#10 records

[music-addiction-disorder]

GARY MOORE

Friday On My Mind (1987)

10 Records

Belfast / Northern Ireland / U.K. 🇬🇧

[music-addiction-disorder]

ANNE CLARK

Joined Up Writing (1984)

10 Records

U.K. 🇬🇧

[music-addiction-disorder]

GARY MOORE

Friday On My Mind

Wild Frontier (1987)

10 Records

- necro69mancer -

[house-a-day]

Basscut - I'm Not In Love (Dubs)

[tlachtga]

10 Records: Ziggy Stardust

If you're a middle-aged woman like me (I'm facing turning 39 this year, and not loving it), your first exposure to David Bowie is as Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth—a mix of menace and sex and glamour, all of which served as a pretty good primer for Bowie's musical personae. There was always something unearthly about Bowie, from his different colored eyes, his unusual vocal range for a rock singer, to those goddamn cheekbones. David Jones was a brilliant musician and songwriter, but David Bowie was an alien.

Bowie was always in the air when I was a kid—Philadelphia loves to claim him, because he recorded one record here--the glorious Young Americans—but the man was world famous, and in Philly, always on the radio.

My parents were older—in fact, my father had already died when I was seven—so I didn't grow up with Bowie records in the house. Or really any records, to be honest, except some Vic Damone or Jack Jones-type crooners and a Bing Crosby Christmas album. I had to encounter Bowie on my own.

So I'd heard the song "Ziggy Stardust" on the radio one day, sound of that first chord smashing through the air making the hairs on my arm stand up. The lyrics were like nothing I'd ever heard, the song of a rock star from another planet eventually being torn apart in a Dionysian frenzy. That sounds pretentious as hell, like the worst sort of rock mythology, which only shows how unreal Bowie was, that he could pull it off and make a hell of a rock song. Because the concept is so close to the worst sort of excesses, like Jim Morrison's bullshit shamanism, or Rush's 2112 (which, ugh, Anthem, am I right?)—and yet, the lyrics paint Ziggy as both a rock messiah but also kind of a dick, and his downfall as inevitable.

I went to seek out the record. The town I grew up in didn't have any full-time record stores, exactly—the Ames (which was like a K-mart) sold tapes and CDs, but the selection was tiny and pretty mainstream.

There was also the farmers' market Zerns—one of the old Dutch kinds, a permanent, sprawling building mixing together green grocers, butchers, food stands, shoe stores, Amish-style ice cream, used cast iron pans, t-shirts, candy stores, comic books, magazine stands, used books, and records—some used, some new, and even the occasional imports. The selection was pretty scattershot—I did buy tapes of the Ramones and Sex Pistols, and a Green on Red album there, and I remember they had a copy of Frank's Wild Years for, well, years.

At one stand, in the flea market in the back, were records for a dollar. I bought some of my favorites there, like Transformer, Tommy, and yeah, Ziggy Stardust. It was in good condition, too—the cover had some wear, but the record wasn't scratched, and the liner notes were intact. For a dollar, this was a steal.

I took the record home, put it on the turntable, and laid down on the carpet in the basement. I didn't know what to expect—I guess I assumed the guitar was all going to melt my face off or something. Instead, the slow heartbeat of "Five Years" comes on in apocalyptic melancholy, and I'm transfixed, experiencing my first concept album1. From there, it’s all rock mythology dressed up in science fiction, which again should be a really silly thing, but he just sells it.

For a Catholic girl in rural PA, even in the ‘90s, the idea of a savior being a bisexual alien rock star was liberating. The way Bowie would change personas fascinated me, and told me I could just be whoever I wanted to, as well—provided I got the hell out of Gilberstville.

“Oh no, love, you’re not alone”

I didn’t get very far, and that’s just how life goes sometimes. But when I listen to Ziggy Stardust, I’m that girl laying on the basement floor, dreaming about being a rock star from outer space, if only for 39 minutes.

I listened to that record all summer when I was fifteen. I would lay on the floor, my head between the speakers, and close my eyes, the way you really only get away with—you really only have time for—when you’re a teenager. Listening to that record still fills me up with a jolt of energy, until “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” goes swirling upwards and out.

Well, this record was one of those destroyed when water seeped up into the basement. It was still in good condition, too—it played great, the sound wasn’t fuzzy or anything. And it’s gone. So yesterday after work, I went up to Siren Records in Doylestown and spent $25 on a new pressing. Which feels weird, after having only spent a dollar on it in 1994—but that’s how it goes, especially when you lose one of your favorite albums.

1. Which, looking back, is apparently a thing I'm into—several of the records I'll write about were concept albums or had strong thematic elements). That it didn't originally have a concept is probably what makes the album stronger—Bowie didn't write himself into a corner, but let the creation of the story take shape after the album was mostly written.

[tlachtga]

A few of our lost records

[tlachtga]

In which I lose what probably isn’t important, but still is important to me

I lost some records recently, when water seeped up from the basement and into an old cabinet where we stored both the records and a stereo system. This was one of those terrible stereo cabinets made of pressboard from back in the ‘80s, when furniture made of what’s essentially cardboard was considered acceptable, and as my husband inherited the worst of my parents’ furniture when we moved into our house, this was what we kept the stereo—and our favorite records—in.

Now, I can here you stating the obvious: never keep records in the basement. You’re not wrong, of course, and most of our records aren’t in the basement, but in a sturdy, glass-fronted (so as to deter cats) cabinet from Ikea that we keep upstairs in our office. But our favorite records were in the basement in this cabinet because that’s where other inherited items—a pool table and a portable bar—is, and we like to go into the basement and shoot pool and listen to records and drink. This is the life of suburbanites without children, and it’s pretty good all things considered.

Well, the basement has water issues, especially when it’s been raining a fair amount, as it has been this winter. And while the sump pump is usually pretty good, there are going to be damp patches.

Unfortunately, we didn’t realize a damp patch has started right under the cabinet. And because it’s made of pressboard, it soaked up the water like sponge and proceeded to bleed that water up into the records.

I found this out once it was too late, of course, and we ended up losing a lot of beloved records: the near-mint copy of Ziggy Stardust I bought for a dollar; a Velvet Underground record (one of the live ones); some My Bloody Valentine; some first-pressing, mint-condition R.E.M.; an Ella Fitzgerald record; some Replacements; a lot of the Who; pretty much all my Simon and Garfunkel (hey, don’t laugh); my late father-in-law’s Led Zeppelin III, and so on. Not everything was entirely ruined—my copy of Morphine’s Yes survived mostly intact, a Robert Johnson compilation from the ‘60s, and anything in a plastic covering, among others. But the loss of a lot of those records, especially ones that meant something to us, that had a concrete connection, really hurts.

I know—“They’re only records, and you have a bunch of them either on cd or as mp3s anyway, so don’t get worked up over it!” Well, for one thing, I’m a materialist—I like physical objects as objects that exist, that have weight and dimensions and colors and shapes, that take up space in the universe. Also, I’m an archivist—I want to have physical copies, and to keep them in some order. Our home is filled with books, records, and films, even though I know we could just load everything on a kindle or use Spotify. I guess I’m just old (and, to be fair, I’m turning 39 this year, and am starting to feel old).

But like I said, a lot of these records were in the basement not only because they have our favorite music, but they mean something: maybe they were bought under certain conditions, like the aforementioned Ziggy Stardust; or like Fugazi’s Margin Walker, were records that brought the two of  us together early on, before we were even dating.

So records are on my mind right now, naturally. Meanwhile, my husband’s been infected with a Facebook meme where over ten days, you post the most important albums for your life, with no explanation of why they matter. I don’t know why they don’t want you to explain, but they don’t. Well, this is Tumblr, where emotional writing is pretty much the gig, so I’m going to indulge myself, and use this as a writing exercise, and in some cases a eulogy. I’ll post one record a day (I hope) for ten days, with something about why it matters to me. Partially, I’m just trying to kick-start my brain and get me writing again, but also, it’s fun to write about music again.

[sr-helvetica]

The Promise - When In Rome

The Promise – When In Rome

“If you need a friend, don’t look to a stranger, You know in the end, I’ll always be there” Puagg. El horror. En serio, no se puede empezar una canción así si uno pretende ser tomado en serio, y qué paradójico resulta que sin embargo se trate de una canción estupenda, y tan fantásticamente rematada. La cuestión es que los terribles (vale, es sólo mi opinión) versos que abren esta entrada son los…

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