The Eventual Return Of MY LP APPRECIATIONS

It's been a bit since I've posted any new pieces under the broad heading of My LP Appreciations. In fact, it's been more than a year since my most recent LP appreciation, a Rescued From The Budget Bin! look back at an odd 2-LP set called Heavy Metal, shared here on 11/9/18. I'll be getting back to more of My LP Appreciations in the near future. Here's a list of what we've already seen, and a glimpse at some of what we may see in the not-too-distant future.



My LP Appreciations is actually an umbrella category for a number of different series, each offering a look back at my memory of a specific record and what it meant to me. Let's review those categories.

RESCUED FROM THE BUDGET BIN!



Record stores used to have cut-out bins, overflowing with deleted albums that the labels had given up as lost causes. The cut-out LP covers had been deliberately damaged: a corner chopped off, a puncture, some sort of premeditated defacing to mark them as clearance items, as soon-to-be discarded product that had been written off, as Grade B, as "other." The cut-out bin was a record buyer's last chance to grab a record on the cheap before it slipped into the out-of-print zone. In addition to the cut-outs, there were also budget albums, produced and priced for discount sales.

Cut-outs. Budget albums. I may have purchased a few of these over the years.

The origin of My LP Appreciations! Who I am and how I came to be! Sort of. Rescued From The Budget Bin! began with a post about The Very Best Of The Hollies on March 15th of 2017, and didn't see another entry until the 2018 Heavy Metal piece mentioned a few paragraphs back. Possible future entries may discuss Nuggets, Shake Some Action by The Flamin' Groovies, Suzi Quatro, The Real Kids, and the soundtracks of That Summer! and Stardust. Some other already-published bits (and some still to come) could have just as easily been classified as Rescued From The Budget Bin!, but I chose some more specific designation instead.



LOVE AT FIRST SPIN



Love At First Spin looks back at albums that I immediately loved, from start to finish, the first time I heard them.

This category was suggested by Steve Stoeckel, and first described in an introduction posted on 3/17/17. Yep, just two days after The Hollies kicked off Rescued From The Budget Bin! The first and most popular Love At First Spin was about my favorite album of the 1980s, Drop Out With The Barracudas, posted on 3/24/17. Subsequent editions of Love At First Spin cast spotlights on Mr. Tambourine Man by The Byrds (3/31/17) and Rocket To Russia by The Ramones (4/29/17, and this blog's 500th post). Oh, there'll be more of these, possibly including The Jam's Setting Sons, Tell America by Fools Face, Mad Monster Party, and separate entries about two more Ramones LPs, Road To Ruin and It's Alive!




SECOND-HAND SOUND



Trash becomes treasure in appreciative hands. Second-Hand Sound examines used records I picked up over the years, albums that someone else discarded as unwanted or unworthy. My opinion differed from theirs.

So far, there's only been one post published in this series, a love letter to Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. by The Monkees (6/1/17; yes, I posted about a Monkees record on Sgt. Pepper's 50th anniversary). Second-Hand Sound will return to Micky, Davy, Peter, and Michael for a two-in-one discussion of Headquarters and The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees. An eventual post about The Turtles' Happy Together Again could be done as a Second-Hand Sound or as The Best Of Everything, while The Velvet Underground & Nico would definitely be Second-Hound Sound.



GROOVE GRATITUDE (A GIFT OF MUSIC)



Groove Gratitude (A Gift Of Music) looks back on albums I received as gifts. A gift of music can be greater than even the gift itself or the music itself, reflecting the circumstances of who gave us the record (and why) and what it meant to us, then and now. A song can transport us back in time within a single spin. But an album that's connected to a specific someone who gave you that chance to listen and experience? That album has a story to tell.

The first published Groove Gratitude was about The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper, posted on 6/2/17, one day after the above-mentioned Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. testimonial. But the series was introduced on 3/29/17, and the first post (about The White Album) was distributed privately to my paid patrons on 4/17/17, and finally made available to the public on 6/8/17. There are number of others under consideration: Armed Forces by Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Rock And Roll Over by KISS, Raspberries' Best, Live And Sleazy by The Village People, Give 'Em Enough Rope by The Clash, and Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols. Moving from LPs to CDs, I may do something about the Otis Redding boxed set Otis!, Step Up by The Flamin' Groovies, and/or Powerstance by The Fleshtones.



THE BEST OF EVERYTHING



Sometimes only the best will do. The Best Of Everything looks back on specific greatest-hits and best-of LPs and what they meant to me.

The concept of this most recent addition to My LP Appreciations was introduced on 10/3/17. The series debuted on 1/27/18 with a reverent recollection of the 3-LP Austalian import Monkeemania, and Best Of The Bobby Fuller Four followed on 4/17/18. Still to come: Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) by The Rolling Stones, Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy by The Who, and The Kinks' Greatest Hits. And more.


Also within the broad category of My LP Appreciations were posts about Beatles VI and my modest bootleg collection. 



Some of my potential and pending subjects may shift from category to category, both within My LP Appreciations and to other series like The Everlasting First, which may be the best forum for me to discuss, say, The Velvet Underground. Some of these I'll get to, and some will never be done. I appreciate 'em all nonetheless.

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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).