New Year Vinyl Haul

My car gets rescued from the Auto Shop today, looking so fly and handsome, and I've got to celebrate. Cause I'm feeling good. So I took a little trek down to Record Exchange in Salem, my favorite record shop since before I noticed girls were attractive, and I was looking to spend about 20 bucks. Whhoops. Don't let me loose in an independent record shop without a leash. I'm gonna hand over the title to my house or something someday in exchange for an original sealed copy of the first Herman's Hermit's record, I know it. It'll be embarrassing.

First up:

"The Best of the Animals" on MGM Records, looks like an old school original pressing. I was just down in Brooklyn hanging with Villanueva and listened to this record before he woke upon my headphones on his roommate's turntable and this record kicks utter ass. Best part about this is that the guy at the store threw this in for free since it's not in perfect shape and I was throwing down around $50. 

For funk-hotness:

"Anthology" - Sly and the Family Stone, 1981 Epic/CBS Double Vinyl, Promo copy. I looked at the tracklisting for this and couldn't resist. It's got pretty much everything funky Sly did from 67 up til a little after "There's A Riot Goin' On", no bullshit, no suckage. Kinda pricey at 13 bucks, but for 20 tracks and such pristine condition, it's totally worth it.

What's that psychadelic jangle I hear?:

"The Byrds Greatest Hits", 1967? Columbia Records. A classic. It doesn't have "Lady Friend" on it, aka "Probably one of top 5 most underrated, underheard best pop songs ever", but besides that the tracklisting is pretty impeccable. I had the opening to "Mr. Tambourine Man" as my ringtone for a while. All in all, for $2? You gotta do it, son. And I did.

KINK KRAZINESS:

"The Kink Kronikles", 1972 Reprise Records. 2 Records. 2 Much music. Man, I stacked up on a lot of "Best of" records, I didn't really notice when I was up there (just wait until you guys see the jewel of this vinyl raid though). Okay, so here we've got Kinks awesomeness starting in '66(? maybe?) and ending in '72. So no "You Really Got Me" era stuff, but there's "Waterloo Sunset" (OMG BEST SONG EVARRR), "Lola", "Sunny Afternoon", "Dead End Street", a bunch of great stuff. 10 bucks, and The Kinks have an awesome gap toothed frontman, so how can you not financially support that? It's got a cool British legion-y soldier/actor/Buckingham Palace dude on the front riding a horse, and that's gotta be worth at least $3 alone.

Maybe don't get on that plane, guys?:

"20 Golden Greats by Buddy Holly & The Crickets", 1978 MCA Records. The photobooth craziness continues, and can only be matched by the craziness of Paul thumbing off this record for free for me too. Awesome cover.

Finally, we get into the Garage:

"Midnight Ride with Paul Revere & The Raiders", Limited Edition Columbia Re-Release. This is an awesome addition to my garage record collection. "Kicks" is a classic, I'll have to upload that video soon too. Pure '60s pre-punky spunkiness. You gotta check out the tasteless colonial America costumes these guys would wear:

Maybe those pants are a little too tight for my imagination? A whole lot of man is up there in that picture.

AND NOW, THE MAIN EVENT:

DEAR LORD, IS THAT A THIRD MAN RECORDS 2010 REISSUE OF "WHITE BLOOD CELLS"?!!! Yes, it is. Only 500 of these were made, and they're going for hundreds of dollars on eBay. The record store was selling it for only 22 dollars, and it was the financially responsible thing for me to do to buy it as quickly as possible and not pee my pants.

So what did we learn today? Besides the fact that I shouldn't be doing this because I've got no more in my big plastic tub for new records and I did it any way because this place is a crack den for me? First, it sucks to go to Bruins games and watch them lose, even though going with awesome people makes it way better. Also, the documentary on "A Nightmare on Elm Street" I got from Netflix was an impressive way to spend 4(!) hours. Thank god they acknowledged all the subliminal (and awesome/hilarious) gay themes in Part 2. According to Robert Englund, they love that film in Europe. Wrong dude, they love that film right here in America. More specifically, anywhere in America I happen to be. Because I love that film.