I hope that you all had a great record store day on Saturday. I certainly did. FWIW, it featured the nicest weather of this awful spring.
Record store day at Evinyl was fantastic. Greg at DKFM Shoegaze Radio (decayfm.com) was awesome and quite generous to Evinyl. He spent the day playing songs exclusively from the Evinyl library while interviewing John Ceperano about the intent, the origins and the future of Evinyl.net. Listeners could win vinyl by poking around at evinyl to find answers to trivia questions about the artists. Awesome concept! I can’t wait to receive my Black Moth Super Rainbow double album in the mail.
After the evinyl event, I picked up Wyatt (who just got his learner’s permit) and he drove us to Northampton to visit a couple of traditional record stores.
For those who haven’t been there, Northampton, MA is an awesome town. Newbury Comics is right across the street from Turn It Up Records. Two record stores on one block. How great is that? First stop was Newbury Comics. They had a ton of Record Store Day vinyl. I keyed in on Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit’s Live at Twist and Shout 11/6/07 which they were selling for $17.99. Wyatt had his hands on Led Zeppelin’s classic Physical Graffiti. But we managed to dredge up enough will-power to put them down and see what Turn It Up had to offer.
Local chain Turn it Up made it easy for me. They had the same Jason Isbell album for $15. Done deal. Wyatt ended up getting a CD of a Bruce bootleg from the stupendous Born To Run tour. It includes Bruce’s cover of The Animal’s hit It’s My Life. Bruce’s version includes his totally iconic story about coming home at night to find his Dad waiting for him in the dark. His dad was waiting to give him shit about his life, and his choices and his “goddam” guitar. It may be history's best illustration that parents don’t always know what’s best for their kids.
FOUR time grammy award winner Jason Isbell used to be a member of the greatest Rock & Roll band in the history of the universe, The Drive-by Truckers. This album was recorded soon after he left DBT and features two of my all-time favorite DBT songs, Outfit (see my Tearjerkers, Pt 1 blog post) and Goddam Lonely Love, as well as a cover of Van Morrison’s classic Into The Mystic. Worth mentioning is that it also includes a DBT song simply called Danko/Manuel. While it’s not one of my favorite DBT songs, how can you not appreciate a song about members of The Band Rick Danko and Richard Manuel.
I’m listening to the Isbell album right now as I type this blog. It sounds great. I’m really happy with my choice. I hope that you all had a record store day as good and as productive as mine.
- Alan Likes Music