The Five-Hundreds - Run Little Rabbit/Wheel's Last Ride

Hot Rod Monday with a one-off single from the Five-Hundreds. It's been a hot minute since I've uploaded a hot rod song, but honestly, I could have done without the clown horn. What were they thinking? Probably the same thing I was thinking at 2 a.m. while staring at the ceiling: "This is ridiculous."

That said, I can handle a clown horn every day of the week. Insomnia is the real menace. I eventually drifted back to sleep, only to wake up at 6 a.m. moving in slow motion. Poor Cooper got cheated out of his walk. After my shower, I felt lucky just to make it to the coffee pot. If I owned a coffee IV machine, it'd be set to full drip.

Maybe Rabbit from "Run Rabbit Run" could take Cooper for a walk instead. Bobby Darin wrote the song, but I have to wonder... was the clown horn his idea, or did that bit of musical mischief sneak into the studio after midnight when everyone was running on fumes and coffee?

The Holy Lights of Baltimore Md - Hard Times/It's Getting Late

Yesterday felt like one of those record-collector days where life decides to throw a few surprises your way.

A friend last week had given me the number of a woman who wanted to sell her late father’s 45s, so I arranged to meet her yesterday morning. Of course, as I'm heading out the door, the roofing crew shows up to finish my roof. After only five and a half days, I think they were as happy to see the end of the job as I was.

Before meeting the lady, I had seen a yard sale listed that was just outside of town advertising albums. Record collectors know the drill: if you aren't early, you're late. I got there and found three large boxes of LPs plus another stack sitting off to the side. The seller casually says, "They're a dollar apiece."

Now you're speaking my language.

The first few records I pulled were older jazz LPs, so a pile started forming immediately. Digging through the boxes uncovered plenty of jazz and soul titles, but then I got to the separate stack. Black Gospel albums. All of them. One was even on my beloved Peacock label, which pretty much guaranteed it was coming home with me.

I moved the stack aside and started counting. The seller watched me and asked, "You really want those gospel albums?"

Ah...YES. Yes, I do.

By the time the dust settled, I walked away with 75 LPs for $60. That's the kind of math record collectors understand without needing a calculator.

Then I met the woman with the 45s. After looking through them, I found only one record I wanted. She told me to just take it. I offered her $ as I don't like to take things for free, but she replied, "I'm a woman who, once I've made up my mind, that's that, and I won't take the money."

At that point there is only one acceptable response:

"Yes, ma'am."

The roof crew finally wrapped up, and I spent the rest of the day recording some newly acquired songs, including this morning's selection, and attempting the impossible task of organizing my record room. I even managed to get a few artists filed properly before getting distracted by another discovery: Halloween records.

Apparently I've accumulated enough spooky 45s to program Halloween music for the next several decades. Good thing, because the records keep finding me faster than I can file them.

Today's record comes from The Holy Lights of Baltimore, Maryland, often listed simply as The Holy Lights. The cogs of Dis has this as a 1979 reissue of a 1974 recording. While digging, I run across Savoy 45s all the time, but every once in a while one follows me home and reminds me why I keep crawling through dusty boxes in the first place. The thrill of the hunt is real, and yesterday it paid off in gospel, jazz, soul, and a free 45 from a lady who clearly wasn't interested in negotiating with record collectors.  

The Reactors - She's A Queen/Please Tell Me

Virginia garage rock that I found in one of my mystery boxes a few weeks ago. I'm pretty sure this one came from a trade with my friend Doug. He's got thousands of records and a serious love for old country music, so every so often we meet up and swap. There are no negotiations, no inspections, no "approval process." I usually haul him mountains of records I don't care about, and he hands me a few tubs or boxes in return. It's vinyl roulette, and honestly, that's half the fun.

Sometimes the boxes are full of things that make me wonder if we've both suffered temporary lapses in judgment. Other times I pull out something like this and suddenly feel like I still owe him another truckload.

We were supposed to meet last Sunday, but Doug forgot and only had one small tub ready so I happily traded 7 boxes worth I brought and agreed to return this Sunday. In the tub he gave me were more good ones so I've already started gathering up another pile for him. Truthfully, when treasures like this show up in the trade, I always feel like I should do more on my end.

And while you're reading this, I'd appreciate a prayer for Doug. He's dealing with some health issues, and I firmly believe in the power of prayer. Pray for healing, strength, and better days ahead.

The Reactors were from Virginia and released 2 45s, one of which was picked up by Cameo. I could swear I own that one too, but apparently it's hiding from both me and the database. "She's A Queen" has that wonderful 1965 garage sound, while the flip side, "Please Tell Me," is exactly the kind of slow, moody garage melancholy that gets permanently lodged in my brain. In other words: a freaking fantastic double-sided 45.

I couldn't find much information on the band. Like so many garage groups, they probably (a)blazed (cute..right!) brightly for a brief moment, cut a few records, and vanished into obscurity. But sixty years later, one of their records is sitting on my turntable because of a forgotten trade, one generous friend, and the strange magic of cardboard boxes full of unknown records. That's garage collecting in a nutshell. Sometimes you're digging through a pile of ordinary records. Sometimes you're shaking hands with history.

The Steinways - My Heart's Not In It Anymore/You've Been Leadin Me On

Cooper and I knocked out our early morning walk today, and somehow it was 70 degrees at 5 a.m. Apparently Mother Nature has decided North Carolina should feel like a Florida waiting room before sunrise.

Last weekend I spent some quality time recording a stack of deep album cuts, including an entire six-song mini album that ranks among my favorite records in the collection. Between that and the roofing project, the record room currently resembles an archaeological dig more than a listening space, but I'm looking forward to putting everything back together once the work is finally done.

The contractor took me up on the roof to show me the progress, and I was relieved to discover that my vaulted ceiling had more space inside than I thought and considerably more protection than I feared. I'm still glad I took every precaution anyway. They're not quite finished yet... sigh... but at least I'm moving back into my home office for work today. With rain in the forecast, I'm not sure how much progress they'll make, but I'm very glad the weather waited until today and not the previous two days.

As for records, here's the kind of thing that gets a record nerd irrationally excited. I recently picked up a 45 and somehow remembered I had a matching company sleeve hiding in one of my sleeve boxes. I've seen only 2 records on this label over the years, but this is the first company sleeve I've come across. To the average person this means absolutely nothing. To a collector, it's like finding the Holy Grail wearing the correct packaging.

The best part? I almost passed it by. I assumed it was going to be some forgettable pop record. Turns out it's an excellent soul 45 by The Steinways, who started life as a doo-wop group called The Laddins before their brief run under this name. Yet another reminder that judging a record by its label can be just as dangerous as judging a book by its cover.

Now if the roof gets finished, the rain cooperates, and I can get the record room back together, all will be right with the world. At least until the next "quick home improvement project" decides to audition for a multi-part miniseries.

Becky & The Lollipops- My Boyfriend/I Don't Care

I've thought quite a bit about the historic election results. Seeing traditionally "red" states elect "blue" candidates in places like North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Kansas, and possibly even Mississippi was astounding. What makes it even more remarkable is that some states spent years redrawing congressional maps to create advantages, only to watch those efforts backfire at the ballot box.

To me, the message from voters wasn't all that complicated. People are tired of feeling squeezed. The war, tariffs, the cost of living, gas prices, energy costs, insurance premiums, shrinking Medicaid coverage for those who need it, and legislation that seemed to benefit wealthy Americans more than working families all played a role. Add in the endless divisive rhetoric, the casual dishonesty that has become commonplace in politics, and voters eventually do what voters do: they render a verdict.

What I hope comes next is not revenge, investigations, and political theater. Certainly, genuine corruption should be investigated and prosecuted. If there was financial fraud, hold people accountable. If there are unanswered questions, get answers. If unqualified officials were promoted because of loyalty rather than competence, replace them with experts who know what they're doing. That's just good government.

But while doing that, get to work. I want to see Congress rediscover the lost art of bipartisanship. I want elected officials who understand that solving problems is more important than scoring points on cable news. Lower costs. Improve healthcare. Strengthen the economy. Help the people who need help.

And speaking of that, I recently saw someone suggest mandatory drug testing for people receiving Medicaid or welfare benefits. Really? Of all the challenges facing America, that's what keeps you up at night? Maybe before we start asking struggling families to pee in a cup, we should ask the same of some of the wealthy and influential people making those demands. I suspect a few surprises might emerge.

The lesson from this election may not be ideological at all. It may simply be that Americans are tired of being angry all the time and would prefer a government that focuses on making life more affordable and a little less difficult. If Congress spends the next two years obsessed with investigations instead of solutions, don't be surprised if voters deliver another course correction. Now, enough politics.

Back to Thursday girl-group sounds with an early-'60s promo from Becky and the Lollipops featuring "My Boyfriend" and "I Don't Care." You know how I love those girl groups. Sometimes two-and-a-half minutes of harmony makes more sense than two years of political analysis.

The Dukes Of Stratosphere- Vanishing Girl

My roof is currently in full replacement mode. The crew started Monday and, as of this morning, they're still hammering away. Cooper has spent the week convinced civilization is ending while the cats have discovered hiding places so well concealed I'm half expecting them to emerge sometime around Christmas.  If all goes according to plan, the roof gets finished tomorrow and I get the privilege of writing a check large enough to make a grown man cry.

Let's talk about records that disappeared and somehow found their way home. This 12" could have easily been called "Vanishing 12" instead of "Vanishing Girl". The story of my missing records has been told so many times it's become part of my personal collector lore. Thankfully, I found this copy cheap a few months ago. Even better, another formerly "stol... er... lost" 12" showed up in today's mail. That one will get its own post in a few weeks since it's actually the record that made me realize I was missing a disturbing number of records in the first place. Nothing quite like attempting to pull a record and discovering you've accidentally curated an exhibit called The Mystery of the Missing Vinyl.

As for today's entry, The Dukes of Stratosphear were XTC operating incognito, and they were clearly having the time of their lives. By the mid-'80s, XTC had already evolved from nervous new-wave oddballs into one of the smartest pop bands on the planet. The problem was nobody was handing out major-label budgets for albums that sounded like obscure British psychedelia from 1967. So XTC essentially put on fake mustaches, adopted ridiculous pseudonyms- Andy Partridge (Sir John Johns), Colin Moulding (The Red Curtain), Dave Gregory (Lord Cornelius Plum), Ian Gregory (E.I.E.I. Owen), and created The Dukes of Stratosphere. Freed from expectations and armed with a deep love of late-'60s psych, they stuffed their record full of obscure references, glorious harmonies, backwards-looking experimentation. 

The joke was supposed to be that they would make a loving parody of psychedelic records. The problem was they were too good at it. What started as a novelty project became one of the best psychedelic records of the 1980s. And if you're wondering how much affection they had for the project, just look at the songs and these aren't songs written by a band chasing trends. They're songs written by record nerds who finally got permission to turn their record collections into an album. Every groove is packed with references. You can hear echoes of Pet Sounds, Sgt. Peppers, The Kinks, The Creation, Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett era, The Pretty Things, Kaleidoscope and just about every obscure psych 45 you can think of. Instead of winking at the audience, they recreated the sound so convincingly that some listeners thought they'd uncovered a lost relic from the Summer of Love. It was basically XTC geeking out over the records they loved and somehow making one of the best psychedelic "tribute" albums ever recorded.

The funniest part is that the Dukes wound up selling so well and becoming so beloved that the "fake band" eventually became almost as legendary as the real one. That's a very XTC thing to accomplish. Normal groups struggle to make one successful band. XTC accidentally made two.

Honestly, the Dukes LP deserve a post of its own. There is enough XTC lore packed into these grooves to fill a notebook, and unlike my missing records, this copy has thankfully stopped vanishing.

Game Theory - Throwing The Election

I voted Saturday. This election matters. In fact, every election matters if you happen to enjoy things like democracy, accountability, and not having your tax dollars treated like someone else's casino bankroll.

I don't care whether you're a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or a member of the "Leave Me Alone, I'm Organizing My 45s" party. No politician is above the law, and elected officials work for us, not for their political parties. If you're a crooked politician, you should be shown the door. If you're buying votes, you should be escorted through that door at high speed. Integrity shouldn't be a campaign slogan; it should be a job requirement.

So that's my public service announcement: Vote. More importantly, vote for integrity and not fabricated issues to distract us from the real issues being dumped on us. Now, back to another subject that inspires fierce loyalty and occasional heartbreak: records.

I recently wrote about how much I love Game Theory. I bought this LP brand new when it came out and was genuinely bummed when the band called it quits. "Throwing the Election" was always one of the standout tracks for me, though honestly the entire album is fantastic from start to finish.

Fortunately, Scott Miller went on to form The Loud Family, and I happily followed along and became a devoted fan of that chapter as well.

When Omnivore reissued the Game Theory catalog, I purchased this release with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever. Because that's what collector geeks do. We spend years hunting down original pressings, then happily buy the reissue anyway, just in case there might be one bonus track, a slightly different liner note, or a photo we've never seen before. It's not a hobby. It's a highly specialized form of rationalized madness.