I received an email to TVD HQ a little while back which read something to the effect of “we hear you’ve blogged about Minnie Ripperton’s “Loving You” and that you’re a fan. Please check out our artist’s rendition, etc., etc…”
I was sort of scratching my head, really. I mean, I guess I included “Loving You” among some ’70’s posts, but a fan? That seemed strong. But more worrisome was the notion of someone covering that song with its myriad of octaves. First, that person would have to have an incredible range, and even IF that was the case, that tune could easily tumble right into the schmaltz category…and not in a good way. But I clicked the link anyway.
And was pretty blown away:
For a week when we’re discussing the hit or miss (ok, largely miss) nature of the music industry these days and the artists and bands foisted upon us, along comes Minnie as a reminder of genuine, non-Protool talent. And none too soon, as well…
“Hey Everybody! I’m Minnie Murphy and I’m so excited to be a featured artist on The Vinyl District this week! My first single, “Take Me To Texas Tonight” is being released to radio right now and I don’t know what to expect next. I’m very proud of the work and I really hope that people like it. It’s taken me awhile to get this far but this song has stood strong for 8 years now and I’m just so excited for the world to finally hear it. Check out more of my music at myspace.com/minniemurphy. Thanks so much for listening.”
Benjamin Franklin was quoted a saying that one of the greatest gifts God gave man was the appreciation and for his or her own voice. I’ll go one better and propose that the greater gift is our own voices hung on a song. Or a clever lyric. With a wise twist. Or not. Maybe it’s just something sweet. Or dirty. Or sexy. But wherever it resides, it’s in a warm bed going toe to toe with tunefulness. Rule #2: It’s the melody, stupid.
I’ve been digging seriously since the late 1980’s but when I opened my own used record store in 2003, I had to take my digging to the next level. I currently own Som Records at 1843 14th Street, NW in Washington, DC. If you’re reading this blog then you probably already know what a digger is, but I will explain anyway:
A digger in record collector parlance is someone who constantly looks everywhere and at all times for new and interesting records. These records can be for DJing, sampling, playing at home, trading for other records, reselling, whatever.
Sitting at home a surfing e-bay and GEMM for records does not make you a digger. Going down to your local record store to buy the latest Belle and Sebastian LP does not make you a digger unless you have to go through EVERY record in that shop before you leave. Getting up before dawn on a cold winter’s morning (after DJing the night before) to get to a flea market in West Virginia that may or may not even have records might make you a digger.
Slowing down whenever you see a yard sale and training your wife to spot record boxes at 35 miles per hour might make you a digger. Diving through DUSTY piles of ten foot vertical stacks of records in a shed in the back of “antique” mall in rural Florida while you battle heat and insects to find 2-3 good records might make you a digger. (OK, enough Jeff Foxworthy retreads, let’s talk records…)
In this space I’ll be featuring a new record every month. I will explain where and how I found that record and what that record is all about. Why I like it, why it’s valuable or interesting, where I found it and how I found it. I’ll also give you a brief history of the album (when possible) and give sound clips.
Sometimes people ask me in the shop “where do you find your records?” That is a question I would never answer completely. No true digger (no smart digger) would ever reveal all of his secret spots and contacts. “Just go down to the Goodwill on every second Tuesday of the month at 11:15AM. Knock twice on the back door and ask for Willie. He’ll show you into the Blue Note storage room where you can grab an armload full for ten bucks.”
In these days of e-bay hoarding and record flipping revealing all of my secrets would not be prudent. I can tell you that I shop for records at record stores, thrift stores, record shows, flea markets, estate sales, antique malls, online, in newspapers, at friend’s houses, at relative’s houses, at stranger’s houses, in my own house, at book stores, church sales, library sales, bake sales, on the side of the road (really) and just about anywhere actually. My digging descriptions each month may not have ALL the details you want but will hopefully give you, the reader, an idea of how it all went down. To me there’s nothing more exciting than finding a record that you’ve never heard of that’s been collecting dust in someone’s basement for over thirty years and being the first person to play that record since 1975. When that record happens to be great and/or valuable then you’ve struck digging gold. I better stop typing now, there are records out there that need to be found… _____________
Thanks go out to Stefan Glerum for use of his illustration at the top of this post which will adorn Neal’s monthly crate dispatches. Check out the rest of Stefan’s amazing work here – and he’s even got prints for sale!
Last week’s ‘First Date’Fredrik return again this week with a little something under the arm for TVD readers. To celebrate the release of their new video, “11 Years,” TVD’s got a vinyl copy of their new release “Na Na Ni” to award to the sharpest, wittiest, vinyl-related commenter of the bunch. And that winner needn’t be in DC, so all you visitors from far-flung destinations all have a chance as well to snap up the vinyl from the Swedish popsters. (Remember to leave us some contact info too, please…)
If you’re a regular reader and familiar with the continuing TVD narrative, you were witness to a brimming over with disgust last week for about 97% of the artists and bands that are pimped daily by Pitchfork and Stereogum respectively. It depresses me to no end to think that the kids coming up today will have a generation of half-baked bands or pseudo-talents to recall as their collective ‘first’s.
It depresses me even MORE however, to be referring to the ‘kids these days’ as it seems I was one of ’em just an hour ago. But to hell with it – I’ll embrace it in a new TVD feature: Angry Old Man, wherein we attempt to re-raise the bar that has been dropped precariously low over the past say…ten years. (I could go back even farther, but alas, I’m no spring chicken and time’s a-wastin’…)
In the summer summer of ’76 I was a whopping NINE years old and one of my best buddies was my pal Nick who, if I recall correctly, was two or three years older than me–a whopping 11 or 12. Nick had this odd set up for a bedroom in his home as his parents, brother and sister all had their bedrooms upstairs while Nick had a precursor to Baby’s First Bachelor Pad with his bedroom on the ground level and the ability to come and go as he pleased. This totally blew my mind up – the FREEDOM, I’d think often. Nick was also in possession of more than a few cigarettes and Playboy magazines which solidified his rep, at least in my eyes, as one cool kid. My folks weren’t similarly convinced.
It was that summer when one late afternoon I found myself sitting in Nick’s disorderly downstairs and the kid put a copy of KISS “Destroyer” in my hands and dropped the needle onto Track One — “Detroit Rock City”. The sound effects, the radio in the diner with its subtle build up into the song knocked me the hell over. Like the jazz standard I recall thinking, “how long has this been going ON?” I was transfixed to say the very least. Grabbed around the neck and THROTTLED was more like it.
A tiny bit later it was like I was taken out to the playground and given a serious rock schooling as Sweet’s “Fox on the Run” drilled its candy confection into my cranium. Another good friend Carol had an older sister who introduced her, then us, to BOWIE. We’d sit in Carol’s room among her doll collection and listen to “Space Oddity” over and over with the drapes shut tight. Then Alice Cooper…imagine – Alice is a GUY. No waaaaay. And “Bohemian Rhapsody” …one of my very first 45’s b/w “I’m In Love With My Car,” a Roger Taylor composition that got as much play as the operatic A side which even my folks found oddly compelling for all of its classical music strains.
So, what’s the point you ask? You were NINE. Where’s the tie in with the Pitchgummers?
Well, inherently, THAT’s my first point. That ‘something’ is missing. That stomach-twisting, chill inducing ‘otherness’ is all but nonexistent this morning and most mornings on the Pitch/Gum frontpages. Ask yourself – is anything reaching through the monitor and sending your life into an upswirl? You needn’t be nine to be simply excited and enraptured, and a whole generation is knobbing at the teet which isn’t even delivering this one, BASIC nutrient. The ONE ingredient careers are built and sustained upon. (U2, anyone?) Really, if I’m thinking through mathematical progressions to get to the center of your Protools lollypop, you’re doing it all wrong.
I received an email to TVD HQ a little while back which read something to the effect of “we hear you’ve blogged about Minnie Ripperton’s “Loving You” and that you’re a fan. Please check out our artist’s rendition, etc., etc…”
