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Monday, September 8, 2008

Confessions of a CD Junkie

Let me start my post by thanking Retro Music Snob for the links. That explains why my bandwidth has been burning up recently. Also, good to see the site back up - it had stopped being updated a while back. [Update - long gone now! Nov 12]

There seems to be a lot of love for Terry Hall lately. Both the irrepressible Saltyka and C-60 Low Noise have recently featured an extensive back catalogue. You may have noticed I featured a Colourfield tune recently. I was also a little disturbed to discover that the background vocals on "Thinking of You" were by Katrina Phillips and not Kirsty MacColl as I had thought for years.

If I was to make a list of the great record/CD stores I have visited, I would be thinking of the Music And Video Exchange in Notting Hill Gate, Adrian's in Wickford, Essex, Amoeba Records in San Francisco, Newbury Comics in Boston, and McKay in Knoxville. While McKay might be the closest geographically, it was very hard for me to engineer an excuse to drive four hours to pay a visit. So I was overjoyed while visiting Nashville recently to discover that there was now a new McKay store in town.

The primary benefit of McKay is that they have a lot of stock because, famously, they buy anything and then discount heavily based on condition. If you don't mind a couple of marks or blemishes, you can buy many CD's for under two or three dollars. Some CD's are as low as .19 or .25 so you can glean quite a stack for just a few dollars. That's where I found the Vienna CD I posted yesterday - a total bargain for 19 cents.

Here's some other treasures I have unearthed this past couple of weeks:

Jules Shear - Dreams Don't Count ($1.45)

Number One Gun - Promises For The Imperfect ($0.25)

Edison Glass - A Burn Or A Shiver ($0.19)

Various Artists - Reality Bites Soundtrack ($0.19)

Graham Coxon - Happiness In Magazines ($0.95)
Alpinestars - White Noise ($0.19)

Tim Finn - Before & After ($0.68)

Anberlin - Lost Songs ($2.45)

Hinterland - Kissing The Roof of Heaven ($0.19)

Kent - Isola ($1.95)

Future of Forestry - Twilight ($5.95)

Turn Off The Stars - Turn Off The Stars ($0.68)
Blur - Modern Life Is Rubbish ($1.25)

Stereophonics - Performance & Cocktails ($0.89)

Suzanne Vega - 99.9 Degrees ($0.68)

Your Vegas - A Town And Two Cities ($1.45)

Dr. Robert - Realms of Gold ($0.95)

Tim Booth - Bone ($0.68)
Miranda Lee Richards - The Herethereafter ($0.95)*

Various Artists - Trainspotting Soundtrack ($1.25)

Michael Been - On The Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough ($0.95)

Reef - Rides ($0.75)
There you go, quite a mixed bag. Not all fantastic, but not all rubbish, either. I've been enjoying the Trainspotting soundtrack in particular. It made me go and rent the movie.

* Yes, I have bought this one before. The first one I got was a record company advance with different, but cool, artwork. This one was the retail digipak version, still sealed up tight. And, a good album to boot.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is that Tim Booth of James (Bone)? That's a new one on me... Anything good on there?

Anonymous said...

The tim finn cd is phenomenal. Such an underrated talent. Try "big Canoe" also.

btw. love your blog.

Jon said...

Kent's CD is fantastic as well...

Kippers said...

Heh, Adrian's in Wickford. Know it well (I've got loads of relatives there - Wickford, I mean, rather than Adrian's). He started out running a record stall in Wickford Market, apparently. Not been there for a few years though so I hope it's still going strong. (the shop seemed to get bigger and bigger every time I used to visit.)

xolondon said...

Gahhh! That Dr Robert CD has one of my all-time dearest songs, Circular Quay. Epic.

I love that Music and Video Exchange. Bought McAlmont and Butler's You Do there weeks before release (back in the day!). They also had a store with great old mags around the corner - I bought old issues of The Face, etc.