LP Cover Cavalcade # 1

I was thinking the other day about the first albums I owned by a number of acts that would become Fave Raves, one album purchase leading to another, and another, and another. Not counting records that belonged to my siblings (but which I played anyway), I can't remember my first Beatles album; I suspect it was a second-hand acquisition of Rubber Soul, though it may have been a tie between Introducing The Beatles and Let It Be, both of which I received as gifts one Christmas morning in the '70s. I inherited my brother's copies of the first two Monkees LPs, and eventually supplemented them with a flea market purchase of Headquarters and The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees. 

Every love story begins with that very first kiss. I remember my first Velvet Underground (The Velvet Underground & Nico, used), my first Ramones (Ramones), Otis Redding (Live In Europe), KISS (Rock And Roll Over), Kinks (Kinks-Sized), Suzi Quatro (Suzi Quatro), Elvis Costello (My Aim Is True), Prince (1999), and best-of sets as introductions to The Troggs, The Turtles, The Raspberries, The Jackson 5, The Ventures, and Little Richard. Here are some others I remember:



THE ANIMALS: Best Of The Animals

Well, talk about an ignominious start to my Animals collection. In the mid '70s, my growing obsession with the music of the '60s (especially of the British Invasion) retroactively made The Animals one of my favorite groups, albeit a decade after the fact. I borrowed my cousin Maryann's copy of The Best Of The Animals, but I needed to officially add Eric Burdon and his comrades to my library. For Christmas of 1976, my parents directed me to pick out some LPs I'd want to receive as gifts. I spied this budget-priced Animals set on the racks at a department store in downtown Syracuse; even though I didn't recognize any of the song titles, the cover photo grabbed me, so I figured it must be a collection of Animal tracks I didn't know, but which might be on a par with my familiar favorites "It's My Life" and "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place." Wrong! The perfunctory blues covers were not my cuppa, and this LP did not remain in my collection for long. (As a happy ending here, let me add that the other albums Mom and Dad gave me that Christmas included a real Animals best-of--a two-record set on Abkco--as well as The Beatles Featuring Tony Sheridan and The History Of British Rock Volume 2. Christmas was saved!)



THE BEACH BOYS: Endless Summer

As a teenager, I had no real affinity for the music of The Beach Boys. Even speaking as an avid fan of The Monkees (an act the hipsters hated), I just thought The Beach Boys were square, uncool. Establishment. "Be True To Your School?" Come on...! But within that haze of smug dunderheadedness, I still had to concede that some of The Beach Boys' hits transcended the four corners of what I perceived as their image. "Good Vibrations." "Fun, Fun, Fun." "Help Me, Rhonda." "I Get Around." My grudging awareness of the sheer quality of these tracks was sufficient motivation for me to add a record-club purchase of the 2-LP Endless Summer to my fledgling pop-rock stash, even though it didn't incluse "Good Vibrations." It didn't immediately open my mind to the wonder of The Beach Boys, but I played it occasionally, and took it with me to college in the fall of '77. My second Beach Boys album was Pet Sounds, which I purchased during the Spring '78 semester because I'd become enthralled with "Sloop John B." Even with an introduction to that true classic album, my acceptance and revelation would be deferred, and deferred by another freakin' decade, fercryinoutloud. But it would come eventually. My teenage self would have been appalled to learn that his middle-aged incarnation loves The Beach Boys, but what did the younger me know anyway? He liked Kansas!



DAVID BOWIE: Pinups

Man, what an odd place to start with Bowie. I had the "Changes" 45, but my first long-player by the former Mr. Jones was this collection of covers, purchased at a used record sale set up on campus, probably in 1978. My interest in Bowie was (at best) borderline at the time. Looking back, I'm sure I was drawn to Pinups by the presence of a cover of The Easybeats' "Friday On My Mind;" I'd been unable to score a copy of The Easybeats' version, so I settled for Bowie as a substitute. Bowie's rendition of "See Emily Play" was my second-hand introduction to Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, and I appreciated that Bowie seemed to share my burgeoning affection for early Kinks and Who. Within another year or so, I would be listening intently to The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, and expand from there. Hadda start somewhere.



JOAN JETT: Joan Jett

One could argue that this shouldn't count; I was already a fan of Joan Jett when she was in The Runaways, and I owned most of that group's albums prior to their split and Jett's subsequent solo career. But as much as I loved the best of The Runaways, I was really stoked by Jett's first solo album, and snagged it at my first opportunity. Issued as an eponymous album in 1980 and reissued as Bad Reputation in 1981, this record was an immediate Top Ten album for me, an irresistible biff-bang-POP of bubbleglam. A Bo Gentry-Joey Levine song called "You Don't Know What You've Got" remains an undiscovered gem, and even the Gary Glitter covers are great. Opening track "Bad Reputation" sets the appropriate chip-on-the-shoulder/single-finger-in-the-air mise-en-scéne, and my daughter and I have an informal agreement to use that song as our father-daughter dance when she gets married. Because we don't give a damn about our bad reputation.



TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS: You're Gonna Get It

Although I'd read about Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers in Phonograph Record Magazine, and adored hearing first-album track "American Girl" on the radio (all in 1977), it wasn't until the summer of '78 and the group's second album that I felt compelled to participate in Pettymania. And I succumbed because Wolfman Jack told me to. Home from college for summer break, working part-time as a morning janitor at Sears, I had sufficient pocket change to buy records and see bands and buy more records. Win-win! Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers appeared on Midnight Special, the Friday night pop music TV showcase hosted by our gravel-voiced Wolfman Jack, and my jaw dropped at the sound of two new songs the group performed: "Listen To Her Heart" (which reminded me of The Searchers) and "I Need To Know" (which sounded like everything I ever wanted a rock 'n' roll song to sound like). I didn't have my drivers license yet, so at the first opportunity, I asked my sister Denise to bring me to Penn Can Mall so I could buy the new Petty album, You're Gonna Get It. Saying the album's title out loud confused Denise, since she now thought I was hitting her up for a ride and demanding that she buy me a record. No, no--I've got pocket change, Denise! And I traded some of that pocket change for my first Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers album. There would be more to come. Get it? Got it. Good.



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Fans of pop music will want to check out Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, a new pop compilation benefiting SPARK! Syracuse, the home of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. TIR'N'RR Allstars--Steve Stoeckel, Bruce Gordon, Joel Tinnel, Stacy Carson, Eytan Mirsky, Teresa Cowles, Dan Pavelich, Irene Peña, Keith Klingensmith, and Rich Firestone--offer a fantastic new version of The Kinks' classic "Waterloo Sunset." That's supplemented by eleven more tracks (plus a hidden bonus track), including previously-unreleased gems from The Click Beetles, Eytan Mirsky, Pop Co-Op, Irene Peña, Michael Slawter (covering The Posies), and The Anderson Council (covering XTC), a new remix of "Infinite Soul" by The Grip Weeds, and familiar TIRnRR Fave Raves by Vegas With Randolph, Gretchen's Wheel, The Armoires, and Pacific Soul Ltd. Oh, and that mystery bonus track? It's exquisite. You need this. You're buying it from Futureman.

(And you can still get our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4, on CD from Kool Kat Musik and as a download from Futureman Records.)

Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 100 essays (and then some) about 100 tracks, plus two bonus instrumentals, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).