Tried and True Attention-Getting Tactics

I accumulate records at an alarming rate, and once every few months I'll decide that I have way too many of them cluttering up my room. My solution is simple: I find the 20 or so worst ones and throw them in the garbage. None of that bring-them-to-the-store-and-sell-them shit for me. I'll trade CDs back to the shops all damn day long, but I never attempt to sell records.

"How come?" you ask. Well, all of the albums I own came from either thrift stores or flea markets - a fact that's generally apparent by the condition of their covers. And although I pride myself on having a keen eye for clean vinyl on the cheap, I just don't really care much about what shape the packaging is in. Smudges and stains are no good when you're shopping for underpants, but blemishes on record jackets simply don't effect the way the music sounds, is the way I see it.

But record store freaks care mucho about album cover cleanliness. The one and only time I took my castaway LPs into Amoeba, I got nothing but a stink eye and a stern "We don't sell shit that looks like this" from the buyer. My involuntary embarrassment mechanism kicked in and I turned bright fucking red. I walked out with my head bowed, vowing to never let myself be punked by some ugly fucking music geek fuck with stupid fucking hair like that ever again.

So yeah, I throw them shits away instead. Just toss 'em right out back in the bin and forget about 'em.

"Goodbye, wack-ass David Sanborn album that I have no fucking idea why I have in my collection!"

"¡Adios, weird Mexican disco comp that I thought would maybe have something funny or cool on it but totally doesn't!"

Pitching records in the trash is the bomb. It just feels real good to lighten the load like that.

===


Love

Since you've so closely followed my illustrious career in Internet publishing, you've already read my thoughts about Love's "Da Capo" on Lunchboxing.com, a blazingly hot Web property based out of the Internet, CA. Here's the blurb again in textual form, in case you forgot what it said:

Love - "Da Capo" (1967)
God dang this album would make a great EP. Six amazing songs that are as good as anything on the classic "Forever Changes," followed by 20 minutes of gross/weird hippie-style "freak-out" jam trash. Yuck. But who knows? Maybe you're a wanky freedom rock fan, and maybe you'd actually like this track. And maybe you're an idiot! Hahahahaha! Anyway, Arthur Lee wrote five of the slammerz on this jawn and Brian MacLean wrote the other one. By the time this album (the band's second) rolled around, the two composers had the Love sound down pat, so it's hard to distinguish one's writing style from the other - which is a good thing. "She Comes in Colors" is one of the most heat-hot songs evah. Fuck it, all six of the songs on side one will make you go "AWWWW HELLLL NO THEY DIDN'T." But then song seven rears its ugly head and you'll be all like "AWWWW HELLLL NO, I SERIOUSLY FUCKING WISH THEY DIDN'T." Buy this on vinyl and spill acid on side two - it's complete ass.

Pressure to Publish:
A Very Brief Story in Several Short Segments
Segment One
by Smart A. Money*
*(The A is for Arse)

Dick needed to finish the song. He'd been working on it every night for a week and it still wasn't even halfway done.

He'd arrived at the coffee house early in the morning with the specific goal of completing the second verse by the end of the day. It was now 4:30 in the early evening and he was still looking for a good opening line.

Dick saw his friend Kike came through the door. People called him Kike because his last name was Keikel. Kike walked over to Dick's table.

"What's up, Kike?"

"Hey man!" Kike was pleasantly surprised to see Dick. The two young men had met earlier that year in the freshman dorms. They'd ended up taking many of the same classes in Chemistry and had become good friends. "What ya workin' on?"

"Oh, just some lyrics. We're supposed to get a demo together for this guy that Matt knows in LA who has a label. He's already heard all the shit we've got recorded, so I gotta come up with some new stuff." Dick spoke nonchalantly, as if he'd been working in the music biz all his life.

"How's it coming?"

"Fucking terrible. I came here thinking it would help, but it hasn't really done shit." He spoke loudly, but nobody in the cafe seemed to care.

Kike unfolded one of the metal chairs that was stacked against the bar and set it up at the table. "Hmm. Well, what do you have so far?"

"Pretty much just some title ideas and a rough version of the first verse."

"Well, that's a start." Kike leaned in to get a glimpse of his schoolmate's notebook. "What are the titles you've got?"

Dick tore out a sheet of paper and slid it across the table. "Tell me which one you like the best. They're listed in order of my preference."

The note read:

(1) "West Coast Gurlz (Got Dem Tittiez)"
(2) "Ladiez Shake Dem (Big Ol' Tittiez)"
(3) "Str8 Show Me da Tittiez!"

"Hmm, Jeez. I dunno, they're all pretty good," Kike said.

"Hey, thanks man. I appreciate it," said Dick.

===


Souls of Mischief (representing for the real!)

On another note: I recently admitted to an underground rap friend of mine that I haven't really kept up with what the guys from Souls of Mischief have been up to in recent years. He smiled and nodded and said "Word - it's tough to find time to really know about all the shit that's been poppin' off in hip-hop now that we got real jobs and shit." Later, I found out via an anonymous email that my colleague had gone directly home and posted mean things about me on various Internet message boards dedicated to the preservation of the four elements. My true skool credentials in question, I quickly downloaded a newish Edan remix of a song SoM did called "Spark," and I'm liking it. That is all I have to say about that.

Tripping Daisy

I'm Syndicating My Own "Content" to Myself, Part 4: The Final Chapter AKA That Fucker Sure Likes to Hear Himself Write! (European title)

I got really into the Polyphonic Spree about a year ago and read somewhere that frontman Tim Delaughter was the singer for Tripping Daisy. There were some pretty excited recommendations on Amazon for the third TD album - "Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb" - so I ordered a used copy. It took a few spins to get into, but hot damn it's a melodic art pop classic.

As its title suggests, standout track "Our Drive to the Sun / Can a Man Mark It?" comes in two parts. "Our Drive ..." is sunshiny modern rock in the vein of the most recent Flaming Lips stuff. At about the four minute mark, the track morphs into "Can a Man ...", which sounds something like a Gary Numan song remixed by Kevin Shields. Great change-ups throughout and just a real nice listen.

The Fans Speak, Vol. 2:

The Other Day, 2004

Dear Editors,
I read Smart Money's piece about the Insane Clown Posse. It sucked ass.

Straight up serious,
Sarah Jewsome

**

The Day After That, 2004

Sarah:
I know you. You're that ugly, unhappy little person who lives with lots of pain. And you've tried to give me some of what ails you. But you've failed miserably. Because I won't take what you have to give. I send it right back over to you. I'm a fucking goddamned Indian giver when it comes to pain. I'm fucking running around like a maniac, hootin' and hollerin' and rocking a sick-ass colorful motherfucking headdress that the gods gave the power to deflect petty people's shitty words. And now I'm hiding behind a tree and my war paint is irritating my eyes and I'm in a really fucking agitated mood and I've got my sharpest arrow pointed straight at your heart, cowgirl. This hurt is yours - here, take it!

It was easy to try and tear me down, wasn't it? But it's even easier for me not to care.

Fuck off,
Smart Money

**

Just a Few Minutes Ago, 2004

Dear Mr. Money,
Fuck off yourself and calm down, you clown. Play me a happy song.

-Sarah

===


Van Dyke Parks

OK, sorry. Well, there's this short one by Van Dyke Parks called "Jack Palance" and it makes me smile.

There are three major players in the Oakland flea market record selling scene. They’re all genuine characters and I know each one of them not by their names but by their quirks. There’s the old timer who stutters tons and talks incessantly about shooting dope with Miles Davis in the ‘60s. There’s the overweight prog rock fanatic with the waxy pompadour who claims to have spent over a million bucks on his inventory. And there’s the One Dolla Good Guy.

The One Dolla Good Guy’s "thing" is mocking the imperfect English of the Asian sellers at the swap meet. He stands in front of his boxes of moldy LPs and barks out stuff like "all thing sale is one dolla good today." Then he searches the crowd of shoppers for someone to appreciate his humor, makes uncomfortable eye contact, and chuckles his ass off.

I’ll admit it – I’ve laughed at the One Dolla Good Guy’s little shtick. But it’s one of those things where you aren’t really laughing at the joke, but laughing at the guy telling the joke because he’s such an idiot that he actually thinks the joke is funny. Kinda like when you and your buddies go to bars and make lewd remarks in gruff voices about the size of some girl’s tits, and then you all laugh hysterically. You’re actually really keyed-in to the bullshit that women have to deal with from all the misogynist fucks out there ... so you're not really laughing at the gag itself, you’re laughing at all the sexist assholes in the world who make big tit jokes and actually think they're funny.

Right? Isn’t that what’s happening when you do that?

===


Joni Mitchell

Best of the Dollar Bin, Section One

Joni Mitchell’s "Court and Spark" is the shit. And you always see it priced at a dollar or less at record stores, thrift shops, and other used media distribution centers, so you should definitely skip the can of soda and spring for this gem of an album.

It might come off a little too soft-rocky at first, but listen twice and you’ll find complex songwriting and great storytelling throughout. The record is filled with sharp character studies like "Free Man In Paris," where the singer skewers the "star maker machinery behind the popular song," AKA David Geffen. Ha! The album also includes a cover of Annie Ross' "Twisted" (featuring Cheech and Chong in place of the original’s Lambert and Hendricks), and the breezy "Help Me," which was Mitchell’s only-ever top ten single in the US.