Sunday, July 13, 2008

Old but not necessarily gold


It's been kind of an odd day here. I'd been feeling the urge to wander up the hill to the Goodwill store and browse the books section, and then maybe hit the health foods department in Family Dollar (Little Debbies, Moon Pies) but every time I started pulling myself together to amble that way clouds rolled in, ominous rumbling sounds were heard, and sheets of rain began to fall.

So I've spent most of the day reading and listening to music, thanks to Ranger Bob and Utah Savage both mentioning classic songs and groups in recent posts. They inspired me to dust off the record player and then stroll down memory lane.

Most of what I've played today consists of LPs I'd forgotten I owned, regional oddities from the late '60s like The Baroques (think they were from Milwaukee) and the Tayles (a Madison band, think their sole LP release was "Who Are These Guys"). I probably saw some of the groups live, but, as the saying goes, "if you can remember the 60s, you weren't there."

For some reason the Baroques always remind me of carnivals -- they sound a lot like the organ music that plays in the background on the midway, especially "Mary Jane" and "Rose Colored Glasses." Maybe it's the harpsichord. "Iowa, A Girl's Name," on the other hand, has lyrics and chords that seem to have been written for "F Troop." Really strange.
Although nothing has been particularly memorable, I'm not regretting dragging all this vinyl around through multiple moves over the past 30+ years. I guess all the true turkeys in the record collection got made into flower pots long ago.

5 comments:

  1. google them on ebay or amazon, you'd be surprised what things are worth..of course getting there worth is another thing..we had a little blast of rain, I got so excited I posted about it and by the time I finished it was over with ..and the post was only 7 words long..sigh*
    I have several hundred lp's and even if I could sell them I don't think I would..how could I live without my George Carlin comedy album, or the smothers brothes, or bette midler(mud will be thrown tonight),Little Richard, Willie, Waylon, Jerry Jeff, Ernest Tubb, Patsy Cline,Beatles,Elvis, The Doors, 3 dog night, etc..and my album of bag pipe music, the operas, the jazz, the blues, hey, gonna go listen to my 'record player'..see ya..

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  2. I have the Bette Midler album, too. Love it, love it, love it!! It might be the last vinyl album I bought -- after that it was either cassettes or CDc.

    My LP collection is somewhere between 200 and 300 albums. There used to be more, but some got stolen from a storage unit and some wore out. I never was one of those people who handled vinyl with white gloves. I've got the usual late 60s, early 70s classics (Doors, Hendrix, Dylan), but there's some oddities mixed in, too, and a lot of country and folk. Think the very first LP I bought was a Johnny Tillotson album back when I was in junior high (and once again I've labeled myself as older than dirt).

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  3. Think the very first LP I bought was a Johnny Tillotson album

    "Now I've got heartaches by the number,
    Troubles by the score,
    Every day you love me less,
    Each day I love you more..."

    Good stuff!

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  4. I see the vacation didn't last long.

    I don't know how to shut up. :-)

    I need to get to the thrift stores and look for pants, it's hard to find pants with a 33 inch waist cuz so many men are, well, fat.

    I gave all my LP's away on Yahoo Freecycle a while back, and I prefer to go to the Eagle's and listen to live music. And we have music on the pier here once a week in the summer. Or go sing karaoke.

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  5. I love live music, too, but really don't want to go see most of the performers I loved 30 or 40 years ago in performance now. I'd rather remember Tillotson looking hot on American Bandstand in the 1960s than see some wrinkled geezer in the flesh today no matter how good he might still sound. So I'll cling to my vinyl a while longer.

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