Rant #2,129: Wait For the Music

This past Saturday's Record Store Day was a good one.

I came into the store not looking for anything in particular, came out with a few things that I was happy to find, and then went on my merry way.

The store that I went to wasn't opening until 9 a.m., but I was there at about 7:30 a.m., and as the first one to arrive, I started the line waiting to get into the store that reached to about 50 people at its longest.

The store had early admission, for a $5 payment that went directly to an animal charity. The store was also donating a percentage of its profits on the day to this charity, so it was all good.

There were people of all different ages on the line, and the time went fast, as we spoke amongst each other about our collections, what we were there to buy, and what we felt about current music, movies and television offerings (the consensus: there is talent out there, but we aren't seeing it in any of these genres).

Anyway, the door opened, and the store allowed four people to go in, followed by four more, and it went on like that until 10 a.m., by which time I had returned home with my Record Store Day booty.

I found some interesting things, led off by a re-release of one of Lulu's 1970 albums, "Heaven and Earth and the Stars," which includes two tracks produced by David Bowie, "The Man Who Sold the World" and "Watch That Man." The album also includes Lulu's James Bond song, "The Man With the Golden Gun." and this new package also comes with a bonus 45 RPM single featuring the two Bowie songs, which, by the way, she does a great job with.

I also bought an Eric Burdon and the Animals repackage entitled "Nights In San Francisco," which pretty much is a 14-track overview of the best of the Animals when Burdon's name was put out in front of that name. The LP includes "San Franciscan Nights," "When I Was Young," and an interview with Burdon.

Other Record Store Day releases that I purchased included new singles featuring Jimi Hendrix, Question Mark and the Mysterians, and my very first Led Zeppelin record. Of Led Zep, I have never been a fan of this act--I much preferred their precursor, the Yardbirds--but the single looked intriguing. so I took a chance on it.

I also bought some real oldies singles and LPs, too, including releases by the 5th Dimension, the Buckinghams, the Lovin' Spoonful, Roy Orbison, Peter, Paul and Mary, Procol Harum and Bobby "Boris" Pickett, as well as a few soundtrack LPs from the 1960s and "Long Lonesome Highway" by Michael Parks, an album I had been looking for for some time.

After less than 45 minutes, I was done, exited and saw that there was still a long line waiting to get in. It ended up being totally worth it that I got there early, because everything I bought was basically the only copy of the record that I saw there, and if I had come later, this stuff almost certainly would have been gone.

Record Store Day was fun, and now, I have to find the time to digitize all of this stuff, put it on a thumb drive, and listen to it in my car. I have already done this for the entire Lulu album, and over the next few weeks, I will certainly do it to the rest of the stuff I bought on this sunny Saturday.

It's all good, all fun, and the next big record store day on the calendar is Black Friday in late November, so that gives me roughly seven months to prepare for that day ...

Or plenty of time to listen to what I bought this time around.