Vinyl Fetish

Yes i know, you're thinking that right about now i'm dressed head to toe in a tight vinyl suit, the kind the Gimp wore in Pulp Fiction, zipper over my mouth and eyes and crammed into some trunk waiting for my dominatrix to come in and spank my bare ass because as we all know any vinyl suit worth it's salt comes with a flap so that the good master can unzip and expose some bare flesh for her cat o' nine tails and hell on some days you might not be to far off but today this here post is about something else entirely...

Yesterday was like x-mas for all us vinyl nerds, it was Record Store Day and on that day we get up early and stand in line and then cram into our favorite record stores so that we can get our hands on some rare vinyl, of course the line is populated by a bunch of sad and lonely dipshits like myself but i like to think that i'm the coolest of the sad and lonely dipshits and besides it's for a good fucking cause man, you see like most of modern society the advent of digital music has taken the independent record store and put it on the proverbial rack, between the big box chains and I-tunes these places were disappearing faster than blow at a stripper party but somewhere along the line vinyl began to get fashionable again or maybe kids just wanted something that wasn't fucking zeroes and ones and had art on the cover and sounded really fucking good as they sat around pulling tubes... and of course those are all good reasons but besides that the record store is like a good pub, sometimes you can learn shit or be turned on to new things and hell dare i say it can broaden ones horizons, world view et al...

And so i rose early on Saturday and drove to my old hood and stood in line, and of course with every good intention there comes the bad ones, you see RSD was started to help these little indy places, you can't find this shit at Best Buy but an hour after the first stores open you can find it on Ebay for about 5 times what you could have gotten it in the store for but that's commerce for you and if there is a buck to be made someone will be trying to make it, yet it really pisses off the cats like me who actually get into it for the music and the art work and what have you and that's not to say i haven't flipped a few records in my day cuz i have i just don't make it my primary reason for getting up that early and standing in line and battling crowds...

My favorite joint is a little place near my old house and i've been going to it for 19 years now, it's changed owners but other than 1 asshole clerk who thankfully took his math rock band and fucked off to Chi-town it's always been owned and staffed by some great people, mainly guys in bands or old heads and the current owner was in this local band that i heard when i was sleeping on the floor way back in 1993 and the full electric version of the song made me think this guy must be some arrogant prick but in reality is one of the nicest fucking guys you'll ever want to meet, a soft spoken and down to earth guy with a wife and kids and still playing music but understanding he'll never be a darling over at Pitchfork though when you hear the guys records i for the life of me can't understand why he was never the biggest fucking thing in indie rawk...

And for the most part everyone at this place is cool, you can call out if you're looking for something and chances are someone will pass it to you people are civil and polite and it's the exact fucking opposite of black friday at Wal-Mart, of course there are some tools and this one guy just annoys the living fuck out of me as he frets and shakes and pops Xanax for his anxiety all due to trying to grab all the coveted vinyl on his list, and hey it's nice to get all the shit you're hoping for but just like X-mas when you was a kid you may not and hell if you got the dosh or the patience or sometimes both you can always find it on the interwebz, sometimes you just have to wait for the price to drop a bit but as Jimmy Cliff once said, you can get it if you really want it, and so i'm sure you're all wondering what the hell did i get out of bed so early for? Well i'm sucker for colored vinyl and the record up yonder was re-mastered and re-issued on some swirling pink, grey, black and white vinyl and man does it sound good, if you don't know my love of the Velvets you must be new around here but that's okay cuz just like the record store we cool...

Now what else? There was the Joy Division's Ideal for Living EP, re-mastered off the original tape or some such shit but without all the Teutonic cover art that adorned the original, there was a copy of Drive By Truckers Dragon Pants EP on 10" vinyl and if you haven't heard their new album i highly recommend it, there was a Parquet Courts 7" (for those who like the might Fall or Pavement), and then there was my two most coveted records, a 7" picture disc of the beloved Harry Dean Stanton complete with a full size poster of his documentary Partly Fiction and a box set of Dinosaur Jr. 7"s with the original artwork of their first four singles and new one of the boys covering the Cure and the Byrds, and as we also know J. Mascis is very popular guy around here, fuck that band from Seattle, Dinosaur Jr. put them to shame and though  Kurt was a decent guitarist J. is a fucking virtuoso, when you hear something J. plays on you know it immediately cuz he's that distinct and i could go on and on about him but i wont' cuz i feel like blazing up and listening to some records... I'm a nerd you know.