The Raiders - Stick Shift/Skipping Around

Back to some surf instrumental sounds for this cold, brisk morning. After two days of weather-related and sleep-deprivation-induced inactivity on my part, Super Cooper the Wonderdog finally got his much-anticipated morning walk. To be fair, neither of us exactly bounded out the door like extras in a dog food commercial, but once I bundled up and accepted my fate, off we went. We didn't skip down the street, but we managed a respectable pace and both returned with our dignity mostly intact.

Today's selection comes courtesy of my friend Jessie. I was all set to buy this one from him, but instead he slipped it into my package for free. That's the kind of generosity that keeps record collectors convinced humanity still has a fighting chance. I'd never come across a Canadian Vee-Jay pressing before, so naturally I had to pair it with a U.S. Vee-Jay sleeve I rescued from a box of orphaned sleeves. Some records find their forever homes. Some sleeves do too.

These Raiders came out of Texas and, if you check cogs of dis, you'll see a "(9)" attached to the band's name. That's what happens when several groups decide that "Raiders" is the perfect band name and nobody bothers to consult future record collectors. Of course, that didn't seem to concern Mark Lindsay's outfit when they shortened their name to simply The Raiders. Once you've had a string of hits, trademark anxiety tends to become someone else's problem. Raiders (9) were active in their local scene and apparently kept busy entertaining Texas audiences, but they never managed to break through on a national level. Fortunately for us crate-diggers, obscurity often makes for the most interesting discoveries. After all, if every record in our collections were hits, digging wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

I've also been busy recording a few other things for the coming week, and the Halloween stash is officially ready to go. In fact, I may have gotten a little carried away. By my calculations, assuming no further acquisitions, no sudden bursts of Halloween enthusiasm, and absolutely no realistic record collector behavior, I probably have enough spooky tunes lined up for the next two years. Of course, we all know that's exactly the sort of prediction that guarantees I'll find another stack of Halloween records by next weekend.