21 October 2012

From Machine Head To Monster



The first record I ever bought, Deep Purple's "Machine Head," was brand new. Bought it at a Canadian owned department store. You could buy anything in a Canadian owned department store. The person who I paid for it was probably singlehandedly raising a big fucking family on the wage the store paid him. I wanted that guy's job when I got a little bit older. Selling records, listening to music all day, stone fucking crazy - that was the life for me. 

Very soon thereafter I began buying records that had spent time in somebody else's collection. A Free record here, a Status Quo record there - pretty soon I had a real collection going. More records than anyone in my junior high school. Motherfuck the devil, I sold my soul to rock 'n' fucking roll.

I tried to buy new records I wanted just as soon as they were released. Used records I bought, then as now, were a matter of happenstance. You never know what you will find in a store that sells used records. A fact that makes buying old records all the more interesting.

While I prefer records, I do not mind buying old cds for the car. They do not sound as good as records do but they fit in my car's cd player a lot easier. Do not even get me going on mp3s.  

This week, for instance, I added Lee Perry's "Divine Madness...Definitely" to my cd collection, which will remain small as long as I live my days unless I am gifted with several thousand of the fuckers. It is good to be reminded just how good reggae music used to be. Every one of the seventeen tracks as good as any music ever recorded on our doomed planet.

Newest cd I have got is KISS' latest called "Monster." It is not as good as "Sonic Boom," a record I consider to be just about the best late career rock 'n' roll record ever made by a bunch of mid-70's rockers (listen to Ian Hunter's last couple to hear the best), but I would not mind it a bit if I walked into a party and it was being played the way the makers intended: Loud and Proud.

6 comments:

motorcycleguy said...

My first new one was Led Zeppelin II. Bill Cosby was next. Odd combo for sure. Machine Head not long after. Hamilton Harvey on Main and 6th (5th?). Lost the Cosby one but the rest are still on the shelf. Don't know how you can drag the hardest substance known to man across a plastic for a whole bunch of years and still have it outperfom a new CD (at any volume)...especially when the hand that placed the needle down had often just held a beer. I buy used vinyl now, recently found a good original "You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic".

RossK said...

Our youngest found a box of my old ones recently.

Records, I mean.

She now wants to get a turntable. She is not joking.

Thus, we have made a deal.

Half-'n-half.

We just may break the mp3 stranglehold at our house yet.

.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

It was not until I was much older that I began buying Cosby's records, who, like most everybody about my age, entertained me more than any other comedian. Started at number four with Zeppelin. Did not work my way backwards to their first record until a few years back when it became my favourite of their's. Hunter was always and continues to be one of rock 'n' roll's very best songwriters. Hamilton Harvey RIP.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Even London Drugs, on my most recent visit there, had a very decent turntable for sale. The sort of machine that ought to last a couple decades.

Today while patiently waiting for a few young people to finish looking through a stack records one of them pulled out an odd looking record and asked, "What the Hell is this?" It was a laser disc. It may as well have been Stonehenge given the pace of technological change these days.

Anonymous said...

I went to a record fair last weekend and sold off a fuckton of my old vinyl. Everytime someone bought something, it was like a gut punch to my youth.

nazz nomad

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Nazz - Guess I am still hanging on to mine - my youth (ha!) and my records. Charlton Heston had his guns. I have my records and my guns.