The CD was born around 1982 and I've seen previews about it on CNN Headline News telling us about this 6 inch data storage disk but I never seen any CDs till 1986 thereabouts when there was a very small area at Target and K Mart that had them and they sold for an ungodly 25 bucks. As a vinyl collector I took exception to this and vowed never to buy the damn things till they came down in price, or there would be a great CD that wasn't on album.
In my time at Arizona between 1986-1987, I discovered that the record stores had way so much out of print albums that I pretty much wasted my savings on trying to get out of print classics from the likes of Mott The Hoople (all Atlantic albums), Hawkwind (Space Ritual) or the latest on vinyl that Zia's or Rockaway sold used, but they also had a used CD bins that they sold for 10 bucks apiece. But I refused to get on board and when I moved back home from Arizona after not finding any job and getting the runaround from every GD place I applied, I still bought vinyl albums. But the turning of the tide came when at BJ Records there was this Motown CD of old Vee Jay Records Hits that sold for 15 bucks that I swore one day that I would end up buying. At my place of work some dude had a collection of over 100 CDs that he would listen to on a portable Discman. Had another friend that actually took in a CD player component and he had mostly had Stevie Ray Vaughn, or Rush or Ozzy for that matter but his CDs look like they been ran over a few 100 times.
On September 8th of 1987, I finally went to the old Target store on First Avenue and purchased a Sony Discman for 200 bucks and then over to the fledgling Best Buy across the street and bought Lynyrd Skynyrd Nuthin Fancy for 10 bucks and a cut out Pete Townsend Deep End Live cd. Then trekked over to BJ's To finally pick up Vee Jay's Greatest Hits and the CD buying era was born.
Best Buy at that time was in the strip mall that replaced the Twixt Town Drive In. At that point the city finally caught up to the fields of that part of town. What we didn't know back then that when we first saw the newspaper ads promoting a brand new electronic experience the world has never seen, little did we know that this little yellow tag of a new business would era in a new beginning but at the same time we didn't know that the great big decline would be coming since Best Buy was buying things in bulk and selling them cheaper than the music stores around here. At that time, K Mart and Target had good selection of albums and even Lindale Mall had Record Bar and The Record Store (later Musicland/Sam Goody). Across town Camelot Music was going strong and for independent record stores there was Omni and Rock n Bach. Rock N Bach, was Jim Henson's creation, a store that dedicated itself upon the music of the 50s and 60s and promo copies of unknown bands that I bought in bulk. They moved over from Ellis Blvd to behind the Handi Mart next to Lindale and I spent many times there. There was this long haired dude named Jerry Scott that I ended up being friends and chatting tunes but at around the late 80s, Rock N Bach had a big selection of CDs.
But with about 7 decent music stores to go to (and twice more in Iowa City) there wasn't a need to really to go hitting the road like I do now. But once I purchased a CD player, I didn't buy the new stuff but rather bought a lot of the compilations of the 50s and 60s and whatever came out on Chess/MCA so for the most part even back then the comps cost 8 or 9 dollars and the best of the bunch was Dunhill Classics, mastered by Steve Hoffman. Hoffman who mastered the Vintage Collections of the 50s and 60s for MCA cleaned up the sound to the point that they actually sounded better than the actual 45s, they're hard to find now but Universal did reissued them under the Special Markets banner and if you see any of the Vintage Collectibles, they're the actual Hoffman masters although they don't give him credit. If it's the full 3:38 of Born To Be Wild By Steppenwolf, that's Hoffman's work. But I also bought fun stuff like Beach Classics, Toga Party and the Ted Nugent & Amboy Dukes best of.
For new music, it varied. Yes, Big Generator was one of the first cd's I bought but also bought Anthrax Among The Living at the new Record Realm at Iowa City which used to be on first avenue in Cedar Rapids. Hard to figure out why they moved down south but they didn't stay too long in IC. I also started to listen to more alternative rock from the likes of Mighty Lemon Drops, The Stone Roses and Drivin n Cryin'. There was still good new rock coming Kings Of The Sun and Circus Of Power on RCA.
At this point, the Music Of My Years ends at 1990, at the time the opening of Relics Records in the old group of shops off First Avenue and I would make it my second home until it was closed down in 1997 and later Marcus Draves took over for Jerry Scott and moved it to Hiawatha. But the old place of shops would be torn down to make way for Best Buy to move from the old Twixt Town Strip Mall to take away more of our livelihood. The Relics Years will have to wait for another time.
The Music of that time:
Anthrax-Among The Living, I'm The Man EP, State Of Euphoria, Persistence Of Time
Elton John-Reg Strikes Back, Sleeping With The Past
The Mighty Lemon Drops-World Without End
The Dangtrippers-Days Between Stations
Full Fathom Five-4 AM
Kings Of The Sun, Full Frontal Attack
Circus Of Power, Vices
The Stone Roses
Drivin N Cryin'-Scarred But Smarter, Whisper Tames The Lion, Mystery Road
Nick Lowe-Basher (Best Of), Party Of One
Richard Thompson-Daring Adventures, Amnesia, Rumour & Sigh
James McMurtry-Too Long In The Wasteland
Steve Earle-Guitar Town, Exit O, Copperhead Road, The Hard Way
Dwight Yoakam-Guitar Cadallics etc etc, Hillbilly Deluxe, If There Was A Way
Lonnie Mack-Road Houses & Dance Halls
Stevie Ray Vaughan-Live Alive, In Step, The Sky Is Crying
Bob Dylan-Oh Mercy
Deep Purple-House Of Blue Light
Godfathers-Birth School Work Death, More Songs About Love And Hate
Living Colour-Vivid, Time's Up
Rolling Stones-Dirty Work, Steel Wheels
The Kinks-Think Visual, UK Jive
Robert Plant-Now & Zen, Manic Nirvana
Whitesnake
Jason & The Scorchers-Still Standing, Thunder & Fire
Status Quo
BoDeans-Outside Looking In, Home
Sidewinders-Witchdoctor, Auntie Ramos Pool Hall
Omar & The Howlers-Hard Times In The Land Of Plenty, Wall Of Pride, Monkeyland
Webb Wilder-Hybrid Vigor, Doo Dad
Stone
Metallica-Master Of Puppets, Garage Days Re Revisited
The Godz-Mongolians
REM-Document, Dead Letter Office, Green
Aerosmith-Done With Mirrors, Permanent Vacation, Pump
Georgia Satellites-Open All Night, Land Of Salvation & Sin
Rank & File (Rhino)
Rush-Presto
Smithereens-Especially For You, Green Thoughts, 11
The Feelies-Only Life
Tom Petty-Let Me Up (I've Had Enough), Full Moon Fever
Neil Young-Freedom, Ragged Glory
2 comments:
Crabbster: If it weren't 4 best-of box sets by the likes of The Who, Beach Boys, Moody Blues, King Crimson, Kansas, etc., I probly never woulda gone 4 CD's at all. It was the bonus trax & previously-unreleased live cuts & stuff like that which finally sucked me in. I still prefer vinyl, & I still think some acts sound like shit on CD -- Beatles & Buffalo Springfield, 4 2.... I still think a lotta newer stuff sounds 2 "clean" ... but what the hey.... & they're still coming out with CD best-of's I can't resist: Caravan, Camel, etc. .... I've decided the packages all this recycled material comes in R often REALLY great, but the cleaned-up re-mastered music ain't always worth it....
I think the majors go overboard in their repacking of the greatest hits, Universal being one of them trading in 20th Century Masters in favor of ICON. Buffalo Springfield's original CDs were muddy sounding at best, If you can find the B.S. HDCD version they a bit more enhanced and brighter sounding rather than first generation CDs. The original Beatles CDs were missing something so the 2008 remasters are a vast improvement soundwise, I know Please Please Me sounds like it was recorded yesterday.
Problem I have with new CDs of new bands is the loudness factor, recorded so loud it distorts the music to the point it's unlistenable. Whoever masters the CD must be deaf way it sounds.
I like the CD that I can take it to the car and listen to it there, whereas at home, it never gets tiring for me to pop a vinyl piece on the player and play it.
Just can't into downloading, I must rather go into a store and find something in the cheap bins and buy it. That's how I discovered Caravan's Pressure Points Live. But y'all right that sometimes a cleaned up version of the classic doesn't always hold true to the original version. Sometmes that background tape hiss actually gave the songs its own character. Cheers!
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