indeed. spotting LD was a proper OMG moment. i was with my youngest lad, 19, and gave him the full works as to just why i was buzzed to bits to find that cd. needless to say all he was bothered about was the news from Arsenal and did not get my absolute full on joy session. in other news : the Jefferson cd has a nasty scratch on the outer regions of the disc, and so most of the last few tracks have a digital click on them. currently trying a different optical drive to see if it copes better. may have to take it back tomorrow for a refund. joke. i never return cds to charity shops even if they are f*cked. dems da rules.
update : looks like my old XP laptop has ripped the Jefferson cd without the digital click across the last few tracks. (have to wait until tomorrow to listen on my hi-fi properly .. ). sometimes, newer is not better. my old XP laptop is a lot better at coping with cds that do not adhere to the red book rules. especially long cds. my recent optical drive for my W10 laptop is dreadful for anything over 73 minutes. whereas my old XP laptop just does the job no matter what. hence when i got a massive case of 'blue screen of death' on the XP machine this afternoon i was rather stressed. a few hard disc checks and resetting of various options, and a lot of reboots has got the XP laptop back in the game. for now.
Remember that Pete Atkin compilation LP that Barnardo's was asking £5 for? It's still there, and still £5. The problem with my local Barnardo's having a lot of vinyl for sale is that most of it never sells. Looks impressive when you first see so many records, but LPs by Lancashire folk groups such as The Houghton Weavers and The Fivepenny Piece don't sell. Albums of show tunes and those LPs of rubbish covers of 70s chart hits hardly ever sell. Time for a clear-out.
I just browsed a few CD racks like that. I was fortunate to visit a real shop and the difference was chalk and cheese. I picked up a few CDs from the real shop. I'm hope to have better luck later in the week in the charity shops.
Well, I was just letting off steam. The local Oxfam bookshop has some interesting CDs in at £2.99, might go for one of those tomorrow.
Yes, I had a CD single off eBay that - being a PDO from 1988 - was completely unplayable on any new/recent drive. One came up with 20 thousand errors, and others just didn't even recognise it. So I got out an older machine from the cupboard, and eventually got the audio. It's why I never throw anything out unless it totally stops working. EG.
Generally I don't bother looking at records. Rarely do charity shops near me have new records in the bins, and when they do, they price them high. The last charity shop I went in, they had some new 80s pop. £20 for a LP by The Police. But behind was the same unsellable stock they have had for ages. At least with CDs, there's always a chance of finding something. Summer can be slow though.
I recall finding the Soft Cell Tainted Love '91 CD single in a tan coloured leather sleeve a few years back, nice i thought but on looking at the CD the label had rotted away to nearly nothing and the playing surface had pretty much disappeared! Also it was a PDO pressing so that didn't help, obviously the leather sleeve had reacted disastrously to the CD, certainly the worse 'CD rot' i've ever seen.
On holiday in the Lake District. At one time I thought that the Lake District was a poor man's Scotland but after seeing the amazing scenery (and the eye watering property prices) I may have to change that to Scotland being a poor man's Lake District. Anyway, wandered into Oxfam in Keswick and came across a copy of The Byrds Ballad of Easy Rider CD. I hadn't prepared for the touristos prices so it came as a bit of a shock - £6.99 . Time for a sharp exit..
It's kinda something you still have to do, despite the vinyl stock mostly being rubbish. Randomly got a 60's US Columbia of Miles Davis' Porgy and Bess for £3.99 in my local Oxfam bookshop; must of been one of those rare occurrences of fate as I'd been browsing copies on Discogs for the previous week. I had to do a double take as I thought I'd imagined it initially.
I know Music Magpie's servers are normally slow, but they seem to be on life support at the moment. Is it the same for everyone else?
Greetings from chilly Melbourne, Down Under! Not been hitting the op shops much recently because of work. Did manage to get to a couple today away from my home patch, on the other side of town, in the leafy inner eastern suburbs. Always expect more from the op shops than I get in these well-heeled suburbs. Same again today. A lot of borderline stuff that on another day I might have picked up but just didn't feel the spirit move me today. Didn't come away totally empty-handed as I popped into a little church op shop in Burnley that had piles and piles of CDs. Picked up an Elvis 'NBC TV Special' (think it's better known as the '68 Comeback set); Ry Cooder 2-CD anthology called 'The UFO has landed'; and Madonna's 'Like a Virgin' (Made in West Germany target version - boo-yah!).
I've always liked the idea of Ry Cooder more than the music for some reason. Just has never really connected. I'm hoping this anthology can unlock that a little!
I've also never seen that Like A Virgin CD with the "full digital recording" text on the front...another gem! EG.
I haven't really come across anything that interesting in the last few weeks other than a copy of Leonard Cohen's 'New Skin For The Old Ceremony', which I'm really enjoying. Today I found myself in Ealing, West London and had enough time to check out some of the charity shops near the Broadway. There are three separate branches of Oxfam within 100 yards each other, one of which specialises in music. They had quite an interesting CD selection and I got the following; Natural History - Italian release best of compilation of Talk Talk £1.49 Licensed To Ill - Beastie Boys (90's repress) £1.99 Grand Prix - Teenage Fanclub (95 original) £0.99 I took a risk on the Talk Talk CD as it was badly scratched and scuffed. It skips on the last two tracks, which is a shame because the first four minutes of 'I Believe In You' is laidback perfection. I've been to a few of the Oxfam dedicated music shops around London and I generally find their vinyl record selection to be awful. I know they probably save the best for their website but you'd think they'd stock their dedicated music shops with quality vinyl.
I suggest seeking out the live recording Show Time… which may be less overwhelming than a compilation, and provides a good overview of the early material.
No, the website is even worse than the music shops as there are usually no/terrible photos and there's no grading policy whatsoever, even though the records are really expensive. There's a lot of junk on it, most of it overpriced too. A lot better for CDs but still suffers from poor listings where it's impossible to identify the specific version, not even a barcode.
As an aside, I'm putting together a bit of a playlist from Spotify for a wake this weekend and have noticed a lot of things I'd like to play are not on Spotify. Namely, some Joni Mitchell songs but also a bunch of popular Australian pop songs from the 50s and 60s. I'm certainly not anti streaming but this little experience has reminded me of how nice it is to actually own the music I love. Guess that's some justification for continuing to pick up cheap CDs!
I guess mine all say "full digital recording" on the front. I just never realised it had gone on the more recent issues.
The interesting take from my visit was seeing two copies of Kaleidoscope's A Beacon from Mars (neither in charity shops and neither cheap). That happens to be more copies than available from the UK on eBay. And given the online prices there and on discogs, maybe I should have bought the more expensive one, which was in better condition.
