Among the Smelly

Monday September 12, 2005

If you've never been to a record show, then you don't really know how bad people in a civilized nation can smell. Sure, compared to some places on God's accursed Earth there are smellier congregations, but without leaving the first world, you'd be hard pressed to corral a population as stinky as the bearded and bespectacled browsers rifling through milk crates of dusty LPs at any given record show.

Normally, I only attend one show a year, that being the Rock And Roll Expo in King of Prussia, PA, held annually on Thanksgiving weekend. The Expo is kinda like Christmas to me, except that I have to buy all the presents myself. In times past, before the Internet made it easy to find any CD or LP you could ever want, the Rock and Roll Expo was my chance to catch up on a year's worth of exotic imports or neglected oldies. Now, I pretty much shop for catalog titles that I wouldn't even consider buying under normal circumstances, but for $2 a disc, even I can be convinced that I need the complete Winger discography.

Anyway, astute readers will have realized by now that it's only September, and the RnRE is months off. Well met! Indeed, the occasion for this post was my first trip to the Pennsylvania Record Show, held monthly in the gymnasium of some Catholic high school in Lancaster, PA. Yes, I found myself yesterday afternoon in the belly of the Amish Beast shopping for music, amidst the typical crowd of lonely and bitter old men who live for Elvis 45s and Hawkwind bootlegs. I went with my old friend Rich, who had been to the show once before. I didn't know what to expect, but I took $100 with me just in case things worked out better than planned. As it turned out, I was able to spend almost my entire budget in the course of an hour and a half. While the show primarily catered to vinyl addicts, there were plenty of CD vendors as well, and their wares were almost to the last highly discounted. I paid $5 for some CDs, but most were gotten for less.

I realize that music-haul stories are probably not high on most people's lists of desirable reading, so I will keep it brief and recount only the finest of my finds. The first CD vendor I came across actually had a pretty decent selection of heavy metal, but virtually every CD in his stock was a promotional copy. I don't have any ethical problems with the buying and selling of these ostensibly "loaned" discs (if you look at the promotional notice on most such discs, you'll find language to the effect that the disc remains the property of the record label and must be returned on demand. Despite this dire warning, I'm fairly certain no promotional disc has ever been recalled), I do have a problem with paying $10 for a disc with a giant hole punched in the barcode and with a creased tray card. This guy even had the gall to ask $12 for the new Bruce Dickinson reissues, despite the black marker on the barcodes. The thief! Anyway, I had come to the show expecting to not find much good metal and had decided in advance to concentrate on finding cheap jazz discs, so to this end I perused the vendor's crate of box-sets, and what should I find, but a brand new, shrinkwrapped boxset of all five Dave Brubeck Quartet Time CDs. There was a small promo sticker on the underside of the box, but the CDs themselves were wrapped and unmarked in any way. The set was priced at $32.95, but I figured I'd really do as the Romans do and try to beat the dealer down a little. "$30 for this?" I asked nonchalantly. He eyed the box, but with little fanfare relented. "Sure. Why not." Woo hoo! Though I ended up buying quite a few more CDs, this box set is clearly the grand score of the day, as this complete list of titles purchased will indicate :

• Dave Brubeck Quartet : For All Time boxset
  • Time Out
  • Time Further Out
  • Countdown : Time in Outer Space
  • Time Changes
  • Time In
• McLaughlin, DiMeola, DeLucia : Friday Night in San Fransisco
• U2 : War
• Duran Duran : Notorius
• Eric B. and Rakim : Don't Sweat the Technique
• Dio : Lock Up the Wolves
• Living Colour : Vivid
• King's X : Ear Candy
• White Lion : Pride
• Dokken : Tooth and Nail
• Dokken : Under Lock and Key
• Dokken : Back for the Attack

There's no need to upbraid me in the comments for buying so many shitty hair metal CDs. I feel as bad about buying three Dokken discs as anyone possibly could, but Rich insisted that I should have some Dokken in my collection, and not wanting to have to do this again, I bit the bullet and bought all three supposedly "good" Dokken discs. I haven't listened to them yet, but I'm not too hopeful that the experience will make me feel any better about myself. As for White Lion - Vito Bratta was a great guitarist, and Mike Tramp's vocals are endearing despite themselves, so bite me.

Lastly, I didn't feel like I could leave an event like this without partaking in the vinyl love. I asked a few vendors if they had any Bennie Maupin albums, but no one did, so I had to make do with a John McLaughlin LP called Extrapolation. I listened to this first thing when I got back home and was happy with my purchase, except for that one skip on side A. Grr. Such are the risks one runs when buying ancient jazz records, though!

I had a good time shopping for music at ye olde Pennsylvania Record Show and will definitely head back some time in the future, preferably early enough in the morning to really pour over the vinyl. And you can be sure that I'm not going to shower in advance.

Posted by Matt at September 12, 2005 08:31 PM

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