The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 16

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

John Phillips - John Phillips (John, the Wolf King of L.A.) LP $4. 

The one Mama/Papa that couldn't "sing" but got to be in the band for one small reason: he wrote the songs. As you might expect, Phillips's self-titled debut (subtitled John, the Wolf King of L.A. on the LP label but not on the spine) is original tunes from top to bottom, and he gets to sing them. I quite like his voice, it's wispy (and slightly lispy) without being weightless, with an endearing softness that keeps you coming back. Opener "April Anne" is now one of my all time favorite songs. The opening pedal steel lick... what a way to fuckin' kick off a record. The lyrics, on the page, are just kinda late 60s horseshit, but when listened to, they are pure poetry. Every syllable perfectly chosen for its silvery sound, rather than literal meaning. I got addicted pretty quickly and I'm showing no signs of stopping. There were several unorthodox decisions made on the record that you have to learn to love. Some easier (the bum note in the opening guitar figure of "Topanga Canyon"), some harder (Louis Armstrong-style scatting on the otherwise stunning "Down the Beach"? You're out of your mind, Johnboy!). The peculiarities are part of the ramshackle fun though, with songs this strong and vibes this warm and inviting even the wrong moves feel right in time. One of my favorite discoveries of the year.

A playlist of tunes from each of the records I wrote about, I'll add a new song each day:

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 15

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

The Moberlys - The Moberlys LP $5. 

I first heard Seattle's The Moberlys when I was 12. My dad had given me a 2xCD compilation of forty years of Northwest Rock Music for my birthday and "Sexteen" made the cut sandwiched between "Potential Suicide" by Wipers (classic) and "Night Shift" by fellow Seattle power pop outfit The Heats. Despite this early introduction, The Moberlys mostly just existed on the periphery for me, though I did encounter some of the songs on their eponymous 1979 debut along the way. (I swear I've heard "Papa Loves Mama" in a TV commercial or something but couldn't dig up any of evidence of this.) The Moberlys were one of those stories where the band had split before the record even came out. There's even a note "The Moberlys were together from May 1978 to September 1979" on the back jacket, something I don't recall seeing on any debut record. Jim Basnight, the songwriter/bandleader, would continue to make music and reform The Moberlys at various points. Musically, The Moberlys is some sort of connective tissue between the first Modern Lovers record and the first Weezer record. Lackadaisical, tongue-in-cheek slacker-punk attitude abounds, but there is a true bond to pop music of the early 60s. Some songs come across like direct homages to this style ("Give Me Peace" and "Papa Loves Mama") but the band is its best when it melds the retro-stylings with the contemporary crunch and jangle of the late 70s ("Last Night" and "Live in the Sun"). For fans of the gentler end of the late 70s punk continuum.

A playlist of tunes from each of the records I wrote about, I'll add a new song each day:

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 14

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul LP $3. 

The iconic and ridiculously christened Hot Buttered Soul is a record I've read about for so long but never actually listened to. When a beat-to-hell copy showed up in the bargain bin at my local shop I knew it was time to change that. The hype is real. It indeed kicks ass. Orchestral psych-soul epics. The source of countless hip hop samples (including on a couple of MF Doom tracks) and the forefather of trip hop (heavy Portishead fumes on "Walk on By"). Towers over the other Isaac Hayes records I have, his debut, which is fine but not too exciting (even Ike thinks so), and the Shaft 2xLP which actually is cool just not as cool as Hot Buttered Soul. I've heard Black Moses is similarly riveting so that's my next Hayes target.

A playlist of tunes from each of the records I wrote about, I'll add a new song each day:

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 13

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

Black Sites - Prototype EP 12" $3. 

I compare my relationship to techno to my relationship with peaches. I enjoy both but don't have an appetite to constantly consume either. If I have one great peach from a farmers market that will probably satiate me until next year. Kinda the same with techno and this year's farmers market peach was this 12" by Black Sites which I bought knowing nothing about other it was on the PAN label (home to great avant-garde releases from Eli Keszler, John Wiese & Evan Parker, Ben Vida etc.). I pretty much buy a PAN record any time I come across one and they rarely disappoint. I'm too ignorant to know if this is "avant-garde techno" or "regular techno" nowadays but it bangs hard. I lean a little toward the former because there is some interesting stuff with combative time signatures and some noisy timbres, but maybe all techno does that now?

A playlist of tunes from each of the records I wrote about, I'll add a new song each day:

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 12

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

Wendy Carlos - Switched-On Bach LP $1.50. 

Ongoing debate: Is Switched-On Bach a radical groundbreaking achievement or did it preemptively narrow and limit the scope and definition of what a synthesizer should do, before the world at large even knew what a synthesizer was? I tended to lean toward the latter viewpoint before picking up a copy of the record. Now, I feel like I've been overthinking things a bit. Is Bach's music traditional? Yes. Is Bach's music "Western"? Yes. Does Bach's music kick ass? Yes! And Carlos's arrangements and performances were indeed radical. There's a valid argument to using new technology to create "new" styles of music never heard before but there's an equally valid approach to take something so familiar as to be boring and to transform it into something novel and electrifying (har, har). I mean, reanimating J.S. Bach's ghost with farting sawtooths is pretty anti-establishment. Especially in 1968.

Crumbelievably, Switched-On Bach is somehow not on youtube, so hit your local bargain bin. You may enjoy songs from the other records I wrote about here:

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 11

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

The Kinks - Muswell Hillbillies LP $5. 

Muswell Hillbillies (a pun on their home borough of Muswell Hill in North London) is The Kinks' Sweetheart of the Rodeo in a way. Just as The Byrds went 'n rode the Learjet all the way to Nashville to change up their sound, The Davies boys venture down a new aesthetic boulevard by channeling various strains of old timey Americana roots music to animate their English social class portraiture. I particularly like when they dip into a little Louisiana jazz, such as on "Alcohol". Coming after Lola closed out the classic 60s Kinks period with an exclamation point, Muswell Hillbillies is an overlooked record (at least I don't hear anyone talk about it) but a worthwhile one.

A playlist of tunes from each of the records I wrote about, I'll add a new song each day:

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 10

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

Duran Duran - Rio LP $4. 

Not sure what exactly prompted me to buy this, other than wanting to support my local record store by cleaning out its bargain bin. I never particularly liked the singles (well "Save a Prayer" is fun and has one of the dumbest/funniest music videos of all time) but I grabbed it anyway. After many listens, I'm still not a great fan of Le Bon's vocal style (which I now realize is what has kept me at arm's length) but it's a actually cool record otherwise, brimming with energy and great synth sounds. Plus, the finale "The Chauffeur" is legit and totally worth the price of admission. Like a John Foxx track snuck onto a hit commercial pop record.

A playlist of tunes from each of the records I wrote about, I'll add a new song each day:

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 9

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

Emmylou Harris - Luxury Liner LP $5. 

A nice collection of songs from Emmylou here. You have a pair of tunes penned by close collaborator Gram Parsons (the title track and the elegiac "She", arguably his best composition) as well as Susanna Clark, plus selections from classic old timers A.P. Carter and the Louvin Brothers, and even a rousing honky tonk version of Chuck Berry's "(You Never Can Tell) C'est la Vie". The centerpiece is Townes Van Zandt's immortal "Poncho & Lefty", as it's spelled on the jacket, which had been languishing in obscurity for years until Harris introduced it to a wider audience. Harris does justice to both the song's melancholic and mythical natures. The song has gone on to be a country standard (having Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard turn it into a smash hit single will do that) but if I'm not hearing Townes sing it, I hope I'm hearing Emmylou sing it.

A playlist of tunes from each of the records I wrote about, I'll add a new song each day:

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 8

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

Lewis Furey - Lewis Furey LP $4 CAD. 

This marked my first proper introduction to the work of violinist, pianist and Leonard Cohen collaborator, Lewis Furey. I'd loved his playing on Cohen's best album New Skin for the Old Ceremony (an all timer if there ever was one) but had not realized he had a solo career until I came across this record, his eponymous 1975 debut. From the jump, the art pop tango of, ahem, "Hustler's Tango" signals that you are heading down the path of a very peculiar album. Theatrical in all the best ways, Furey's limited vocal range and sardonic delivery forms the center to a strange set of ever shifting spokes that cycle around him on any given track. At times you might hear a little Cohen influence in there, but this is a really singular work. Furey seems to synthesize a galaxy of styles: Kurt Weill, Marc Bolan, James Taylor, Lou Reed, ornate chamber pop, cabaret jazz, dissonant avant-garde composition and more. The arrangements are reconfigured from song to song, just as likely to feature trombone as marimba as castanets as banjo. It is an inspiring album to say the least. Furey's influence can be felt in the music of fellow Canadian Owen Pallett (formerly Final Fantasy) who unleashed their own singular brand of idiosyncratic neo-classical art-pop for 21st century listeners.

A playlist of tunes from each of the records I wrote about, I'll add a new song each day:

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 7

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

Neil Young - Harvest Moon CD $0.50. 

Neil has been a very slow grower throughout my life but progress was made in 2023, thanks in part to the acquisition of Harvest Moon, my first taste of the 90s Neil albums. Not a perfect record by any means, there's a dumb song about a dog for instance, but it's solid throughout and features some pinnacles of my NY experience thus far like "Dreamin' Man" and especially the wistful "One of These Days" which played constantly on my brain radio for two weeks straight during the summer.

A playlist of tunes from each of the records I wrote about, I'll add a new song each day:

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 6

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

The Byrds - (Untitled) 2xLP $2. 

The Byrds' only "double album" (and only untitled album, through a hilarious misunderstanding with Columbia) is not a true double album. The two records are split between live recordings and studio recordings. The first LP is solid (opener "Lover of the Bayou" is a highlight) with rocked up renditions of famous Byrds tunes. I was hyped to check out the sidelong version of "Eight Miles High" which I'd imagined as a proto-Spacemen 3 psych-feedback-implosion but it's more of a middle-of-the-road 60s rock freakout, in my book. The second LP is where my real listening occurs as it's the studio LP they affixed the live record to. It's a really strong album, not as many peaks as some other Byrds albums but consistent throughout while maintaining their trademark eclecticism. Whether the Velvets-lite vibe of extended closer "Well Come Back Home", the lonesome, Sweetheart of the Rodeo-esque ballad "Yesterday's Train", the pure glee of the Leadbelly cover "Take a Whiff of Me", or the album's best remembered song, country rock supernova "Chestnut Mare" (so stupid! so catchy!), there's good reason to add (Untitled) to every Byrds home library.

A playlist of tunes from each of the records I wrote about, I'll add a new song each day:

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 5

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

Flatliner - Black Medicine 12" $3. 

I wrote about many Holodeck releases back in the day, pretty strong quality across the board. The Troller LP is great. The BOAN record is still one of my favs from the 2010s. And, of course, the label is most notable for being Survive's initial springboard, pre-Stranger Things. So when a Holodeck release popped up in my local bargain bin, it was a no-brainer buy. Don't know any of the details on this Flatliner duo (thankfully, they do list all the equipment they used so we know this is legit. Did you build that MFOS Modular yourselves?) but I don't need to in order to enjoy this 45rpm 12". Firmly situated in the instrumental, this-could-definitely-be-a-synth-score-for-a-movie-I've-never-heard-of genre and quite a strong example at that. Lead off track, "Blasted Highway" is the most exemplary (wait, is "Blasted Highway" a movie I've never heard of?). Very on brand for Holodeck. Another satisfied customer.

A playlist of tunes from each of the records I wrote about, I'll add a new song each day:

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 4

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

Judy Collins - Wildflowers LP $2. 

There are few artists more "bargain binny" than Judy Collins. Go to any bargain bin anywhere, there will be at least one Judy Collins LP taking up residence. I guarantee it. I had ignored her records for years because I forgot the cardinal rule of record buying: price ≠ quality. I finally took a chance on Wildflowers at my local shop because it had a Leonard Cohen song that he'd never recorded (along with a couple other Lenny cuts). Turns out Wildflowers is chock full of cool stuff, obviously the version of Joni's "Both Sides Now" is legendary (so legendary that I had totally forgotten about it!) but Judy's own "Albatross" is a brilliant piece of pre-Kate Bush baroque pop. Two dollars very well spent.

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 3

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine CD $2. 

Growing up, I'd always written off NIN as 90s mall-goth bullshit but I keep hearing year after year that they're amazing. Well, general population of people who say things about music on the internet and on podcasts, you've won. I finally gave Pretty Hate Machine an earnest listen after acquiring this CD and I dig it. I was surprised at how catchy this is, basically a meaner, hard edged Depeche Mode. Not fully committing to an NIN journey yet (I don't know how many more albums of Trent's lyrics I can handle) but this is a cool record, and one of the most successful independent releases of all time which I hadn't realized. 

The 25 Bargain Buys of Xmas: Day 2

Much of my calendar year, every year, is spent sifting through record store bargain bins, estate sales, etc. and digging into the acquisitions. I win some and lose some, but I never write about it on AuxOut even though it accounts for a huge portion of my listening and discovery. In honor of the season of presents, I am celebrating some of the gifts bestowed upon me by the record gods during 2023.

Donovan - Fairy-Tale LP $2. 

I'm a big fan of Don's psychedelic pop sorcery (Wear Your Love Like Heaven was a majestic bargain bin discovery some years ago) but I had never bothered to dip into his preceding folkie, "I am English Dylan" phase. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that era is also damn good, based on this record anyway. Don's rendition/arrangement of the traditional "Candy Man" fuckin' slays! Literally one of the best songs I heard in 2023.