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 is about records I’ve found recently that I needed for my stacks.

1. Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited - 1965, first pressing, mono recording

   

   Oh, God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
   Abe said, “Man, you must be puttin' me on”
   God say, “No.”
   Abe say, “What?”
   God say, “You can do what you want, Abe, but
   The next time you see me comin' you better run”
   Well, Abe said, “Where you want this killin' done?"
   God said, “Out on Highway 61”

Also, Ballad of a Thin Man, Desolation Row, It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry, and something called Like a Rolling Stone. Monoaural perfection.

2. Dexter Gordon - Go - 1962, first pressing

   

   From the moment Dexter Gordon blasts into the opening track, radiating brightness and confidence, you know Go is one of those rare albums where the stars align. With a stellar quartet featuring the slick Sonny Clark on piano, the nimble Billy Higgins on drums, and the rock-solid yet flexible Butch Warren on bass, the stage is set for magic—but it's Gordon who truly shines. Gordon's career spanned five decades of high points, but this album stands as the pinnacle—a blazing, exuberant testament to his genius.

3. Eric B & Rakim - Follow the Leader b/w Follow the Leader (a capella) - 1988, 7”

   

   Having already detonated the foundation of hip-hop with their debut, Eric B. & Rakim stormed back onto the scene with their sophomore blitzkrieg, Follow the Leader. This wasn't just an album; it was a ruthless, calculated assault on the eardrums of the world.

4. Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes - 1983, first pressing

   

   In the chaotic birth of alternative rock, one record stood out like a neon sign in a blackout: the Violent Femmes’ debut album. It was an anarchic beast, a cult classic that fused the tense, jittery energy of new wave with a raw, almost reckless acoustic sound. This wasn’t polished, studio-perfected rock; it was a gritty, amateurish masterpiece that felt more like a manic fever dream than a carefully curated collection of songs.

5. Betty Davis - They Say I’m Different - 1974, first pressing

   

   Betty Davis' second full-length album, They Say I'm Different, is a wild ride through her fiercely sexual, funk-infused universe. Taking the helm as producer and backed by a new lineup, Davis delivers big, blowsy tracks like Shoo-B-Doop and Cop Him and He Was a Big Freak with her signature stop-start rhythms and bold persona. Good luck finding this one in the wild.

6. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale - 2006, first pressing

   

   Ghost pours his soul into every track on this album, delivering detailed and off-the-wall scenarios with a fluid, compelling vocal style. His lines, brimming with urgency and vivid detail—onions on the steak, TV shows, socks sticking out of a "big Frankenstein hole" in a shoe — never derail the narrative. Ghost, unmatched in his command of '70s soul samples, wisely chooses the perfect, though often bizarre, beats to complement his unique style. The result is an unrelenting, exhilarating ride through his wild imagination.

7. Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart - 1980, 12”, Italian pressing

   

   The peak of Joy Division’s bleak Mancunian post-punk nightmare still slices through you like an ice pick to the soul. Tormented by a crumbling marriage, Ian Curtis named the track as a darkly ironic twist on Captain and Tennille’s saccharine 1975 hit, “Love Will Keep Us Together.” In a macabre twist, it was even recorded in the same studio. “Ian’s influence seemed to be madness and insanity,” recalled guitarist Bernard Sumner. The song, released mere weeks after Curtis’ suicide, stands as their final single, its haunting chorus now a chilling epitaph.

8. Mouse Rat - The Awesome Album - 2021

   

   The best and most influential band to ever emerge from Pawnee, Indiana by a wide margin. Then you add the legend Duke Silver? Fuck outta here man.