Saturday 2 March 2013

If It Hasn't Been Played In Years, There Is A Reason



The other week there SA over at the Bagging Area averted a near disaster after finding damp behind where he stored his records. After his mentioning the new Expedit shelving unit which now housed his records, I had a look at the old tatty, bookcase thing that held my albums in the dining room  and decided next pay day that I would invest in some new storage.

I happened to be at the Beatson in Glasgow for work on Wednesday which is not a stone's throw away from IKEA and so decided that after work I would go and get the unit. Being the impulsive person I am when I got there I decided that I would get a second unit to replace the shelves upstairs where the dance 12" singles are stored.

That night I built up the one for the dance 12" singles but decided to leave the one for the dining room until Friday night as it would mean a lot of moving stuff around, like the cd towers and unplugging the various bits of hi-fi.

So last night I had the best fun I've had in ages building the unit, moving the cd racks and the rest then the really fun bit re-filing all the albums.

Once I had completed the task, the kids were in bed and so was L,  so I rifled through the albums, pulling out and putting things on the turntable that I haven't played for a very long time. First up was Supper's Ready from Seconds Out, Genesis' live double album, I played about 5 minutes of the twenty odd minutes, it takes up the whole of the third side. I then selected Misplaced Childhood by Marillion which I could only stand for a couple of minutes, "I'm losing on the swings, I'm losing on the roundabouts", I fucking ask you are these lyrics that should be taken seriously!

I came to the very rapid conclusion that the reason that these records haven't been played for over twenty years is that the are utter pish. I am not sure what was going on in my head when I bought these albums, I would have been in my early teens, surely there were better records for me to spend my money on?

I also came across the first or second album that I ever purchased myself, Tubeway Army's Replicas from WH Smith in Airdrie using a record token I had been given for my birthday. The other one which could have been my first album, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow was swapped many moons ago, I think for Days In Europe by the Skids with a guy along the street.

I also pulled out an album that I had no recollection of buying and after looking at the title, Bugge Wesseltoft's New Conception of Jazz, I decided that I must have been on some mind bending chemicals at the time of purchase. So I dropped the needle on the vinyl and listened to various bits of each track, not bad, not brilliant but certainly not like the shite that I had been listening to earlier. I then turned my attention to the free 12" that came along with it. This is more like it I thought rather jazzy house, similar in the vein to Ludovic Navarre's St Germain project.

So here is the first track from the 12" single, I suspect that this will be right up Mr H's Cul-de-Sac. If you think that this is rubbish just thank your lucky stars I didn't post Supper's Ready or some Marillion.

Bugge Wesseltoft's New Conception Of Jazz - G.U.B.N.U.F.

8 comments:

Charity Chic said...

As George is fond of saying - rearranging your records - the best fun you can have with your clothes on!

davyh said...

*Almost* groovy but that repetitive rhythm gets on me nerves.

I rediscovered 'Replicas' myself a few years back and quite liked it.

Swiss Adam said...

Your set up now looks very similar to mine. Although I went for Black Brown rather than Birch.

drew said...

Fucking hell, you just can't please som people.

davyh said...

LOLZ!

Darcy said...

GUBNUF UMS (Up my street).

Ah - a 4x2 Expedit just like my latest purchase.

I added my 10p to a long thread on VG+ about calculating the size of your record collection recently. A cube of an Expedit was offered as a standard measure for albums. And it seems about 85 is a fairly consistent number of albums that fits in a cube. What's your experience?

If IKEA ever stop selling these there will be uproar. But I don't understand why they have yet to sell the perfect storage for the 7".

Swiss Adam said...

And the 10" record? Too big for the 7" box but they get lost in amongst 12" records. What about them?

drew said...

Darcy - I have about 80 to a cube, like to leave it a bit loose for easy of flipping through.

SA - Spybox, I also have a couple of these for 12"/albums below the window for those I'm not ready to file yet

http://www.spybox.co.uk/shop_uk.html