in Georgetown (showing my age here).
Currently on my turntable - Joe Egan's "Out of Nowhere". Yeah, along with Gerry Rafferty he made up the band Stealers Wheel. This was Egan's solo debut and it's actually great (though it did nothing commercially and has never even seen a CD reissue). Hit the link for a detailed review. I'm looking for a copy of his second and final solo album "Map".
Saturday June 28th, 2008
So much for good intentions ... two months since my last blog entry. Not a very good start to the second year. Oh well, with such a poor performance there's only one way to go and that's improvement. So what's happening in my music world?
Well let me start with a Washington D.C record store that I recently checked out - Som Records. Someone I met at a yard sale told me about this store and then I read a brief blurb in Washington, D.C.'s City Paper that named them as one of the best used vinyl stores in the area. Not that there's a gigantic amount of competition ...
LOCATION - 'A' grade: 1843 14th Street NW, Washington DC ; a 5-10 minute walk from the Dupont Circle metro station. Parking seemed plentiful in the surrounding streets, though driving in DC is always a challenge.
STAFF - 'A' grade: No complaints - I was allowed to browse without being hassled and my sole question was answered quickly. Added bonus, the store has a record player and will let you sample music before you buy it. Unfortunately some idiot had ripped off their headphone adaptor the day I was there.
INVENTORY - 'B' grade: I'm guessing there are 4,000 - 5,000 LPs on sale and a smaller selection of 45s. That said the store has an interesting and eclectic collection of vinyl with an emphasis on rock and a surprisingly nice selection of go-go and soul, including quite a few albums by local outfits.
PRICING - 'B' grade: While not the biggest bargain I've ever stumbled into (rent in D.C. has to be pretty expensive), but by the same token much of the material is reasonably priced given most of it is non-top 40 junk.
FACILITY - 'B' grade: Located in a walk down space a couple of doors down the street from Washington's Black Cat nightclub (I actually walked right by it once), this store isn't large - imagine a modest living room and you'll have the right size (see the photo above). Given its size, the place has an okay lay out with decent product access (the lower shelves are a pain to get to) and some entertaining stuff on the walls.
WEBSITE - http://www.somrecordsdc.com/
Saturday June 20th, 2008
I've actually managed to listen to a little bit of music over the last couple of weeks and have to admit that for some odd reason I've been on a Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell kick. Their three studio albums are simply amazing ... they strike me as soul's best male/female duo. The late Terrell had a voice that's amazingly sexy (as was the lady herself) and when teamed up with Gaye the pair constantly generated heat; even from modest material. Anyhow, I've been trying to figure out my favorites and simply can't pick from their singles (if I ever own a jukebox I'll have several Gaye-Terrell singles on the playlist),. That's left me trying to prioritize the LPs. So if I had to pick the sequence would go:
# 1 "You're All I Need" (Tamla catalog number TS 284) # 2 "Easy" (Tamla catalog number TS-277) # 3 "United" (Tamla catalog number TS-294)
Sunday April 29th, 2008
Got up this morning and listen to an album for the first time in a couple of weeks. My choice - The Liverbirds. Cool album from some young ladies who were true pioneers in the rock age. See my detailed review at: http://www.oocities.org/badcatrecords/LIVERBIRDS.htm
Saturday April 28th, 2008
Spent the morning at my younger son's day care supporting their Spring Carnival - got to serve as the guy running the basketball game. Lots of kids wanted to shoot baskets and after three hours I was certain tired. Got home and had to put together a kitchen play set for the younger son (late birthday gift from grandma) and felt I deserved a beer in the afternoon. My choice - a Belgian Gulden Draak (Golden Dragon). Never had one before, but have to admit that it was quite enjoyable. Gimmick marketing ploys usually serve to turn me off as a consumer (white ceramic covered bottle), but the beer more than made up for the marketing ploy. It's a dark beer with a sweet, charcol--fruity flavor. That might not sound all that great, but it was extremely smooth; the flavor quickly grows on you, and it has a 10.5% alcohol by volume content - in other words, it has quite a kick. I enjoyed a small bottle and walk away with a buzz. Imagine consuming a big bottle (see below).
Friday April 28th, 2008
Interesting way to spend a Friday evening - senior prom for our older son (he cleaned up nicely and his date looked fantastic. Only complaints - it wasn't cheap (though Matt's going to baby sit for the wife and I Sunday), and the ex-wife showed up to take picture (witch). Then the younger son got to play T-ball under the lights at a local baseball field. He may be he smallest kid on his team, but did well (though he was the first kid that had to be escorted off the field for a pee break). Go Storm !!!
Saturday April 22nd, 2008
The first year of my blog started out with a bang, but went through peaks and valleys throughout the year. Still, the fact I managed to keep it up (admittedly inconsistently) throughout the year was pretty amazing. So on to year two.
My birthday and gifts include dinner at an upscale restaurant, a book celebrating DARPA's 50th year (I also got a DARPA hat). Since I work for the Navy S&T establishment my management would probably fire me if I ever dared wear that hat to work. Other gifts - a couple of music magazines and a couple of restaurant gift cards - yeah Red Lobster. Not a bad day, except the wife goes on business travel for a week.
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Thanks
to a last minute invite from a friend I had an opportunity to see ZZ Top
at the 9:30 Club. I guess Top was suppose to be touring with
Aerosmith, but in the wake of that band's complete medical meltdown, they
decided they'd continue the tour on their own. So at this point no
more big stadiums, rather smaller clubs like 9:30. That meant this
was literally a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a major band in a close
up situation. And the results were ... pretty fantastic.
We were standing on the right side upper landing, literally right over the
band. They weren't more than 30 feet away from us and with our
bird's eye view; well it couldn't have been much better. Well, yeah
cheaper beer would have been better. 'Course at $7 a pop you're
going to think twice before getting seriously loaded. Well, a couple
of folks in the crowd didn't bother with the cost-benefit ratio. Musically
they were quite good, playing a mixture of the VH-1 hits ('Sharp Dressed
Man', 'Cool Sun Glasses', and 'Legs') older fan favorites ('Tush'and 'La
Grange'), with a couple of rarities thrown in ('Brown Sugar' and even a
Jimi Hendrix cover). They looked pretty good for their ages; seemed to be having fun and with nearly four decades of partnership,
their stage coordination was a thing of beauty. This was stripped
down Top at their prime. Oh yeah they brought out the fuzzy guitars
for the encores. Watching drummer Frank Beard smoke and
drink Tab at the kit was also worth a smile. Easily the best concert
I've seen this year.
year
and decided I'd forgo working on my Christmas cards in order to start my
top-10 discoveries of the year listing. Sure it's a little early,
but so what. Anyhow, unlike a traditional top-10 listing this
reflects music that I've discovered during the past 12 months. In
some cases it only took 30 years or so for me to actually hear a couple of
these selections ... The funny thing is how diverse the list
is. I never would have expected to see a John Cale LP on the same
list as something by Andy Fraser. 
