Having dashed back to my homeland for Fathers’ Day this year, I’ve had a great weekend. Okay so we managed, by our very presence, to bring torrential rain to an area that hadn’t had it for weeks and got almost comically soaked on a walk yesterday but a good time was had by all.
My dad gave me a present he had picked up from his antiques centre, a tin of Jefferson Airplane ‘Surrealistic Tea’, a herbal infusion of the strictly legal type that promised ‘an aromatic cup of organic love’. Yummy! We two patriarchs wondered when this quirky artefact was from, 60’s? early 70’s? it puzzled us. Right up until, eagle-eyed as always, I spotted the web address on the back of the tin!
Again, swiftly brushing aside all the wholesome family goodness, wonderful walking and gratifying parental experiences of the day we called in at my dad’s antique centre* only for me to find that one of the units he lets out has been taken up by a record dealer … yes, I (sort of) have a dad with a record shop! All my adolescent fantasies** finally realised at the age of 43! There was a rather good selection of cheap, not very rare stuff there. Brushing aside the obligatory Abba and Lindisfarne LPs^ I was happy to unearth a load of Ian Gillan solo LPs, some interesting early jazz and some interesting 80’s rock – this could be my opportunity to catch up on all those Tigertailz albums I want, snag that Bonfire 12″, that Fiona album, or to fill the missing gaps in my Warlock collection.
After boring my children rigid – Deal with it! This is Father’s Day!, I plumped for these six beauties.
I tend not to buy many LPs at once, because it makes it difficult to take them all in and experience them properly but I couldn’t leave these. Why?
Ian Gillan Band Clear Air Turbulence: I’d never seen it before and Chris Foss is my fave sci-fi artist^^.
T-Bone Walker The Blues Of …: Again a great cover and an LP from an artist I wanted to explore. This 1965 compilation is quite brilliant.
Rainbow Difficult To Cure: To replace my taped copy that I lost some time in 1989 and because I just love ‘Can’t Happen Here’.
Crumbsuckers Beast On My Back: I remembered that, despite looking a bit fluffy and clean-cut on the cover they were a hard-as-nails thrash/punk crossover act. Sounds great on first listen, really tough.
Poison Flesh & Blood: Purely for nostalgic reasons, I used to really love half of this LP. Plus Bret Michaels really sings the blues on the last track; T-Bone Walker really could have learned a thing or two from him.
Ennio Morricone The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Just because.
Best of all? none of these LP’s cost me more than £3. Bargain. My head is spinning at 33 1/3, bring me a cup of organic love!
559 Down.
*The Works in Llandeilo, should you find yourself in South West Wales with some time to kill.
**well the ones not involving Sam Fox and/or Lita Ford, owning a spaceship, having X-ray vision and playing blindside flanker for Wales, anyway.
^all second-hand record shops in the UK must at all times carry their full discographies, along with either a)Status Quo’s entire 1980’s output, OR b)four copies of any two Barclay James Harvest LPs; The Second Hand Record Retailers Act (1992), Section 9 (a)iii – iV, Para 24.
^^I now know this LP was cut during his jazz fusion phase. Hmm.
Happy belated Father’s Day! Sounds like it was a great one. Crumbsuckers?!?! Man, that’s a hell of a find! I remember getting whiplash to that album in high school. I won’t hold the Poison purchase against you, seeing that the Van Halen album I bought a couple weeks ago was a nostalgic purchase as well. Sometimes you just gotta do it.
And that ‘Surrealistic Tea’ is awesome. And it came out of Athens, Ohio. That’s only a couple hours east of us.
I know, I’ve never seen a Crumbsuckers LP before, I just remembered the name.
The Poison still sounds really good in places too. Honest.
I’ll take your word for it….regarding Poison.
Don’t worry, I’ll lend it to you.
You’re too kind.
I was the first around here to own ‘Look What The Cat Dragged In’ back in 1987. Not sure if I should be proud of that or not.
I’d be careful who you tell that to.
So far just you…do I need to worry?
It’s just that I watched Deliverance again a few nights back. ..
Oh poor Ned Beatty.
What a role. You reckon he read the full script before signing on? I don’t.
It’s hard to say. He probably thought “Burt Reynolds, John Boorman…how can I go wrong?”
I actually need to re-buy Flesh & Blood. As a completist, I was disappointed that the fade out ending was scrapped on the remaster. So I’ll need another copy, vinyl would be sweet.
I’ll keep an eye out, ask my dad to as well.
Thanks dude! In Europe vinyl was still being made by Capitol after that.
Flesh & Blood is quite scarce on LP, it was one of the last records Capitol released in North America!
That Gillan Band, I don’t have that one, but I always thought that album cover was TOPS!
I didn’t know that, I was really pleased to find it. Great to hear Brett ‘Bluesman’ Michaels in full voice!
It’s growing on me (3 listens in) especially when he lets rip. The cover is just amazing. Just £3 too!
Records! Nice score – especially The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. Been trying to find myself a copy of that one for a while … looking in the wrong place it appears.
Been catching up with some record listening the last few days and reading this has got me thinking about a wee record browsing jaunt … and I have a day off today, too.
My son and daughter live in Ammanford so we could arrange a meet up when I visit them next. I would love to try some of that Jefferson Airplane tea.
Very happily, Although I won’t be down there until September I’m guessing. Ammanford is where my dad and I get the coach to Cardiff from when we go watch Wales play.
Next time you’re there you should pop in and visit my dad’s antiques centre.
Gillan’s ‘Clear Air Turbulence’ is a great album, presumably influenced by the likes of band member Colin Towns who has gone on to posher musical composure etc
I’m only two listens in but I think I like it a lot. ‘Money Lender’ in particular. It’s just that jazz fusion is such an easy genre to take the piss out of that I can’t resist it.
The cover is so brilliant too!
Jazz fusion! Nice! And Difficult to Cure too, my favorite Rainbow album. Can’t Happen Here and Spotlight Kid are two of the best ever songs ever.
So if you were to release a compilation called ‘Now That’s What I Call The Best Ever Songs Ever’ they’d be on Volume:1 ?
Definitely. And Vol 2 as well.
Plus I know what a big jazz fusion fan you are. I understand you’ve copyrighted the name Jazz Fusion Overload.
Cool stuff …that’s a neat looking six pack! Loved that Rainbow song as well! There’s a real good cooker of it on Rainbows Final Vinyl! ….
Cheers Deke, the only Rainbow I’ve got so far are this one and Rising. I’m regretting leaving that Tigertailz LP in the shop …
Charming vinyl hunter-gatherer story. You know, of course, that there is no such thing as buying too many records at once.
PS. Gillan had a jazz fusion phase? Who knew!
Cheers Bruce, charming is my middle name, well that and Monomaniacal.
Yup jazz fusion … some of this Lp sounds like Weather Report fronted by, well, Ian Gillan, I guess. It sounds a little like the soundtrack to a swingers scene circa 1977; I’d imagine!
Having never swung nothin’ other than a tennis racquet, I’ll take your word for it!
Come off it, we all know you were once famous on the scene as Loose Bruce.
True. My foreHAND.
I spent 15 minutes staring at a map of Melbourne trying to find a suburb/district that rhymed with ‘loose’, to no avail, so I could call you ‘losse Bruce from (insert name here)’.
I lived in the borough of Sluice, but it has since been expunged.