2014 has been a year of change and discovery, following my separation and move to an apartment in Glendale. I’ve been blessed to make a solid enough living to have the ability to engage in a little record therapy and keep searching for records. This Spring turned out to be an especially fruitful period of time in that regard. Here on the last full day of Spring, I thought I’d share a few of the records that I’ve picked up in recent months, and since I so rarely post 45s on the blog, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to focus on some of the better ones I’ve bought recently. 3 of the 4 records posted here came from the same collection. I bought a fairly rare 45 from a local dealer and arranged to pick it up in person and not have to worry about shipping costs or postal mishaps. While setting up the meeting he mentioned that this was from a somewhat large collection he had just purchased and I was welcome to go through it too. These are essentially the most lovely words a collector can hope to hear and so I was pretty excited to see what the collection might have to offer (even though he also mentioned that some “Northern Soul” guy had already gone through it). Because of the size of the collection, a bout of the cold, and some bad scheduling, what I thought would be a single trip turned into four separate trips. I actually never got a chance to go through all of the 45s as the dealer sold what remained of the collection for a set price, but thankfully I did grab about 10 pieces from it, and a nice 45 box, including most of these below.
As with any large collection of 45s, the vast majority generally are crappy pop tunes, but this collection had a fair amount of quality, well known songs too. After about an hour or two the first day I went through it I came upon this private press picture sleeve. With a song titled, “The Snake” and a mention of music for belly dancers, I really wasn’t expecting much when I put it on my portable and dropped the needle about half way into “Snake.” As soon as I heard those drums and the handclaps, my eyes just about popped out of their sockets. A quick search of popsike and the like pointed to the rarity of this one, which has been comped by Finders Keepers and goes for $100-200 on the open market. I was all pleased with myself until the dealer said that he had been called away and I’d have to come back the next day. When I returned, I didn’t get much time to look at more of the records (which required a third and fourth visit), but he had priced the records. From the prices he quoted me for the other things I had picked out, it was clear that he’d done some online sleuthing of his own and was pricing the known quantities in a slightly inflated manner. However, for whatever reason, he wasn’t able to find any information on this particular 45 and so I got it for $5…score!
The Peppos and Jones Straightjacket Band – Humanity
This one wasn’t found on the same day as “The Snake” but it was from the same collection and roughly had the same story in terms of pricing. At the time I had found only one listing placing it around $50, but he never saw it, couldn’t find any info on the band and so I got this one for $5 too. It’s also a private press, I’m pretty sure from the DC area. “High School Years” is nothing to write home about, straight ahead rocker…but “Humanity” on the other hand, as you can hear this one has all kinds of weird effects and a really nice instrumental bridge. It’s got the kind of sound you’d expect to find in a early DJ Shadow production.
This one was from that same collection, found pretty early on, maybe the same day I found “The Snake.” This isn’t a particularly difficult to find 45, it was priced at $2 and sells for no more than $5. I’d never heard of the group Puzzle, even though they were on Motown, so that was intriguing to me by itself. Puzzle, originally based out of Chicago, was one of the few white bands signed to the venerable Detroit label, and headed up by John Valenti. The song “Lady” is a bit too adventurous with its song structure for it to have ever been a hit, but I was amazed I’d never heard it before as it’s a fantastic piece of music, from the production down to the great singing from Valenti. Every brilliant you record you dig up doesn’t have to be super rare, it just has to be something that you enjoy listening to and want to share with others.
This final selection was actually an Ebay buy. It came from one of my favorite sellers on there, who always has amazing Latin and Brazilian records. More than a few times I’ve been caught without nearly enough money to compete with the auctions, but this Spring I was able to grab a few nice pieces, which I’ll likely highlight here later on. Generally this seller only does auctions, but for some reason he put up a few things with the “buy-it-now” option. Most of the pieces he did this for appeared to be records that had some defect or something that was missing, such as a cover or a record that was in solid condition except for two songs that were scratched. I have no idea why he chose to do it for this 45, may be because of the condition of the picture sleeve which is taped together, maybe because he didn’t know the artist. I’d never heard of Richard Menezes and there was absolutely no info online about him. However, he’d attached an audio file to the listing for this 45, and within 15 seconds of hearing those drums, that guitar and that flute, I immediately snatched it up. I don’t need more information to know that “Nova Jersey” is one of the cooler, bluesy, slow and psychedelic songs I’ve heard out of Brazil. Hopefully I’ll track down more music or info about Menezes in the future, but for now, these sounds will more than do.
Cheers,
Michael