Vinyl Habits.

I've been thinking a lot about consumerism and how Americans consume large amounts of EVERYTHING on a regular basis.

I try and break that cycle of consumption within myself as much as I can. I try to avoid buying useless things and always look to find a way to reuse something.

But I'm American. I was brought up within the the consumer mindset. It's almost as if I do not feel complete if I don't consume in some way.

So, lately I've been increasing my vinyl record collection. Over the past three weeks I've bought nine records. So here's a little recap of the records I bought:

It all started three weeks ago when I was visiting Alice up in Maine. We went to this great store in Brunswick, Maine by the name of Bull Moose, which is a sort of independent chain in the Maine/New Hampshire area.

While there I bought two records: Nas - Illmatic (1994) and Pavement - Westing (By Musket & Sextant (1993). I was pretty happy with both buys. Illmatic is considered one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time and Westing (By Musket & Sextant) is a collection of Pavement's early EP's and 7"'s.

After returning to the New York area I didn't do much vinyl buying for about a week, until on an impulse I decided to visit Looney Tunes in West Babylon. I hadn't been to Looney Tunes since a fire burned it down in August. I was kind of surprised by the new appearance of the store..it kind of felt like I was in a Borders.

Regardless I browsed their rack of vinyl and came away with three pretty good finds: Paul Simon - There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973), Weather Report - Heavy Weather (1977), and Peter Tosh - Mama Africa (1983).

The Paul Simon buy came because for some reason I've been on a big Simon & Garfunkel and Paul Simon kick lately. I figured it'd be a good addition to my collection. Peter Tosh goes without saying....the man was great and arguably a more prolific Reggae artist than Bob Marley was. While Mama Africa isn't Tosh at his best, it still is a great record that features an interesting cover of Johnny B. Goode. The Weather Report buy is kind of out of my element and the only reason I bought it was for nostalgia. The opening track on the record (and Weather Report's most famous,) Birdland, holds a special place in my musical history. When I was in jazz band back in high school, Birdland, was one of those staple songs that alway made it into a set. At Bothan Spies practice, Dana and I will sometimes break into a little rendition of it. Ah memories.

That was a week ago. Yesterday, on a whim, I bought The Casket Lottery - Possibilities and Maybes (2003) online at Vinyl Collective. This record is a great collection of a bunch of EP's and 7"'s by The Casket Lottery and is a 2XLP on white vinyl. I really can't wait for it to arrive. If you haven't checked out Vinyl Collective go right now! It's a great little site that has a lot of great records at great prices (Great Great Great!).

Today I went to High Fidelity Records in Amityville. I had heard about this store which opened up a few years back, but had yet to make it over to check it out. Specializing in used vinyl and CD's, I was pretty impressed with the selection at High Fidelity. I ended up buying three records: Husker Du - New Day Rising (1985), The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me (1987)and Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home (1965).

I almost drooled when I saw New Day Rising. It's practically mint condition. What a find?

So that's my recap of my vinyl buying spree.
Maybe I'll make it four weeks in a row...