At the start of this year, I resolved to start revitalizing and rediscovering a collection of about 400 vinyl albums I reclaimed from my sister’s house in Reading after moving back to Ireland in August 2013.
Despite having followed me first from Coventry to Hull and Manchester, and then later from Coventry to Hong Kong and Reading, shitloads of these records have not been played for 40-odd years.
After buying a vinyl cleaning bath (a Spincare Record Cleaning Machine, very good if you’re asking) upgrading from a crappy Ion to a more robust audio-technics belt drive turntable, I was ready to start travelling back in time. Hence this first in an occasional series about what records I bought and when, why and where I bought them, and whether or not I will ever play them again.
Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past opens with a man biting into a Madelaine cake and unleashing a torrent of memories. The unmistakable sound of stylus gently gahlumphing into the run-in grooves of that old vinyl album you’ve tenderly sluiced clean and set spinning is not dissimilar.
As anyone lucky enough to come of age when 12” albums were king has always known, vinyl really does have a warmer, richer sonic embrace than any other music delivery platform. Aside from the fastidious handling and cleaning required, the only real drawback is having to get off your arse every 20 minutes to change the record over.
To ensure I’d continue to listen to vinyl rather than CDs for the duration of a book I’m writing,
I set my new turntable up and linked it to the Sony 5.1 home cinema system in my office.
The moment the first quiet crackles of a record I’d not heard since the early 70s started to emerge from the speakers I knew US literary giant Thomas Wolfe was wrong. Not only can you go home again, the path via which you travel back there is full of richly fascinating and hugely rewarding twists and turns .
The back in my case began on a biting cold December 1970 day in Coventry City Centre’s still then quite cutting-edge Shopping Precinct.
Having been subjected to my irritatingly relentless 15-year old pleading for a record player for several months, that was the day Dad caved in and took me to Dixons. This being the Precambrian Age in home entertainment terms, the choices consisted of big heavy radiograms or decidedly more svelte (if rather more flimsy) sideboard-friendly systems. The latter housed not only a rudimentary record player, but also a bog standard radio and a cassette atop some veneer-front drawers and a couple of album-sized vertical pigeon holes.
Still unversed in the arcane mysteries of woofers, tweeters, styluses and cartridges, I was as happy as Larry when he picked out a pretty cool-looking (to my jejune eyes) assemblage with a smoked black plastic top. Looking back now, I’m ashamed to say I have no recollection of just how much it cost. Probably a lot more than my folks could afford as I remember Dad had to sign up to pay on the ‘never-never’. This would have been a huge step for my parents who lived in terror of going into debt and always hammered the message ‘Neither a borrower or a lender be’ to me and my sister. Apart from one brief period when the doors of mid-20th Century equivalent of Newgate Prison cracked open the late 70s and early 80s, that’s a lesson that has stood me in good stead my entire life.
Within a couple of weeks of our trip to Dixons, the unit (‘the stereo’ already!) would be accorded pride of place on the sideboard in the back room that only ever got used for important family dinners. On the other side of the wall, my poor parents got set to hunker down in front of the TV for what they foolishly imagined would be a pleasant evening of light entertainment.
Soon there was to begin a sonic assault whose pounding drums and bass, slashing guitar chords and wailing vocals would assail them for most of the next five years.
Effortlessly morphing from childhood to adolescence/adulthood, I began tallying up whatever ‘Christmas boxes’ I received on my paper round that year. Combined with whatever gifts I’d received from generous aunties, uncles, I should just have enough to purchase my first album.
Having judiciously scoured the January sales, I ended up stretching to two: The Court of The Crimson King and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. The first of these would have been bought full price from a city centre record shop called Fennels. The second came from the bargain bin in Woolworths in Ball Hill. While no one normally cares who came second, CWOAB represents a milestone in my record buying career. The reason being it was the first of a stream of reduced- to-clear albums I ended up plucking out of remainders bins the length and breadth of the the British Isles. Assuming anyone bothers reading my early witterings, several of these will feature in future additions to (or versions of) this thread.
Though much loved and fondly remembered (you never forget you first!) both platters sadly vanished from my collection more years ago than I care to remember. The earliest two albums still present on my shelves are McDonald and Giles’ enigmatically entitled McDonald and Giles, and the budget-priced Bonzos’ Gorilla. As the latter platter comes with a rather interesting story about record theft handcuffed to it we’ll leave it for another day.
As the start of ‘Operation Revitalize and Rediscover’ coincided with Ian McDonald’s recent death, it seems as good a place as any to commence this series of occasional threads.
The reason why I bought McD & G was doubtless because I heard someone like Bob Harris, Pete Drummond or Alan Black play Tomorrow’s People on Sounds of the Seventies. Undeterred by the godawful cover of, a purple-hued Mike, Ian and their two “ladies”, this seemed like an ideal companion piece for COTCK, large chunks of which IMcD had written.
There is incredibly a prog forum where some seven or eight pages are given over to debating whether McD & G failed to sell because of this very pic. Uninspiring though it undoubtedly is, the front cover is sadly representative of the frankly dreadful music contained inside. It’s also a million times more appealing than the talent-free mess with which McD’s other half, a sort of proto-Janine from Spinal Tap, had filled up the inner gatefold.
Sterling support from the likes of Steve Winwood aside, the music squeezed into the grooves of the album is mostly forgettable noodling. Given over to a indulgent 20-minute suite called Birdman, the second side is especially of its time. Apparently earmarked for Crimso’s sophomore album, McD and G grabbed the putative prog meisterwork for themselves after one of the earliest of their former band’s many splits.
It’s often said that if you can’t say anything nice, don’t bother to say anything. The best that can be said here is that dear old Robert Fripp certainly dodged a bullet the day McD and G headed out the door on their short-lived stab at stardom.
Of the rest, only the aforementioned Tomorrow’s People and the gossamer light Flight of the Ibis (effectively Crimso’s rather lovely Cadence and Cascade with different lyrics) stand up to repeated listenings.
Casting my mind back, I cannot ever recall playing McD & G very much after my album collection raced past the double figure mark. Within a year, my tastes had broadened to the point where my burgeoning collection extended to discs by Steely Dan and Gram Parsons (still all present and correct all these years later.)
All of which means it must be damn near half-a-century since I consigned poor Ian and Mike’s one shot at the top to the back of the ‘you-gotta-hear-this-man’, pile. On the evidence of my one recent replaying of the disc, it will probably be a further 50 years before anyone in my house ever plays it again.
Despite all of my yakking further up the page, my recent cleaning up of the album taught me that some things really are best left in the past. M&G’s only album is sadly one of those to which the years have been especially unkind.
Very, very good writing! Applause all round
Tremendous. I’d never heard of that album until IMcD’s death and it certainly sound interesting, not least for the presence of the Cheerful Insanity Non-Hitmaker.
Everybody’s writing a book. What if, like me, you write a book but it turns out to be shit? Just don’t tell people I guess….d’oh!
Recently purchased this album on CD and have been playing it repeatedly. There’s a confidence and a swagger about it that I enjoy. Great drumming and great production.
Saved me the bother of listening, being unfeasibly drawn to “lost masterpieces” that turn out to be shite.
On which point, anyone heard Carleen Anderson’s Cage Street Memorial? Jee-zuz………
I wonder if I sold it to you Martin. I had it on CD, never played and unloved so I sold it on Discogs.
I’m listening to the album for the first time thanks to Zanti, err, I won’t be listening again.
Nice piece @Jatgee, I’m looking forward to more. FYI some sellers are asking three figures on Discogs for the M&G LP.
I’m surprised at the response here. I thought McD & Giles would be in the Afterword sweet spot. I bought my CD new. The record is still available to buy new on vinyl gatefold from specialist reissue label Music On Vinyl.
Although I disagree with your critical assessment, I’m looking forward to your next installment @Jaygee.
Apologies. It’s on Klimt records, not Music on Vinyl.
“Peak prog” on the blog was a few years ago – the pendulum has rather swung the other way lately…
McD and G definitely one of my enduring favourites.
@jaygee
Yep, fantastic stuff…keep it up!
Cool OP, but I reckon you’re wrong about the M&G album. This is ace!
I’m with Zanti – I think the album (of its time, for sure) is pretty good. Great piece anyway – looking forward to much more!
Thanks everybody for the kind words.
Will definitely do some more if you’re happy for me to do so.
Excellent stuff. Please keep going.
Reminds me of my house a couple of years after you, the difference being the stereo and TV were in the same room. The solution was a pair of huge headphones. Given that someone else was in charge of the three available TV channels (and we had to get up from our seat to change over), I spent a lot of time ‘doing homework’ under those headphones.
Go for it!
Looking forward to the next piece, J.
Wonderful stuff. I almost always remember where and how much I paid for records in my yoof, I suppose because I had to work/save much harder to pay for them.
You’re not alone there.
Although I probably am on my own trying to record it all in a spreadsheet
Unnecessary use of a spreadsheet always reminds me of this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-56916050
Unnecessary?
That’s a brilliant quest. I’m inspired to do it myself
(Cue Mrs D’s eyes raising to the heavens and calling me a weirdo … again)
You aren’t alone with the spreadsheet. I’m in my 4th year of recording new purchases on a sheet. If only for the end of year polls on here.
I used to write every record I bought in my diary when I was a teenager. I kept a diary from about 14 to 21/22, but stopped when something really bad happened and a couldn’t bring myself to write about it. I chucked them all away a few years later, but it would have been fascinating to look at them now. I bought a CD player when I was about 22, but by that time I had a lot of records, so I didn’t really have many years buying vinyl records, so it would be interesting to see where they all came from and for how much. I didn’t buy much vinyl after I bought the CD player and started selling the vinyl off to buy CDs. I had pretty much got rid of all the vinyl, apart from my Stephen Duffy and Dream Academy collections that had taken a lot of finding, within 7 or 8 years.
I never had much money though. Just pocket money, a part-time job in a nightclub and then a student nurse salary, which was about £3-4K per year back then, so I’d like to see how on Earth I managed to amass such a big collection, bearing in mind I had a lot of Beatles rarities. I remember spending an evening as. DJ at a party my mate’s parents threw and received his dad’s Life With The Lions LP as payment (God, that was exciting!). Car boot sales were fantastic in the 80s too, and I remember getting bags full of records for next to nothing every time I went to one of those, which was weekly at one point, so I guess that was the main factor, but even though I spent pretty much every penny I got on records, my collection would have suggested I was far better off than I ever was. I was good at finding bargains I guess. Then again, I’m skint at the moment, but get round that by flogging stuff so I can buy new stuff. I did that when I was a teenager too, selling records in my mate’s bookshop in Scarborough. Back then the only ambitions I had were to be an A&E nurse and to open a record shop. So a 50% success rate at least.
The stop press to all this is that last week my brother-in-law gave me his old turntable. I haven’t had one for about 20 years. As I have lost the feeling in my hands since then I’m not sure how easy I’m going to find playing vinyl. And records are so expensive nowadays, that I cannot see myself buying many. But I bought two yesterday (Coltrane’s Blue Train and Cannonball Adderley’s Something Else) that arrived this morning, one of which is going back. Amazon sent one in a nice cardboard package, and the other turned up in a brown paper bag!?! Guess which one is badly creased. Gonna set it all up later and play (and hopefully not scratch!) my first vinyl record this century.
I realised yesterday that I now have the option to get physical copies of some of my favourite recent albums that were never released on CD. I like CDs, so any albums that I download and really like I then buy on CD, as I prefer the discs to downloads. But some of my favourites didn’t come out on CD, so I went through a few of them the other day. To my surprise, Eddie Chacón’s Pleasure, Joy and Happiness and Wish Master x Illinformed’s Cold Harbour Tales have now been released on CD. So I sat down to buy a couple of records and ended up buying 2 CDs! But then I decided to start with a couple of jazz albums, as they weren’t too expensive and I figured (I could well be wrong) that jazz probably benefits from vinyl more than any other genre.
I was going to buy Blocks & Escher’s Something Blue, which is on two records. I checked the length of the downloaded album and it is 60 minutes, so I wondered whether I could be bothered standing up every 15 minutes to change it over. But then I saw that only 6 of the 11 tracks from the download are on the vinyl, so I’d be standing up every 5 minutes or so. Sod that!
If the vinyl experience goes well, I imagine I’ll shortly be walking round the house to find more things to flog. I wish I had my old collection back though. It would cost a lot of money to replace that, a lot more than I got for it in places like Vinyl Exchange on Oldham Street and from the scary lass upstairs in the Music and Video Exchange at Notting Hill. There were times when I walked back down the steps and went back another day when I saw her behind the counter!
This lunchtime I went to the opticians to collect my new spectacles. I had 20 mins to burn while they swapped the lenses over, so I went next door to the Oxfam books & music shop.
I bought some records – Bhundu Boys, chazza staple Missa Luba, a Lotus Eaters 12″, and a jazz album my mate’s lad plays drums on (which I was unaware had ever come out on vinyl).
Man on the till said “ooh, you like interesting stuff”, we got talking about Desert Island Discs and the Andy Kershaw podcast.
I was invited to “have a look through the racks out the back before we put it on sale”. I’m going to check out the Aladdin’s Cave next time I’m in town (and not on my lunch break). This could end up being expensive.
I see Sir has been rubbing his lamp.
Hang on … there was 400 albums without a true home in Reading. How did I not know this and offer re-homing services.
I’m sure I’m not the only one here this applies to, but while my records were up the loft, or in the shed, away from the potential dangers inflicted by young Offsprings, I always felt part of me was missing.
Since moving house and relocating the vinyls back to their rightful home – almost everywhere you look – I am whole again. I am known locally as “the record man”. That’ll do for me.
I know what you mean. I love being surrounded by shelves of LP records that I bought over 40 years ago.
“The record man”? That’s a great moniker. A lot better than the “Bed & Breakfast Man”, anyway!
Or “that weird proto-paedo type from no 46 whose wife no one has seen since he started digging in the garden late at night”
In the early days of lockdown, when BandCamp Friday first started, I ordered loads of records via BC. One of them had the wrong name and address on it, but the local sorting office figured it was record-shaped, so it might be for me.
Postie rang the bell, handed me a record mailer, asked “Is this one of yours?” and watched as I carefully slid the shiny twelve-incher out of the package*.
I don’t know what would have happened if it wasn’t for me.
(*) Morning, Moosey.
My record collection came out of extended storage in my parents’ garage stinking of mould. I discovered that the mould had taken a particular fancy to a Dutch pressing of Abbey Road, but had left the wide plains of The White Album untouched.
Civilian Moss (TMFTL)
Vinyls? Records if plural please 😉
Sorry, Dai. Bloody autocorrect – I meant vinlys.
Doing a similar thing.
Have sold the house and will be renting til the next one gets built and will have time on my hands.
The records are in my brothers warehouse save for a few hundred that I haven’t played in a long while and am unsure whether I still like them. So I am giving each of them a bath and then a full play. If they resonate , reprieve, if not they will be flogged.
Yesterday’s batch
Mark Almond X 3 reprieve
Do Re Mi -Aussie – flog
Wendy Waldeman – flog
Chicago Transit Authority – pending. Sound is quite harsh but a great looking record.
Eno – Tiger Mountain. Flog Could not sing to save his life on that record.
@Jaygee excellent piece and I look forward to follow ups.
‘Neither a borrowerr nor a lender be’ was also my dads favourite mantra.
Unlike you I never paid much attention Over the years I never had much trouble with borrowing as always paid back but lending to family? Never again
Re: “Eno – Tiger Mountain. Flog Could not sing to save his life on that record.”
That’s what I love about “Taking Tiger Mountain”. Ha!
…..”on that record” is intriguing, suggesting that normally the True Wheel Hitmaker can be heard eg
belting out excerpts from La Traviata in duet with Kiri Te Kanawa.
Well on Before and After Science there was less singing and … err maybe i was used to it more. But on this listen Tiger was quite jarring and prompted Mrs Wells to make some quite unkind remarks.
“Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past opens with a man biting into a Madelaine cake and unleashing a torrent of memories. The unmistakable sound of stylus gently gahlumphing into the run-in grooves of that old vinyl album you’ve tenderly sluiced clean and set spinning is not dissimilar.” – Brilliantly put, and that’s it exactly! I love that feeling.
I’ve only just recently installed a second record player in my living room (my main player is in my man cave) and it’s been just euphoric. Just the sense of ritual, the excitement of old records played in a new place, if that makes sense. Even stuff I’ve heard to death sounds fresh again, like CSNY’s Deja Vu, or Revolver.
Rediscovering 50year old vinyl in a very literal sense.
(Great post btw)
This may be place to canvass opinion on a dilemma. I have been on the journey of many whereby a couple of years ago I reacquainted myself with my LPs. Brought down from loft to rejoin those I always had at hand. Going through there were some missing. But where?
In acts of generosity I gave some way in the 80s as I replaced on CD. Some kind souls gave them back to me as they had no interest in vinyl and the space it occupies in a streaming world. But for the life of me there were some I just couldn’t remember what happened. Then, out of the blue following a health scare I connected with someone I hadn’t seen for 20+ years. Met up, pleasant lunch. Finished off with a coffee. There I looked and saw a modest. record collection. Therein was my original Diamond Dogs bought the day it came out with saved up pocket money. Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory, Man who Sold the World (my friend was a big Bowie fan). possibly others but I thought better of nosing took much.
I was pleased I knew where they were but …..
I was offered them back but declined.
But since then I can’t help thinking about them!
I have a plan that I could reclaim originals and provide with replacements (some of which I have)
But would I be a cad doing so.
Thoughts?
I was going to cover this very topic in a future thread.
In my case, I seem to have ended up with as many permanent loanees in as out. As with all albums, be they good or bad, the memories of how and where I/you got them (and who I/you got them from and what they got in exchange) are every bit as fascinating as the music in the grooves
I also have lots of albums i don’t even recall getting – a lot of them were review copies from record cos when I used to write for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Others I suspect came from clearance sales when record shops were dumping vinyl to make space for CDs.
And don’t get me started on LPs i knew I had, would have probably never have loaned out but are no longer there.
I think I feel another post coming on…
Say you’ve reconsidered the kind offer and ask to borrow them back ‘for a bit’ so that you can hear them again. And let the ‘bit’ turn into 20 years or so.
As I have no doubt mentioned on here before, I have an LP of Peter Ustinov narrating Peter & the Wolf. It has a massive pop, which makes my copy unique, and I involuntarily flinch whenever I hear it – even when I heard it on CD a few years ago. That record is one of the few things I have from my pre-teen youth and it holds memories, scratches and all.
That’s another wonderful thing about vinly, even the crackles pops and other tiny flaws are cherishable.
You certainly don’t get that careworn feeling with CDs.
I am one of those people with a record collection made up in large part by “acquired” records that I borrowed and never gave back! Many times it hasn’t been through deviousness, but just absent-mindedness, coupled with the fact I value them more than the person I borrowed them from!
@Leem did they acquire your record in the year of the scavenger, the season of the bitch?
I think we sashayed on the boardwalk, if memory serves me correct
Most of the records I bought in my teens were from sale bins. New LPs cost $NZ5.75. The World Record Club had a quarterly “Pop Spot” where they sold 10 albums at $3 each. That was how I acquired After The Goldrush, CSN, Led Zep III and IV and a bunch of others. From the sale bins I got “Nice” by, um, The Nice for $3.50 and 45s of Hendrix’s Voodoo Chile and Dylan’s Highway 61 b/w Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window (don’t recall the price)