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.
Miles Davis Quintet - Workin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet, 1959, mono, deep groove, first pressing
Miles Motherfucking Davis, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones released their third of four spectacular albums with this lineup in September ‘59 on the heels of the colossal Kind of Blue. This is the kind of group project in which everyone is firing on all cylinders. No one is slacking (Miles would have canned that ass in a New York second). The quintet was playing these tunes live, and because they’re collective knowledge was as deep as it was wide, they tinkered and played with them in the studio to their delight. This is genius at play.
Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - 1988, first pressing
Public Enemy took Run-D.M.C.'s blueprint of a rap crew hitting like a rock band, then beefed it up, then they exploded it into a sprawling, chaotic symphony of rage and rebellion. They brought in everything and the kitchen sink, from the fiery, primal depths of free jazz to the blunt force of hard funk and even dipped their toes into musique concrète, all thanks to their mad scientist producers, the Bomb Squad. The result was this monolithic wall of sound that was almost an assault on your senses, dense and layered with sirens, screeches, and militant beats that made the ground shake, daring you to stand still.
The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette - 1979, first pressing
A psych-punk powerhouse problem child, The Damned’s Machine Gun Etiquette holds a huge piece of my heart for having one of the greatest album titles of all time. The Damned had a superb knack for ripping holes in tired clichés - “I’ll be the rubbish, you be the bin!” They were the first UK punk band to record an album and release a single, beating the Sex Pistols to the punch each time, but they refused to be pigeonholed as band and stuck to their puns, their Vaudeville sense of humor, and goth-inspired melodrama. They never reached the heights of Sex Pistols hagiography, or Clash acclaim, or parade of singles like The Buzzcocks, but they were unvainglorious basterds and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
Vincent Price - Witchcraft ~ Magic: An Adventure in Demonology, 1969, first pressing
This record isn’t here to scare you; it’s here to rattle your bones, spike your pulse, and twist your brain into all sorts of weird, wonderful shapes. And Vincent Price, horror royalty himself, is relishing every syllable. The man takes us on a demented field trip through history’s darkest corners, unearthing every gruesome detail from Biblical curses to the blood-soaked nightmares of the Inquisition and straight into the gas-lit horrors of Nazi Germany. And yeah, you’re going to feel every grisly word.
The background is loaded with eerie, twisted electronics that slither and echo just behind Price’s deep, velvety voice, which makes the hairs on your neck dance as he guides you through such charming little courses as How to Make a Pact with the Devil and Curses, Spells, Charms. And the way he leans into each word? It’s like he’s genuinely thrilled to let you in on secrets you shouldn’t know.
Pulp Fiction - Music from the Motion Picture - 1994, first pressing
Why is this important? Because when Tarantino released his trailblazing film in vinyl was all but dead. “Coke is fucking dead as... dead. Heroin, it's coming back in a big fucking way.” Vinyl is my heroin and it’s all the way back baby.
Various Artists - Saturday Morning Cartoon’s Greatest Hits - 2019, 2xLP, colored vinyl
An artifact from the CD era you likely had no idea you needed. Originally released in 1995 on compact disc, this object got the full Record Store Day treatment - rereleased on blue and green vinyl and limited to just 4,000 copies. You didn’t know you needed The Ramones doing the theme to Spider-Man, Mathew Sweet doing Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, or Sublime doing Hong Kong Phooey but you DEFINITELY do. Sponge is handling duties on Go Speed Racer Go, and Juliana Hatfield and Tanya Donelly share the lifting on Josie and the Pussycats. Shove this unbalanced breakfast in your earholes. You’ll be happier for it.
I loved that Saturday Morning Cartoon comp! I had no idea it was released on vinyl for RSD.