My oh my -only three days since I posted; I’ve bought so many records since! And tonight is the WFMU fair….
On Tuesday I stopped by Tower Outlet (now moved to above Tower Books on Lafayette St at 4th, nyc) and found myself stuck in there for hours. All midpriced CDs were reduced to $8, which seemed like a good deal.
I picked up Trio Mocoto‘s self-titled 1973 album on a Brazilian CD this way. Trio Mocoto were Jorge Ben‘s backing band, and were pretty cool on their own. Without the genius Jorge there they lack focus slightly, but there are still some great numbers (‘disculpe’ struck me as excellent) and even a Bacharach cover (raindrops keep falling on my head, sung in Porguese).
I also got what, incredibly, was my first Bob Dylan album on CD, Blonde on Blonde. I have never been into Dylan remotely. I own probably 10 of his records, picked up at charity/thrift shops/yard sales over the years; never listened to them. But some friends of mine have become so obsessed by him that they have opened my eyes slowly. Why is it that I always get into things in such a strange order? I guess without the internet my path might have been more linear. I say this because the thing which really struck me most about this album on first listen was how much ‘I want you’ was ripped off by Belle and Sebastian on their sublime ‘The state that I am in’.
The $8 thing was also enough to persuade me to pick up the Pixies album ‘Trompe le Monde’, which was the one album of theirs I never had. One of many recent purchases I haven’t listened to yet.
The last purchase was a $2.99 Mystic Moods Orchestra ‘One stormy night’ CD, sealed, which turned out not to have the CD in it. Very odd, and the first time that has ever happened to me.
Tower outlet also sells vinyl, and incredibly, they seemed to have old, unplayed cutout soundtrack stock from the 60s. I think perhaps someone had been in before me and wiped most of it out, but I managed to pick up Johnny Williams‘s score to the 1966 film ‘Penelope’. It’s extremely groovy; the first track features a vocal group and sounds very reminiscent of Free Design. I was pretty happy with that at $5; I passed up on Quincy Jones‘s ‘Enter laughing'; hope I didn’t screw up… Finally, I got a Bud Shank album of movie themes on World Pacific from the mid-late 60s. Some of this is pretty sleepy, but a couple of the tracks are great Lalo Schifrin numbers (one is even from his impossibly rare ‘Murderer’s row’ soundtrack), and at least one other has that groovy 1966 rocking now sound feel.