What's In My Bag?

Records I've Scored Recently

I go digging. I don’t spend hours and hours in the stacks because I’m not producing music, but I AM an enormous fan. As such, I keep my weather eye open and my Spidey Sense on full. I’m drawn to places through intuition, happenstance, and sheer coincidence. This also happens to describe my mother’s sense of religion. Shit! I guess crate digging is my religion. This will be a new thing about records I’ve found recently that I needed for my personal stacks.

1. The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat, 1st pressing, 1968

   

   I’ve only seen one other 1st pressing out there in the wild, some years ago at Berkeley’s legendary Amoeba Records and it was decidedly not in my price range. One of the benefits of being retired with a full military pension, disability, and GI Bill benefits, is I can budget for record-hunting expeditions like I never could. This is a direct result of that, plus simply knowing where to look

2. Nick Drake - Pink Moon, 1st pressing, 1972

   

   20 years ago, Zach Braff wrote, directed, and starred in Garden State, a semi-autobiographical film about a mid-20s actor/director who returns to his hometown after his mother dies. The film was pretty good from what I remember, but the soundtrack was superb in all ways. It certainly introduced a number of people to Nick Drake’s music (along with Frou Frou, Thievery Corporation, Zero 7, and the Shins). Drake recorded just three albums in his brief life, passing almost unnoticed. This is the last of the three, potentially the most perfect, and the one I’ve hunted for the longest.

3. Etta James - At Last!, 1st pressing, 1961

   

   Leonard Chess knew what the fuck he was doing. He signed Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Chuck Berry, The Moonglows, The Flamingos, and… Ms. Etta James. I’ve had the 7” single, a tasty repressing of the full length, but never the OG recording. Etta arrived fully formed and we’re all better for having her in our lives.

4. Them - Here Comes the Night - U.S. edition, 1st pressing, 1965

   

   Back in the day, the U.K. and U.S. markets really could not come to a consensus on how to release albums on the east and west sides of the pond, often changing song order and omitting songs altogether. It was a childish, silly, and utterly senseless exercise that marketers routinely fucked up. This was originally released in the U.K. as Angry Young Them with 10 tracks. The American version is 14 songs including Gloria and Here Comes the Night. And in mono? Gimme.

5. The Mekons - The Mekons Rock 'n' Roll, 1st pressing, brown translucent vinyl, 1989

   

   Lester Bangs once wrote, "The Mekons are the most revolutionary group in the history of rock 'n' roll," and although he wrote it tongue in cheek, that doesn't mean he was wrong. Generally, bands this far into their career don’t make records this fucking good.