*Seasonal Affective Disorder
You have to find light where you can even if it's found in a plastic black hole of musical wonder.
As many of you are well aware, records have reclaimed some of their dominance of my consciousness. I just now paid nearly $50 for Richard Thompson's "Henry The Human Fly", his first solo album, released in 1972. I found it on Discogs, and I'm hoping to receive it before my 30 days are over.
A friend on Facebook nominated me to list 30 albums in 30 days that are of significant importance to me. The rules are to offer no explanation and nominate someone else every day. A musical pyramid scheme. I'm choosing to disregard the rules. Feel free to volunteer as I'm not nominating anyone. I can't help saying something about how or why an album is on my agenda. I don't know which one I'm posting until I sit down to make the post, and I'm only featuring albums I own vinyl copies of.
I'm about to post #13. I started with this one two weeks ago Friday:
#1 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies
I sent $3 off to Warner Bros records with a coupon cut out of the sleeve from Neil Young's Harvest, sometime in 1972. I was 15, didn't have an older sibling, too many friends, or found FM radio, and I wanted to hear new music.
It's a 3 record "Loss Leader", full of artist such as Little Feat, The Grateful Dead, Ry Cooder, Jimi Hendrix, Randy Newman, Fleetwood Mac, The Kinks, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Rod Stewart and Faces. I found this super clean replacement on Discogs for under $20.
More to come.
I meant to start this yesterday. To make up for it, here's what I just posted on FaceBook.
Widowmaker" (1964) Jimmy Martin
I found this 1973 repress in 1984, or 40 years ago(!). A lot of 80's post punk new wave popular music drove me back into the distant past, starting with Elvis, rockabilly, country, and blues. I bought it for the $1.99 price tag, and the album cover. Turns out Jimmy Martin and The Sunny Mountain Boys were the real deal.
It's more old style country than the virtuosic playing on hard core Bluegrass. It's all about the songs, and the stories they tell in that high lonesome style. It's all about truckers, with "Six Days On The Road", "Widowmaker", and those little white pills.
Blame The Byrds and "Sweetheart Of The Radio" for getting me into straight country music.
-BBJ
9 comments:
That's a cool cover for a collection of random tracks from artists! I hope you'll post all the picks and coverage together in one fell swoop for the grand finale.
Coincidentally last week I scored a cheap copy of the Loss Leader "Collectus Interruptus" and gave it to my pal who owns a shop because it has two of his favorites on it (the Pistols and Ramones) and also Prince. Was telling him how in the "old days" completists needed these things. Nowadays nobody really cares.
I bought "The Force" for the Jan & Dean rarity "Laurel and Hardy." Again, these days nobody cares.
(not sure if Stan Cornyn was involved with these but here's my pitch to find a copy of his book "Exploding," one of THE great books about the music industry, particularly Warner Brothers)
Bob in IL
Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies
A friend of mine named David came by my place in early 1971 with this box set under his arm. He was the first person I ever dropped acid with. We both became junior high acid heads, dosing at least once a week. We were also music buddies. The guy was pretty handsome and a real character. He was a live wire and he loved doing outdoorsy stuff. We had a lot in common. But as close of friends as we became, neither one us ever seriously thought about getting physical with each other. That's just the way it was with us. We each had our own things going. He had a few girlfriends, but he loved adventure, drugs and rock n roll more than pussy. He told me that chicks slowed him down and held him back. He was a badass dirt biker and surfer. David was also a mad snow and water skier. He was a daredevil who took crazy risks and flirted with death for the adrenaline rush. You get the idea.
Being as my parents were gone, we had the run of the place. Dave wanted me to make him a custom 8-Track that included some of the songs on Looney Tunes and other shit from my already substantial collection. He thought the Hendrix track on Looney Tunes was brand new, but I told him it was released as a non-LP single about a year earlier. I had the 45 and played him the flip. He wanted both sides for his custom tape and a bunch more. He rolled the doobs and I rolled tape.
Looney Tunes was my first exposure to Little Feat. A big deal. Strawberry Flats drew me all the way in. I had to hear more. The debut is still my favorite of theirs. And a few weeks after I bought their initial LP, they opened for Johnny Winter And and the J. Geils Band. I saw the band five times in 1971 alone, usually as openers. They did the Whisky opening for Rory Gallagher. I saw them do a rare headline one time that year at Chaffey College in Alta Loma.
I never bought Looney Tunes. Dave left it there and never got around to picking it up. Typical Dave. He ended up dropping out of high school in his senior year to make some bucks in construction. I introduced him to a friend of mine, Deanna, who had a ridiculously high IQ and a lust for adventure and kicks. They hit it off famously. But her asshole parents hated him so much that they moved out of the area to keep her away from him. A shame because I think they were each other’s only true love. Neither one of them ever got married and they both hurt like hell about it. I kinda lost track of Dave after I split for UCLA. But I got the news when I was on my Michigan “sabbatical” in Fall 1974, that he had been in a horrible car accident. His best friend Tony, who was his passenger, got decapitated. There was no other car involved. Dave was just taking it to the limit and he wasn’t careful enough. He was mortified that he killed his best friend. They had both had a few beers. The police and DA came down hard on Dave. He got a two-year sentence for felony vehicular manslaughter. I visited him in jail when I could. He was never the same. Saw him a few times after he got released on probation, but lost him completely by the late 1970’s.
Not that long ago I was thinking about him and surfed the internet to see what I could find. I was shocked to find out he died from injuries sustained in a dirt bike crash in 1980. He was 24. I still have his Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies box to remember him by. Between the two of us, we turned each other on to a lot of good music. I’ll never forget the good times we had.
VR
You're back on Facebook?
Strawberry Flats hit me hard. I couldn't find their debut, but was rewarded with Sailin' Shoes, on of the best albums ever made. I eventually found their first one, and it didn't disappoint.
Never left FB, but at their insistence, went with my real name.
Great post, VR. Some incredible memories there. I didn't discover Little Feat until Waiting for Columbus but, boy, did that do it for me.
If memory serves, I had that Loony loss leader back in the day.
Loved all the loss leader LPs like The Age of Atlantic, The Rock Machine Turns You On, etc, all I could afford at the time, but a great introduction to a vast range of artists and genres. Not a Looney Tune at all. Cheers!
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