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I've been digging seriously since the late 1980's but when I opened my own used record store in 2003, I had to take my digging to the next level. I currently own Som Records at 1843 14th Street, NW in Washington, DC. If you're reading this blog then you probably already know what a digger is, but I will explain anyway:
A digger in record collector parlance is someone who constantly looks everywhere and at all times for new and interesting records. These records can be for DJing, sampling, playing at home, trading for other records, reselling, whatever.
Sitting at home a surfing e-bay and GEMM for records does not make you a digger. Going down to your local record store to buy the latest Belle and Sebastian LP does not make you a digger unless you have to go through EVERY record in that shop before you leave. Getting up before dawn on a cold winter's morning (after DJing the night before) to get to a flea market in West Virginia that may or may not even have records might make you a digger.
Slowing down whenever you see a yard sale and training your wife to spot record boxes at 35 miles per hour might make you a digger. Diving through DUSTY piles of ten foot vertical stacks of records in a shed in the back of "antique" mall in rural Florida while you battle heat and insects to find 2-3 good records might make you a digger. (OK, enough Jeff Foxworthy retreads, let's talk records...)
In this space I'll be featuring a new record every month. I will explain where and how I found that record and what that record is all about. Why I like it, why it's valuable or interesting, where I found it and how I found it. I'll also give you a brief history of the album (when possible) and give sound clips.
Sometimes people ask me in the shop "where do you find your records?" That is a question I would never answer completely. No true digger (no smart digger) would ever reveal all of his secret spots and contacts. "Just go down to the Goodwill on every second Tuesday of the month at 11:15AM. Knock twice on the back door and ask for Willie. He'll show you into the Blue Note storage room where you can grab an armload full for ten bucks."
In these days of e-bay hoarding and record flipping revealing all of my secrets would not be prudent. I can tell you that I shop for records at record stores, thrift stores, record shows, flea markets, estate sales, antique malls, online, in newspapers, at friend's houses, at relative's houses, at stranger's houses, in my own house, at book stores, church sales, library sales, bake sales, on the side of the road (really) and just about anywhere actually. My digging descriptions each month may not have ALL the details you want but will hopefully give you, the reader, an idea of how it all went down. To me there's nothing more exciting than finding a record that you've never heard of that's been collecting dust in someone's basement for over thirty years and being the first person to play that record since 1975. When that record happens to be great and/or valuable then you've struck digging gold. I better stop typing now, there are records out there that need to be found... _____________
Thanks go out to Stefan Glerum for use of his illustration at the top of this post which will adorn Neal's monthly crate dispatches. Check out the rest of Stefan's amazing work here - and he's even got prints for sale!
Last week's 'First Date'Fredrik return again this week with a little something under the arm for TVD readers. To celebrate the release of their new video, "11 Years," TVD's got a vinyl copy of their new release "Na Na Ni" to award to the sharpest, wittiest, vinyl-related commenter of the bunch. And that winner needn't be in DC, so all you visitors from far-flung destinations all have a chance as well to snap up the vinyl from the Swedish popsters. (Remember to leave us some contact info too, please...)
If you're a regular reader and familiar with the continuing TVD narrative, you were witness to a brimming over with disgust last week for about 97% of the artists and bands that are pimped daily by Pitchfork and Stereogum respectively. It depresses me to no end to think that the kids coming up today will have a generation of half-baked bands or pseudo-talents to recall as their collective 'first's.
It depresses me even MORE however, to be referring to the 'kids these days' as it seems I was one of 'em just an hour ago. But to hell with it - I'll embrace it in a new TVD feature: Angry Old Man, wherein we attempt to re-raise the bar that has been dropped precariously low over the past say...ten years. (I could go back even farther, but alas, I'm no spring chicken and time's a-wastin'...)
In the summer summer of '76 I was a whopping NINE years old and one of my best buddies was my pal Nick who, if I recall correctly, was two or three years older than me--a whopping 11 or 12. Nick had this odd set up for a bedroom in his home as his parents, brother and sister all had their bedrooms upstairs while Nick had a precursor to Baby's First Bachelor Pad with his bedroom on the ground level and the ability to come and go as he pleased. This totally blew my mind up - the FREEDOM, I'd think often. Nick was also in possession of more than a few cigarettes and Playboy magazines which solidified his rep, at least in my eyes, as one cool kid. My folks weren't similarly convinced.
It was that summer when one late afternoon I found myself sitting in Nick's disorderly downstairs and the kid put a copy of KISS "Destroyer" in my hands and dropped the needle onto Track One -- "Detroit Rock City". The sound effects, the radio in the diner with its subtle build up into the song knocked me the hell over. Like the jazz standard I recall thinking, "how long has this been going ON?" I was transfixed to say the very least. Grabbed around the neck and THROTTLED was more like it.
A tiny bit later it was like I was taken out to the playground and given a serious rock schooling as Sweet's "Fox on the Run" drilled its candy confection into my cranium. Another good friend Carol had an older sister who introduced her, then us, to BOWIE. We'd sit in Carol's room among her doll collection and listen to "Space Oddity" over and over with the drapes shut tight. Then Alice Cooper...imagine - Alice is a GUY. No waaaaay. And "Bohemian Rhapsody" ...one of my very first 45's b/w "I'm In Love With My Car," a Roger Taylor composition that got as much play as the operatic A side which even my folks found oddly compelling for all of its classical music strains.
So, what's the point you ask? You were NINE. Where's the tie in with the Pitchgummers?
Well, inherently, THAT's my first point. That 'something' is missing. That stomach-twisting, chill inducing 'otherness' is all but nonexistent this morning and most mornings on the Pitch/Gum frontpages. Ask yourself - is anything reaching through the monitor and sending your life into an upswirl? You needn't be nine to be simply excited and enraptured, and a whole generation is knobbing at the teet which isn't even delivering this one, BASIC nutrient. The ONE ingredient careers are built and sustained upon. (U2, anyone?) Really, if I'm thinking through mathematical progressions to get to the center of your Protools lollypop, you're doing it all wrong.
Unlike last year's Halloween-themed playlist which was an almost obligatory rummage through the Goth LPs, this year I decided to REALLY scare the (bat)shit outta ya'.
Earlier in the week, Ms. TVD forwarded to me the blog post below from 94.7's web site. For those of you not local to DC, 94.7 'The Globe' is our 'classic rock' radio station and the author of the post is local radio DJ/local legend Weasel who's been on the air here in town ever since my arrival back in '85. I think what Weasel has to say is both timely and pertinent for reasons I'll get to shortly. Give it a read:
RIP: Record Stores Everywhere Once upon a time when we were all very young and times were different people used to hang out in record stores. Nick Hornby wrote about it in High Fidelity and John Cusack and Jack Black in the movie made it seem so romantic. Do you think the Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist generation have any idea? I hate to admit it but I have probably spent half of my life in these stores as well as their 8 track, cassette CD and even VHS video tape and DVD successors.
They actually had 7 inch slabs of vinyl with a big hole in the middle called 45 rpm singles where you could get 2 songs and they were only 69 cents at the Korvettes. And you could get Meet the Beatles in mono for $2.69 or stereo for $3.69. But of course if you were looking for Miles' Kind of Blue or Brubeck's Time Out or even the Weavers at Carnegie Hall you had to look elsewhere. There was always the quest to find the new and exciting adventure the place where the real records were.
I was too young to remember the legendary Commodore Record store on 42nd Street in Times Square where Billy Crystal's uncle Milt Gabler sold Jazz records before he recorded Billy Holliday's Strange Fruit and Bill Halley and Buddy Holly. But my uncle Seymour regaled me tales of treasures that awaited in that store for a culture that still spun at 78. It still seems so romantic to me now.
For me it was the Original Sam Goody store at 8th Avenue and 49th street and whenever I would into the city to visit my Dad I would make sure he would take me there. Now this Sam Goody was not the Mall store that Trans World Entertainment runs today but New Yorks ultimate catalogue store at the time. They had everything from Charlie Parker's Dial recordings to Leadbelly's Folkways sides to a healthy dose of Lenny Bruce's albums the Tony Glover Harmonica Instruction Record and even a few Hebrew language instruction records for good measure. For a kid with evolving tastes it was heaven.
The record store never left the boy especially during my radio career at WHFS where it seemed like I spent every Saturday afternoon during the 70's and 80's doing 5 hour remotes. Memories of the amazing and incredible Howard Applebaum and Kemp Mill or Page Hubbley's Penguin Feather or the legacy of Max Silverman's Waxie Maxie which played a roll in the founding of Atlantic Records. And sometimes we would even wind up in a Harmony Hut mall store. It seems strange lugging boxes of a 100 of our own records to a record store but that's what we did. And a 100 pound remote set with 2 turntables microphones and a mixing console which would usually require at least 2 people to carry in and out. The phone company would install high quality 15 kHz stereo remote lines so we could actually play the records from the store. And of course the reward was the crowd surging our remote set up and usually knocking whatever record we were playing off the air. Our remotes were so much fun and were as a big a slice of live radio that you could ever get.
When the regional chains started to fizzle out they were soon replaced by the mall stores which would usually only stock the top 40 of each catagory. But soon Russ Salomon's California dreaming started to spread nationwide. Tower Records brought back memories of that early Sam Goody and had a staff that lived breathed and eventually died with the records and the music. Alas Tower too is no more but for awhile the catalogue store lived on. Maybe Sir Richard Branson and the Virgin Mega Stores are the last hope but not here in DC.
The news keeps getting worse. The used record stores are going out business too victims of rising rents and the internet's more conducive business model. When you're brick and morter you draw from your local community but on the internet you can reach Wreckless Eric's whole wide world. And with today's mail order shipping it's a lot easier just to put an ad in Goldmine.
So bye bye Yesterday and Today and most recently the long running Orpheus. And we remember Bialek's Discount Book and Record where I once hosted a Halloween Toga party and did a live broadcast with Dave Marsh when he wrote his biography of Bruce Springsteen. And now Olsson's is gone too. Coming up I'll share some memories of Olsson's that involve a Christmas tradition straight out of an O'Henry story. And we'll talk about the fact that as record and music stores are gasping their last breath an interesting phenomenon is happening. Vinyl records are staging a huge comeback especially with younger generations.
Even though it's tough to say goodbye RIP: Record Stores everywhere. ________
Although I've been saying it for some time now, this weekend and next mark the last 4 days that the aforementioned Orpheus Records will be open for business and what's ever left in the bins at this point (which is PLENTY since my previous visit there last Saturday) is priced at a dollar. That's right, ONE dollar. All of it, no matter what the price ONCE was--is a dollar. One greenback. Uno clam. A single sawbuck. And there's even live music this Saturday night (11/1). Doors open at noon...and that guy with the crates? That'll be me...
I imagine that however long this blog exists, this record will make an appearance in the heart of the Fall each year. This LP, from another jaunt with my dad to the Record World in Seaview Square Mall (a store I'd ultimately work in, actually) typifies what I was referencing earlier in the week--that subconscious seasonal soundtrack.
In my mind, the trees shed their leaves to "Oblivious" just as it was when this, "airy yet somehow lush (LP) filled with lovely melodies and thoughtful, impressionistic lyrics" (as Trouser Press noted) made its imprint for the first time. From "We Could Send Letters" to now "We Could Send Emails," its timelessness is near impenetrable.
...AND will outlive anything currently on the front pages of both Pitchfork and Stereogum this morning. (Sorry - couldn't resist..!)
Queen have announced that they will re-release all of their studio albums on vinyl over the next two years. The album packaging will feature original album details as well as bonus posters and pictures. This will be the first time all of Queen's albums will be available on vinyl. The Hollywood Records re-releases will span the band's career, from their 1973 debut self-titled album with singer Freddie Mercury to 2008's 'Cosmos Rocks', featuring Paul Rodgers on vocals.
Hollywood Records will release a new "wave" of records every six months. “The First Wave” consists of 'A Night At The Opera', 'A Day At the Races', 'Sheer Heart Attack', 'Queen' and 'The Cosmos Rocks'. “The Second Wave” will be available in spring 2009 and includes an edition of the rare gold-foil stamped 'Queen' album, 'Flash Gordon', 'News Of The World', 'A Kind of Magic' and 'Innuendo'.
Meanwhile, the band have announced that their concert film 'Queen + Paul Rodgers: Let the Cosmos Rock' will screen in 425 cinemas across the US on November 6. The film features footage from their recent free concert in Kharkov, Ukraine’s Freedom Square, which drew a record audience of more than 350,000. For tickets and additional information, visit www.FathomEvents.com. (Via NME.)
So, I railed pretty hard against the Pitchfork and Stereogum artists yesterday and I've given it some time since then, ...thought it over, ...allowed cooler heads to prevail ...and well--nothing's changed. In fact, I probably didn't express my disdain enough.
But if you really wanna get ticked off, try heading over to RollingStone.com or picking up their dead tree edition. To the Pitchgummer's credit, at least they're TRYING to tap into new talent. The 'Stoners can't even nail that one down and actually let the PitchGum network do all the leg-work to parse the alt-indie school kids. By the time Rolling Stone's got the up-and-clubbers anywhere on their radar, they've been built up and torn down by the same machinery that denounces and picks apart their very success. Maddening.
All of which to say, we've got new feature here at TVD which we call -- oh,... wait...that'd be getting ahead of myself now, wouldn't it?
For now, a bit of good news: Prefab Sprout will release a new album in the early part of next year. The album, the band's first since 2001, has the tentative title 'Let's Change the World With Music - The Blueprint' and will include songs with the working titles 'Let There Be Music', 'God Watch Over You', and 'The Last Of The Great Romantics'. (via Remember The 80's.)
"I remember standing in a coffee shop listening to 'Lust for Life' by Iggy Pop when this guy I don't really know comes up to me, kind of provokingly, and says - what the hell is this music about? I answered that I think it has something to do with love or possibly food. He didn't look too impressed by my short analysis and I figured that either he doesn't like me or he's just not a music fan. As it turned out he wasn't all that behind, because a little later when I interrogated him for thoughts on our music he really quickly came up with these three: random animals, adventurous hurricanes, and cream drunk from a straw. Given he had only heard the album once or twice, I think that's a pretty colorful description. The one thing I wish he had included is the word 'wood'. Especially in its Finnish version - 'puu'. Well, some things are better left unsaid, I guess." -Fredrik Hultin
This morning Pitchfork reviews the new Kaiser Chiefs record and gives it a fairly decent 6.8. But, know what? I just don't care.
I don't care about 97% of the bands Pitchfork goes on about. Same with Stereogum. The vast majority of it: bo-ring. And despite my well-worn proclivities to appreciate music alternative to the mainstream--I'm simply starting to: just not care. And it's obviously not for TRYING to care or reading the alt-indie-blogs...because I do - daily - HOPING for some savior. Or, a new BREED of saviors...but whoa lord, it ain't coming.
And I'm starting to get pissed, frankly. I think of 'kids' today getting excited over a new Kaiser Chiefs release and I wanna slam my head with a hammer. I'd like to write it off as "just getting old" because, really - it'd be easier that way. But when so few bands of the PitchGum generation sound marginally, oh - I don't know...fresh? Interesting? Compelling? Have something--ANYthing to say -- it's not about being old, it's simply about: knowing the difference.
And really, I shouldn't knock the Kaiser Chiefs. They're actually 'ok'. It's just that: I don't care. (OR, I haven't been made to care...there's a difference.)
And despite yesterday's claim to forego "theme weeks" here at TVD...suddenly there's a theme a-brewing...
I overheard a news report this morning, amidst the hiccupping and burping of the coffee maker, which involved a study on the brain and the various consciousness levels we inhabit during the day. A contrast was being drawn between two competing mental states--one being the detached state of awareness which exists when we're doing routine tasks--commuting to work for example. The other is the more attuned level of consciousness, where you remember to pick up your dry cleaning during that routine trip to work--and the mental machinery that kicks such detail-oriented perceptions into gear.
Leaning against the counter as the coffee maker sputtered to a halt and the cats did their dance for their morning meal, I thought that my musical inclinations are no different than that morning commute to the office. I mean, how many times have I (and have you) arrived at work barely being able to recall the commute, but gosh darn it, there I sit barely recalling anything but throwing a coat on and then--boom--walking through the front door to the workplace.
There's an interesting subconscious parallel here to what music I choose to listen to in particular times of the year (a topic that's been covered here before, I believe). Somehow, the seasons still continue to inform my personal soundtrack...quietly, subconsciously like Spring forward/Fall back-clockwork. It's only when I'm contemplating this here blog and material for the coming weeks, do I "pick up my dry cleaning" or rather, break out of the patterned reality and interject task-oriented musical selections far from my predispositioned norm.
Which is a very long way to say that this week and for however long we're returning to being comfy. (A Fall's back fall back, if you will.) So, pull up a seat. Coffee's on...
"Hey, did you know that I'm/Always going back in time..." I was humming on Monday and maybe a few of you were too as a result. And it's true, the evidence is in and I've come to the realization that I'm hyper-nostalgic. Why, this week alone here at TVD was spent quite like so many days as a kid--listening to tunes, scouring LP lyric sheets, and staring blank faced at LP covers. (Normal fare for TVD perhaps, but man, good times indeed.)
And it's even worse than I make it out to be...why, I'm nostalgic for 5 minutes ago. (Truly, that was one schweet pot of coffee I just brewed.) I'm even nostalgic for times that were tough. Take that one Fall where my grandfather died for instance. I recall driving to his funeral with my mom and dad, while I in the backseat was held in rapt attention by the latest issue of the Aquarian, New Jersey's then alt-weekly, and every so often gazed out at the lovely trees a-turnin' all shades of orange and red and feeling quite oddly alive and vital - perhaps all of 18 at the time. Maybe I can simply force-fire those endorphins to flood at will simply by looking. Back.
I'm nostalgic for this very second, even. Another crisp Fall morning'll do that. I'm nostalgic for yesterday, last summer, last year--underscored with what are now actual ARCHIVES here at TVD where I can go back and reread what I wrote over a year ago and think, "Sheez, I'm even nostalgic for that bullshit I posted last October. Go figure."
Freed the daytime with indifference Watch the twilight starve the sun Shuffle home against the darkness Turn the key and bite your tongue And please be strong You don't know it but you're coming right along
Call belated, leave a message Wait for hours just to talk Feel like slowly getting blown off Stretch your eyes, invite the clock And please be strong You don't know it but you're coming right along Please be strong You don't know it but you're coming right along
Cry as if to say you're sorry Sight a life and hate your own Try to think of what to mention Leave the television on... And please be strong You don't know it but you're coming right along Please be strong You don't know it but you're coming right along You don't know it but you're Coming right along Coming right along Coming right along
Deleted Scenes is a four-piece indie rock band living in DC and Brooklyn, NY. We met as kids growing up in Maryland and have been playing together under various guises ever since. The songwriting, a collaboration between Dan Scheuerman (vocals/guitars) and Matthew "Fatty" Dowling (bass/organ/vibraphone/flex-o-tone), is strengthened by the undeniably precise musicianship of drummer Brian Hospital and guitarist Chris Scheffey. In 2005, we recorded a four-song EP with Billy Gordon (of J-Roddy Walston & the Business) in Baltimore which featured songs Dan wrote at the end of college, and which Fatty helped hone and arrange with various instruments. In late 2006, the EP was released through Echelon Productions, and throughout the year that stretched across 2007 and 2008, we toured the country, and recorded a full-length record with J. Robbins (Jawbox/Burning Airlines) and L. Skell (the Rude Staircase). The resulting album is a diverse, propulsive, and deeply personal set of songs called "Birdseed Shirt." It is named after a passage in Jonathan Safran-Foer's novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. We are still finalizing plans for release and distribution.
I count the hours since you slipped away I count the hours that I lie awake I count the minutes and the seconds too All I stole and I took from you But Bonny don't live at home, he don't live at home But Bonny don't live at home, he don't live at home
All my silence and my strained respect Missed chances and the same regrets Kiss the thief and you save the rest All my insights from retrospect But Bonny don't live at home, he don't live at home But Bonny don't live at home, he don't live at home Save your speeches, flowers are for funerals
Hey, did you know that I'm Always going back in time Rhyming slang, auld lang syne my dears Through the years I am the backwards traveller Ancient wool unraveller Sailing songs, wailing on the moon And we were sailing songs, wailing on the moon Wailing on the moon.
My name is Neal Becton and I'm a record digger.
In this space I'll be featuring a new record every month. I will explain where and how I found that record and what that record is all about. Why I like it, why it's valuable or interesting, where I found it and how I found it. I'll also give you a brief history of the album (when possible) and give sound clips. 
