I used to haunt used CD (and before that LP) stores quite a bit, picking up odd or intriguing-looking covers. The percentage of great finds to dreck was fairly low. Since the internet I've mostly bought online, many with previews and mostly stuff I know what I'm buying, so it's been a while since a load of dreck came in over the transom.
This week however I corrected that.
There's this dinky little basement CD/DVD/LP store in the middle of the U. District, one of the last shops still ekeing it out. You go down a steep set of concrete stairs, two sets actually, and end up in a windowless dungeon with stuff stacked EVERYWHERE. There are racks along the walls and in the middle of the room but the majority of product is just laying on top of other stuff, in boxes or loose. A guy could spend days just perusing the half-million discs in there.
Spent a couple hours down there on Tuesday and came away with a half-dozen "treasures" - or so I hoped.
* Ed Mann - Gong: I have three other CDs by Mann, formerly one of Frank Zappa's percussionists. He plays drums & vibes & synthesizers, and on the other CDs he has a hot band of bass/guitar/reeds and his instrumental fusion is dynamite. "Gong" however.... is just Ed on gong. Solo, single, contemplative gong. Zzzzzzzz....
* Buddy Rich - Ease On Down The Road: I've been looking for anything by the drummers Buddy Rich, Art Blakey, Max Roach etc for demonstrating my stereo. They're monsters on a kit who play loud and furious and I thought it'd be nice to have some of their stuff. It's not easy to find, especially used. So I jumped at this one -- but I should've read the liners more closely. This appears to be big band recordings from the 1940s, in mono. Wait, the liner notes (in 1-point orange type) say these tracks were recorded in 1973 & 1974. Sure sound like the 1940s to me.
* Pharoah Sanders - Message From Home: This seems to be the first (1996) or one of the first albums Pharoah recorded with Bill Laswell. I've enjoyed the piss out of some later ones. This one, meh, not so much. The exact mix of Laswellisms with Sanders' style hadn't been dialed in yet -- you get Sanders screechy sax over Laswell's hip-hop rhythms. And a lot of chanted vocals. The combo isn't quite there yet -- it sounds uncomfortable and ill-considered.
I got three others that probably aren't duds, need to listen to them some more. Ah, memories of flipping through endless LP bins after high school...
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