We got a new roll out of the Record Store Day releases this year, so it's a great time to pretend we can be able to afford to pick up these limited edition favorites.  In my own imaginary bag....




I know crumbs is on board with these guys, an obscure alt-roots band from the '90s, but recent reissues and a new anthology last year has revitalized interest, so here's a vintage live show from the Knitting Facotry, 1998 on clear double vinyl.






A pair of unreleased French performances from the later-era Cannonball group (a pre-Miles Joe Zawinul in '69; George Duke in '72),




Recently discovered multitrack of a 1974 concert, and the only known concert recording of the initial Average White Band line-up with original drummer Robbie McIntire.  On white vinyl.




Perhaps as a prelude to that Ziggy Stardust box set - the next in Bowie's archive series - this LP is an early incarnation of the Ziggy Stardust album with different mixes, sequence and songs.




Unreleased live tapes from a master of the jazz Hammond organ.




Early recordings from the ill-fated Jeff Buckley, on color double vinyl.




Double LP reissue, all-analog remaster, an extra LP of outtakes including three previously unreleased including a 9 minute version of "I'm Gonna Booglerize You Baby".




Here's one of those great but forgotten 90s cassettes that I may still have lying around somewhere.  I'd have to give it a relisten after all of these years but at the right price, I'm game.  Comes with a downloadable live show.




A compilation of the long out-of-print 70s recordings by R. Crumb and his big band-style group.


Also: the Airplane soundtrack, which apparently has never been commerically released before.  On both "Red Zone" and "White Zone" color vinyl.

And Boogie Down Productions' Edutainment, which is probably the firstvinyl release of the 1990 album.  To be honest, it's also the first BDP album I erased.  Maybe the latter couple of albums before KRS went solo are worth revisiting, but they were a disappintment at the time.
 

I'd grab any vinyl of these great 70s German bands - Harmonia, Neu, Cluster, etc - that I can find.  This comes with several extended remixes.






For the record, I would not be interested in buying either of these, which are being released as picture discs, and I already have a vintage copy of Wonderwall anyway.  But just to take note of them, both are interesting enough.  Wonderwall actually has some really decent moments.  Electronic Sound, in case you weren't aware, is basically just George doodling with his newly purchased Moog synthesizer.  And to make matters worse, he would later settle out of court with the guy he bought it from, who had claimed that side 2 was entirely from tapes he had left on the machine when he sold it to Harrison.  Anyway, long story short, I wouldn't put heavy money on either of these, although I do regret not picking up an available copy of Electronic Sound about 25 years ago for a decent price.




Another newly discovered concert from France (they're hoarding them in wine cellars!), this undated (but I'm guessing 1971-72) show is from prime Lateef.




Oh joy, my least favorite John Lennon album is getting a box set release this year, and this EP is meant to promote it.  Of course I'll end up getting the music in some way, and at least this includes an "ultimate mix" of Lennon's own version of "I'm The Greatest", which he would give to Ringo.




After his first few explosive years, Little Richard became a "legacy" artist, basically touring a revue of his hits and releasing some gratuitous LPs (with lots of re-recordings of his hits).  This one from 1973 gives you a chance to hear him cover "Dock of the Bay" at least.




This live album came out sometime on Rykodisc and disappeared.  It's from 1988, which is right near the ned of their legendary SST stint, and of their relevance.




This is taking a turn for the worse.  Charles Mingus recorded a couple of LPs for Nat Hentoff's Candid label in late 1960, but after Candid, a relatively small-affair label, went under soon after, these sessions have been released in all manner of mutations.  The above is another one, but it's on vinyl at least.  I really wish someone would just release all of them in their entirety, as I'm confident they'll fit on a couple of discs.




A revamp of the No Remorse compilation from their classic Broze age, 79-83, which basically means this is likely the best Motorhead vinyl set that you can hope to grab.  On silver vinyl.






Two Morricone scores.  I'm not familiar with the latter, and don't quite remember what the former sounds like.
 

Interesting item, a reissue of a Japanese only 7" with edits from his 1977 Pharoah album, which is legendary for beng so rare, having been released on the microlabel India Navigation between his Impulse and Arista eras, which was out of print for over 40 years.  Luaka Bop, the label releasing this sigle, also reissued Pharoah last year, and you should probably prioritize grabbing that one.




Good luck finding an original 80s vinyl pressing of this.




Absolute mid-70s funk/soul classic.




With B-sides, including their version of "Helter Skelter" (which is better than Motley Cru and U2 combined!)




I'm not sure if this comp has ever been on vinyl before.




One of the secret greats from 00s rap.






Some Sun Ra.  Showcase are unreleased live recordings from 76-77.  If Pink Elephants isn't a straight reissue of the previous Second Star From the Right, it might as well be, a collection of Sun Ra doing covers of various Disney songs during live shows from the late 80s.




Since they're never getting back together again, here's the full length performance that was used for side one of the live collection The Name of This Band is the Talking Heads.




Newly discovered live concert from the blues renaissance era where these natively forgotten legends toured Europe for lucrative late-life paychecks.




After Bernie Worrell passed away in 2016, his estate went through hours of unused and unfinished recordings by the prolific and experimental keyboardist and funk pioneer.  His friends and collaborators both old - Bootsy Collins and Fred Wesley - and new - Will Calhoun and Norwood Fisher - and even some left-field folks - Fred Schneider, Sean Lennon and Cibo Matto - contributed to these recordings to make the double album project.  Definitely worth a listen.




The very first Yardbirds LP, recorded live with Eric Clapton, was only available in the UK and has long been out of print.  On red vinyl.

 

crumbsroom wrote:

I've got that Yardbirds, not even sure where it came from

Maybe it was released in Canada.  Some UK discs did.

crumbsroom wrote:

And I used to have that Slits, on vinyl, but it's one of my many lost records that my idiot grandmother threw away.

Too bad.  You could have traded it in for a ruby red Roaches.

Oh damn.  What is this?!?  I missed something....

crumbsroom wrote:

Roches!

Ooof.  It's not like the cover is right there for a spell check

crumbsroom wrote:

And no one else!

But I don't want to forget about those two Morricone albums either.
Orca is a terrible movie, and it's probably not a great score....but that cover!

 

Jinnistan wrote:

crumbsroom wrote:

I think the Harrison albums are the one's I'd probably want most of all.
I don't think I have even heard of that Electronic Music album.
 

I'm not a fan of overpriced picture discs though.  You can probably track them down elsewhere.

I guess you aren't familiar with what was a brief Apple Records imprint called Zapple, which was intended to focus on more avant garde material.  They only released two records - Lennon/Ono's Life With The Lions and Harrison's Electronic Sounds - and because of this they've become notorious rarities.  The Zapple label was run by Barry Miles, who was McCartney's partner in running the Indica Bookstore and Gallery (where Lennon and Ono met) as well as publishing the International Times, which was London's premiere counterculture newspaper.  Miles had several planned projects for Zapple in the works involving spoken word and world music, and an unreleased Richard Brautigan LP was shelved (which I still have not been able to track down through more surreptitious means) when Allen Klein shut the entire imprint down.  I'm only giving you this history because, believe me, it's more interesting than the music on Electronic Sound.  But it's fun!  In the same way as listening to Lennon's various unofficial mellotron collages are fun.  But in a strictly mercantile sense, it's not a....sound investment.

crumbsroom wrote:

Orca is a terrible movie, and it's probably not a great score....but that cover!

That's pretty much the way I feel about the movie as well.  I think Death Proof said it back in RT, that poster is not what we got on screen.  And the poster remains the most impressive product of the entire venture.

I'm not big on picture disks and avoid them whenever I can. And I don't think I'd be willing to splurge much on what is essentially a curiosity I'd probably rarely listen to. But I would be happy to have a copy to check out. Life With the Lions would fall under the same umbrella. I've never heard any of Lennon's early solo work, and I'd probably like it to some extent, but I've also never been compelled enough to track one down, or really invest in a copy.
 

Personally, I think maybe Billie Eilish might need to find a new path to go fuck herself over this.

Now, I guess I can sympathize with the sillier stuff involving all of these multiple vinyl issue variations, forcing collectors to buy the same album several times over, but there's a pretty easy solution to that.  For example, I have nor would not buy even a single version of Hackney Diamonds, which is the best way to make sure they stop bothering trying.  But I'm not so convinced as to the carbon footprint of colored vinyl specifically, and even if it were greater than regular black vinyl, these are usually in such limited copies as to make a negligible difference.  And if we want to talk about the carbon footprint of mass produced petro-fueled plastic products, god forbid we calculate the cost of all of those dolls which gave Billie an Oscar this year.

Or even consider the carbin footprint of any format.  Are CDs really more enviromentally-friendly?  But with the CD market collapsed, I would say that vinyl has become once again the primary medium for those of us who prefer to own physical libraries, as opposed to depending on the kindness and gratitude of corporate streamers to always have our ppreferred music available.  And speaking of which, what's the carbon footprint again for running all of these corporate servers?  Or the equitable royalties not being paid to artists that you're streaming?  Is it me or do I hear the corporate wishes of Spotify behind Eilish's protests?  Or the echoes of the same-old discouragement for owning one's own physical media rather than renting it?  Because, realistically, what other alternative is she offering?
 

It's very easy to convince well meaning people that things that aren't the real problem are the things worth the most attention. People understand the idea of there being limited space for our trash. They understand the problem of unrecyclable materials. And if you start to convince them that certain things aren't a necessity, or that they are frivolous, without any context of anything else, you get a Billy Eilish saying an off the cuff remark about how wasteful we are....but most of all vinyl collectors!!

One of the great piles of shit of the modern age is the idea that the one's who need to feel the most guilt about the state of the world are the common people who are daring to eat the wrong foods or are buying the wrong products or are daring to use a plastic bag to bring their overpriced groceries home. Now I'm all for every person doing their part, but what all this has all ultimately been is a way to pin the blame of people with the least power (purchasing power! what a crock of shit), and obscure the real villains who are actually not only the ones creating the greatest levels of waste, but are also the ones profiting from the villainous consumerism of the average person....and most importantly, are the ones who actually can do something to have meaningful change.

But please governments of the world, please keep telling the average Joe Blow to put their ten tin cats out in a box at the side of the road every week....to ultimately most likely be thrown into a landfill anyways.
 

I did not do the Record Store Day thing. 

After admonishing Billie Eilish for her criticism of vinyl from an environmental stance, I have to admit that I do sympathize strongly with her other overall criticism of some of the economics of the modern vinyl industry.  As I pointed out, the vinyl consumers make up a rather niche place in the market, too small to make a sustainability issue, but also small enough to attract a lot of exploitation.  Because vinyl consumers tend to be dedicated, some of the record labels are finding some novel ways to test their tolerance.  I suppose most "collector's markets" are like this, where unlimited disposable income is as assumed as compulsive acquisition.  The problem with cover variants, which Eilish rightly pointed out, is one such issue.  But it's also clear that the limited quantities of many of these pressings aren't really due to the fact that the demand is tiny, but due to the reality that it justifies inflated prices for records which are well beyond reasonable manufacturing costs.  It's pure artificial scarcity tactics, and it's why it's become impossible to find any decent records on RSD which are less than, say, $40.  So, the only resort that I can figure into my budget is to wait until these releases start to show up in the used or discount bins.  Or, generally, simply go the more nefarious digital route in the meantime if I just want to hear the music.  Sorry for your loss, record companies, but you brought this on yourselves.  Make Great Music Affordable Again!

Here's a particularly fucked up example.  Obviously The Beatles have one of the largest built-in collector's market, and there's an entire industry there to exploit the more affluent fans.  I had one of those collector's price guides when I was a kid back in the '80s, and already by then you had people apparently willing to pay a couple hundred dollars for a Beatles lunchbox with a thermus that didn't stink of sour milk.  Lord knows how much you'd have to pay today.  And as if irony were lucrative, there were even people willing to buy unopened packages of those square-inch bedsheet clippings, allegedly from bedsheets the boys slept on, that were sold to little adolescent would-be witches at the height of Beatlemania, so obviously some suckers can have mutiple lifetimes.  But I just wanted a butcher cover, OK?  And maybe a vintage Kum Back boot.

This year for record day, Apple released a novelty item, a small portable record player, with a Yellow Submarine motif, designed to play tiny 3" records, and the set comes with about a half dozen novelty 3" Beatles singles for the purpose.  It's cute, right?  Now turn the box over.  $179.99!!!  Look, I'm willing to pay $180 for an actual turntable that can play all my records.  But in a market where some people spend thousands on turntables (they'll buy needle cartridges for $180), I guess these kinds of prices make sense, but it just seems like some serious class discrimination involved here.  But this is capitalism, and prices are dictated by what one person who happens to be wealthy and dumb enough will spend.