It’s funny, but when CBS Radio does its traffic reports of Hudson River crossings, they never mention Route 7 in Albany. Maybe that’s because the station doesn’t come in up there (I know for trying to listen to the Yankees), or maybe they’re just lazy. Seems like an oversight to me, in any case.

On my way back for a few days to Jersey and my humid, humid valley yesterday, I made a brief pitstop at Albany‘s Last Vestige Music Shop on Quail St. It was my first time there, and I thought initially they were closed since the neon “Open” sign was off and it looked like there were no lights on. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case.

All hail the dying breed of independent music stores. They had vinyl galore, up front and in a back room, but since my buying proclivities lean me else-wise, I paid little attention to it, focusing instead on the vaguely alphabetized racks of used CDs. In the “Recent Arrivals” bin I found Lewis Black‘s latest, Stark Raving Black, which was alright, Blind Guardian‘s Live, which I apparently already own, and the Wino Daze compilation by Lost Breed on Helltown Records of Glenville, NY, a mere 40 minutes south from where I was.

It wasn’t an easy store to search through, as there was a lot in a relatively small amount of space and the organization wasn’t great, but Last Vestige seemed like a killer shop for classic rock mainstays. They had a small metal section from whence I grabbed the Lost Breed and Blind Guardian discs, but there was also most of the Judas Priest and Iron Maiden catalogs available used as well. If they’d had Rocka Rolla, I would have bought it, but no dice.

I was glad to have found Last Vestige, even if it wasn’t the most successful haul I’ve ever had. The Lost Breed disc is an interesting curio, and for that and the much-needed moment to regroup before getting on the terminally boring New York Thruway, it was easily worth the trip. I’d recommend stopping in to anyone passing through or by Albany, and as Last Vestige‘s Saratoga shop recently went out of business, and Albany‘s Music Shack also went under a few years ago, the store might just be living up to its name.

I bought three CDs from Turn it Up! in Brattleboro, Vermont, after taking the hour trip south from where The Patient Mrs. and I are staying in Belmont. They were as follows: Goatwhore‘s Funeral Dirge for the Rotting Sun (which I’ll never listen to), Eric Idle‘s solo comedy effort, The Rutland Isles (which I’ll listen to but not laugh at), and the self-titled disc by August Born, which features Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance (which I’ll probably listen to but am not 100 percent sure I don’t already own). It was kind of a bummer trip.

Turn it Up! is a pretty hip shop. There’s a picture of local resident/Tee Pee Records mainstay Dave Sweetapple (of Witch and Sweet Apple) up on the wall — and the numerous used Tee Pee promos for sale make me think maybe he’s been to the store once or twice — and they seem to cater mostly to the town’s abundance of hippie/jam rockers, though there was a small metal section. My major disappointment (aside from how visibly creeped out the girl stocking the bins was by me) came in a lack of Black Sabbath bootlegs. They had Metallica, they had Beatles out the ass, Neil Young and even Led Zeppelin, but not one Sabbath boot. Nothing. Come on, man. Give me one. Anything!

No dice. Don’t mean to harsh your mellow, trust fund hippies willingly living in poverty, but you’re a long way away from Coachella. I took my time looking around the store, partially because I seemed to be imposing on the staff by doing so (they were open until 10PM and I was in there around 5:30), then clumsily bought my three discs and left, feeling like a sucker for having made the trip. I didn’t expect a fucking haven of desert rock overflowing with Man’s Ruin discs, where I’d walk in, be handed a beer and get instantly pointed to the Kyuss, Etc. section, but give me a break. The attitude, the selection, the hyper-indie mindset: blech. Keep it. If I wanted to deal with that kind of bullshit, there are any number of stores in New York I could go to, and they’d probably have the new Woven Hand in stock, which no one on the planet seems to, myself included.

Using the Record Store Day website as my guide, there are a couple stores up in Burlington I might want to visit, but after Turn it Up!, I’m not going to imagine either much success or a particularly friendly reception. Seriously, it made the passive apathy with which I’m generally greeted at Generation Records, or Vintage Vinyl, or even Resurrection Records in CT seem like a warm hug. Was a long way to go for Eric Idle, I’ll tell you that much.

I’ve been on a real Black Sabbath kick lately, which is about as close as I come to religion. You know how it is, you come and go with those records. You know them front and back, and it’s almost like you don’t have to put them on to hear them in your head. Well, lately I’ve been putting them on anyway, so when I stepped into one of Jersey‘s premiere indie stores (I’m not going to name which), the first place I went was the Sabbath section to see if there were any good looking bootlegs.

There were. I guess since Ronnie James Dio died last month the market has called for an upswing in material with him on it, because I was able to grab two discs from the 1980 Heaven and Hell tour. Yeah, it’s a little crass, but I had the demand before they had supply, so I don’t really feel all that bad feeding the machine on this one. Both Angel and Demon (live in Tokyo, Nov. 18, 1980) and We Blind the Sky (live in Sydney, Nov. 27, 1980) are CDR/inkjet jobs, but the covers are quality prints, the recordings are soundboards and they were only $15 a pop. I’ll pay that. $20’s pushing it, but I’ll go $15.

The setlists on Angel and Demon and We Blind the Sky (a bootleg formerly known as Burning the Cross because of a stage gimmick you can hear on the disc) are identical save for replacing “Lady Evil” on the former with “Die Young” on the latter, which also ends with “Paranoid” instead of “Iron Man,” and the mix sounds better on Angel and Demon, but you really can’t beat having Dio forget the words to the end of “Children of the Sea” as he does on We Blind the Sky. Other highlights include the sundry vocal effects that crop up and Geezer Butler‘s bass tone. Yes, on everything.

I know I’ve had some issues in the past with buying Black Sabbath bootlegs, so it seemed only fair to report an experience as positive as this one has proven to be. I also got Deep Purple, Made in Japan, and the 2CD version of the new Karma to Burn, the former used and the latter John Garcia-fied. All in all, chalk up a win, and for bonus points I’ll note they were playing Goatsnake when I walked into the store. Good things are bound to happen when you stumble on that.

If you’re looking for info on Sabbath bootlegs, there’s only one place to go: black-sabbath.de. They’re helpful in the way only true obsessives can be and they make the rest of us fanboys look like lightweights.

On my most recent trip there, the dude behind the counter of Wallingford, Connecticut‘s Red Scroll Records pretty much had me pegged. I don’t know if it was the shirt I was wearing (I don’t remember which it was, but all I wear are band shirts, so it could have been anyone) or what, but shortly after I walked into the store, the strains of the aforementioned Dopesmoker by Sleep started coming through the stereo system. I guess I’m an easy mark.

As most of my previous excursions to Red Scroll have been, this one was successful, yielding used records from The Gates of Slumber, Quitter, Slough Feg, reissues of the first two Enslaved albums (also used), recent comedy records by David Cross and Eugene Mirman and, as I stood at the register, like a candy bar at a grocery store checkout, a six dollar pink cassette of Torche‘s Meanderthal Demos.

Of course, I was psyched at the CD haul, but the Torche went in first. I buy cassettes because I have a tape player in my car and I feel like if I don’t use it, I’m somehow missing out on an opportunity. The Patient Mrs. thinks this is ridiculous, and she’s a little right. I enjoy the absurdity, and in the case of Torche‘s Meanderthal Demos, I was stoked to hear the band’s material in a rawer form, since, though the finished album was enjoyable, it was also incredibly polished, production-wise.

Getting to hear the roots of songs like “Grenades” and “Across the Shields” was both interesting and exciting, since it sounded good and was a cool experiment for the ears in this new context. The songs are different, obviously less developed, but enjoyable anyway, and though Torche‘s capable grasp of melody is present, there’s more edge to the demos that makes them sound a little rougher than Meanderthal itself. In other words: right fucking on.

A pink cassette is a little more hip irony than I usually allow myself to engage in, but whatever, it sounds good and it only cost six dollars, so I’d be a bigger asshole for not hearing it. And it was worth every penny, since the tracks still show off Torche‘s high-quality songwriting in their rudimentary form. I didn’t expect to come out of Red Scroll having just paid six dollars for a pink cassette, but it wound up being the highlight of the trip and something I’ve gone back to for multiple listens already. All hail the impulse buy.

Sometimes, when a band has a catalog that seems to go on for miles (or even when they don’t), it’s hard to know where to begin. You want something that best represents the whole, but you want the best too, so you can hear them at their peak. Well, it’s an age-old question, “Where do I start with…?” that I’m hopefully going to help answer for at least a handful of bands.

Below you’ll find just a smattering of recommendations for beginning points for bands you may or may not be curious about. I do a lot of assuming that the people reading this site know this stuff already, but maybe there are some newcomers who aren’t sure which Kyuss record is the way to go.

If you have any to add to this list, please leave a comment. Maybe I’ll finally figure out how to kick off my Robin Trower collection.

Acid King, Busse Woods

Alabama Thunderpussy, River City Revival

Bathory, Twilight of the Gods

Brant Bjork, Jalamanta

Black Sabbath, Just get the first eight, go from there.

Read more »

In light of the badassery of Ufomammut‘s subsequent releases — 2005’s Lucifer Songs, 2008’s Idolum and this year’s excellent Eve — the band’s second album, Snailking, is a record whose legend has grown much in the six years since its 2004 release. While the Italian drone metallers made their debut in 2000 with Godlike Snake, more and more, Snailking has become the measure by which fans judge each new album.

The band did a vinyl reissue last year through their own Supernatural Cat label, but the CD has been out of print in the US since The Music Cartel, which handled the original release, went under in 2005. Amazon regularly has copies for over $100, which is unreasonable (even half that is ridiculous), and mostly on eBay it’s just the vinyl being sold and resold. Fine.

I first encountered the album when it came out and was sent a CDR with a photocopied cover as a promo that I still have today for use on the college radio show I was hosting at the time. I never bought it before it was too late, until recently I came a chance to do so in a forum listing on StonerRock.com and decided to make an offer. Sure enough, for $25, I finally got a full copy of Snailking.

Not only do I feel good about the price — which I think is a rational amount of money to pay for an album that’s legitimately out of print and rare — but it’s given me a chance to go back and actually enjoy the record instead of just frustratedly staring at the CDR’s jewel case, mad at myself for not having bought the real thing when I could have. If you’ve never heard Ufomammut‘s Snailking and collect vinyl, the reissue is probably the way to go, but given my disposition otherwise, I was glad to have stumbled upon the opportunity the way I did. Sometimes you have to take what you can get.

For anyone who’s never been to Amoeba Music in San Francisco, please just take my word for it when I say there’s a reason that, after flying out of Newark at 7AM local time and landing on the West Coast at 10:30, I wanted to go there before even checking into the hotel, before showering, changing my clothes or any of it. Six hours on a plane — get me some shwarma and get me to Amoeba. So it went.

If Heaven is an ideal locale and God is a mythical being reigning over that ideal locale, Amoeba Music is both God and Heaven at the same time. I had to draw up a wishlist before I got there, because I knew that once I walked in, I’d be like a hyperstimulated three year old and forget everything I’d wanted to buy. I had a few necessities. For example, I’d have felt like a failure if I didn’t find something on Man’s Ruin. I wanted something specifically Californian, and I wanted something rare.

For the first, I was pleased to find Drunk Horse‘s Tanning Salon/Biblical Proportions, for the second, Citay‘s Dream Get Together (reviewed here) and for the third, the Sheavy/Church of Misery split on Game Two Records. Because it was there and I could, I also grabbed Boris‘ Smile (Live at Wolf Creek) in the grey die-cut foam case, and just because it has Los Natas covering “Paranoid,” the Black Sabbath tribute, Sabbath Crosses, which is all South American bands.

Not all of that was on my list — Drunk Horse specifically was — and I didn’t get to pick up either of the first two Fu Manchu albums or any Kyuss promos or either of the first two Desert Sessions releases, but there’s always Amoeba in Berkeley to give it another go, and for my first day here (which also included a brief stop at Shaxul Records right across the street), I did pretty well. Here’s a full rundown of the haul:

Blind Guardian, Tokyo Tales
Boris, Smile (Live at Wolf Creek)
Burst, Prey on Life
Citay, Dream Get Together
Drunk Horse, Tanning Salon/Biblical Proportions
Khanate, Clean Hands Go Foul
Rainbow, Rainbow on Stage
Trouble, Live in Los Angeles
Various Artists, Church of Misery/Sheavy, Born too Late
Various Artists, Sabbath Crosses: Tributo a Black Sabbath
The Wizar’d, Follow the Wizard

More to come…

It was a recent Monday night in NYC and I was in town for a Precious Metal show at Lit Lounge, but having some time to spare, figured I’d hike over to St. Mark’s and see what was doing in the used CD bins at Kim’s Video, which was nothing, since Kim’s Video has apparently closed shop since the last time I was there. That’ll show me to not leave the house but twice a year.

Consolation came from Rockit Scientist Records right down the block across the street. The step-down-to-enter hole in the wall has long been a source of obscure psychedelic/proto-prog wonders, and among the assorted treasures — I’m looking at you, Popul Vuh remasters — I found the 1971 solo offering from Japanese guitarist Shinki Chen (hailed as the Hendrix of the rising sun), called simply Shinki Chen and His Friends, with a sticker on the front reading “Early 70’s Japanese Heavy Psych Jams.” Sold.

I’ve been on a kick for some old man rock lately, and digging into the early tape loops and King Crimson mid-“Moonchild” nosies of Shinki Chen and His Friends opener “The Dark Sea Dream” was right in line with what I was looking for, but the real deal surprise was the kick of fuzzier cuts like “Requiem of Confusion,” “Freedom of a Mad Paper Lantern,” the organ-diced “Gloomy Reflections,” and the hard-panned “Farewell to Hypocrites.” There’s an untenable current of weird running throughout — the drums are so far away that sometimes you forget they’re there at all — and man, it’s clear to see who’s got a remastering hyper-budget and who doesn’t, but I’m digging the hell out of the disc and thought I’d pass along the word to anyone else who might be interested (I don’t know if Rockit Scientist has another copy, but it might be worth hitting them up, since true independent record stores in Manhattan are getting fewer and father between). Hopefully that’s you.

After this album — the version of which I have is a 2005 Korean reissue distributed by World Psychedelia — Shinki Chen joined the trio Speed, Glue and Shinki, which as you might imagine didn’t last long. They put out one album and sort of another after breaking up, and that’s allegedly when Mr. Shinki decided he vastly preferred not recording to recording and stopped making albums. Shinki Chen and His Friends is still out there though for anyone willing to stumble on it, and although I’m still very much in the process of getting to know the album and the guitarist (and his friends, for that matter), I’d definitely suggest you figure out a way to do so.