Friday, February 17, 2012

Crabb Bits; The Mac, Bargains Of The Week

Radio heads, and I don't mean Radiohead fans, out and about around Iowa City, this radio station begin to creep through after the fading of KMRY.  It's called The Mac and it is based out of Muscatine.
http://931mac.com/

Basically their calling is 80s and 90s music but they had a interesting mix of Black Velvet along with Come On Eileen to Train In Vain.  I wouldn't say that they play Everything, they're no Radio Maierburg, but they are worthy to hang around for more than two songs at a time.

For the thrift store shopper dude like me and you, finding bargains can be a hit or miss, even more so when you drive up to Waterloo and their puny collection of picked over stuff.  They need a Half Priced Bookstore as Davenport.  Iowa City not much so since they have plenty of junk shops such as the Junkshop at Sycamore Mall, Housewerks, Sweet Living Antiques and Record Collector.  I guess the find of the day is The Thieves Seduced By Money CD for Capitol/Bug in 1988 to which I got from Stuff Etc for 40 cents.  It was produced by Marshall Crenshaw and features the singing and songwriting of Geil Owen in the grand style of Jason And The Scorchers or a more harder rocking Questionnaires who made two albums for EMI around that time.  This band only made one album but a couple of the guys would be better known, Kelly Looney who played in Steve Earle and The Dukes and Webb Wilder and Jeff Finlin, the drummer who would retire from the drumset and pick up a guitar and became a better known singer than Owen who still plays music though  the years.

Anyway found a couple of still sealed country albums from Goodwill.
Merle Haggard/George Jones/Willie Nelson-Walking The Line
Willie Nelson-Island In The Sea

I'm guessing they came from the Columbia Record Club as there was a George Strait and Oak Ridge Boys with the CRC on the side.

Jerry Reed-Collector Series  (The RCA vinyl albums always seem to have more songs  than on the CD versions, got this for his whacked out version called The Bird but wished they could have tacked on Senorita).
Hugo Montengero-The Good, The Bad And The Ugly-Had this on vinyl years ago but I think my brother took it off my hands and haven't found a decent copy of it till today.

From Housewerks I found these:
Earl Scruggs & Tom T Hall-The Storyteller and The Banjo Man-I think Wounded Bird issued this on CD but I found the LP instead.
The Records-Crashes
Prism-Young And Restless-Pop rock band from Canada and I been buying their albums one by one since their Best Of Prism CD.  Some people think that this is their best album ever.  Produced by Bruce Fairbairn who you'll hear about later.
Paul Desmond Quintet-Live  A 1975 2 LP set that showcased a couple live dates.  I have yet to hear anything subpar from Paul on anything.

CD Stuff:
Cheater Slicks-Skidmarks:  Some off the wall crap on the Crypt label that paints them a clash of MC5/Misfits and Cramps/Stooges sludge.  I'm guessing one of their favorite songs had to be We Will Fall, one of the lesser Stooges songs out there.

Van Halen-Balance  Bruce Fairbairn produced this and still remains a chore to listen all the way through.  Neither Eddie or Sammy was having fun.

My Bloody Valentine-Loveless
Genesis-Calling All Stations
Bush-Golden State
Trout Fishing In America-Family Music Party

2 comments:

TAD said...

Thanx 4 the update. I haven't bn 2 Goodwill or even my favorite 2nd-hand bookstore in MONTHS. I've let them down. Ghod knows if the bookstore's even still in bizness. & I've got a big stack of stuff 2 trade-off 2, dammit. But Amazon is SO addictive & cheap, & on my days off frankly the LAST thing I wanna do these days is Go Out & deal with the Asshole Public. Man, I must B Getting Old. Stay just the way you R, Crabby. How's that album goin, BTW?

R S Crabb said...

Hi TAD,

I hear ya on staying home and not deal with assholes but hard habits are hard to break. I can go to 4 out of 5 Goodwills and Salvation Army stores and come up with nothing but that 1 store makes it all worthwhile.

As for the new album, started out okay with ideas but once again reality sets in and haven't had time to do anything past couple weeks. Always seems to be one step forward, three back. Hopefully something will come of it.