Stop One (Saturday): Saturday was beautiful, sunny and 70s, always appreciated when you know in this state there was every possibility it could have been snowing. I did the downtown park-and-walk thing to enjoy the weather and spend some time with old friends. I had a list in pocket of the RSD titles I was most interested in. There were only a half dozen records or so on it, but I'm at an age where I think my memory is worse than it is so I wrote 'em down. A couple albums had been crossed off the list when the RSD selling prices were released a couple of weeks before – the “lost” Charles Mingus concert and the Grateful Dead box full o’ 1972 London shows. I strongly considered the Ramones box with six original LPs even at its high-ish price tag, but they were just the wrong six Ramones albums for me. If the box had covered the first half of their career rather than the second I would've been all in. Finally, I had to eliminate my beloved Rolling Stones, not only because their reissue of the More Hot Rocks compilation was way overpriced, it was pressed on glow-in-the-dark vinyl, which tends to sound as noisy and crappy as picture discs. But I found two of my list's top three at this store, only Pete Townshend's live album with Pink Floyd's David Gilmour on guitar was nowhere to be seen. The store was busy when I got there, about an hour after they opened, but almost completely cleared out by the time I left an hour or so later, which was a far cry from what RSD looked like in the pre-pandemic era. (UPDATE: The store I visited on Saturday had to close for a few days the following week because of a covid outbreak stemming from RSD. I'm, as of today, free and clear, but I was also one of the only masked shoppers on Saturday. Keep masking up in crowds, people.)
Stop Two (Sunday): Sunday, known unofficially as RSD Leftovers Day, I went to check in with my friends at the city’s other main indie record store and managed to cross two more off my want list. The guys told me they had been busy all day, possibly because they had gone back to a pre-covid version of RSD, with live bands all day and food and drinks available. No Pete Townshend release here either, unfortunately, but I had a Plan C.
Stop Three (Sunday): What’s usually my secret backup spot in town, a bookstore with a small vinyl record section. A lot of folks who get excited about RSD don’t seem to be aware that the store participates and orders in the special RSD releases. They don't advertise their participation, and I’m damn sure not gonna be the one to spill the beans. But this year I was too late, the flippers have found my super-secret backup stash.
Ah, flippers, the dirty secret of RSD. Flipping is a byproduct of limited vinyl pressing plant availability worldwide and some unacknowledged encouragement from the record labels. There's money to be made if you can get the early scoop on desirable, limited release albums and sell them for an obscene profit on secondary markets like eBay. LPs have become the Beanie Babies of the current moment. You keep reading and hearing about the surge in vinyl records these days, right? I've come to believe that surge is speculation-driven more than music-driven. Most participating record stores take measures to discourage the flippers on the day itself, mainly by limiting the number of RSD titles any one person can buy, but by Leftovers Day all bets are off.
The guy I watched for a little while at my formerly secret spot already had a huge pile accumulated and was picking up each record, checking the condition of the jackets for value-reducing dings or seam splits, and looking up each one on his phone to check the current resale price. My rough estimate was he was going to leave there with a final tab between $500 - $600, possibly more. There’s no question he’ll walk away with a healthy profit once he flips them, but I gotta say, watching him left a sour taste in my mouth. I still love Record Store Day, I haven't missed one since they started them fifteen years ago, but I'm less passionate about buying albums now than I've ever been due to the current market conditions. Flipping is driving up prices of LPs across the board (including used) and encouraging record labels to keep production quantities down. Not a favorable environment for music fans.
Nevertheless, I did pretty well at finding the titles I was most interested in, even staying under-budget for a change. Here's the final haul:
• Sandy Denny, Gold Dust: Live at the Royalty – One of the U.K. folk-rock scene's most beautiful voices, Sandy died in 1978, only 31 years old. Mental illness and substance abuse cut her life short, but her stint in Fairport Convention alongside Richard Thompson is considered the peak of the British folk-rock genre. Gold Dust is a recording of her last public performance in November of 1977. Despite her health problems, Sandy was still in exceptional voice and the musicians she was touring with were the hand-picked cream of the British crop. It's easy to hear echoes of her style in the singing of Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks.
• Lou Reed, I’m So Free: The 1971 RCA Demos – When the Velvet Underground disbanded, Lou found that record labels weren't standing in line to sign him to a solo recording contract. Yes, the Velvets had been influential and yes, Lou’s songs were already being recognized as essential to the development of several styles of rock music to come, but their albums had barely sold. To the bean-counters, he was a commercial non-starter. RCA arranged an audition in one of their studios - just Lou, an acoustic guitar, and his most recent batch of songs. He passed the audition with these thirteen tracks. Hearing them unadorned is like listening to one of the early 70s weirdest and most brilliant singer-songwriter albums.
• Lou Reed and Kris Kristofferson, The Bottom Line Archive – Lou and Kris were part of what country musicians call a "guitar pull" for a radio show, broadcasting from the Bottom Line in front of an audience. They swapped stories and songs, with NYC FM radio legend Vin Scelsa acting as host and interviewer. Lou sounds relaxed but focused, offering insights into his writing and life with a warmth and candor he often avoided. Kris sounds like he's had a few, in the middle of a rollicking good time. Their obvious admiration for each other's work is front and center, and their performances are outstanding.
• Various Artists, Edison International: It Happened at the Hop – Doowop music was a national chart-dominating craze in the late1950s. It hit the sweet spot between sounding rebellious enough for teens and tame enough for most parents. Doowop became the approved soundtrack for sockhops across the country. Edison International was one of many regional record labels trying to cash in on the doowop cash cow. Based in L.A., they did pretty well for themselves in 1958 and 1959, when these songs were recorded and released. They drew from a pool of local talent, so it’s not likely many people outside of the SoCal area heard them at the time, but any one (or all) of these tracks would have been a delightful addition to the American Graffiti soundtrack.
• Angelo Badalamenti, Blue Velvet: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – The first meeting of the minds between David Lynch and Badalamenti, four years before they created the fever-dream soundtrack for Twin Peaks. Reportedly, Lynch’s instruction to Badalamenti for Blue Velvet was to be "like Shostakovich, be very Russian, but make it the most beautiful thing but make it dark and a little bit scary." Mission accomplished. The familiar vocal tracks by Bobby Vinton and Roy Orbison sound just as eerie in the album’s context as they do in the movie. I’m not really a soundtrack collector, but this one is special.
The world of vinyl pressing being what it is in 2022, there were quite a few titles on the original RSD list that couldn’t be shipped in time, including some big ones from artists like Miles Davis and Pearl Jam. There’s going to be a second “drop” of the rest in mid-June. From what I was able to gather from the stores I visited, there are no plans for another RSD event, they’ll just add the titles to their inventories and wait for the crowds to show up.
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