What is the oddest way you have acquired a record?

Yes, it was Jaime Brockett Remember The Wind And Rain. Cover was in nice shape, too. I noticed that it was reissued a few years later, so someone must have liked it. But I wasn't interested, and I didn't have much time to think about keeping it, because Amoeba only gives you a week to return an album for 75% credit, because although I got back to Berkeley where I was living the next morning after seeing The Yardbirds (with Gypie {boy, spellcheck does not like his name} Mayo), the following day after that, I was on Greyhound again, going to Sacramento, where a friend was going to pick me up and drive me to Folsom, where The Yardbirds were playing a roadhouse that night (yes, I went to see the band twice in three days).

So OK, if I'd held onto the Brockett album for the last 20 years, maybe I could get more than I got then. I'm not gonna kick myself for that one. There's too many other things I would do differently to worry about that.

Anyway, I thought my first and so far last trip to Eureka worked out quite well. I saw The Yardbirds, met Gypie (he was a bit reserved) and Jim McCarty (much easier to talk to than Gypie), saw a good bit of Eureka, including the old downtown portion that was badly damaged by earthquake just a few years later, did a bit of shopping (including buying a record or two at the small local record store) and got a small rebate of sorts on the cost of the round-trip bus fare (in the form of the credit I received for returning the records to Amoeba).

By the way, just to be clear, if I had seen the fellow who had the records get off the bus without them, it would have been me at the door of the bus saying, "Hey wait... aren't these your records?" I maybe might have taken a peek to satisfy my curiosity, but I would have done the right thing in that situation.
I wouldn't have knowingly let the guy walk off without them.

 

I can only wonder how many times that "killing a guy over a record" thing has played out in reality...

 

Speaking of Toad's Place, I went to see Black 47 there in late 1999, and the opening act was a local group called The Reilly Clan, who specialized in Irish folk music (mostly traditional, but also a few Pogues songs and at least one original). When they finished their set, they threw a bunch of their CDs out into the audience, and I caught one. A member of the group actually walked past me on his way out and, seeing the CD in my hand, he said something to me but I didn't hear what.
I still have all the songs on my iTunes.

 

I jacked one from each of my parents:

From my mom: The Monkees The Monkees LP - When I was 4, I stole the cover and then carried it around like Linus carries his blanket.
From my dad: Simon and Garfunkel Greatest Hits CD - When I was 17, I jacked this almost as soon as I moved in with my dad. It was my fave CD in his collection.

When I lived in Jacksonville, FL, I complemented a guy at the gas station on the country music he was playing and he gave me the CD. It was his own CD-R compilation. It's still in my collection. It's called "Country Music by Wade."

Speaking of flexis, I remember when McDonald's had one with one of their jingles on it that came in the coupon section of the newspaper. I played it on my Fisher-Price turntable (the ONLY other turntable that I was allowed to play my Monkees LP on, btw).

 

Okay so this is a little slanted take on acquiring an album or albums. In 1973 -1977 I managed a record shop. One of my customers was a young lawyer. At one point he asked me if I could evaluate a record collection's value for a divorce case he was handling which I did. With the money I earned from that I bought a number of albums but cannot recall the specific albums.

 

A record shop owner was rude to me, he took notice, apologized and gave me a LP for free (it wasn't for sale because the cover was a little bit bended)

 

I don't know...when Elvis Presley passed I went to the store and bought 4 copes of his Moody Blue lp on blue vinyl, thinking it was a rarity and might be worth something down the line. Then as I found out it wasn't rare I gave each of those away over the years didn't even keep a copy for myself. Then couple years ago when my sister went into a nursing home they gave me her small record collection and I found one of my copies within those.

 

1. In 1969 I was in Macon, GA, for a wedding. I arrived at my motel in the evening, and heard a band practicing in one of the meeting rooms. The next morning I was leaving for breakfast and the band was loading into their van, next to my car. I asked who they were. “We’re Arthur Conley’s band.” I said “Whoa, ‘Sweet Soul Music,’”and they asked “Do you want to meet him?” So we went to the car on the other side of the van. He was glad to see a fan. I told him how much I enjoyed his music. He gave me a copy of his new 45, “Aunt Dora’s Love Soul Shack,” and signed it for me. I still have it.
2. In 1965 I was working as a reporter for a newspaper. The editor who reviewed records came into the newsroom waving an album in the air. “Look at these long-haired hippies. Look how their dressed. Does anyone want this record?” I raised my hand a scored a mint copy of “Do You Believe In Magic,” the first album by The Lovin’ Spoonful. I still have it.

 

Do cassettes count?

Back in about 1979/80 I was walking my dog in central Edinburgh when I spotted a red cassette sitting in the wet grass. All the tracks were neatly hand written "The Rezillos" so I guessed it was someone home taping some music. When I played it the sound was like american surf music with a bit of a punk edge, not really my thing, so I threw it in a drawer with a vague plan to maybe try and re-unite it with the true owner one day and then promptly forgot about it for a decade or so.

Roll forward to the 90's when we got internet, I remembered about this and googled the band, previously I didnt realise the Revillos and the Rezillos were two different bands, anyway, it turns out, "The Rezillos" were from Edinburgh and one of the singers 'Fay Fife' lived in a street about 100 yards from where I found the tape. I did wonder about the sound on that tape being so clear and dynamic, it must have been one of their demo tapes!

Unfortunately by the time I figured this out, I could no longer find the tape, it probably got cleared out when I got rid of all my cassettes.

 

lots of life and liberty at stake, so i can't divulge

 

My mum bought something completely non-music related from Amazon (a book I think) and when it arrived included within the overly large packaging along with the book was a CD she hadn’t ordered.
So she called me to ask whether I’d heard of the artist whose CD it was and whether I wanted it.

it was by UK pop-punk band Kenickie who I not only liked generally but I’d also been to what turned out to be their ante-penultimate gig before they broke up the previous year. Just hadn’t got round to buying the album. Nice coincidence.

 

When I was very little (~1970), I apparently "mailed" some of our 45s into a Steinway piano that we had --- when you lifted the lid to the keys, and it was halfway open, a gap appeared (at the top) which must have reminded me of a mailbox slot. Unfortunately this "gap" opened into the innards of the piano.

To this day those 45s are still there. There is no easy way of getting them out without taking the piano apart. My guess is that they are down around where the sustainer pedal is.

So --- someone in the future will have an interesting story to post here --- about finding mint 45s in a piano.

 

Years ago I was on a crew cleaning out an old library, poof we find some classic 45's..since nobody claimed em I did.

 

I scored some amazing Grateful Dead bootlegs in an Austin, Texas record store in the mid-1980s. Being rare bootlegs, I called my friend and Dead collector back in Dallas to brag. He was very envious and told me that his copies of those bootlegs had been stolen from his Austin house many years earlier. He also told me that he had written his name inside the sleeve. I looked inside the LP opening and there was his name written in black ink. I reluctantly told him that in fact, I was now looking at his name on all of them. I turned them over to him the next week. I'm sure that is the strangest way that he acquired a record because it was sure the strangest way I lost one. That was also the day I stopped bragging about my record finds.

 

Climbed up into my parents hot dusty attic

yeah I know lame!

 

My brother was at a parade in San Antonio in 1976 and people on a float were handing LP's to the crowd. My brother got one by some unknown band of weirdos named Ramones.

 

Just this week: I emailed a local small record shop and explained I was missing browsing locally but just wasn’t ready yet to go should to shoulder in a small shop. I gave him some loose parameters and asked if he wanted to ID some records for me that I could purchase and pick up curbside. He sent me about 40 choices via email; I did a little research and picked out 13 records. I’m about halfway through. Like the bell curve, a couple of gems, a few decent, a couple of dogs.

Bonus: he tossed in a bag of 30+ 45rpms, including an absolutely sterling, pristine Ringo “It Don’t Come Easy/Early 1970”.

A fun experiment and we both enjoyed to back and forth shopping.