The Thing

This "Thing" is nothing new, there are many posts about it in various places online, as well as numerous youtube videos documenting the overwhelming madness. This past fall, sometime in November, I ventured to the NYC area to visit some pals. While there, we headed to Brooklyn and paid a visit to the Thing.

The name is quite accurate, it's not quite a thrift shop, not quite a book shop, and certainly not a record shop, despite the seemingly infinite amount of vinyl stacked about. I had heard about this place online and had wanted to visit for quite sometime.

Generally, the records are $3 each from what I recall, and in NO GODDAMN ORDER what so ever. It is not exactly and ideal location to go record digging. You could easily spend a day there and find nothing at all.

The accessability of the records is non existant as well. Piles, stacks, shelves- you name it. I must reiterate, there is no order to the collection at all. In addition, certain crates of vinyl should either be passed up, or handled with a hazmat suit due to the incredible amount of dust and mold.

ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!

I like digging for records just as much as the next guy, the payoff when you do hit gold is always an inspiration to continue looking. After a short while in the thing, I felt like i was looking for hypothetical gold amongst a gigantic pile of crap. There may be buried treasures in those piles, however, I am not a patient enough man to endure that search.

Please view the video below (it is not me, or anyone I know- found on youtube, accurate representation of the Thing.)

Been gone too long!

Well it has been a while since I posted. A lot has been going on, new job, makin money. All that jazz.

The money has not gone to waste, a good portion of it has been spent on music. Recently, specifically, I bought the Refused- Shape of punk to come on Vinyl reissue. Maaan does that sound amazing. I wanted a copy of that album on vinyl forever, and finally this arrived.

Another classic, Dr. Dre The Chronic. Sounds wonderful as well. Spent too much money and cannot remember them all off hand to list them.

I ordered a few online, and supported local indie stores, Soundgarden in Fells Point, Trax on Wax in Catonsville, and the Record and Tape Traders in Towson. They all offer great selections, Soundgarden sells only new, no used, although they offer some items there that are harder to find elsewehre.

That is all for now, I will update more later.

East of the Sun

So a couple weeks back, I was doing some vinyl digging at Goodwill in an undisclosed town (sorry kids, I can't give away all my secret locations), someone had donated a large quantity of vinyl in good shape. There was a good bit of jazz and blues, some in better shape than others.

The gem of the day for me, was a pristine copy of Paul Desmond's- East of the Sun. Now, I won't claim to be a jazz elitists, but I do know a little something. I am a fan of Dave Brubeck, as well as his quartet. Yeah yeah, white boy jazz I know. I'd rather think of it as pop-jazz. I realize he does not compare to the likes of Parker, Davis, Monk or Mingus, but it is a different style, and an equally good artist. So with that, you anti-Brubeckians can either listen to what I have to say and be a bit open minded, or continue to miss out on great music because your taste is all an illusion. Anyway of his quartet I specifically enjoy the sax player- Desmond. So the album I came across in the dusty bins at Goodwill was a NM copy of East of the Sun. This particular LP was released in 1981 on the now defunct record label, Discovery Records. This LP is a remastered version of the original 1960 First Place Again released on Warner Bros.

The story only gets more interesting, I had never actually heard this record, but given the artist, condition and incredibly low price, I bought it. When I got home and put it on my table, it did not even require a dusting (although I gave it one.) The sound quality was phenomenal; granted I was playing it on my Music Hall MMF-5, into McIntosh amps and Klipsch Cornwalls, but thats a discussion for another time.

I had the record a week or so, and decided to show it to my father, not surprisingly, he was blown away and had to have it. Considering I paid $1 for it at Goodwill, I assumed it may be available elsewhere for a bit more. To my surprise the damn thing exists NOWHERE! He thought he was funny when he offered me $2 for the LP, "you've made 100% profit!" I rejected the offer. On another note, we jointly purchased a lot of 100 or so LPs from a guy online. Great shape my portion of the lot was about $100. He offered to pay for my LPs if I handed over the Desmond. I knew at this point he wanted it badly, and I would forever regret parting with it. Time to take action- I scoured ebay, CDnow.com, and did various google searches through various record resellers- no luck. I took my search one level farther and began to search for the original First Place Again, thinking if the remaster was impossible to find, this would be as well. To my surprise, I found one online and promptly ordered it. This copy now resides in my fathers shelves of LPs. Oh and it sounds great. So the total price for my copy and his, including shipping on his, came to a grand total of $25. Not bad if you ask me.

The moral of the story is this: you never know what you may find in the most unlikely of places. Keep your head held high and dig through all the crap that you're sure to find, because one day, you may find the diamond in the rough.

Update:

It has been a few days since I posted anything, so now seems like the appropriate time to do so. The McQuestion Basement Show went quite well. If you will all remember, Rich and I played as National Geographic, as well as the soothing sounds from the turntables.

Our live set was met with more appreciation than I expected. We played our full set, which appears on our self titled, recorded and released EP. We arrived with 9 copies of the EP and I believe all of them were sold. After the set, mingling with and talking to several of the attendants we were able to discuss our set and get some feedback.

Since then, Rich and I have been working on a few more songs. We have decided to edit the 3 original songs into shorter pieces, and include 2 or so more songs in our set. We considered the idea of implementing reggae, but as of yet it has not happened. The next pieces are a little different from the original three, I will not disclose details, this will be a surprise. We are working to get a decent recording submitted to play the Whartscape festival in Baltimore. We are also cooking up an idea to play rooftop in Brooklyn sometime this summer. More info TBA.

The DJ set we played was also fun, and met with a warm reception. We played a wide variety of music and successfully appealed to a variety of tastes.

DJ show/ Chores

So this will be short:

Update on DJ gig, it has been moved from the 13th, to the 11th, the night National Geographic will be playing.

As I prepare for the evening of musical greatness, I am forced to dig through a few shelves of not so dusty vinyl to determine what would be appealing, both known and unknown to the fans.

In doing so, I have selected a few gems. I am a meticulous person, so to make sure the evening runs smooth, and to facilitate the greatness of the music, I am selecting specific tracks from records I want to play.

After this step, I am not only cleaning the selected records, but paying additional attention to the selected songs and their specific conditions.

If anyone is interested in attending this exciting musical evening, please check out the National Geographic Bandcamp website for demo songs and information about the show.

I have decided on 30 LPs one 10", and 12 45's that I plan to work with on the 11th.

My musical range is everything from jazz, funk, soul, pop, rock, indie, and blues. As for my musical counterpart, his selection is as varied as much if not more than my own.

Modern Gentleman and Cowboy Pants Ride Again

So I have just been informed that there is to be a house party/ show in the Roland Park area on June 11th. I attended this shin-dig last year as a guest. The majority of the music acts were ambient/ noise, with some variation. It seemed as though the audience was interested in the music, however if memory serves, the average age of the collective group was probably 18.

The difference and more important fact about this year's partay is that my pal Rich and I will be collaborating our musical genius. The idear thus far is to loop guitar parts played by Sir Ricardo, and combine that with ambient loops, i.e. bird sounds, flowing water, etc. Atop this glorious sound will be live guitar, and some fat drum beats played by yours truly.

I am pretty excited about this event due to the fact that my recent history of playing out as a musician has been incredibly limited. After my departure from the infamous Better Left Unsaid, my days of gigging have been few and sporadic.



Part Deux:

There is to be a social gathering of like minded musicans and fans alike on the evening of Sunday, June 13. The event is to feature several of the up-and-coming local acts. The venue: the Copy Cat downtown. For information about the location check out their website, Pent House Gallery.

Before, between and after the music, my partner in crime, Sir Ricardo, AKA Modern Gentleman and/or Cowboy Pants will be serenading the music goers with the sultry grooves of vinyl. At the behest of the residents of the fine venue, DJ 1 and 2 will fulfill your wildest dreams, and your head may just explode from the total awesomeness of live, and spun tunes.

The DJ set will be a mixture of many genres, decades, 45s and LPs. The end result will be awe inspiring, and well, down right fun.

I Need That Record

Granted this is somewhat belated, I suppose it is still relevant. This documentary about the indie record stores is quite interesting, hence my reason for showing it.

As it has been apparent for the last couple of years, record stores, especially those that are not chains, have been vanishing left and right. This documentary (available here ) highlights a few of the affected stores nation-wide, and includes commentary by several well known musicians including Thurston Moore and Ian Mackaye.

I feel as though the film is not only entertaining, but offers insight into lesser known pieces of information about the music retail industry. Unfortunately the time has expired, but during the week of Record Store Day, the documentary was available for free streaming on pitchfork.com

Check out the trailer for this video and be sure to support its creator this July 27th when it hits stores everywhere.