Rant #3,057: Spin

This past weekend was pretty mundane.

Nothing much happened that I can recall; it was simply a relaxing Saturday and Sunday, for me at least.

About the only highlight I can recall is that I did one thing a little bit different this past weekend—

I went to a local record show, looking for 45s and LPs to add to my collection.

I have gone to this particular record show for the past few years, and it is held about once every three months in the American Legion Hall in my community.

Since a few years ago, the attendance has really ticked up at this event, where the room is filled with about 20 or so vendors.

That has to do with the increased interest in vinyl by music fans.

Although CDs and other music media is sold there, the predominant format there is vinyl, not just from the 1950s to the 1990s, but well beyond that, to the present time.

I love to go to my local record store to search for additions to my collection, but I always manage to find something at this particular record show … in spite of some of the dealers being just a little shifty.

But if you know what you are doing—and show the dealer that you know what you are talking about—you should have no problem at this event at all.

Anyway, I usually get there an hour or two after it officially opens, and I did so yesterday—and I have to say that I never saw such a packed house as it was on this bleary Sunday morning.

When I got there, there must have been several hundred people looking for records, and the place was tight, musty and very warm.

At one time, you had to wear a mask when you were in the dealers room, but now, you are given the option of wearing one or not.

To be on the safe side, I wore my mask, and with the crowd really so tight, I really didn’t mind doing so.

I entered the room, saw all the people, and figured that my time there would be as tight as the mass of people who were looking to buy records, so I busily went up the rows trying to get a bead on who was there and what was available.

I almost immediately saw my favorite dealers, two Japanese fellows who haven’t been at the show since about a year ago.

I went over to their table first; they offer an extensive lot of Japanese 45s—including the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Monkees, which they always have segmented out from the rest of what they are offering—and some nice LPs and other Japanese singles.

They are pleasant people, and their prices are pretty good for what they are selling, so I went to them immediately, found a few Japanese Monkees singles that I did not have in my collection, and paid for them. They were nice enough to give me a bag to put my stuff into, a real rarity at these shows.

I hope that they come back in the future; there is plenty more that I would buy from them, but I do budget myself at these things, looking for bargains and records that are not too highly priced.

Then I worked my way up and down some more aisles, and I found another dealer who had some albums for sale, some for as low as $1.

My eye caught a $1 LP that was put out front of that bin, and it was a Nancy Ames record, “Latin Pulse.” The entire record was sung in Spanish by the very versatile Ames, who could go from English to Spanish singing without a blink of an eye, as she demonstrated on various 1960s variety shows like “The Ed Sullivan Show” with aplomb.

I have spoken about her in Rants in the past, and I kind of rediscovered this singer as an adult through the Sullivan show reruns. She was not only very talented, but a beautiful woman, had an incredible back story … but her records are not plentiful, even though she put out plenty during the 1960s—so when I see one, I grab it, and for $1, you really can’t go wrong.

I then proceeded to have a short discussion with the dealer about her, and he was as fascinated with her as I was … he was also around the same age as me, so we both agreed that our fascination took another level as we got older.

Then I moved on, pretty much thinking that my time was done there, but I came across a dealer’s table that had been so obscured by people when I passed by it before that I wasn’t able to see what he was offering.

I finally got to it, and I am glad that I did, because the dealer was selling his wares at half price … and I found three 45s with picture sleeves by the Animals, Cowsills and the Grass Roots that I just had to have … and now I have them.

I then knew that my time was over there—it was really warm in the hall and the amount of people had multiplied—and I proceeded out, looking at one more dealer who was way too overpriced for me.

But I think I did pretty well there yesterday, and any show like this where I can get a Nancy Ames record … well, I guess you can say that I am vinyl-lee satisfied, for sure.