Vinyl at Cheapo

I had a pile of work to do and couldn't get into it so I went to Cheapo in Fridley where they have finally opened up their "vinyl room".

The musician/clerk told me that right now it's mainly stocked with stuff from the warehouse but people are just starting to bring some things in and the selection is picking up. I had just finished a bowl of Cap'n Crunch and was feeling a bit "jazzed" about picking up a few things and when I'm staying crunchy, even in milk, I tend to think everything looks like it's worth picking up but that's a bit of a misconception.

I've never been a real record collector, I just loved listening to all kinds of stuff and next thing you know, you are surrounded by sound ... I still have crates of vinyl, half a human tall. I'd never set out to collect beer cans or TV Guides either but that just happened by default.

Several few years back, our basement flooded and I lost quite a few records. I hadn't been storing them with much love, partially due to the cold & clinical yet very convenient CD thing and partially because my turntable really didn't turn anymore. That can be a problem.



I ended up with a couple hand-me-downs from an audiophile friend who also loaned me a very heavy-duty record cleaning machine to use for a while. The machine was the type used by radio stations,. It had a spinning platter like a turntable but instead of a needle it had a brush that dispensed a cleaning solution while it scrubbed out all the grooves as the record spun.

The results were impressive, I even tried some of my worst records, like a copy of Neil Young's "Time Fades Away" and the Byrds "Untitled" that had a big ol' "X" scrawled on the label. I had quite a few of those from the special section at the Cheapo on Snelling, the section where underemployed victims of trickle down economics swarmed to get their fix at a quarter apiece.

Gradually I began to buy used vinyl again, even new NEW vinyl, real heavy records, 180 grams (I think) by certain types of artists like Wilco, Elliott Smith and Bright Eyes to name a few. By the way, heavy records sound really fucking good. When I left off in the late 80s, many records were so thin, they were almost flexi discs and they sounded terrible. If I want to listen to flexi discs I'd break out "It's a Gas" that was a playground classic that came with a MAD magazine somewhere around 1967.

"It's a Gas" was simply a 60s surf sounding instrumental complete with Farfisa organ tones blasting away. When the band got to the turnaround, they'd break and the break was filled with a loud belch. It was quite a hit with some of my third grade pals, I don't remember the girls being too impressed. My friend Derek said wait'll you hear the flip side. I went home to check it out but it was just a flat, grooveless backside with no sound waves, a victim of my first urban legend.



It's easy to get carried away when first getting back into purchasing vinyl, I learned my lesson about buying records for ironic reasons only. There's only so many times a guy can fall for an Andy Williams record where he's posing in a Nehru jacket with a gold medallion covering songs like Cream's "Tales Of Brave Ulysses" or perhaps sporting a colorful Dashiki, holding up the Black Power fist and covering Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly". Actually before you Google either of these, I have to admit I haven't looked at these records since I hid them when we had company so I may be off on the photo details and song selections.

The point is ... sure, a couple are good for a laugh but they never ended up spinning as much as I'd expected. Same goes for the Mario Lanza and Sing Along With Mitch.



Once I found a Smothers Brothers LP recorded live at the Purple Onion in San Francisco from 1961. The Purple Onion, I think, was a beatnik era comedy club where Lenny Bruce and people like that used to challenge the restrictions of the Eisenhower era. It was pretty interesting but I'd have to say, it's still in pretty good shape.



Since this blog is just collecting dust like these records, I thought maybe I'd start giving them a spin and jot down a few thoughts about them once in a while.