Give The People Want They Want

Last night a man approached me with one of our 40% off coupons and asked me if he could use it on our used copy of The Abominable Showman by Nick Lowe, priced at $49.99. I smiled and said yes, and he smiled back and said thank you. Makes a difference, doesn't it? Especially when it's something rare and good. Well, depending on whether or not you think The Abominable Showman is any good, out of print or not.

Taking advance of our two-used-for-one sale, and having to empty my hold bin before inventory tomorrow night, I took home a few used things I've been storing away for when I got my tax money back (it goes to fixing you CAR, Melissa.. your CAR!)

Some how this CD from Toronto-based drummer and bassist/synthman Death From Above 1979 floats around our store like some kind of cult with only the same few people in the know... and although Randy played the fantastic dance remix of this album in his car while we were driving around in Austin with him last month, we only had the original version here, 2004's You're A Woman, I'm A Machine so I decided to take it home with me. Randy said it was okay and he was right, it's... okay. Two guys (now split up) making as much dance-punk noise as they can together with the mere rhythm section that they are, I get the feeling that I've heard this kind of thing before, and probably have. Not to say that it isn't bad or anything. And not like everything musically isn't derivative of everything else out there these days as it is. It really hits home how much I have heard in my lifetime to get to this point. It's just that this sounds a lot like what I used to enjoy ten years ago, and I already kind of burned myself out on that right before I segued into my jazz phase in the early 2000's. Good grooves, though.

And in keeping with my recent theme of having The Dictators popping up into my life at odd intervals during the last six months, I couldn't resist snagging their first 1975 album Go Girl Crazy! when that DJ dude selling back mass amounts dropped this off at our shoddy doorstep. Not that any of this is a bad thing, mind you. This New York City-based band was punk before there was punk, and had fun with their chosen favorite subjects, namely junk food, fast cars, professional wrestling (these guys were BIG rasslin' fans, as evidenced by the album cover, and from the inside of Handsome Dick Manitoba's pub in Manhattan). Makes me wish I was listening to this kind of music in 1975, when it was more likely my parents' 8-track version of Neil Diamond's Hot August Night. Not that that is a bad thing, either.

Oh, and one television show, which I had intended to buy when it first came out but balked when I realized that I probably would never watch it again. But when Joe convinced me that he could probably watch it with me (sure, like your childhood crush on Tracy Nelson has nothing to do with it!) I took the plunge and purchased this:

Square Pegs was the short-lived 1982 sitcom that starred Sarah Jessica Parker and Amy Linker as two social outcasts struggling for popularity at the oh-so embarrassingly 1982-looking Weemawee High School. And the thing is, the show looks like somebody trying to do a ridiculous parody of a 1980's sitcom, when really it was reflecting the current trends and fashions and music of its time. Tracy Nelson's valley girl accent was only turning slightly brown around the edges from being stale a mere few months in pop culture vernacular. And there was nowhere else on television at the time where I could see Devo appearing on a prime time television show other than Solid Gold. Not to mention The Waitresses doing the show's theme song. So yeah, I was all up in this shit back in 1982, which to me was the closest to what that time era reflected in my life the way Freaks And Geeks did 18 years later. Only difference is that I kind of can't remember Square Pegs being all that funny, or... good. But I may be wrong! I have been before. Plus I'm feeling nostalgic for the early 80's for some reason today (see previous post). And nostalgia always colors things in a brighter hue, no matter how drab they might have really been. Woot for nostalgia and brighter hues!!