“Yeah, I got a few, but I suppose there’ll come a day when I’ll have found most everything I want and the hunt will finally die.”

“Nah, you’ll always be discovering new music to track down.”

Spoken like a true record shop owner—one who understands and recognizes obsession when he sees it. He’s a fascinating guy, Cabin Floor Records owner Joe. There are so many crates of vintage records taking up cabin floor space that I often feel at a loss as to where to start and how to finish. Invariably, I grab a record from Joe’s own stack:

“I bring them in to help myself stay sane,” he said.

Sanity, it seems, is a precarious business when you’re attempting to be a retail outlet for rare treasures and unvarnished gems.

I had picked up a Badfinger record and would have paid up to $20 for it, but it was Joe’s, and most likely I’ll be hunting it now until I’ll either grab it or die trying.

I’ve heard it said that you don’t know what you don’t know, and that applies, too, to records you just cannot know you might want until you see them sitting in their "$6.00 or less” bin just begging for a new home. Spotting them, you know you have to have them, even if five seconds before, you didn’t know they existed.

This and other realities have happened to me recently. And I started wondering, in this still raw week of losing Dolly Parton, what treasures of hers I’ve callously passed over in hopes of buying yet another in the seemingly endless train of George Jones LPs.

Still, astutely, some time back I found Dolly’s 1974 release Jolene (for $20), and feel so proud and glad given what Discogs’ vendors are asking for it now. I had also acquired from some wildcat dealer a copy of Dolly’s 1972 My Favorite Songwriter, Porter Wagoner, (for $15), but hadn’t checked the inner disc for reasons that clearly make me an idiot. When I pulled it out to play last Friday, what I discovered was that someone had switched the real disc for a Jim Reeves record. Now, who the fuck does that?

I’m not asking for sympathy or redress—just acknowledging that there are assholes out there who find it amusing that people like me, who love old records, will sometimes forget themselves, so lost in the collecting and the music as we are.

Last Friday, Joe was sold out of any and everything related to Dolly, but no worries: he had some other cool products, as did a few other stops on my endless crate diving quest.

How about these?

Buck Owens, Act Naturally (Capitol C1-92893, 1989). In Very Good+ shape (actually looks NM to me), and for $7. It includes an aging Buck singing duets with Emmylou Harris (“Crying Time”) and Ringo Starr, the singer of “Act Naturally” when it first appeared as the B side to “Yesterday.” It would seem to me that Buck and Ringo might have paired up earlier than in the 24 years between that moment in ‘89 and The Beatles’ release of this classic song. Yeah, I know Ringo had been busy, but couldn’t he have appeared on Hee Haw with Buck at some point? Apparently, he did appear live with Buck’s co-host Roy Clark. I would have loved to have heard that number.

George Jones, The Best Of (UA-UAS-6291, St-90810, 1963). I just tried counting all the GJ Greatest hits and Best Of LPs and I got dizzy in the process. This was actually his third collection of Best songs, and the album includes “She’s Lonesome Again,” “Lonesome Old Town,” “You Done Me Wrong,” and a few other sad refrains. The Jordanaires sing backup, and all this for a mere $8. Sure, I have other hit collections by The Possum, but remember the obsessive collector I spoke about above.

ELO, Time (CBS/Jet records, FZ-37371, 1981). Likely $22 was too high for this, though the same vendor in an Upstate Antique Mall had another copy for $25. I looked carefully and couldn’t tell any difference, and since I’m rounding out my ELO collection, I thought: “Why not me?” and so now it’s mine. I had been looking for either or both of their first two releases, and I’m glad I didn’t find ELO II because later that day I did find it in my downstairs stacks. People keep telling me to make a spreadsheet of what I have—an apparently easy thing to do on Discogs. Doesn’t seem like much fun, though, and maybe that proves that I’m not as OCD as I thought. Oh, this LP has “Twilight” and “Hold On Tight” among others. In really good shape, too.

Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘66, Look Around (A&M, SP-4137, 1966). I have a couple of other Brasil ‘66 records, and when I saw this one in the $6 rack at Joe’s a few weeks ago, I didn’t buy it because I was sure I had it. Again, I was wrong, though when I did buy it last Friday, I still hadn’t checked and so took a chance. The chance paid off in that fool on the hill sort of way, though that song is on one of the records i already had. This one contains the biggie “The Look of Love” as well as “With a Little Help From My Friends,” Gilberto Gil’s “Like a Lover,” and the title cut. Dave Grusin also plays on “The Look of Love” and “So Many Stars.” Original cost at Sears, or so the sticker at the bottom left tells me: $3.69.

The Four Tops, Keeper of the Castle (Dunhill/ABC DSX-50129, 1972). After their Motown heyday but still groovin.’ And, it’s still sealed which causes me the eternal question of should I or shouldn’t I? It’s my record now, for god’s sake, so why shouldn’t I open it? I haven’t yet, which doesn’t mean I won’t, or does it? It was my $20, too, so back off. The title song was a medium-sized hit, or so my memory has it. Other worthy song: “Remember What I Told You to Forget.” I do.

Finally:

Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, Say Forever You’ll Be Mine (RCA APL1-1116, 1975). I was so excited to find this in the last stack at that antique mall booth mentioned above, that I didn’t ask how much they wanted. It is in NM condition, and showcases the rhinestone cowpeople singing original compositions like “I Have No Right to Care,” “Something to Reach For,” and “Life Rides the Train.” They had already parted company when this LP was released. If you haven’t seen the PBS documentary on Dolly—available on the PBS Passport App—you should. I don’t know how accessible other Dolly records will be—searching on Discogs turns up many blank selling pages—but at least this one is in my beloved special LP stack now. Where it should be.

Happy crate diving to all and see you as soon as I can get in and out of the stacks again.

Remember the King Sisters from Lawrence Welk fame?

King Kong?

Seriously, just the other day as I watched another episode of Eugene Levy’s priceless The Reluctant Traveler, even I got to wondering what it must be like to share a pint of ale (Levy chose Guinness, actually) with a King. Well, this was actually the King’s son, William, but since I’ll never get this close, I still can wonder what one discusses with someone at least many people consider to be royal. William kept referring to his “work,” and while I know the guy has a full plate, I kept envisioning his rising every morning, doing some stretches, getting some tea and then heading off to the office, for which he apparently rides a segue. Cheers to him, and I’m glad Kate is in remission.

Elvis Costello produced an album in 1986, King of America, which some people adore. I value Elvis a great deal, and his show last summer here in Greenville restored my faith in aging New Wave rockers.

Of course I won’t get into the very strange desire many Americans have for their own personal Jesus/Autocrat, though it’s almost impossible to accept that if we were going to select one person for this title, it would be the person we have somehow selected. I don’t know who I would pick, if I wanted to pick anybody. It’s funny, too, that the first two names that leapt to my mind were Neil Young and Alex Trebek. Never mind that Alex died a few years back, both are/were Canadians, and unless we change the rules more than we already have, they can’t be the American Dictator, er, King.

Others in my mind are disqualified, too, for similar reasons, and so back to the drawing board, or crates, I go, searching for my youth, like a fictional film character once in a west side warehouse on Manhattan Island did or almost did since he ran into his would-be second wife, finding perhaps the only thing that mattered to him, though no one else could figure out the puzzle or its solution, at least as the film went. He might have fancied himself as King, too, but he died all alone in a Florida pleasure dome, un-anointed and very very unloved (except maybe by Raymond, the butler, who very definitely knew where all the bodies were buried).

All of my life I’ve been asked to consider the fate of European Kings (and Queens). I know why in a historical sense, but things can get a bit hysterical when we consider that for all our freedom and liberty, we still find ourselves in awe of, if not wishing for, someone to tell us what to do, how and when to vote, where to live, and whom we’d be better off associating with, much of this dependent upon national creed and color.

Not wanting to be too chastened or intimidated by such thoughts, I decided I needed to go record digging again. Lately, and you might know this if you read my Medium blog, I’ve fallen in love with, become enchanted by Electric Light Orchestra again. If you haven’t see their performance at Wembley Stadium back in 2917, I urge you to bow to it. I have several ELO records, but, obsessive me feels like my life is merely servile if I don’t have them all. Which leads to this week’s deep dive into the crates wallowing in dungeons near me.

1. Electric Light Orchestra, On the Third Day (UA LA-188, 1973). Still in its shrink wrap, costing only $12, this album which I’ve never owned before has the essential tunes “Daybreaker,” “Ma Ma Ma Belle,” “Showdown,”and “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” the latter, of course, a reworking of Edvard Grieg’s haunting piece. Jeff Lynne should be knighted or put in line for greater service. I’m saddened that I’ve never paid him enough homage.

2. Elvis Presley, Something For Everybody (RCA LSP-2370, 1961). This one was glaring at me almost condescendingly from the front of the bin in a section called “Rockabilly Classics.” One song on the record was taken from Elvis’s film Wild In the Country (“I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell”), and the rest are numbers that, frankly, I don’t know. I’ll be even more honest: I hadn’t heard of or to my knowledge ever seen this LP before, unless it was back in my grammar school days when some kid brought it to school so that the rest of us would be in awe and acknowledge our true unworthiness. Cost: $5.

3. George Jones, Seasons Of My Heart (Nashville NLP 2076, 1956). If he wasn’t/isn’t the King of Country Music, then who the hell is? Johnny is in another category. I bought this for $5, and maybe the store had no idea what it was, why it’s important, and that people all over the world want it (okay, I may have grandiose dreams), but I want it and couldn’t believe that it was so unwanted. Containing “I’m Ragged, But I’m Right,” “Eskimo Pie,” and the title track, I’m edging ever closer to closing the deal on this edge of night king’s collection.

4. The Mamas & the Papas, The Mamas & the Papas (Dunhill D-50010, 1966). Their second album, and someone in this band was Canadien, too, and so they all had to be disqualified from being crowned anything other than our national Mamas and Papas, though in real life, they didn’t make for very understanding parents. Though I almost didn’t spend the $12 for it, I kept feeling bad for not wanting a record with “Dancing in the Street” and especially “I Saw Her Again Last Night.” I don’t collect them intentionally, but what I have seemed incomplete without it, and so all hail OCD.

5. Eric Burden & The Animals, The Twain Shall Meet ( MGM SE-4537, 1968). Just when I think I have all the albums by this British Invasion band, I find this, and then $8 later, I feel fulfilled, though still a bit unsettled, because though I now have the original record with “Monterey” on it, something is missing, I think. This was the second LP by the “Eric Burden & the Animals” version, and other tunes include “Closer to the Truth” and “Sky Pilot.” Unsettled and missing because…

6. The Animals, Animal Tracks (MGM E-4305, 1965). Their third LP and for the love of the Crown, it had eluded me and almost did again, because as I stood looking in the $3-$5 bin the other day, it was right at the front, and first, I thought: “Who doesn’t want this for $5?,” and second I thought, “Surely I already have it,” and so I put it back. And then that annoying voice that is often so wrong (or else why do I have three Sammi Smith albums of the same kind?) told me I better rethink things or it might be the Rack for me. So I bought it and to my sheer delight, found when I got home that I didn’t have it. That felt good until I considered that I had mistaken not having it for having it, or maybe that was the other way around. I had many of the songs already on their Greatest Hits album, but an original 1965 copy for $5? I know I’m repeating myself. So, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” and “Don’t Let Me be Misunderstood” and “Bring It On Home To Me” are mine all mine. The keys to the kingdom!

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   Life is good, even if you’re just a peon in the greater realm.

Until next time.

RIP Dave Marsh.

You might not know what you want until you invest some time in learning about how, say, one band can last for over sixty years and still want or need to keep playing/recording. Because though you think you know their body of work — okay, maybe you haven’t kept up with all their live albums or greatest hits packages — you still think you understand the essentials for any collection. If you don’t understand but have Apple Music, don’t worry: they will list for you the Essential Albums of any artist you can access through them (but don’t bother looking for Cindy Lee there because she keeps resisting streaming algorithms).

For instance, buried on pp. 403–404 of Bob Spitz’ The Rolling Stones: The Biography (Penguin 2026) is a discussion of the Stones former and longtime label, Decca, releasing an album of old Stones songs without informing the band that they were doing so. I didn’t know much, if anything, about this album, which is fitting because, again, neither did they until the album was released. And I swear, within 48 hours of learning about it, I actually found a used copy of it. Maybe I’d seen it before, but that was before it existed for me.

This all makes sense especially when you’re on a sabbatical and you have more time on your hands than you could ever know what to do with, which means, getting everything you both want and need has a greater probability of being probable. Or at least you have the time to travel to more places that would make the wanting, the needing, and the getting much more likely, and you won’t even have to resort to Discogs or Ebay. Or at least you won’t want to.

I haven’t finished my second cup of coffee yet, so imagine if I were fully caffeinated! You might not want to keep up with me then, but you might also find that what I’m presenting to you below — the results of recent crate dives — is exactly what you want and need, too, not only to fill out your vast LP collection, but to give you hours of entertainment as well that only you and I might know in this moment.

So, none of the records I found in this week’s Crate Diving in Modern America was anything I was looking for exactly. Or at least I wasn’t consciously looking for them, but now you might be, or at least when you find them, you might remember the echo of them from reading about them right here in our very own collected conscience.

Ready?

1. The Rolling Stones, Stone Age (Decca SKL 5084, 1971). They had moved on to their own label, owned by Atlantic Records, by then, but since Decca owned the masters of these songs, it could and did release them in a format and with a cover that would drive everyone from Mick to even Mick crazy. I paid $28.95 retail, which doesn’t seem off when I examine the many copies for sale on Discogs. My copy claims to have been made in England, anyway. The cover is famous for approximating the intended cover of Beggars Banquet, a cover Decca originally refused to use. For those who don’t know, the LP includes “It’s All Over Now,” “Paint It Black,” “As Tears Go By,” “The Last Time,” “Around and Around,” and their cover of “My Girl.” A week ago, it was completely buried in my mind. And now, I’ve dug it.

2. George Jones & Melba Montgomery, Blue Moon of Kentucky (United Artists UAs 6472, 1966). If, as I do, you have several LPs featuring this duo, then this particular record likely contains songs you already have. That won’t matter if you, like me, feel that you need to get what you want, which is every GJ record you can find, and sometimes, because you refuse to consult your list of “already haves,” you have more than one copy of many that you somehow keep finding and buying. I didn’t have this record, however, before last Wednesday, and I really didn’t know much, if anything, about it before then either. So I paid my $12 — a fair price according to Discogs and my copy is either VG++ or NM — and now I have them singing the title song plus “Before you Change Your Mind,” “You Comb Her Hair,” and “Don’t Make Me Build Another Wall.”

3. Sarah Vaughn, Great Hits From Great Shows (Mercury MGP-2–100, 1957). I had been wanting some more Blues, and sometimes when you dig through the Blues section in your vintage record store, you’ll find Blues artists branching out into other territory, like, in this case, Show Tunes. Maybe Show Tunes aren’t your thing, but for $10 (VG), how could you pass up this extraordinary vocalist taking her turn on “Autumn In New York” (from Thumbs Up), “Dancing in the Dark” (from The Bandwagon), “September Song” (from Knickerbocker Holiday), and “Comes Love” (from Yokel Boy)?

4. Glen Campbell, Burning Bridges and Other Great Country Songs (Capitol ST 2679, 1967). Though this album didn’t chart on Billboard, even though Campbell was already famous for “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” maybe the reason is that it covered songs that didn’t hit anyone hard enough. Campbell wrote one song on this LP, “Less of Me,” but did cover some Waylon and some Buck. Or maybe we forget/never heard of this album because the following year, Wichita Lineman made us forget everything else Campbell had done. Anyway, since I feel compelled and actually want to buy his early to mid-career records, I chose to spend my $15 on it; it is also still in the original shrink wrap and in VG++ condition.

5. Merle Haggard and the Strangers, It’s Not Love (But It’s Not Bad) (Capitol ST 11127, 1972). Hank Cochran co-wrote the title song, and Merle wrote most of the rest, including “I Wonder Where I’ll Find You At Tonight,” “I Wonder What She’ll Think About Me Leaving,” “New York City Blues,” and “My Woman Keeps Lovin’ Her Man.” There’s never enough Merle, and I’m not sure how many more of his LPs there are for me to find, but here’s another I checked off my WANT list:

6. Merle Haggard and the Strangers, The Way It Was in ’51 (Capitol R150047, 1978). It is a compilation of Merle doing originals about Hank and Lefty, but also many of their old ‘uns like “I Saw the Light,” “Love Sick Blues,” “Mom and Dad’s Waltz,” and “I Never Go Around Mirrors.” It was only $5, again, still in its shrink wrap from the year I was a senior in college, refusing to believe that I could ever want, much less need Merle records.

The words tell me that “If you try sometime…” and folks, I’m tryin’ and tryin,’ diggin’ and diggin.’

Thanks for reading!

Getting The Ya-Ya’s Out

So that crate diving can continue

Sometimes I think I’ve hot a wall, that in a mid-air dive into an enormous, seemingly unusually deep crate of records, I bang my head on a floor hidden by my own greed. In other words, it seems that I have taken too many dives and have almost everything a man my age could possibly want. And yet, I keep clearing shelves in my study as if I need to prove to someone that, yes I do love the artists that you, too, loved best.

There are bands out there that once in my life I liked and even tried to love — bands like The Atlanta Rhythm Section, Jethro Tull, Chicago; and artists like Robert Palmer and especially Al Kooper. Once, I had several Kooper LPs, all retrieved from the bottom bins of budget/cut-out LPs priced at $1.99 and below. I keep seeing one of these — Kooper’s Easy Does It — and I wonder what happened to my old copy, a record I once played every day for about six months. It featured a song or two from a forgotten film, The Landlord, not the Will Ferrell vehicle, but the 1970 debut film of director Hal Ashby, starring Beau Bridges and Lee Grant, with Pearl Bailey. It also covers Ray Charles’ classic “I Got a Woman,” which I’m sure I didn’t quite catch when I listened to the record at age 15.

So now, I’ll have to buy it because three sentences of descriptive nostalgia are all it takes to want to rekindle my past.

You see? I can’t stop this addiction even though I’m not a collector and so don’t know where the addiction comes from much less where it will lead and end. The end is likely THE END, but I’d rather not think of that right now.

Much better is to mine you through my most recent digs just to show that versatility resides in places other than a stage or on a canvas. There are so many ways to exercise so as to get The Kinks, The Cramps, or Th[os]e Nine Inch Nails out of one’s carcass.

Or this current batch of ya-ya’d gold-finds from my latest crate-diving excursions.

Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out: The Rolling Stones In Concert (ABKCO/London NPS-5, 1970). Best to get the headlines out of the way. I found this still in its original shrink wrap for $10. You might already know that this was the album the Stones put out so as to satisfy their agreement with DECCA which would then allow them to sign with Atlantic and then start their own Rolling Stones label. According to the latest Stones biography, Lester Bangs said that this record “..might be the best record they ever made…I have no doubt that it’s the best rock concert ever put on record” (Bob Spitz, The Rolling Stones, Penguin Press 2026, 393). I have no idea if Bangs ever changed his mind, but a live album including “Jumping Jack Flash,” “Midnight Rambler,” “Sympathy For the Devil,” “Live With Me,” and “Honky Tonk Women,” among others has to be reckoned with, especially in this period of the band’s life.

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee at Sugar Hill (Fantasy 8091, 1962). At least the seller thinks it’s 1962. I splurged and got it for $25 because I wanted some Blues that I didn’t have (because my Blues section was screaming about neglect). The nightclub, Sugar Hill, was in San Francisco, and Terry and McGhee, respectively, were from North Carolina and Tennessee. Both were born before WWI, and they wrote every dirty song on this clean copy: “Hooray, Hooray, This Woman IS Killing Me,” “Baby, I Knocked On Your Door,” and “Keep On Walking” being my favorites so far.

The regular/requisite George Jones section:

Country Favorites: George Jones, Roger Miller, Gene Pitney (with Melba Montgomery, Rex Allen, and Don Gibson (MUSICO MDS1017, release date seemingly unknown). Brand new sealed copies of this may be found for $12 or so. My copy, not so new, cost $3.00. George’s songs include “Walk Through this World With Me” and “Four-O-Thirty Three.” He has a duet with Pitney (“I’ve Got Five Dollars and It’s Saturday Night”), and there are good ones by the other artists including Gibson’s “Sweet Dreams.”

And,

George Jones: I Wanta Sing (Epic 34717, 1977). Produced by legendary Billy Sherrill, this LP came to me because Shelly, the best clerk at Horizon Records, had held it back for someone special, “a good home” as she put it. And so she gave it to me for $3, even though someone had once put a sticker on it that declared it as worth $200. This is a Demonstration record, one I’ve never seen before. It features the Jordanaires on background vocals in such songs as “Old King Kong,” “They’ve Got Millions in Milwaukee,” and “I Love You So Much It Hurts.” Good home indeed. The cover with his face on the front end of his tour bus says it all.

Bo Diddley’s A Twister (Checker LP-2982, 1962). Pre-loved at $12, this one shows off Bo’s stylings on “Detour,” “Shank,” “Hey, Bo Diddley,” and “I’m Looking For a Woman.” The cover has seen better days, but the vinyl is smooth as Bo Diddley silk.

And then:

Ray Price Born to Lose (Columbia-Harmony Records, 1967, $5).

Ray Price Love Life (Columbia CS 8989, 1964, $7.95).

My Ray Price collection is thriving and these two have filled in some definite gaps. I was thinking about Price late last night, as I first heard him singing “For the Good Times,” his breakthrough top 40 Pop/Rock era hit from 1970. I knew nothing else then, and so much more now. My mother and our close friend Frank loved this song. I did, too, even though I didn’t say much about it, given that compared to Led Zeppelin, Price was, well, you know. Life has a way of coming back to you if you let it.

I certainly have.

Next time: what Ray Charles records do I still need?

As usual, I have only a half-idea of which albums I’m looking for. Some of this depends on the artists I’m currently wanting to rediscover, like Paul McCartney whom you’ll see more of below. I’ve found almost every LP in the Loretta Lynn canon, but those final elusive gems still await, and as you’ll note, I picked one more off the list just this past week.

The other problem—if this counts as a problem—is that though I do have lists of some of the artists and their recording that I already have—lists including Loretta, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, and Glen Campbell—I need to concoct a similar list for Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, and Merle Haggard because while I think I know what I have, the duplicates in my stack prove otherwise. Kitty Wells is another in this vein, but sometimes trusting my gut works out.

And, it’s my 70th birthday, or more accurately, I turn 70 this coming Wednesday, and the pre-birthday gifts have already started, including a $50 gift certificate from a dear colleague to one of the two record stores in town (Already spent the gift—it’s so easy to fall…). The list of new records I want is growing as we speak: the latest from McCartney, from the Stones, River Shook, and one day I’ll remember to look for something/anything by The Raveonettes. I’m open to other suggestions, too.

Now, as to what I found—a partial list because the stacks of dug-out LPs are too deep to all be included in one writing. It’s so much fun digging, and now I have Social Security money to fuel these archeological excursions. I’ve also cleared another shelf in what used to be almost exclusively my library of books. There are still many books—many about music—but the albums have shoved the other books aside now.

Albums like these:

1. McCartney (Apple Stao-3363, 1970). Once upon a time, I owned this album—owned it not too long after it was first released. I don’t want to think about the fool who must have sold that copy to someone, but he did for some stupid price like maybe $2.00 (and that might be a generous figure). Originally costing something like $3.99, another $15 for my new/dugout copy puts me only $17.99 in the hole. My two favorite songs are “Junk” and “Every Night.” I guess I couldn’t appreciate what Paul was up to when I was fourteen, all those years ago. I think I do now.

2. Wings At The Speed Of Sound (Capitol SW-11525, 1976). For $8.00! I never owned this one, though my brother did, which surely explains why I know the lyrics to every song on it. I always liked the hit “Let ‘Em In” and I never minded “Silly Love Songs.” My favorite back then was “Beware My Love,” and today, I truly love “Time To Hide.” RIP Denny Laine and, of course, Linda.

3. Wings Over America (Capitol SWCO-11593, 1976), cost $12.00. A live compilation of Paul’s, Wings’, and Beatles’ songs, and it’s hard to think of any glaring omissions except for “Sally G,” which Paul seemed to want to keep off any record he released, vinyl record that is. I wish I had the 45 of it and “Junior’s Farm,” but I don’t. In any case, it’s fun to play this loud, and the only wish I have for it—the same one I have for Venus and Mars—is that I never got “Magneto and Titanium Man.” Never got in the sense of why anyone thought this was a good song. Why does anyone think it’s better than “Sally G?” There’s another big hit on this live album I never liked either, but I’ll leave that alone in the spirit of rediscovering all that is good about McCartney.

4. God Bless America Again, Loretta Lynn (Decca DL-75351, 1972), $5 and still in its shrink-wrap. You know, I’m not the most patriotic guy in this land, especially these days, and I’m not especially religious, either. So a photo of Loretta standing in front of a church, with the cover background of an American flag would likely turn me off were it any other artist besides Loretta (or maybe Tammy). But since I didn’t already possess it, and since Loretta is one of my true musical heroes, and since OCD is what it is, now I have it. The first track is the Bobby Bare-Boyce Hawkins composition, “May God Bless America Again,” and other songs are classic hymns like “Softly and Tenderly” and “Just a Closer Walk With Thee.” Loretta penned “Working For the Lord” and co-wrote with Teddy Wilburn “I Pray My Way Out of Trouble.” I have to say that I find all of these appropriate for these times in the sense of awakening every day and thinking WTF?

5. Burning Memories, Kitty Wells (Decca DL-74612, 1965), $12, also in its shrink-wrap. I’m building my collection of vintage Wells’ LPs and almost left this one in the crate cause I thought I might have it. Then I thought again, and still again, and decided what the hell, if I have it already, so be it. I didn’t, as it turned out, and now I get to hear the title track plus “Everybody Loves Somebody,” “I Don’t Love You Anymore,” and “In the Misty Moonlight.” Quite a deal, I’d say.

6. Love It To Death, Alice Cooper (Warner Bros WS-1883, 1971). I bought it for $15 even though the cover isn’t very good (maybe just “Good”). It’s an early pressing, maybe even an original given the green Warner’s label. I also had a copy of this that I ordered from the Columbia Record Club back in the mid-70s. The cover was bordered in white, or rather the black photo of Alice and the band was in the middle of two white horizontal bands. Esoterica for sure. Big Hit: “I’m Eighteen.” Overlooked gem: “Ballad of Dwight Fry.” Someone drew mustaches on the band, someone likely under eighteen, but you never really know. Do you know how much I loved Alice Cooper back then? Love it to death, for sure.

7. The Country Side of Gene Pitney (Musicor MS-3104, 1966). $6.95. One of the reasons I love America so is that people like to price goods at something 95 or 99 because, psychologically speaking, it doesn’t sound as bad as $7.00, or so the thinking goes. OK, that’s fine at your local retailer, but at a booth in an antique store somewhere near Elkin, NC? Gene sings “Drinking from the Well Of Your Love,” and that’s enough for me. Oh, the record is also still sealed.

I think that’s a fine haul, but there’s more—so much more, but you’ll have to wait a while, at least until I’m 70, to truly dig it.

Just kidding, but only in the sense that I keep my sweat to myself on such occasions, and hot as it is, I still manage to squeeze by and enter the premises of places that seem to be hanging on to something, or maybe it’s that they’re just too sweaty themselves to go anywhere or make any significant stock changes.

It’s also true that I’m sometimes stupidly lucky, in the sense that I don’t know what I want until I have it, and even then, it might take a few weeks or months to realize through careful searching that I’m actually sitting on something I would have wanted if only I had set about looking for it intentionally. But since I didn’t, happening upon such treasures helps me understand that being intentional is no fun. Records you don’t know you want have a remarkable, uncanny way of finding you.

So do comic books.

There was the time when I went searching for a certain issue of The Incredible Hulk—this particular issue because the story concerned the legendary Prague Ghetto Golem, and I was researching a story on comic book Golems. It seemed impossible, but there it was in the stacks of the first comic book shop I entered. I ended up writing the story, which no one wanted to publish. I have no idea what happened to my text, but I still have that Hulk comic book and so many Golem-related others (Ragman and certain Batman-related titles).

You do know, right, that Superman is a bit of a Golem? His creators were two sweet and mainly honest Bar Mitzvah boys who needed help searching for meaning and a meaningful career in that period when Germany was fascist and America wasn’t. Don’t believe me? Well, just look up the meaning of Superman’s Kryptonic birth name: Kal-El.

This has nothing to do with crate diving—in the comic world it might be called narrow-box diving—and so be it. I’m done collecting comics, but that doesn’t mean I don’t dream about them or pause every now and then to see if someone’s stash contains something rare from the Silver Age.

Man, there I go getting sidetracked again. Maybe I just wish we had a Superman to knock some sense into those who keep wanting to insure that America stays as white as possible, even if that means renouncing all that we might want or think we are in a representative DEMOCRACY.

Since no one seems to be getting rocketed from a planet far far away anytime soon, let’s think about music instead, and no, we’re not mentioning that song about where the “young men” go to play—a song that our non-super-hero prez considers his favorite song. We’ll be discussing instead a few classics and one new record that serve as antidotes to all the kryptonite being scattered and thrust at us these days.

Also, RIP the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Over on Medium, I have a story coming up about the old Country-music variety series, Hee Haw. I loved it when it first aired back in 1969, even if I didn’t exactly give its co-host, Buck Owens, his due. So let’s rectify this sad state of affairs.

Yesterday, I didn’t have to dig far in the crates at Cabin Floor Records to find this one: Buck Owens and His Buckaroos, Sweet Rosie Jones (Capitol ST 2962, 1968). This was a $6 treasure, featuring Buck and the boys (the shining Don Rich chief among them) singing and playing the title track plus “Hello Happiness Goodbye Loneliness,” “Swingin’ Doors,” and “The Heartaches Have Just Started.” 1968 was the year before Hee Haw started, and about the only way I knew about Buck was via the pictures of him on jukeboxes in old hamburger joints. I didn’t know what to know, but recognized that fact when Hee Haw started and I couldn’t quit watching and listening.

Some time back, I got another $6 Buck album at Cabin Floor. I knew what I was getting and couldn’t believe I was getting it this way, for so little cost and even less digging effort: Buck Owens and His Buckaroos, Together Again/My Heart Skips a Beat (Capitol ST 2135, 1964). Those two title songs alone are more than worth the price tag, even if it were four times what it was. In excellent shape, you can also hear on it “Truck Drivin’ Man,” “Hello Trouble,” and “Getting Used to Losing You.”

The real gold, though, was a record I almost didn’t buy—one I knew nothing about other than it looked old and it wasn’t released by Capitol, Buck’s longtime label of choice. I know nothing about La Brea Records other than in 1961, that label released Buck’s very first album, Buck Owens (La Brea L 8017). It’s still in its shrink wrap and it still has affixed to it an orange sticker with black print proclaiming that once upon a time, some retailer wanted 99 cents for this LP. I’m pretty sure I bought this copy at Cabin Floor, but there’s no price sticker from them. But since it sat in the racks for months before I even picked it up, I’m going to guess that I got this NM copy for less than $10. Recorded and produced by Virginia Richmond, this one defies anyone who thinks they know what Buck sounds like. If you heard it, you might think it’s a Hank Williams wannabe, which, in my opinion, is not a bad thing to want or be regarding Country or any other genre of music. And now I have it even if I didn’t know what I was getting when I got it.

Still, Buck Owens isn’t the only treasure worth searching for in the classic country world. There’s also this: Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, Always, Always (RCA Victor, LSP-4186, 1969). At a cost of $10 (it was a cut-out), when it was first released, Dolly was on the cusp of greater fame and of readying herself to split from Porter who, as legend has it, could be a bit controlling. Still, the man could wear a Nudie suit with the best of them.

Beyond country—because I promised—yesterday I found a rare Bill Withers recording that until yesterday I didn’t know existed: Bill Withers Live at BBC 1973 (Outsider Records, OUTS044). At the height of his career—a career longer than many would believe—this live recording features the best of Bill: “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Use Me,” “Lean On Me,” as well as “Grandma’s Hands” and “Harlem.” It’s difficult to find copies of any Withers LP, so when you do, you’d better know what you’ve found and grab it if you can. I sing “Ain’t No Sunshine” at least once every week, but only to myself. This recording cost $26—worth it.

And finally, I first heard Maisy Owen on Outlaw Country, a station which plays pretty much whatever it wants to just as long as it seems rooted to the earth. I didn’t know who I was listening to, and it didn’t matter except for I needed to know so I could find more. She sounds country in the way Emmylou Harris does on Wrecking Ball: a bit haunted, wistful, and alive to sounds that pierce the heart and the soul of you. I love this debut record, Dark On a Sunny Day (Tompkins Square TSQ4128, 2026), and though this is only May, unless Waylon Payne produces an entire record of songs—there’ve been two released so far—I can’t imagine any record surpassing Maisy’s on my top of the crate pile, year-end roundup (I usually don’t so such a thing but this LP makes me want to). The standout track is “On My Way Down,” but the more I listen, it’s the final song, “All Ends the Same” that takes my country breath away.

Owen plays guitar, viola, bass, and piano, and she wrote the eight songs on this LP. She’s supposed to play an in-store show at the other record store here in Greenville—Horizon Records—some time this summer. I hope my heart and heated soul can take it.

That’s it for now. Stay cool in every way possible, and keep digging: for as Sylvester the Cat once sang, “You never know where you’re going until you get there.”

There is a universe out there in which, for a week that’s coming all-too-soon, you can watch and/or listen to leading luminous loutish Americans prove something to someone as they read passages from the Holy Bible.

The Bible itself will never be the same.

These lumpen lites unto our path include Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Sean Duffy, Ben Carson (imagine staying awake for this; imagine his staying awake for this); “home-school advocate” Heidi St. John; and, of course, the man so confused by convincing us that he was playing an AI-generated doctor that he forgot about all those signed autobiographies he was hawking for $60 — the autobiography that he and these others will be reading from.

Can you see yourself locked in for this event? No?

Are you so wanton, needy, starving for scripture that it makes sense to you to listen to these people pontificating about how reverent they are as they continue bombing the Middle East, building gold-embossed fatted and arched calves in and for their namesake, and how only God’s law can direct them to, you know, worship a holy leader not named Pope Leo XIV?

I thought not.

So while America reads the Bible for a week — and what on God’s Green Earth will happen after that week when we will be back to our normal programming? — I have another plan that might interest you and distract you from this idea hatched by the event’s founder, Bunni Pounds (can’t make this up).

You can listen to this new playlist with the theme of what to do when the country you love has been hijacked by people who think you neither understand nor care about, nor are capable of reading the Bible or the Constitution for yourself.

Call this the “I was lost and now I’m found” or “I was found and now I’m lost” playlist for lovers.

1. “Circles Around This Town,” Maren Morris. A primer on how and why you can escape all that, and especially who, ails you. You might as well be the one driving in circles instead of allowing Mike Johnson to do it for you. Why isn’t he at the Bible reading, you ask? OK, focus with me on better questions.

2. “Sympathy for the Devil,” The Rolling Stones. I don’t recall ever having sympathy for Mr. Lucifer, except in this moment when he has to be asking: “And you think I’m bad?” Like when Jimmy Kimmel recently mentioned that with friends like these, he can no longer remember why he was taken off air a year or so ago. Do you suppose anyone reading this week will beg, “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and fame…?”

3. “I’m the Greatest,” Ringo Starr with a little help from his friend John. I suppose it helps to think you are, as long as you don’t take yourself or the insulated world of your greatness too seriously. I love that Ringo always understood that “acting naturally” trumped pretending that you care about and understand what II Chronicles might be saying to you as you read it out to us.

4. “The Beautiful People,” Marilyn Manson. With the leading line, “It’s all relative to the size of your steeple.” He’s not for everyone. You know what I mean. I’m sorry that he proved untrustworthy to be displayed amongst vulnerable people. And that goes for Marilyn, too.

5. “High Time We Went,” Joe Cocker. It’s definitely high time at the OK Corral, so get your spurs on matey, and let’s see who follows. Wouldn’t it be cool if, in the middle of Hegseth reading from the Book of Revelation, Joe were to jump on stage and go into his act, and then we could see if anyone could tell the one from the other.

6. “Magical Mystery Tour,” The Beatles. To get on the tour bus — which I did in Liverpool back in 2000, and in some ways I think I never got off — it takes a few edibles or smokeables or whatever doublemint pleasure you seek. If you stay long enough, you can also pretend that this coming week never happened. In South Carolina, we have THC-laced seltzers which, I’m told, will soon be outlawed by those who also think being raped is no excuse for not bearing your rapist’s child. I need a 12-pack.

7. “Volunteers,” Jefferson Airplane. I hadn’t planned on this one, but since it decided to play naturally after “Magical Mystery Tour,” I decided I was too would-be stoned to argue or resist. This song, in its moment, seemed to defy what was and portend possibilities about being dedicated to something greater than our “leaders.”

8. “What’s Going On?” Marvin Gaye. How many times in the course of one life has someone asked this question, and how many times after Marco Rubio reads from Leviticus will we be asking it again? I’m not really sure what he’s reading, and I hope I never know. And to think we thought Marvin was troubled.

9. “One Toke Over the Line,” Brewer and Shipley. If you do nothing else; if you listen to nothing else on this playlist YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS: https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/1ml9wss/lawrence_welk_one_toke_over_the_line_wtf_pop_1971/ That’s not really Brewer and Shipley, in case you do need to be read to. I had no idea this existed and can’t understand what those who produced it were thinking unless, you know, they were. This will, of course, be the entertainment before the reading begins. I’m sorry, but on the video at the end, the legendary host refers to this song as a modern spiritual, so I guess in that way there is some hope, and if you do have to listen to Ben Carson, I know the way to do it.

10. “Everybody’s Talkin’,” Nilsson. They sure are, and I can maintain the hope that in the intermission — after Chronicles but before Revelation, someone will screen the legendary only-X-rated-movie-to-ever-win-the- Oscar-for-Best-Picture. In that film, there is a Jesus guy who rents a hotel room by the month. His name isn’t Ratso but it should have been.

11. Bonus: “She’s Not There,” The Zombies. Because she’s gone. She’s listening to my playlist and I know she’s grateful. Hope you are, too.

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“I’m so glad you’re playing this music!”

I was especially grateful because earlier that morning, I got an email from a friend I haven’t heard from in almost thirty years, which seems irrelevant to this discussion except one of his very favorite songs is, or used to be, “Gardening at Night.” Chance? Coincidence (I don’t believe in those), or a matter of life showing me that nothing is truly lost, and that while digging into crates, almost anything can be found.

Back to that stranger.

He thought, and why shouldn’t he I guess, that I was speaking to him, and thus ensued a brief discussion of the merits of R.E.M. As he rattled through his very stoned recollection of the band, I pretty much ended the discussion (or so I thought) by telling him that I saw them back in 1981 at a tiny venue in Knoxville. Forty or so other patrons and I watched a band that hardly anyone knew about then—a band definitely on the rise.

Switching gears, he then noticed that I was holding a copy of The Beach Boys’ Holland (Reprise/Brother MS 2118, 1973). I had been looking for this LP for a while, and it looks to be in Very Good shape, both the vinyl and the cover. $10 seemed fair to me, too. I’m not in love with the Boys, and so I told the guy that in the “Great Records not in great shape” bin, there was also a copy of 1967’s Smiley Smile.

“Nah, don’t really care for that stuff,” and then he launched himself into a discourse about all of their #1 songs. I don’t know which songs of theirs went #1 and don’t much care. He said that though he loves “I Get Around,” he wasn’t sure if it hit the top. I wondered whether, surely, “Good Vibrations” had, and from there he kept talking about the relative merits of each band member, dissing poor old Al Jardine who, to my knowledge, never hurt anyone and especially not us.

This was all my fault, because had I kept quiet in the first place, no one would have talked to me, or maybe I’m not giving that guy enough credit. I’m sure he was well-intentioned, and part of me wonders what, if anything, he bought. Fortunately, another patron walked over to the guy, introduced himself, and began asking questions. He thought my stoned friend worked there, and as they untangled that web, I was able to move on over to other bins, other worlds.

Where I found a few other goodies. But taking the win I had, I paid and then journeyed on to Melody Supreme, just around the corner.

This is a smaller, cleaner place, much better organized, though when you’re crate-diving a bit of disorganization can be a good thing and welcomed. I saw a copy, actually a reissue, of Sinatra’s Only the Lonely for $12. If only it had been Strangers in the Night, but I already own a quality copy of that.

It didn’t take long for me to find two other vintage vinyl gems, however. The first, from a band/artist I’ve only recently come to love: John Mayall’s Blues Breakers. The LP was an original 1968 Monarch pressing of Crusade (London PS 529, 1968) costing $15 which, according to Discogs, seems fair given that it’s in VG+ shape. This iteration of the band features Mick Taylor on lead guitar, Keef Hartley on drums, and John McVie on bass. They cover many great Blues songs including the Dixon/Rush classic, “I Can’t Quit You Baby.”

Speaking of British Blues bands, my other and perhaps less stranger find at Melody Supreme was an original 1966 copy of The Yardbirds’ Over Under Sideways Down (Epic BN 26210). It’s in VG++ shape, but it did cost $30. A “beautiful copy,” and it is, and I’m not looking it up to see if I overpaid, because I love The Yardbirds and am slowly collecting their work. Jeff Beck leads the band here through the title cut and “Jeff’s Boogie,” among others. I think this was my favorite find of the day.

Finally, at Heyday Antiques, which never disappoints, I found two Ray Charles records. The first, I’m All Yours Baby (ABC S-675, 1969), was still sealed and cost $8. Featured are “Till the End of Time” and “Love Is Here to Stay.”

The other was Volcanic Action of My Soul (ABC/Tangerine ABCS 726, 1971). This one cost $10 and features “Down in the Valley” and covers of George Harrison’s “Something,” and Jimmy Webb’s “Wichita Lineman.” My Ray Charles collection is building, though it’s strange that I don’t go out hunting these and always seem to find some buried gems.

The last LP I found yesterday was a first printing, Mint condition of The Who’s Happy Jack (Decca DL 74892, 1966). This is too cool for words, though had I been back at Sidetracks with my strange friend, I might have found words indeed. I did spend $38 on it, but in these days before I become a grandfather for the third time, who, besides the strangers amongst us, is counting?

Dig It!

Will we remember Loretta when the chips or checks are down?

I did, however, spend another $5 on Charlie Rich’s Behind Closed Doors, because the other three copies I have are flawed enough to interrupt even casual listening. Besides, the title song helped me remember back in 1974 that country music was the genre that first welcomed me into the music world. I had no idea who Charlie Rich was in that moment, just as I had no idea who Ray Price was a few years before that.

It’s fun to look back and see all that I had to learn about music, life, and while I was a good student in those days, if you had asked me if I was one of those sorts who “loves to learn,” I would have said “no,” if I were being honest.

Now, though, I crave knowing as much as I can while I can. While I don’t get all the technical words and moves that Garrett Hongo describes in The Perfect Sound (Vintage 2022), I’m still absorbing something about tubed amplifiers and how they interact with hand-made speakers. I never took a physics class, and part of me regrets that, but in 12th grade, I would have hated the subject and likely been caught reading A Clockwork Orange while I was supposed to be testing the speed of sound while listening to Beethoven’s “Fifth” if you catch the reference.

Crate diving, then, pays dividends in the learning department, and not just because older LPs also contain fascination and instructive liner notes. For instance, my knowledge of Glen Campbell used to be confined to his TV series — “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour” — and to his big 1960s hits like “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Galveston,” “Gentle on My Mind,” and “Wichita Lineman.” I lost track of Glen until his “Rhinestone Cowboy” days. I love that song now, not so much then. And then, I didn’t know about his “Wrecking Crew” playing days either.

So it was news to me that he also released many LPs that flew under my radar — not that my country-ish radar was strong and sharp in the 70s despite Charlie Rich. I hardly ever set out in search of Campbell’s other albums. Still, when I see one for $5 as I did last week, I do look it over. Sometimes I’ll put it back for no other reason that I don’t think I’m trying to collect his entire canon. At other times…okay, maybe I don’t have a good reason for buying Houston (Capitol SW-11293, 1974). Maybe it just felt right. He performs the title song, “Lovesick Blues,” and “Bonaparte’s Retreat,” among others. I wonder when I first figured that Glen was a crossover country/pop star?

$1 doesn’t buy much these days (is it yesterday’s dime?), but it can purchase a 1968 release by Kitty Wells, Cream of Country Hits (Decca Records (DL 75067). Produced by the legendary Owen Bradley, it begins with “Gypsy King” and continues through “The True and Lasting Kind,” and “D-I-V-O-R-C-E.” I don’t imagine Kitty’s following was going strong in ’68, but the record is pristine. Just a dollar seems stupid to me.

I do seem to be collecting the solo records of George Harrison, though. His 1979 self-titled recording eluded me once, and I vowed “never again.” I think the copy I didn’t buy cost $15, and so the gods were favoring me when I found another copy for $5 at an antique mall (Dark Horse DHK 3255). I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard any of the tunes on the LP (turns out I do know “Love Comes to Everyone,” “Blow Away,” and “Here Comes the Moon”), but so what? George was my favorite Beatle back in the early days, and I still honor that.

Sometimes I do pay too much, but I remember so well when I first heard of Blues master Robert Johnson back in the early 1980s via my great friend Les, who owned the two released LPs of Johnson’s Delta Blues recordings from the 1930s. So though it cost me $15, I decided to relive what I first heard forty+ years ago — stuff recorded fifty years before that. King of the Delta Blues Singers Vol. 1 (Columbia 30034, 1961) includes “Steady Rollin’ Man,” “Love in Vain,” and “Stop Breakin’ Down Blues” and was produced by Frank Driggs.

Finally, I am indeed collecting Joan Jett and the Blackhearts LPs, and so Saturday, for $15, I grabbed the Joan Jett and the Blackhearts Album (Blackheart/MCA Records MCA 5437, 1983). It’s so good, and “Fake Friends” grabbed me from the start, even though the song I love best, Joan’s cover of Sly’s “Everyday People,” is still #1.

I’m so proud.

Even more proud: I was flicking through what I already have last night and got so happy to see my Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett LPs. Currently, Lindsay Zoladz in the New York Times is curating playlists of Black artists who’ve covered the Beatles. It’s a fun read, but what it does mainly is get me focused on crate diving for Wes Montgomery’s A Day in the Life and Otis’s live recording of “Satisfaction.” Also, I had no idea that Disco star Sylvester did a cover of “Blackbird.”

Makes all the sense in the world to me.

Happy digging.

One thing you can do is to go ahead and apply for Social Security, as I did two weeks ago after the ice storm that was to come turned out to be a bit of snow and slush. No better time than to see if I could negotiate government documents—an act that usually fills me with angst and worry that I’m doing something wrong and that for my mistakes and trouble, I’ll be visited in the near future by someone either knocking at my door or asking me, oh-so-un-nicely, to come out and play. Anyway, if all goes well, I’ll be receiving my first gov’t-sponsored check some time in June, just in time for that 70th birthday.

What will I do with the almost $4000 a month that I’ll be getting as a payback for all I’ve contributed in the past 55 years? I could up my stereo system, a thought that makes my wife’s olive complexion go pale. I’m reading Garrett Hongo’s The Perfect Sound: A Memoir in Stereo (Vintage Books 2022) right now, and I didn’t know that a person could spend close to $100,000 for a turntable. Hongo didn’t do that—at least if he did, I haven’t reached that segment yet—but he’s gone all in for things like tube amplifiers and CD players that are as silent as a scream.

I’m not crazy, though, and though I might upgrade one day, I’m just as happy with buying a new stylus for my Audio-Technica turntable and then enjoying the smooth sound of the new and vintage records I own.

There are things that help me through the grief. One is watching Brit-Box detective mysteries like “Endeavor.” We’re only in season six, so if you watch and if you know what happens by the series’ end, I hope you won’t add to my sorrow by informing me of certain plot points that I’m pretty sure are going to go bad anyway. Maybe I’ve watched a series that’s more sad than this one, but I don’t think I’ve seen one that’s as realistically sad as what befalls the title character and his superior, DCI Thursday.

That a person can feel so tragically low and aesthetically high at the same time, of course, has been the mark of the truly artistic ever since the ancient Greeks—and others in farther reaches of my known world—told stories of abandoned women who take revenge on hubristic husbands by...

Another thing that helps, of course, is writing. I haven’t felt much like being on my chosen platforms recently, or more accurately, my heart just hasn’t been in it. But last week, in the course I’m teaching on Queering the Graphic Novel, I heard myself asking my students (this was during a discussion of Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer) what one word they’d most want to use to describe themselves. Very few said anything at all—though one offered their own first name—and so I said that the word for me was “writer.” I acknowledged that emotionally-speaking, “husband, father, grandfather, and son,” competed for #1. But as for the outer world, “writer” captured my longest dreams. Sure, I dreamed about the others, too, but when you’re twelve and still haven’t been kissed, dreaming about writing seemed more frutiful and more of a real possibility for coming true. So…

And just last night I thought about writing one last post—at least “last” for now—and was getting my thoughts in order when I realized that the prospect of writing was also stirring something inside me. I was actually getting excited, and part of what was getting me so excited was reviving this column. And what was so exciting about reviving this column was also the third thing that has helped me through this dark period:

Crate Diving.

This past Friday, my friend Phillip and I ventured into two different antique malls found on nearly abandoned highways deep into our county.

“There’s almost nothing that excites me more than doing this,” I said to Phillip. “It’s such a treasure hunt.” And all my life I’ve been hunting treasure or at least dreaming about it.

I know. Many people hit antique stores to find vintage furniture, glassware, and china that might date back a couple of centuries. Sometimes I look for the china pattern that was our family’s only-for-special-occasions ware. At other times I look for kitschy Americana radios, and at still other times I look for drawings/etchings of old barns. I saw a strange folk-artish painting on this particular occasion—a barn with a horse running free and an old tractor in front. I wondered if this was an attempt to be kind of Howard Finster-like, but Phillip urged me to look, but not touch, and certainly not spend the $37 for this object, which was framed by something most likely acquired from Wal-Mart.

Phillip, though, cheered me on when it came to my heart’s true desire: the following vintage records that were singing out to me (I used to feel this way, too, about finding rare comic books, just so you’ll hear the echoed cliches of certain men of my generation). I’m not sure how many records I ended up buying this past Friday (maybe 20 or 25), but I spent just short of $100, and so you’ll understand in a minute, if you haven’t already, just how much I’m longing for those monthly SSI checks to start rolling in. Because I think I can pull of some audiophile miracles.

The following are the six LPs I want to present to you here as reason enough to venture way out of your way to country antique stores, because people do die and leave their earthly goods to no one at all, and can’t you just imagine the former owners of these smiling or frowning at all that’s going on in their name, or without their giving their consent!

The Haul from Crate Diving, 2/6/26:

1. Nancy Sinatra: Nancy (Reprise 6333, 1968), cost, $5. Backed by The Wrecking Crew—Hal Blaine on drums, Carol Kaye on bass, Don Randi on piano, among others, Nancy covers standards like “Son of a Preacher Man,” “Memories,” and…wait for it… “Light My Fire.” The album was still in its original shrink wrap and sounds beautiful. I’m not sure what I thought of Nancy when I was twelve, or what anyone thinks of her now, but look this up and contemplate the cover for a bit.

2. I’ll get this first part out of the way. I don’t own, and didn’t think I would own, any music by Tony Bennett. Not that I have anything against him, but even when I was a kid listening to my parents’ records of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Johnny Mathis, I never heard, because they never bought, Tony Bennett records. I don’t think they disliked Tony, and so maybe this was just an economy-squeeze. I didn’t set out with Tony in mind, either, nor have I ever on my hunts. And yet. $5 is so little to pay, especially if what you’re paying for is an original 1962 pressing of I Left My Heart in San Francisco (Columbia CS 8669). Other songs on the LP include “The Best Is Yet to Come,” “Have I Told You Lately?” and “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows.”

3. For the next two LPs, you might think I paid too much, given what I’d already found. But this was a different antique store, and people price things as they see fit, and you’re also welcome to negotiate. I rarely do because I want these places to stay in business, and besides $8 for prizes such as these really isn’t so bad. The first of the two is Roger Miller’s Dang Me (Smash records SRS 67049, 1969). The title song was first released in 1964, and so maybe this LP isn’t worth much, but on Amazon, the cheapest price is $15, and besides, this particular album contains his 1969 “Smash”, “Chug-A-Lug.”

4. The other $8 bargain in this bunch is Webb Pierce’s Sands of Gold (Decca DL 74486, 1963), which includes his biggie, “Please Help Me I’m Falling” as well as “Roses Are Red.” Many people have forgotten about Webb, and this copy still has the sticker from its original store (the D category, which if you looked at the price board you’d probably see that it cost $4.69).

5. The last two I found at my favorite record store, Cabin Floor, because when you’re hot, you’re hot. The first is a 1962, very clean copy of Patsy Cline’s Golden Hits (Everest ST 90070). Though I own these songs on other LPs, it seemed wrong to pass this one up, especially for just $10. Included are “Stop the World,” “Walking After Midnight,” and everyone’s fave; “Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray.” And remember that this was released before the tragic plane crash.

6. Finally, in a stack so new it hadn’t even been priced yet (we negotiated $10) there was Keep On The Sunny Side (Columbia Mono-CL2152, 1964) by The Carter Family with Special Guest Johnny Cash. On Amazon, the cheapest vinyl copy of this was $50, some wanting $150. The record itself is in NM condition, the cover more like VG+. Oh man, though, does it sound brilliant and brilliantly moving. They sing “Will the Circle be Unbroken,” “Lonesome Valley,” and my favorite, “Gathering Flowers From the Hillside.” Johnny wrote the liner notes, and knowing what we know, this line feels both funny and portentous:

   “Here in this album are songs that [A.P. Carter] sang so many, many times with Maybelle and Sarah. I wouldn’t call these girls on the album the New or the Old Carter Family. Here is Maybelle with her three daughters, Helen, June, and Anita, who have sung these songs all their lives.”

   Well, John, the honor is all mine.

Please look these up if you will and enjoy, and I’ll be listening for the next time, and thinking, always, of whom I lost.

The kind of impulses I’m more liable to listen to, however, are the ones when I might be grading papers or reading for class, and suddenly I know I need to hit one of my local record stores. This tends to happen on bright Friday afternoons around 3:00. I guess that’s because 3:00 is still my memory-time of being released from school for the weekend. I don’t know what went on in your world, but on weekends, I devoted serious time as a kid to watching ABC music shows like American Bandstand, Happening ‘68, and the Beatles’ cartoon show.

Maybe it’s “Penny Lane”—”there beneath the blue suburban skies”—that I think of mostly, but whatever song lurks, it makes me want to go to my record store to find something to complement the feeling I’m having—the feeling that tells me again and again that I grew up in the greatest era of pop music (no shade on Sinatra and Crosby or Doris Day). It’s hard to explain to those who didn’t live it that when the Beatles and Stones, James Brown, and The Supremes and even Paul Revere and the Raiders were at their zenith, nothing else mattered so much.

I know other things did matter: the war, the Civil Rights movement, and the crisis of faith when assassinations of popular leaders seemed to be running at us all the time.

Anyway, without getting so philosophical, the impulse hit me not only last Friday but also this past Monday. And, dig it for sure, I found some gems.

Last Friday, I scoured Cabin Floor Records, seeking a prize from the Yardbirds to match my others. I didn’t quite succeed, but Joe the record man showed me a copy of something I didn’t know existed:

Eric Clapton & the Yardbirds (Springboard Records SPB-4036 year undecided). It cost me $12 and is in Very Good shape, which is good, because it’s a bluesy collection anchored by “I’m a Man,” a song the Yardbirds played to show how much they love and learned from blues masters of yore like Muddy Waters and so many others. Springboard records has an address in Rahway, New Jersey, and Discogs tells me that it was one of the biggest budget labels of the 1970s:

https://www.discogs.com/label/221977-Springboard?srsltid=AfmBOopme8UD4PW0keFwlmsIWskYlrYc5jpy6rRBGQT4XJ3qyTa7QBn0

It also lists The Genius of Billy Preston as one of its title. Maybe worth a check.

My impulsive nature, though, wouldn’t let me rest. I had an ulterior motive for hitting Cabin Floor last Friday. For weeks, I had seen a sealed, Mono copy of Frank Sinatra (with Billy May and his Orchestra)’s Come Fly With Me (Capitol W920, 1958). Did I say it was sealed? The protective seal says it originally cost $4.98. Is it a reissue? How can I tell? Should I unseal it? So many questions, but are there any answers, and if I do come fly with him, when and where will we land?

Joe was asking $65 for the record, and when I told him I wanted it, he checked to see if he had listed it on eBay, which he hadn’t. So he asked if $40 would do, and whether that was his impulse or not, mine was to say YES.

Over at Horizon Records on Monday—and this impulse hit me early Monday morning, though I waited patiently to late that afternoon, because I did have to teach after all—there were no Yardbird albums at all, but there was a copy of George Harrison’s Dark Horse (EMI Records SMAS-3418, 1974) sitting in the $5 bin. I never owned it and considering that many critics, including Madelyn Waehner over on Medium, consider it an unsung and underrated masterwork, I didn’t hesitate. I love George so much even if he didn’t write “Penny Lane.” He was always the Beatle for me.

Even more so, because I have also never owned a copy of The Concert for Bangladesh (Apple STCX-3385, 1971). I saw the concert film at the Green Springs Theater when it was first released, and fell so in love with the moment, and especially when Leon Russell chimed in on “Beware of Darkness” (of course I would). So not buying the album then was likely due to what a three-album set cost. But in all those years, here and ago, I should have rectified the issue. The album is still pricey, but when you find a pristine copy in the crates for only $30, impulses be damned. This action is mandatory and we must seek the swift completion of our appointed rounds. Even after all this time, my love for “Wah-Wah” has no equal.

Oh George, has it really been 24 years since we lost you. If not for you indeed.

Anyway, I keep thinking about what if I didn’t follow my impulses—the need to go on a certain day; the desire to examine and dig all there is before me.

And so when the musical question “What Is Life” is asked, I know what the answer is. For me.

“Oh no!!!!” she cried.

The next thing I knew, my wife was clipping the dead or dying flowers—zinnias she said they were.

“You have a whole bed of flowers at home,” I argued.

“But mine aren’t like these,” and then I wondered why I wanted to argue. Flowers don’t just come and go, or at least they shouldn’t. So she carried her prizes, still claiming that hers aren’t this pretty, and now we have a beautiful bouquet adorning our entryway.

That someone dug up and discarded such beauty makes me wonder why, and also why we plant and transplant and uproot what we love or at least thought we did at one time.

So I feel about digging through record crates, or in the case of Cabin Floor Records, not just crates, but stacks which, like those flowers, seem to be everywhere in the store: on chairs, perpendicular to each other on every floor-space already unoccupied.

There are also crates of new arrivals that Joe, the record store guy, hasn’t been able to price yet. And in one of those stacks, I found this:

A still-sealed copy of Elvis Costello’s 1984 LP Goodbye Cruel World (Columbia FC 39429). Joe looked it up and told me that the lowest price he could find was for $30. “I don’t have to have that,” he said, “but I do need to get at least $25.”

Sold.

I suppose the most famous song on the album is “The Only Flame in Town,” though “I Wanna Be Loved” is also featured. Originally, in ‘84, this record sold for $7.99, or so the yellow sticker still adhering to the sleeve tells me.

On a rolling office chair, I found records already priced, and there were other Elvis records, though I already had them all. What I didn’t have was something in the newest artist collection that keeps me humming:

Julie London’s Lonely Girl (Liberty LRP 3012). This is a French reissue in 1984 of the original 1956 recording. It was priced at $12, and Joe and I spent another few minutes discussing how much we love London’s voice, and how, in 1956 when I was born and he hadn’t been, London was a female Sinatra, in the sense of you need a good bourbon while listening sort of way. There’s a sultry yearning to her voice, and no wonder that so many men like my father had flower visions of some sort as they listened and dreamed through such numbers as the title cut, “What’ll I Do,” “When Your Lover Has Gone,” and “All Alone.”

I still haven’t pulled the trigger on the $65 pristine Sinatra album Joe has, but I did go for the $5 copy of Where Are You? (Capitol SW 855, 1957) Sinatra’s recording with Gordon Jenkins and his orchestra. The sticker tells me, “Couple marks, plays fine,” and so what do you want for $5? You start figuring that loneliness was a thing for these artists, for here is his version of “Lonely Town,” and though they aren’t wondering where the flowers have all gone, Sinatra does ask “Where Are You?” and through the “Autumn Leaves,” he also begs “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home.”

I don’t know what Sinatra thought of Dylan, but I didn’t know that this album existed: Bob Dylan Real Live (Columbia 1984—talk about a very good year!—FC 39944). Featuring 8 Dylan songs that at that point had never been recorded live including “Tangled Up in Blue,” “Girl From the North Country,” and “Maggie’s Farm,” Dylan and his band also feature Mick Taylor and Carlos Santana. If I had been at Streetlight Records back in ‘84, I would have paid the $3.95 gladly. So I paid the $12 gladly, too, as inflation is what inflation does.

Sometimes I dig through Discogs and Amazon, too, because flowers fade and life is short. As obsessions go, collecting early Ringo Starr isn’t such a bad thing, especially since I’ve already forgotten how much I paid for Beaucoups of Blues (Apple SMAS 3368, 1970). While the cover is worn, the record itself is in beautiful shape. Pete Drake, DJ Fontana, Charlie Daniels and Ben Keith play on the record, too, as Ringo hones his country chops.

And then.

There’s something about Nancy Sinatra, and I’ve written about her in these pages several times. But I’m not such a patient man, and so when I saw the recording of her TV special Movin’ With Nancy (Reprise RS 6277, 1968) for sale for $15 in Very Fine shape, I knew that there wouldn’t be a fool such as I, or maybe there would be. I have some of these songs on other LPs. She duets with her father on “Younger Than Springtime” but everything fades in comparison to her classic duet with Lee Hazlewood, “Some Velvet Morning.” I could hear this song forever and still not quite know what it means and not quite care that I don’t.

As long as the flowers keep growing on the hill, and as long as my wife keeps salvaging the unfading beauty, life will allow me to be straight and to keep digging for all that I don’t yet know I want or need to find.

“Love is why the flowers grow.”

“Look at us, but do not touch.”

It’s time, and maybe just a bit past time given the surge of AI in our halls and classrooms. I know that some are trying to figure out how to fit AI into their classes, and maybe they’re figuring that actually teaching college students how to compose essays of any sort is a lost art now. Why write yourself when a machine can do it for you? Why bother reading maps and reports or god forbid, a novel, when some force somewhere out there will gladly do it for basically no charge at all or at least so you think.

Didn’t someone once sing, “Free your mind?”

How free do we want our minds to be? Free of charge, free of worry, free of guilt, free to think anything at any time or not to think at all?

I’m starting to sound cranky, which is another reason why retirement is necessary and coming for me. Without lamenting what’s done or in the making any longer, my last question for the moment is:

Would we cede going to record stores or even Discogs to an artificial entity? Sure, I know your Apple or Amazon music algorithms will offer recommendations, advice, and playlists for your consumption, working so hard so that you won’t have to. Don’t we, shouldn’t we, have to do some work? And is digging through stacks of records in crates barely peaking out from under a table back in the record store’s corner really work? Isn’t it, shouldn’t it be, joy?

Of course for me, it is, and no matter the time and place, my hearts skips a beat just as soon as I pull into the parking lot of those treasure houses. Even if I have a mental list of wants ready, I try to free my mind for what might appear.

For instance, on my last trip, I didn’t know I wanted a clean copy of Bridge Over Troubled Water, but when I saw it, I had to have it. I’ll write about it in another volume of this crazy Dig It!, because I have a few others today that I found while being intentional (and of course, the other unintentional booty).

First, have I told you lately that I love Nancy Sinatra? Did I know that I love her a few weeks ago? Maybe, because lurking in my head are two song duets she did: “Somethin’ Stupid” with her daddy, and “Some Velvet Morning” with Lee Hazlewood. I’ve found new releases of Boots and Keep Walkin’, but I’ve had my eye on even earlier ones like Nancy in London. Haven’t found it yet, and so when I walked right into Horizon Records last week, I thought I’d get a newly released copy of Sugar (Reprise RS-6239, 1967). But before I made it to the section where Nancy resides with other 60’s Pop icons, I checked the “Recently Arrived” used bins, and guess what I found for $12? On this record, according to the record itself, Nancy “sings…sweet, soulful serenades from the old timey years,” though if you’ve ever seen the cover, there’s nothing very “old timey” about it or her. This appears to be an original pressing, and she does sing “My Buddy,” and “What’ll I Do,” which are good enough for me. Glen Campbell and co. play along, too.

Intentionally, I walked over to the Folk bins, intentionally looking for the quite intentional Joan Baez, since my Dylan collection has been crying out for her company. And we were both rewarded, as for only $8 apiece, I found Farewell Angelina (Vanguard VSD-79200, 1965) and Joan (Vanguard VSD 79240, 1967). Both are in excellent shape and again appear to be original pressings. On the former, she ably sings one of my Dylan faves, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” and ends with “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” On Joan, she does a few other covers like “Eleanor Rigby,” “If I Were a Carpenter,” and Richard Farina’s “Children of Darkness.” She also co-write with Nina Duscheck two pieces, “North” and “Saigon Bride.”

Over at Cabin Floor records, I didn’t know I wanted Wings’ Wild Life (Apple SW-3386, 1971) for $5, but it turns out that I did. All of side two kills me, and I actually remembered the words to “Some People Never Know” after all these years. My brother had a copy of this one, but I never did. Rectified!

For another $8, I added Diana Ross & the Supremes Join The Temptations (Motown MS-679, 1968) to my Supremes/Ross collection. They cover many biggies like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “A Place in the Sun,” “Funky Broadway,” and “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me.” On Discogs, I know I can get some earlier Supremes’ records, but I’m holding out for that moment of crate catharsis.

Someone sold Cabin Floor some more Johnny Cash goodies, so I picked this one up for $8, too: Johnny Cash—Mean As Hell: Ballads from the True West (Columbia CS-9246, 1965). He’s joined by the Carter Family and the Statler Brothers to sing the title cut, “Sweet Betsy from Pike,” “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,” and “The Streets of Laredo.” This appears to be a re-working of Johnny Cash Sings the Ballads of the True West, but it’s still in its own shrink-wrap and in Very Good shape for going on sixty years now.

Finally, I had just heard some Waylon Jennings on Outlaw Country, so i had my eyes wide open for something that I didn’t have. I actually found three, but the one I want to note here—one that is soaring to the top of my favorite country albums list—is Waylon Jennings: Lonesome, On’ry, & Mean (RCA AFLI-4854, 1973). It cost me $25, but it’s in pristine shape, still in shrink-wrap, and it features the title cut plus”Me and Bobby McGee,” “Lay It Down,” and one of my personal favorites (because it reminds me of a moment in 10th grade), “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues.” That’s the thing about Waylon: he can sound every bit the title, but then make you want to cry when he sings the blues. Or at least he does to me. This record was once found at a place called “Carole’s” and back then, its price had been reduced from $7.98 to $6.29. I’ll never understand who sets such discounts and why, but wouldn’t they love to know that my friend Joe made a profit higher than the retail price originally was?

I’m putting off readying myself and my dog Max for our ride to campus, but writing about my experiences makes me content and helps ease my worried mind.

I won’t be digging for a few weeks and grandchild #2 is on the way soon, and I need to get focused. So, if you’re out there digging, please let me know how it goes.

I still can’t believe that someone dumped his or her collection of early Elvis Costello records just at the time EC appeared here in town. But it happened, and so did my birthday, which means only that I’m a richer person than I once was, but…

There was a moment on July 6 when I had everything sorted in my study/record room. All the LPs were either filed or taken downstairs on the “I’ll play these again someday” shelves. I had rearranged and re-ordered my collection, featuring in the beautiful wood cabinet that my wife built for me the music that pierces and also soothes my core: from The Band through Neil Young, with stops at Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, and of course, Dylan.

But anyone who knows me and wants to buy me a birthday gift understands that it’s either books or records, and while my sister-in-law got me a gift card to our local independent bookseller, most people either took me record shopping or, in the case of my younger daughter, ordered a copy of Tyler Childers’ latest LP and had it shipped right to my front door. It’s pretty great, btw!

And then there’s my wife, who called one of my retail record dealers and asked him to select a couple of albums that he thought I’d love.

“Man, I don’t know,” he said. “Your husband has such broad tastes—one day he’s buying Tammy Wynette, the next it’s Brian Eno." But I’ll do my best.”

He did. I’ll write more about some of these stranger records another time, because discovering artists like Michael Hurley makes this world worth living in, past 69.

So, from my old friend Les, to my brother Mike, and to my older daughter Pari, my loved ones accompanied me to my favorite non-family homes on earth, and they refused to give me a price limit, though for all of our sakes, I tried to keep it below $125 per person, whatever that says about me and them.

Much of what I got from these gifts were new releases or new copies of albums I have either wanted all my life or decided I wanted in the last few weeks—albums like Dylan’s Oh Mercy!, which Pari bought me, or the latest by Lord Huron, which she also included. Les got me a new copy of Elvis’s Imperial Bedroom (his BEST!), and Mike got me Vol. IV of Johnny’s American Artist series, all of these, again, brand new copies.

And with their help and a bit of digging on my own, I came up with these fine specimens to add to the bursting at the seam shelves that I had so recently ordered.

A band Les recommended to me maybe 1000 times is The Delines. I found a copy of their 2018 release The Imperial (El Cortez Records LDECOR46LP) for $20. It’s a quality record through and through—very subtle and as if you or I or both of us were sitting in a bar somewhere in New Orleans—nothing fancy, nothing seamy, or at least too seamy—and these guys were giving us everything we could want in cool, lo-fi lushness. Could be a little depressing, so use accordingly.

Mike can verify that I have never been a fan of Aerosmith, at least as the brother he’s known. Funny thing: the night before I went shopping with Mike, I raised a question with some of my friends back home about what they thought Aerosmith’s best song was. My argument was/is for “Sweet Emotion.” They chimed in with “Janie Got a Gun,” “Last Child,” and the almost necessary “Walk This Way.” I asked about “Dream On” and they agreed it was fine, too. I’ll stand by “Sweet Emotion,” and even more so, because there awaiting me as Mike and I wandered into Horizon Records was the seminal Toys in the Attic ( CBS PC 33479 1975) for a whopping $12. It’s got “Uncle Salty,” too, a song I’m afraid I also know.

At my other favorite store, Cabin Floor Records, I was hoping for some other vintage Nancy Sinatra. If I could explain my obsession with certain artists, I would, but if you haven’t listened to her in a while, or ever, check out her country album as well as the required “Boots.” No Nancy in the bin this day, but there was an unopened copy of Come Fly With Me from back in ‘67 by her dad for $65. I couldn’t pull the trigger, though there’s always next time. What I did get was Frank’s Cycles (Warner/Reprise 1027 1968) for $12. It’s in NM condition and features the title cut, “Moody River,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Little Green Apples,” and “Gentle on My Mind.” I guess Frank had a thing for Glen. And for those who might remember the 60s and especially “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” there’s a photo on the back cover of Frank and Tiny Tim. Makes you think.

Cabin Floor had just been adventuring and I profited once I looked in the Johnny Cash crate. In 1969, the Sam Phillips-less Sun Records released Get Rhythm (SUN 105), allowing John to render songs like the title track, Hank Williams’ “You Win Again,” and John’s own comps, “Mean-Eyed Cat” and “Two-Timin Woman.” Oh, and he does some song called “Oh Lonesome Me,” by someone named Don Gibson, too. This one set me back $10, but according to Joe, it “plays great.”

The other John record features June. In fact, it’s titled Carryin’ On With Johnny Cash and June Carter (Columbia CL2728 1967, $18), and is considered “Rare.” It’s in NM condition and the pair sings “Long-Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man, “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” “Pack Up Your Sorrows,” and “What’d I Say.” They look so happy on the cover, like they knew it was my birthday.

Speaking of Bob Dylan (weren’t we?), so even if I’m put off by those two Christian records he made, I still feel compelled to buy something righteous when I see it. Cabin Floor had a copy of Shot Of Love (Columbia TC37496 1981) for $24. It’s a true 1981 pressing and still in the shrink wrap—NM condition. Actually, I’d never heard the album before, and I really liked the sound, especially the first number, the title track, and “Dead Man, Dead Man.” He got the right background singers, for sure, led by Clydie King, and Jim Keltner and Tim Drummond play drums and bass on it. Look carefully and you’ll discover Ron Wood and Ringo Starr on the recording.

Finally, because so few remember when she and Dylan were leading lights of Folk, I found Joan Baez’ 1970 LP, blessed are… (Vanguard VSD 6570/1) for $8. Along with “Heaven help Us All,” “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” Ocean’s “Put Your Hand in the Hand” [now there’s a Christian popper for you], you also get Joan’s version/hit single of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” where, as I think Dave Marsh (or was it Greil Marcus?) once lamented, she turns Robert E. Lee into some sort of steamboat. And maybe he was. Weirdly, hers was the first version of this song that I ever heard.

And maybe it was hearing Joan’s version and then realizing that The Band did it first that clued me in on what musicians were up to when they weren’t trying so hard just to be chartbusters.

It’s a long road and so much to sift through—both in the crates around me and in my memories of the music that shaped me.

Thanks for reading!

Not that they want me, personally, to retire, but given that I’ll be teaching a course in Queer Graphic Novel and likely another go-round in Film and American Culture — The Culture of Fear, it could be that more people than I know will celebrate their kids no longer being exposed to Fun Home or Paris Is Burning, or Searching For the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.

Maybe nothing will change when the D of E goes, but think about the overall message to our society. Education, apparently, ranks so low on the priority ladder of American life that we are not only suspicious of those with advanced degrees and the institutions conferring them; we’d also like to un-grant them out of existence, lower all ladders, and then we can be home-schooled by wrong-eyed parents who think they know what Jesus and Ben Franklin would do or want.

Not that Ben Franklin will become anyone’s scholastic model, because when they discover the, ahem, personal aspects of his life, some will likely want to dig him up and then draw and quarter him and erase him from whatever history books we have left.

Well, I just don’t know anymore. I got a fine public education in Alabama schools. Sometimes I had to look the other way after my fourth grade cheek was slapped by an Alabama history book that proclaimed that the slaves were happier, more well fed, and safer when they had white masters directing their every move (a text that Alabama legislators apparently want to reinstate). That the book didn’t include the phrase “and fornicating with their slave wives” is surely just an accident of birth.

Anyway, Alabama did some mighty strange things to me, which might explain why a History colleague and I are working on a book tentatively called The Religion of SEC Football. You might think it strange or funny, and if so, you’re just not from here, you Yankee savage.

Alabama also made me a liberal and possibly a Democratic Socialist. We’ll see. In any case, when some of us heard George Wallace cry into the January mists about segregation being our way of life, we knew that our education was going to take a leftward turn.

Thank god that I have open-minded and well-educated family and friends.

My friends and family and I also love good music. In fact, my brother is here with me, and he’s taking me crate-diving this afternoon. I’ll report on those finds later, but now, before the thought-control begins, I want to show off other gems I found recently.

There are so many forms of education too, so as we get going, let’s also remember this well-educated claim regarding an artist and an album entitled John Wesley Harding:

“Where once there was confusion, now there is peace. Dylan has paid his dues. He has discovered that the realization that life is not in vain can be attained only by an act of faith; only when one accepts the flow of life can he manifest the will to overcome the confusion and vanity which tear him apart” (Steven Goldberg, “Dylan and the Poetry of Salvation,” reprinted in Bob Dylan, The Early Years: A Retrospective, p. 375).

Hear Hear.

Onto the flow of my record-buying life.

Maybe you read somewhere here that last week, my friend Les and I saw Elvis Costello live at Greenville’s acoustically-perfect Peace Center. The next day when we went record shopping, I swear, someone must have either hated the show or figured that after the show, he/she wouldn’t need any more Elvis records, for there, not too far down in the dugout crate were:

Trust (Beat Records XXLPII, 1981) for $12. Great songs like “Clubland,” “Luxembourg,” and “From a Whisper to a Scream,” make this sort of an underrated Elvis record, but don’t tell producer Nick Lowe!

Get Happy! (Columbia JC36347, 1980), again for $12. Featuring “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down,” which he played to a gospel peak last Monday. Also “B Movie,” “Secondary Modern” (LOVE IT), and “Black and White World,” among others. I’ve never owned a copy of this and the title says it all.

At another record shop, I also purchased Almost Blue (Columbia FC37562, 1981, and produced by Billy Sherrill) for $10. This one was recorded in Nashville, so surely you understand how I feel about it. Containing “A Good Year for the Roses,” “Too Far Gone,” “Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down,” and “Sweet Dreams,” among many more.

A couple of weeks back in a store down by the river in Asheville, I found Johnny Cash, Ride the Train (Columbia CL-1464, released on August 1, 1960) for $10. It’s in Very Good condition and is a concept album about…(and it don’t take no education to suss out) trains. I don’t know sometimes, Jerry, but whatever the reason someone decided to rid themselves of this prize, I thank ye kindly.

On the afore-mentioned Bob Dylan front, I reacquired Infidels (Columbia 1983) for another $12. Listening to “Jokerman” makes me think long and hard about what he means, but coupled with “Neighborhood Bully,” I think I got it. 42 years ago, and so much of the infidel still residing in our lives and former schools today.

And as a freebie for being a valued customer, my record store awarded me a copy of Jason & the Scorchers’ Lost & Found (EMI St-17153, 1985). I think I had many chances to see them live and to purchase this record. But here it is now, to school me into Nashville Alt/Punk-Country submission. Covering Leon Payne’s “Lost Highway” seems like either an obligation or an education, but I’ll take the latter any day, now.

And that’s all to report for this installment. My brother is making me an amaretto pound cake as we read/write. My dog wants to go out for a walk, but it’s 90 degrees and I’m trying to persuade him that we must wait till sunset at least. My children have sent me birthday wishes, and my wife is preparing Persian kabob for supper.

These are both entertaining and educational moments to savor. So put on a record — currently listening to Stage Fright myself— and enjoy what all you have and will continue to learn.

It’s in a crate near you

I would say this happened when I was a kid and didn’t know any better, but then I’d be lying. It happened when I was a college student, and truth be told, it still happens now, but there’s a difference in this now that helps me understand the more subtle difference then.

As a kid, I collected comic books, Batman, Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, Daredevil, The Avengers, and The Justice League of America. Later, Archie, but that was during the hormonal phase of me. I had a couple of newsstand-like places where comics abounded, and whenever we’d go to my grandmother’s, I had a few other island-comic homes whose stacks and racks I scrounged through.

I didn’t understand back then that comic books were distributed once a week — the same comic books to each newsstand. So wherever we went, I expected to find some book that I couldn’t find anywhere else. I couldn’t have specified what that book was or would be, but I was sure that it was out there waiting on me if I just found the right store.

I know this sounds ridiculous, but the regularity of distribution and production made sense to me when I realized that my favorite titles appeared only every four weeks. I calmed down then and decided to subscribe to Batman, at least, so I wouldn’t miss anything there.

And then, just to show me that dreams can come true, when my family and my best friend Jimbo were on a Florida vacation (the year Disney World opened, but that wasn’t the dream), for whatever reason, we stopped at a Magik Market. Jimbo, my brother Mike, and I went in because through the window we could see a big old rack teeming, overflowing, with comic books. I had stopped collecting for a while, but Jimbo hadn’t, and he began describing to me all that was going down, especially in Peter Parker’s Spidey world where Petey’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, had been murdered by The Green Goblin.

That’s all the comic plot synopsis you’re gonna get here, because that’s not the point. When we got to that comic book rack, not only did we see how stuffed with books it was; also, we saw that it was full of back issues of all our favorite titles. We had allowances, and we busted them buying as many treasures as we could. Sue Richards had left the FF, had had a baby, and Doctor Doom was on the prowl. I got Spider-Man’s as far back as just after Gwen was killed [much later I found that issue for a decent price online, but that’s never quite like happening upon it in a store that couldn’t care less about it].

The details don’t matter; what did matter was that now I was sure that there were other places like this one Magik Market in the middle of nowhere near Palm Beach, and so what else was there to do but find those others, wherever they might be?

Of course, my dad was driving, and though this may shock everyone, he didn’t particularly want to spend his vacation stopping at every convenience store in a fifty-mile radius. Or even one more such place.

Though we all whined — or at least I did — Dad wouldn’t relent, so there was nothing left for me to do but accept that momentary reality, and then, after I got my driver’s license, spend many spare hours in my home locale trying to see if there was a duplicate treasure trove of comics somewhere else. There was, somewhere in Missoula, Montana, though this was a huge barn, and they didn’t have any Spider-Man’s or Batman’s, but if you liked Thor or Iron Man, you’d have been in business. I was an adult by then and had lost my original collection — I think they were stolen — but I was collecting again. Through the intervening years, I wish I could describe all the places I’ve entered looking for rare comic books.

One place in Birmingham — I wish I could describe it. It was on a downtown side street, one of those places that once must have sold “sundries,” and now had goods that likely had expired years before. Maybe they had some cold drinks. They definitely had cigarettes and likely beer. It was a cave-like store, so dark that memory tells me the only light came from a bare bulb in the store’s center.

But there was a rack of comic books, a half-empty rack, and the books that were there look used and picked over. I picked over them, too, though I didn’t find anything to buy. I wish now that I had bought something, though the old man sitting behind the wooden counter didn’t seem to care. He didn’t speak, either, and I had to wonder at whatever rent he might be paying in a store that seemed better suited to a Twilight Zone episode or maybe The Outer Limits.

I dream about that store now, like it had been sitting in a city on the edge of forever waiting for me.

The next time I passed by, it was gone, of course. Whose comic books had those been, and why were they there?

I know that was a long intro into record diving, but I wanted to spend that time telling you all I used to do for comics and used to believe about comics, because that’s what I believe and know about vinyl records. They are almost everywhere, and how will you ever be able to complete your Loretta Lynn collection if you don’t take the chance to seek out that obscure store down by the river in Asheville?

I swear that when I did an online search for record stores in that city, this one didn’t appear, and had my wife not said,

“Turn here and let’s see what’s there,”

we wouldn’t have found it on that day, our 41st wedding anniversary.

She wrote me a poem; I bought her a Rhiannon Giddens LP, and in the meantime, I found two Loretta Lynns. I don’t know in this moment how close I am to completion, and I should look. But if I don’t, and I don’t know what I have, then my mind will believe that there’s something still out there for me.

They say that when you stop believing there’s a future, then you might be severely depressed, so…

In that old bin I found for $3.99 Loretta’s Here I Am Again (MCA DL7–581, 1972), featuring the title cut and liner notes written by her mother Clara, who says that getting a phone call from Loretta, who still called her “Mommy,” fills her with delight, but this time with “dread” because Loretta asked her to write these notes:

“If all you country music fans take Loretta home with you and also in your cars, you will then see why I brag about my daughter.”

And so I did, and along with that LP, I bought for $4.99 Loretta (MCA-3217, 1980), featuring “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” “Pregnant Again,” and “Sweet Sweet Daddy.” Recorded at Bradley’s Barn, Mt. Juliet, TN.

Back here in Greenville, my local record store, Horizon, had a few country gems, too, both by Carlene Carter, and both still sealed:

C’Est C Bon (CBS BFE 38663, 1983) for $6.00, originally, $8.19, featuring “I’m the Kind of Sugar Daddy Likes” and “Breathless.”

And then, Blue Man (F Beat records XX LP 12, 1980-something) for $6.00, marked down from $10, and priced somewhere before at Spud 69 for $1.99. I don’t know why I think I need to be collecting Carlene’s entire canon, but I’m well on my way.

As with Sammi Smith. I’m not sure how many LPs she released, but now I have my fifth: Sammi Smith Sings Kentucky and Other Favorites (Buckboard BBS-1008, first available in 2008 according to Amazon, which asked $8.99, but I got it for $4.99 at that river store in Asheville). Did I know I wanted it? She sings “Birmingham Mistake,” so yes I do!

That same Asheville store also had a sealed copy of Neil Young’s Life (Geffen GHS 24154, 1987) for $9.99. I’ve read that Neil was recording quickly back then so as to get out of his Geffen contract. As much as I love Neil, I’ve never heard this one and am not sure I want to, or want to unseal it.

My other two finds in Asheville were Jackie DeShannon’s Laurel Canyon (Liberty LP-12415, 1970) featuring “The Weight” and “Sunshine of Your Love,” price: $10.99, and Ringo Starr’s first solo LP, Sentimental Journey (Capitol SN-16218, re-issued, but costing only $12).

Finally back home, I got Bob Dylan’s Dylan, that much-persecuted LP (CBS C-32747, 1973) for $10 in VG shape. So what that you don’t want to hear him sing “Big Yellow Taxi” “A Fool Such As I,” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” It’s worth it to me for “Mary Ann,” “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” and especially “Lily of the West,” which I LOVE.

After all this — and many more new releases, or old, new releases, or new releases of old material, I told my wife that I was stopping my search for now.

I’ll wait till my birthday week, a mere two weeks from now. I think I can be that patient, at least.

With one eye and ear open, I listen out as commentators try to describe what this all means for America, and sure, that’s a thought, sort of in the vein of “How does this affect me, Al Franken?” I love that opinion writers whom I love, Like Michele Goldberg, have recently suggested that they—just speaking for themselves—might have been too hard on Al. Sure, reprimand, formal censure, but almost every day I get an email from him urging me to speak out against the latest undermining of democracy coming from those in charge of our democracy.

On the continuum, what Al did was wrong and he was punished, unlike and not as reprehensible as the WRONG perpetrated by the current C-I-C who, as of this writing, still isn’t sure how to play Iran, Israel, or even his own fervid, hungry, and drooling horde.

So, I have two suggestions for those of us who keep getting news flashes about thugs killing members of state congresses and entering no plea at all when hauled before the courts.

First, consider reading Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost (Penguin 2006). It may or may not help you make it through the night or life, but as I began it early this morning, I felt my natural, daily anxiety begin dimming, calming, just as on those days at the beach when there is little-to-no tide at all. Consider this quotation:

“Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration—how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?…It is the job of artists to open doors and invite prophesies, the unknown, the unfamiliar; it’s where their work comes from, although its arrival signals the beginning of the long disciplined process of making it their own. Scientists, too, as …Oppenheimer once remarked, ‘live always at the edge of mystery—the boundary of the unknown.’ But they transform the unknown into the known, haul it in like fishermen; artists get you out into that dark area” (5).

Whew.

The unknown, the dark area, and extending boundaries of the self into it all—that isn’t exactly what I’ve considered that I’ve been doing in pursuing writing and turning my thoughts into something at least resembling art, but maybe so, maybe so.

What I do know, and the second thing I’ll suggest to turn from the world’s darkness and into the extended boundaries your own self, is to explore the unknown shelves and crates of your local record store. Dig into the unfamiliar and become something, someone else!

For instance, you might not think you like, and indeed, you might not have ever heard A Night on the Town with Buck Owens’ Buckaroos (Capitol ST-8-2902, 1968), but maybe you should, for if you did, you’d hear some pretty strong fiddle by Don Rich on “Down on the Bayou,” and equally seductive steel guitar by Tom Brumley on “Waltz of the Roses.” Some great electric guitar instrumentals on “Chaparral” and an overall sweet sound from the Bakersfield legend. My copy came from Cabin Floor Records for a low price of $8.

Buck’s “Hew Haw” compatriot, Roy Clark, had a pop/country hit back in 1969: “Yesterday, When I was Young.” I found the LP of the same name (DOT DLP-25953) for $6 at Melody Supreme in Charlottesville, VA. Roy recently left this old world for the unknown of another, and while his voice isn’t as strong as some, his guitar-playing stands with anyone’s. I wonder what he’s exploring or where he’s lost now.

Also at Melody Supreme, I got a very fine copy of The Rolling Stones’ 1964 LP, 12 x 5 (London PS 402) for $25. They were so young then, yesterday in 1964, but then so was I when this record was released. I was 8, and didn’t know the how lost in music and in the extended world I could get. Their original composition, “Good Times, Bad Times” is a highlight here, and perfectly captures this and any other time.

Finally, for today at least, I’ve wanted to write about the Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, and while I will—that is when I’ve finished it—it’s spurred that Dylan quest. So again, at Cabin Floor Records, I found a 1975 reissue of Bob’s first LP, Bob Dylan (Columbia Monaural-CL 1779) for $22. I had an old beat up copy that someone foisted on me when I was too naive to consider it carefully, so now I’ve found a new expression and feel like another door leading…where?…has opened. “Song to Woody” is worth everything I did to get lost.

And then, someone who has very similar tastes and needs as me was selling back the 1974 live album of Bob Dylan/ The Band (Asylum AB 201), a double LP that, honestly, had gotten lost in the shackles of my memory. Cabin Floor kills me, and my daughter got me a $50 gift card for all this. As a bonus, I also got that collection of covers Dylan did back in 1973 on an LP simply called Dylan (Columbia PC 32747). Critics panned it, but for $8, my lost soul feels broadened and ready to see what else is lurking out there in this place we call the world.

So I’ll keep looking, but I won’t be watching.

Once upon a time in a representative democracy far, far away, I wondered what music our home-grown ayatollah might prefer. That got answered by the pseudo-disco ball he threw for himself just before the 2024 election.

You know: the one where he “moved’ to the dulcet tones of “YMCA,” that cheerful anthem of a day when it might really have been fun to hang out there. I wouldn’t know, for in my salad days, the local Y smelled like chlorine, liniment, and something I would understand much later was the sweet aroma of stale urine.

I don’t know if it was ever fun to stay at the Bessemer, AL, YMCA, but at least it was pleasant to think that once, someone thought so. I'm not sure if DJT has ever entered a Y, and if he did, what on earth would he have been doing there? Taking a turn on the massage table? Basking in the sweat room? Having a meal with the other boys?

So much to consider; so much to ponder before the expected nausea sets in.

Today I was reading a chapter on electronic music in Darryl W. Bullock’s David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music (Overlook Press 2017). My copy of this book once belonged to the Dallas, Texas, Public Library in Grauwyler Park, a place I have never been or sweated in. Now, this might surprise you, and I don’t mean that in a former world this book was on the shelves in a Texas library.

No, I mean:

Who on earth is surprised that it was pulled from those shelves at some point between now and then?

My copy is a hardback and it cost $13. It’s a pretty cool book, but the passage I read today was especially, exceptionally exciting:

You might know that the synthetic instrument known as the vocoder was used by 70s bands like Kraftwerk, Pink Floyd, The Alan Parsons Project, and ELO, among others. One of those others was electronic/disco genius, Giorgio Moroder, who then

“…linked his Moog to an analogue sequencer to create the bubbling synthesiser lines that dominate Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love.’”

And at that point, according to Bullock, “a whole new genre was born.” And dig this:

“[David] Bowie, living and working in Berlin at the time, recalled that collaborator Brian Eno (whose work with Roxy Music had been influenced by Wendy [Carlos’] pioneering experiments) came running in and said ‘I have heard the sound of the future.’ He puts on “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer and said ‘this is it, look no further, this single is going to change the sound of club music for the next fifteen years,’ which was more or less right” (136–7).

I can attest. As a loyal Disco-goer in the 70s, when I first heard “I Feel Love,” it was a sea change from the “I Love the Night Life’s” and “Instant Replays,” “Boogie-Oogie-Oogie’s,” and yes, the “YMCA’s” that had previously dominated the dance floor. I watched people dance in a way they hadn’t been — a seemingly coded performance signifying how much love the leader might want.

Try it yourself:

This is a far cry from that Repub rally and from any video like this:

Tape shows Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein discussing women at 1992 party

The November 1992 tape in the NBC archives shows Trump with Epstein more than a decade before Epstein pleaded guilty to…

www.nbcnews.com

Watch at your own risk — not that your life will be endangered, but maybe your sanity, your taste, and your love for all things danceable will.

So I hope this proves that I’m not out-to-lunch on the world around me; it’s just that I appreciate music to an extent that causes me to want to snub and erase(ure) our fearless dictator from my mind as he imagines that whatever moves he once had were smooth. Sure, he scored on that dance floor, but we all know it wasn’t his hip gyrations that did it.

But enough about him.

Want to know what I dug up in my several record stores treasure hunts recently?

First, at Cabin Floor Records last week, I found Reflections, by Diana Ross and the Supremes (Motown 665, 1968), for only $5. My DR & The S collection is building.

Next, I discovered at Horizon Records, Rodney Crowell’s But What Will the Neighbors Think (1980) for $5, too. And then, Rita Coolidge’s third album, The Lady’s Not For Sale (1972), for the same price.

Moving into the higher tax brackets, still at Horizon, I completed my early Bowie-years collection by acquiring Pinups (RCA 1973) for $20, and Emmylou Harris’ 1981 Warner release Evangeline for $10.

Finally, at Pharmacy Records, I found The Kinks’ Preservation Act I for $14, and at 2nd and Charles, I got Glen Campbell’s Too Late to Worry, Too Blue to Cry (Capitol 1963) for $9.95.

In this first world that so often feels like first over the cliffs into the swirling Kharybdis of our choosing or capitulation, I think the range of music, the eras and genres, out there for us to enjoy sometimes — at least in the outer reaches of my consciousness — offsets the insistent news cycle that keeps wanting me/us to react to yet another absurdity that we never considered long enough before to know that we truly didn’t and couldn’t want.

I still feel lucky enough, even though I understand that luck tends to run out, and for some, it evaporated years or a lifetime ago.

An old Looney Tunes cartoon from my childhood has a dog whose name I no longer know singing as he journeys along a dusty road,

“Oh, you never know where you’re going till you get there!”

I take that as my mantra, especially when I go diving into crates in random junk shops or vintage record store. And damn me, but I almost always forget to clean my hands after, and so yet again I have a cold that I’m sure I got from holding that copy of Bloodrock II that I decided not to buy because who really wants to hear “D.O.A.” one more time?

If you’re careful and lucky, for under $5 you can score pretty big on those albums you didn’t know you were looking for until you found them.

I thought, for instance, that I had enough Kitty Wells in my collection, but when I saw Kitty Wells Showcase (Decca DL-74961) featuring “My Big Truck Drivin’ Man,” I had to get it. An original pressing from 1968, it needed a home in my stack of older female country artists. And for $5, what kind of fool would i be if I left it sitting all by its lonesome?

Then for $4, I found The Carter Family: I Walk the Line ( Harmony HS-11392), with a lovely photo of June, her sisters and mother all in matching horizontal blue-striped dresses. Along with the title track, they cover “That’ll Be the Day,’ “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’,” “I’ll Never Find Another You.” This was released ion Canada in 1967, and if you’re looking for it on Discogs, there are only two copies, neither of which is as good as mine, and both costing more — one substantially more.

I went crazy and spent $6 on Soft Touch (Epic 85727) by Tammy Wynette from 1982. It’s a fine copy but Discogs offers some still in the shrink wrap if anyone cares about such things. What I do care about is that it nearly completes my Tammy collection and it has her singing “What’s It Like to be. A Woman,” a question we’re asking in so many ways these days.

For $5, I also picked up another copy of Buffalo Springfield’s final album Last Time Around from 1968 (ATCO SD 33–256), featuring my favorite, “On the Way Home” and “I Am a Child.” I have a copy already but couldn’t stand to leave this one behind, either. I’ve got a friend who might want it for his birthday. I know I would love such a gift.

And finally, for $1, I got the album I alluded to in the title. It’s a very clean copy of this three-album set, though the cover does show ring wear. Who cares? I’m sure The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Earl Scruggs, Vassar Clements, and all those others playing on it wouldn’t. Will the Circle Be Unbroken (UAS-9801) restored bluegrass to its place in Americana amongst the hipper, hippier set. I remember when some college friends wanted to go see. The Earl Scruggs review, and I didn’t go because I knew Earl only from Lester and appearances on “The Beverly Hillbillies” and I really didn’t know where all of this was going or had gone. I didn’t know myself very well either back then in what i thought were my own hippie days.

But I know now and I’m here, wherever that is with amazing finds from old and out-of-the-way and places near Staunton, VA.

Thanks for reading!

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.”

3. 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?

4. 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…

5. 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.”

6. 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.

7. 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!!!