Four months ago, I went to Madison and found some 45's of note and so I decided to try that again. I found 39. For the first time ever, I came home with a Atlantic yellow label, the Drifters Honey Love. More about the finds later.
Madison in the fall. School is back in sessions and plenty of young folks going up and down the campus. It pains me to find that all these great looking girls were born in 2000 and beyond. 40 years older, Grandpa Record Collector couldn't help but noticed them all over Trader Joe's on a busy Monday Night. The clothes might have been short and tight but everybody was wearing masks. By order of the Governor of course. In Iowa, our governor would give less a shit. Still, having the O Kaysions Girl Watcher being on infinite loop everytime somebody would come around.
I managed to hit every thrift store but lost out on Strictly Discs which closed at 6 and I thought they were closed at 7. Perhaps that was all for the best, but Mad City Music Exchange had 45s and a 50 cent CD sale going. I did pick up an Alan Davey CD, but for the first time found a copy of Led Zeppelin's Rock And Roll (for 4 dollars mind you) but the beloved Clovers had From The Bottom Of My Heart in the two dollar bins. A few impulse buys came to be. The turnover from April was noted. A bunch of Beatles singles were to be hard but they all looked like they have been played to death. And I still yet to find a decent copy of Tom Dooley by the Kingston Trio.
CD's found
Is It Rolling Bob? The Dub Mixes
MU-Jethro Tull
The Life Of A Minor Poet-Hugh Moffatt
Blow Up-The Smithereens
Two Lane Highway-Pure Prairie League
Voodoo Soup-Jimi Hendrix
Standing In The Shadows Of Motown
Captured Rotation-Alan Davey
Krupa and Rich-Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich
Exodus soundtrack
I Can Stand A Little Rain-Joe Cocker
The Fabulous Thunderbirds Live
Drunk With Passion-The Golden Palominos
Jazz As You Never Heard It Before-Various
LP
Hunters And Collectors (A&M)
I love dub and Reggae music but the companion Dub mix to the original Is It Rolling Bob tribute album sucks. Dub music should never be this boring. So I sneaked it into Goodwill and donated it back. That and M.U. Tull best of came from the St Vinnie's Pick n Save place, for 95 cents I didn't get cheated at all. Voodoo Soup got raked over the coals for Bruce Gary overdubbing some drums into the mix. I don't think this is a waste album, in fact it is kinda nice and noisy at times. The Dig and Save St. Vinnies had a big bunch of scratched up and messed up 45s, about 400 of em but none of them worth saving. Whoever had them really played them to death but what to explained of the Donny Osmond 45's that were cracked, or The DeFranco Family. Some interesting stuff came from the Decca Gospel Series but the mold and dust boogers made them a liability. I dropped off some of my unwanted stuff to the West St. Vinnies and I suspect those will be making their way to the Dig and Save Vinnies. By the way MU wasn't donated back. Just the crap Is It Rolling Dub CD.
For the CDs found, Joe Cocker's Stand A Little Rain is uneven. Starts out great with Put Out The Light but way too many Piano and Joe only. Two Lane Highway showed life after Craig Fuller and before Vince Gill, Larry Goshorn wrote the title track that made the top 20 charts here in town and it has a country vibe like New Riders Of The Purple Sage were doing at that time, a balance of choice covers and neat originals. The Smithereens' Blow Up, had 12 songs and 47 minutes timing. Problem was, too many songs that didn't stand out and questionable collaborations with others (Julian Lennon and Diane Warren). This does sound like Pat Dinizio was running low on ideals and songs like Girl In Room 12 tend to go past their expiration time. Even Top Of The Pops should have been shaved down a minute. The record is still listenable tho. The Exodus Soundtrack disappoints with the so called living stereo, which sounds more mono. Alan Davey's Captured Rotation shows that Davey learned a lot being with Dave Brock and the 1980s version of Hawkwind to reimagined Space Ritual, The Call and Pre Med would fit perfectly in Hawkwind's music. This came out in 2019 and was found for 50 cents at Mad City Music X and it compares favorably to Nik Turner's 2010's recordings in that space prog rock style of Brock and company. I have yet to hear the latter day Hawkwind stuff, but Captured Rotation would sound great in surround sound.
I always get a kick out of the early CD's that touted the new cutting edge of CDs and how they were superior to vinyl. Back then CDs cost around 25 dollars at the local Target or K Mart (you remember K mart don't ya?) in 1985. Polygram issued Jazz Like You Never Heard Before as a sampler of their extensive back catalog from Verve, Mercury, Polydor Emarcy etc. to which 67 minutes were used on Compact Discs, since at that time they could go up to 74 minutes. This leans toward MOR Jazz. A cool take sax only for Sonny Rollins' Body And Soul, and Dinah Washington's Manhattan and ya can't go wrong with Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery. The bullshit that Compact Discs were better only can be decided with how the original masters were remastered. It used to be that we can hear the tape hiss, or the pops and clicks of metal parts from old 78s, but in all honesty, it was a hit and miss affair for the CD version. Technology would get better and CD's would be reworked with better sound with 20 Bit mastering (the drawback was the LOUDNESS and compression that made some albums sound painful to listen to, and probably are cause for my hearing loss. Dennis Drake's mastering is workmanlike since he was the go to person for CD reissues back then. Nowadays, it's new vinyl is now 25 dollars or more new, this was a 2 dollar special from Goodwill. And they may get it back once I get done listening to it.
In my original casting of the best jazz drummers of all time, number 1 was Max Roach but after hearing Krupa and Rich, this is where Buddy Rich becomes the all time jazz and perhaps greatest drummer of them all. This live in the studio recordings showcases 5 songs that Rich and Krupa and their bands played on, though only Bernie's Tune is where both of them do a battle royal to epic proportions. These 1955 recordings showed that Krupa while in fine form showed him passing the baton to Rich for epic drum solos and the two bonus tracks Sunday and especially The Monster is the reason why Rich is the best. For jazz drum albums, this is Rich's statement. Rock drummers should have this in their collection too.
The Fab Birds Live is basically Kim Wilson and a pick up band but they got Kid Ramos playing guitar and late great Gene Taylor on keyboards and it's a fun time. I think the shadow of Jimmy Vaughn does hang over the proceedings, but then again Wilson was more prone to old get down grit of Chicago n Memphis blues rather than the boogie years of Powerful Stuff and Tuff Enuff. The misstep that was Walk That Walk, Talk That Talk was quickly forgotten. Kid Ramos, is underrated and gives Live a memorable performance in the end.
I missed out on the World Naked Bike Ride that was held on Saturday and better off that way. The Madison bikes that I used were replaced by e Scooters that can only work when you had a smart phone. The weather was quite humid, even more so than the 2018 affair that I saw a few people get heat exhaustion and passed out and couldn't continue. I had three big bottles of water that got very warm and all were gone by the time I reached the finish line. Granted if I made it there, I would have been sidetracked by all these co eds going to the UW. Better to have sun glasses and a bandit mask to keep my eyes from popping out on the road.
With the missing of the 6 PM closing of Strictly Discs, that did save me a few dollars and a couple less CDs to add to the cache found. Usually, Goodwill doesn't have much but the West Goodwill had three interesting cds, which I finally completed my Smithereens CD discography with Blow Up. Hugh Moffatt's was something I never seen before and since it came from Watermelon, Austin TX record label, thought it would be worth a listen. It put me to sleep on the way home. The Golden Palominos Drunk With Passion is a hard to find cd from Anton Feir's band collective, which had Richard Thompson playing guitar throughout. Standing in the shadows of Motown, was the soundtrack to the 2002 movie celebrating the life and times of the Funk Brothers who were still alive at that time. St. Vinnies had a Gene Krupa/Buddy Rich comp as well as the hard to find Live Fab Thunderbirds. Half Price Books had Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix and PPL (East), the West had Ry Cooder's solo CD but I didn't see the need to buy that one. Mad City Music X might have had 50 cent CDs but again, Alan Davey was the only one I bought. Plenty of the forgotten 90s alt rock acts and of course Cracked Rear View just in case anybody wants one of the 15 million discarded Cds of that classic.
The thrift store finds are what I would expected anyway. The promise of finding Give Live If You Want It or Between The Buttons at the dig n Save and finding a cracked case, missing book and chewed up CD of something other is par for the course. I admired the dude watching the clerk put more copies of unwanted DVDs or CDs and making this a daily habit but for me I didn't have much time to waste and down the road I went. Come September, the bargain hunting mobile will be back in familiar territory of river towns Dubuque and Quad Cities and will try my luck there again. Still, Madison remains a fun town to go music picking and sunny skies and the beauty of Lake Monona. And other things.
All told, 135 bikers did the WNBR 2021.
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