I'm pretty sure one of my two Sadistic Mika Band CDs came from a charity shop - it's the See For Miles SMB/Black Ship twofer, and it cost me 50p! My other CD by them is a Japanese import compilation called "Golden Best" which has all the song titles in Japanese only (except for the song "Boys and Girls"). That came from Music and Video Exchange in Notting Hill though. I've found some Sakamoto solo albums and soundtracks in charity shops. No YMO though, although I think I have most of the readily available CDs already I.e. the earlier ones. I did get Solid State Survivor on vinyl in a charity shop - but that was a long time ago.
Update. The S&G is actually a 1975 repress as evidenced by its newer style CBS labels. Condition is better than I feared though and just fine for £1. Rattlesnakes on CD sounds just as good as my old vinyl and nice to have thee xtra tracks. The £4 amp works OK which is more than can be said for my 10-thumb guitar playing.
MC Solar is excellent French Hip Hop if that's your thing, particularly the first album which make quite an impact at the time, as a fellow MC I'm surprised you left them.
Quite a few in my case. Generally it's an artist I will have heard or read about and then spotted a CD amongst the shelves. A few examples: Rilo Kiley, Yo La Tengo, I Am Kloot, Blonde Redhead, Sleater-Kinney, First Aid Kit, Joy Zipper, Cosmic Rough Riders, Elliott Smith, Guided By Voices, Sebadoh and Sufjan Stevens.
Seen a lot of Kitaros at boot sales and have scored a few soundtracks including some Ghiblis, though I think they were Taiwanese boots rather than legit Japanese copies, may have got "Akira" OST on CD as well.
Recent purchases (in the last week or so): Van Morrison - Days Like This £1* Rory Gallagher - Deuce £1 Original London Cast - Evita 50p# Maria McKee - You Gotta Sin To Get Saved £1 John Fogerty - Wrote A Song For Everyone 50p Chicago - The Ultimate Collection (2CD) £1 *This was one I already had, but it replaced a copy with a scratched CD and damaged booklet (honest!) #Always had a soft spot for this uncool album, with David Essex carefully enunciating (Oh What a Circus etc.) I think each one of these was from a different shop! So no big hauls to be found round my way lately...
Sinister is (IMO) their best album, and Tigermilk is pretty great too. As I understand it, pre-band Stuart Murdoch basically lost the best part of a decade to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, during which time he piled up lots of music in his head, then when he started to recover emerged with a fantastic portfolio of songs and a real zeal to make up for lost time. Tigermilk is basically him massively exceeding his brief on a university music production course as a way of getting a record out, with the band not really existing in any meaningful sense at that point. That first flush of material and enthusiasm covers the two albums you have there, and the first three EPs (Dog On Wheels, 3.. 6.. 9 Seconds of Light and Lazy Line Painter Jane). Barely a dud on any of them. There's still a lot of good stuff after that, but it doesn't have the same sustained quality. They are a bit twee at times, though. Not Vashti Bunyan twee, but a bit twee.
I'm waiting for someone to post that the drought of CDs is over and collections are flooding into the shops.
Actually, on a related note, recently I tracked down the Japanese CD of the brilliant Paul Gonsalves Boom-Jackie-Boom-Chick LP. So, now I have a stereo version of the title track, and the mono version on the CD. This was apparently recorded at the Lansdowne Studios which explains the stereo master. It would be good to hear the whole thing in stereo. This one isn't too wide a stereo mix either.
Thanks for the info Alex, just listened to Tigermilk. It's the kind of twee I like. I sold my copy of Just Another Diamond Day, Vashti's stuff is enjoyable a song or two at a time but a whole album of it is too much!
The first copy of Blues Breakers I had was one of those silver label ones. I remember it sounding really good. The only reason I didn't keep it is I got an original and the CD.
I had never heard of Vashti Bunyan until I started reading music magazines. It seems to be a certain type of music journalist's idea of what folk music should be (aggressively singer-songwriter) and they seem to think that record prices on the second hand market are a good measure of how important a given album was. I personally can't stand it and I'm not surprised that the original record sold so few copies!
Talking of Japanese bands, I forgot Pizzicato Five - I have (surprisingly) picked up quite a few of their CDs from charity shops - a total of 6 albums at different times. Fabulous kitschy pop sung in English and Japanese, if you haven't heard them (and also if you have).
I have the Diamond Day CD (yes, from a charity shop), but think her story (running away and living in a gypsy caravan etc. - she has just published her autobiography) is probably more interesting than her actual music, which is a bit like a box of chocolates - one or two at a time is fine, but not the whole box! But I just looked her up and am pleased to report that she is name-checked in the Half Man Half Biscuit song "Totnes Bickering Fair", from the 2008 album CSI:Ambleside.
You sold it to me! I also bounced off it, and it went to Oxfam. From all the hype I was expecting some lost masterpiece on a par with Connie Converse or Nick Drake.
The only Vashti Bunyan album I have heard is the most recent one which I bought from a charity shop. Not my cup of tea at all. My best folky find is Fallen Asleep Just like Papa by the Dutch group Opo on LP.
Have a spare EP of theirs if it's needed ("Happy Sad"). I try and pick them up when I find them, but get confused as to what I already have! EG.
Oops sorry forgot that! haha. Just checked and hopefully it was offset by the 3 other CDs I sent you (Velvets WLWH, B52's and Otis Blue)
She’s still fairly obscure. She was writing and solo performing in New York in the 1950s, with content that was at least ten years ahead of its time, with the result that she was roundly ignored, and swore off music for academia at the turn of the 1960s. She later suffered from depression and disappeared in the 1970s. There are no studio recordings of her, just amateur ones, but they capture the magic. Absolutely wonderful, witty lyrics, coupled with inventive melodies. They basically went unheard between the late 50s and the mid 00s, when they were rediscovered by a New York radio station when they interviewed a friend of hers about his illustration career and he brought in some reel to reels. That resulted in all remaining recordings from family and friends being gathered together, and an album’s worth was released in 2009. Music speaks louder than words, so give this personal favourite a try: Here’s a YouTube playlist of the whole album: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kno5dgNVinhxZ2TU1rCF0P9hXKhgkJQsI
I bought the Vashti Bunyan CD (online) whilst reading Electric Eden, and quite like it. I later found her Heartleap album from 2014 in a charity shop, but couldn't stand her singing in a faux American accent. It was re-donated at lightning speed.
