There I was, in the sixth form, having the time of my life. Living in a nice house in a pleasant city, gorgeous girlfriend, lovely parents, cracking bunch of mates. But constantly brassic. Browsing in record shops every weekend and sometimes at lunchtimes. Rarely buying anything, always wanting to.
I had a dog-eared copy of that little ‘Island Book Of Records’ thing you could pick up in decent record shops (remember them?) with personal notes recording which ones I desperately wanted to buy, eventually. They included albums by Nick Drake, Traffic, Stomu Yamashta, Amazing Blondel, Quiet Sun and many others. All ephemeral hopeless hopes. All acquired many years later in CD form, but unavailable to me at that time.
Anyway, there I was, still skint, wandering once more into the Virgin Records emporium by the entrance to the covered market at the bottom end of the city centre shops. At the time, Virgin were doing a roaring trade in cheap imports from the states and cut-out remainders from God knows where. And right there, on the counter, was a scruffy brown cardboard box stuffed with LPs. Scrawled on the side of the box in blue wax crayon it said, “25p each”.
Had to be worth a rummage. Had to be.
I had maybe two quid to spare; I could just about afford a cheap label album – one of the Help titles perhaps, or a 99p Starline jobbie like ‘Relics’, so at 25p a pop this box might yield riches. I rummaged.
I spent 75p that morning, and my purchases are illustrated in the comments below. All three have been a great pleasure to own ever since.
Do you have any similar recollections to share?
The first of the three:
Stone cold classic Telecaster genius. I’d never heard of him before, but he blew me away.
The second:
More famous as a producer, a name I knew, but an album I didn’t know existed. Rory Gallagher on one track, Paul Kossof on another. Similarly stellar musicians in the band (Dick Parry on sax! Pete Wingfield. Kenny Lamb etc.). A producer’s hobby album, but a really, really good one. Full lyric sheet present and correct. Blue Note label, too, like Moving Waves…
And finally:
Completely unknown to me at the time, this is a great little LP with some very characterful songs and Brett’s rather fine 12-string playing to the fore.
I got Boulders by Roy Wood on LP for 10p in the early 80s. It’s still baffling and brilliant today. I think his stock was very low for a long time, due to his tendency towards appearing in light entertainment TV. He’s a genius- one of the very few- and this album deserves a spin if you don’t know it.
Completely agree- fine album, and a complete steal at that price!
…and then there’s Wizzard Brew. I got the cassette of this for 50p in about 1990, literally the only time I ever saw it in that format (8 track was more common). Vinyl was easy to come by, but I never bothered. The tape sounded horrible.
Then about 10 years later the CD came out, and it turns out the album is intentionally a greasy, filthy racket full of atonal skronk and impenetrable lyrics. It’s one of the weirdest albums ever made. Imagine buying this off the back of the big hits.
I’m just waiting for The Quietus to ‘discover’ it and attempt to explain it all. However, nobody can. This is completely insane.
You can pick up both of these Wizzard gems on one of those little ‘Original Album Series’ sets, under Roy’s name. They are bundled with the Move’s ‘Message to The Country’, the first – eponymous – Electric Light Orchestra LP, and Roy’s solo ‘On The Road Again’. Five LPs worth of Roy Wood bonkersness for the cost of a couple of Costa coffees and a donut.
I don’t know if I have ever heard On The Road Again. I forgot about it. Super Active Wizzo is the other mostly forgotten one, but I know that I’ve got it somewhere.
Message from the Country is a very weird album, lots of styles. The singles from around that time are often added to CDs to make it a lot more varied again. It Wasn’t My Idea to Dance is just utterly bizarre.
Cherry Red are about to re-release MttC. No extra tracks as such, but different versions/mixes of some tracks and both sides the contemporaneous non album single, California Man b/w Do Ya’
As a young teen on paper round remuneration, I had similar issues because I wanted just about everything but couldn’t afford much. Step forward Woking Library, who had a fairly good and varied selection of cassettes. To this day, I still may believe that I “bought” certain LPs but it’s possible that I merely borrowed them. In those days I didn’t copy them because I didn’t have a tape-to-tape machine and, more importantly, it was illegal and I took that at face value.
They had a bin of cast-offs for 25p – tapes without cases. This was largely a huge pile of dross no one wants featuring Harry Secombe, Englebert and Mantovani. But one day, a half-hearted rummage revealed the recently-released Setting Sons by The Jam. For 25p! I would estimate that cassette albums were retailing at 3 quid in those days, so this was quite the find. A few weeks later, ChangesOneBowie was in the pile too!
Not 25p, but got Abbey Road for a quid ca 1978 from a used store.
And it is the somewhat rare version with a mis-aligned apple
https://www.discogs.com/release/6033667-The-Beatles-Abbey-Road?srsltid=AfmBOoqoh0EAMTSOWjb0lmoQujPPLiK-MWOiGNHWriwmmLEY5IERraMT
I got the first Fleetwood Mac album – the dustbins cover. A bit battered but magnificent.
In a dodgy second hand shop in the bit of Manchester the IRA blew up from the basement I got Low Heroes and Station to Station for 25 p each in the early 80s. Records in the basement, jazz mags on the ground floor.
Many years ago I bought 4 albums by Townes Van Zandt for 10p each from my local record shop’s bargain bin – Flyin’ Shoes, For the Sake of the Song, Townes Van Zandt and Our Mother the Mountain. I had never heard of TVZ at the time, but liked the titles of some of the songs so thought I would give him a punt. It was 40p well invested. One of the greatest songwriters that ever lived, though I suspect my local record shop had no idea who he was either.
Top score!
Not 25p, but I remember WH Smith selling certain new albums on cassette for 99p in the mid 90s – I was a very late adopter of CDs because I was too skint for both CDs and something to play them on. Two 99p gems that stand out were Brutal Youth by Elvis Costello (still one of his very best IMHO) and Up To Our Hips by the Charlatans.
Brutal Youth is a winning find, it’s such a great album. That + Blood and Chocolate are peak Costello for me.
I promise I’m not being wilfully obscure, but i nominate “St. Mark’s Place” by Britpop no-hopers World Of Leather. I bought the CD unheard for 99p in an HMV sale, solely out of curiosity because I was at college with WOL lead Mark Chase (though we weren’t friends), and it’s *fantastic* off-centre guitar pop… and amazingly, it’s found its way onto Spotify for anyone curious.
In 1973, I paid 50p from the bargain bin in Mothercare for Sly & The Family Stone Fresh and The Velvet Underground Loaded. I still love both albums today.
Later, Gong Camembert Electrique and The Faust Tapes were both discounted to 49p by their record companies. However, It was the 59p The Warner Brothers Music Show that had the biggest impact because it included Little Feat tracks
Ditto here.
Mothercare sold music!
If only I had known, who knows what delights I might have bought?
Not for long. They had decent choice but were totally eclipsed by Rumbelows just across the road. I only bought stuff from the bargain bin.
I used to get my hair cut in the same road. It’s where I first heard Eleanor Rigby, aged eight. I was stunned.
Early August, 1983. My cousin Simon (15) and I (13) took the train to Stevenage, played snooker in the Leisure Centre by the station, and wondered into town.
Woollies were flogging off tapes without inlay cards for 50p, so we blew our lunch money in there.
Between us we got Big Country’s The Crossing (with 4 bonus tracks), a Talking Heads twofer of ’77 and More Songs About Buildings And Food, Speaking In Tongues (with extended tracks compared to the versions on the record) and the Thompson Twins’ Quick Step & Side Kick (with a load of extended and dub mixes on the b-side), and more I can’t remember (because Simon kept those).
We played them all until the tapes were nearly transparent.
Simon had a fatal heart attack 15 years ago, and hearing those albums brings him back to me for a little while.
Back in the 80s woolworths in Chester used to have some odd choices of LP that would end up in the sale bin, going from £4.99 – 2.49 – 1.24 – 0.62 if no-one bought them and then disappear. Over a few years I ended up getting the first four Marshall Crenshaw albums for 62 pence each.
I couldn’t understand why they kept stocking them, he wasn’t exactly popular, but I wasn’t complaining.
Now there’s a name from the past – he was once touted as the next Bruce wasn’t he? I have his album called ‘Downtown’, which is pretty decent. T Bone production, Levin on bass and a plethora of twangtastic guitaring. Interested to hear what you think of the ones you have – are there any obvious stand-outs in your lot?
Marshall’s great. I’ve seen him gig a few times, in the USA, and he’s always fun to see/hear. I like his voice, his guitar playing, and his writing. Wish he’d gig here with a band
As to albums, I particularly rate “Miracle of Science” and “447”, but all his records have something worthwhile on them
Always loved this one – belongs in the great forgotten singles thread.
I haven’t played them in decades but from memory his self titled debut was really good. I will dig them out in the next few days (we have visitors this weekend who probably wouldn’t appreciate it) and let you know.
I remember my mum coming back from a shopping trip when I was maybe 16 and she’d bought four or five albums for next to nothing for me on the bargain basement bin in the local department store. She had no idea what she was buying and I can’t remember what most of them were. But one was Three by Jackie Lomax and I came to love it. Still think it’s a great blue eyed soul/pop record by one of Apple’s first signings, a Wirral lad who never quite made it big
I don’t seem to remember buying any new bargains in shops, other than when Woolworth’s were selling off all their vinyl. 1990s?
One strong memory from 1970 or 71 is that the first thing I ever bought online, aged 15, was the Johnny Winter album, The Progressive Blues Experiment. It cost £1.80 and I must have sent a postal order. I got it from Virgin Records, Richard Branson’s first venture, via an ad in Melody Maker. I had to write a letter to see if they had it, then got a postcard back, typed on a manual typewriter, to confirm the price. I remember the postcard was signed “love, Wendy (Virgin)” . That sparked several innocent adolescent fantasies.
Not even online: mail order of course.
Bought this in Cob Records Portmadoc for 25p, I think. On a day trip up from Aberystwyth with a small gang of pals. A groovy compilation of American and UK choons from ’60s Mod days.
https://www.discogs.com/release/2461653-Various-Allnighters?srsltid=AfmBOoo_GMkxSP85PB1w4kk3kDU8nrakpTkDOLNw-IGl0ZDC2g9Cky0h
Great compilation, never seen that before!
I’ve never seen it anywhere since.
It was brand new unplayed, bought shortly after release.
A release that never took off, I suspect, hence being sold so cheap.
Unattractive cover.
A couple I bought cheap secondhand that I discovered several artists from
Cash Cows – got that from a second hand record shop in a bundle of 5 for a quid (there was this, Rainbow Difficult To Cure, but I can’t remember what else).
Despite being ropey and well worn, I was quite pleased because it was the original issue with The Professionals
Professionals (session) bassist Andy Allan got an injunction stating he’d neither been paid or credited resulting in The Professionals album being shelved, and this album withdrawn (it was re-issued a year later with Magazine – Permafrost replacing Kick Down The Doors.
Just about every Freak that I knew bought a copy of You Can All Join In on release. A huge seller back then.
It’s notable for folkie and later scribe/mag editor Ian A. Anderson being in the photo by mistake and not actually on the record. He never did record for Island Records.
The story goes that the J. Tull Ian Anderson was not at all pleased to be pictured right at the back while the other one was near the front, pictured between Steve Winwood and Paul Rogers. Ian A. claims that he was dropped unrecorded by Island at Tull Ian’s insistence, because of this photo.
It’s a good tale – wonder if there’s any truth in it?
Thinking about it just now, I suspect that when the Island publicity dept. person put in charge of herding the cats was ringing around, the wrong Ian Anderson was called by mistake. Then the correct one was called at the last minute, after the mistake was spotted.
The photographer may well not have known who most of them were, but in any case it would have been embarrassing, once he’d turned up, to tell Ian. A that he’d been called to the shoot in error and was not wanted.
Stereo Death Breakdown by Ian Anderson’s Country Band) was recorded in 1968, he was living in London. The album was picked up by Island Records, after tull’s management complained he was moved to Liberty Records.
This track however appears on Son of Gutbucket,
My Babe She Ain’t Nothing but a Doggone Crazy Fool Mumble” – Ian Anderson’s Country Blues Band – from the LP Stereo Death Breakdown.
Nothing by Deaf O’Toole though
We’re Only in it for the money – Mothers 25p
Band of Gypsies ( Puppet Cover ) – 50p
Strewth. Winner!
When I retrieved them from the bargain bins the currency was different.
5 shillings and Ten shillings !