Another trip to Repo Records… this time with some cash!

Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed a re-run last Thursday and nothing posted on Friday. Well, Thursday was slammed [no lunch break], trying to get all of my work handed off before Friday, since I was taking Friday off and attending a workshop in Charlotte with my wife. I always enjoy a trip to Charlotte. It’s a short enough drive. There is always dining at Luna’s Living Kitchen. And of course, there is some good record shopping in the City.

REPO RECORD

My esteem for Repo Record knows no bounds. Having discovered the store in the summer of ’15, I’ve been there twice before, but both trips were hastily arranged and cash was not plentiful. I think both times I’d been there, I had about $20 in my pocket to spend. I resolved the next time to prevent this from happening again. That was not a problem on Friday.With our seminar over by lunch, we had the rest of the day to do anything we wanted to in Charlotte. After dining at Luna’s, it was off to Repo, for some quality crate digging.

Here’s a variation you don’t see every day

There were boxes of fresh 7″ singles, and when browsing through them, I saw and noted things like the Dutch “Towers Of London” 7″ by XTC. I can’t say I’ve ever seen that out in the wilds before! I have a fair, but inconclusive XTC collection, and the days of buying this sort of the thing for the different PS is long behind me… unless the artist is a lot higher up on the Monk’s totem pole of New Wave. XTC are high up… but not that high.

The 1878 re-issue is still nothing to sneeze at…

Then I chanced upon a record that I have never seen before in a store. The 1978 reissue of “Satisfaction,” by The Residents. The release on yellow vinyl is usually priced anywhere from $7-150 out in the wild, making this copy desirable for the Residents collector, but I’m not getting on that train. Every home should have at least a few Residents releases, but I can’t obsess over them even as I admire them and their achievements. I leave that to others. Meanwhile, my wife was

My wife was perusing the CDs and I had good luck here before, so I joined her. I had been on a Prince jag at the time of my last visit, and Repo had sold me a new CD of “1999” for the dirt cheap price of $6.00 at just the point where I had gotten my first Prince on CD ever [the awesome “Ultimate Prince” 2xCD] and was hungry for more. I looked again and saw CDs of album titles that were now scarce in the bins: “Around The World In A Day” and “Batman.” New for $8.00. I was going to buy them, since I never see too many Prince CDs any more, but the news of the SDLX RM of “Purple Rain” coming out next month, stuffed with everything I’d want on CD and more stayed my hand. There was all the possibility that after “Purple Rain” got the nod that these titles would also get the DLX treatment. Instead, I did the next best thing: bought all of the Prince CD singles that were there, used!

A pittance for these, and they had a bevy of remixes and the all-important Prince B-sides. I have not seen Prince CD singles in many years. Meanwhile, my wife was having success sating a thirst of her own. Lately, she’s been in a Dire Straits phase and she found the all-important “Communique” as well as the ubiquitous “Brothers In Arms.”

I never even knew about this puppy!

After that, my wife wanted to shop elsewhere so she took off for a while, leaving me stranded in the store… drat! With at least an hour ahead of me, I turned my attention to the Wall of Rock® and tried to scan it as quickly as possible. The careful and exceedingly granular alphabetizing here makes this entirely possible. Popular bands I don’t like have their own sections, mercifully skipped. I was not seeing anything that I was looking for but I did run into things like this record [left] that I had no clues about previously! Have you ever seen a copy of “Wireless Wonders,” a 6-track POPS EP with most, but not all of “The Golden Age Of Wireless” served up on it? The cover art has a small sticker with the actual album art and Thomas Dolby’s name on it affixed to the front. This was a highly graded copy for your $25, so I could admire from afar only. This was one of their online sales as well, so if you want to take the plunge, then have at it.

Hallelujah! The most wanted Rezormaid EP for me!

I next perused the 7″ singles but was not getting anything back from my probings, so I moved to the DJ vinyl section. I had gotten some nice things here before and this time was different only in that I immediately found the #1 most wanted Razormaid title only recently added to my want list a week or three ago! The almighty “Edit Dump” EP that was thick with core collection bands I buy everything from! What was on it?

• Vicious Pink: Ccccan’t You See?
• Heaven 17: Sunset Now
• Visage: Love Glove
• Figures On A Beach: Breathless

And then I found one disc of Razormaid A-2, the one with Anne Clarke on it. The poly sleeve said “Heaven,” the awesome John Foxx-produced track was on it so I bit. I just now thought that “wait… don’t I have the UK 12” of that single… complete with Joseph Watt [Razormaid] remix?” Well, it’s true. Luck for me that the Anne Clarke song on the Razormaid A-2 was actually “Red Sands,” another Foxx-produced track that I did not have elsewhere! Wait, it gets better. On the other side of the clear vinyl EP were two tracks by Data, whom I am now collecting for remastering! The EP featured Razormaid mixes of “Over 21” and “Living Inside Me!” I can only imagine what a 12:29 version [it’s 2:55 on the LP] of the sumptuous “Over 21” will be like! The latter track was from the second Data album, which I still need. Here’s what I ended up getting here.

REPO LIST

1. Dire Straits: Communique – Warner Bros. Records ‎– W2 3330 – US – CD – Repo Record/$5.00
2. Dire Straits: Brothers In Arms – Warner Bros. Records ‎– 9 25264-2  – US – CD – Repo Record/$5.00
3. Southern Culture On The Skids: Countrypolitan Favorites – Yep Roc Records ‎– YEP 2124 – US – CD – Repo Record/$5.00
4. Prince: New Power Generation – Paisley Park ‎– 9 21783-2 – US – CD5 – Repo Record/$6.00
5. Prince + The New Power Generation: 7 – Paisley Park ‎– 9 40574-2 – US – CD5 – Repo Record/$4.00
6. Prince + The New Power Generation: My Name Is Prince – US CD5 – Repo Record/$4.00
7. Razormaid: Chapter A-2 [disc 1 only] – Razormaid Records ‎– RM-A2 – US – LP [yellow] – Repo Record/$6.00
8. Razormaid: Edit Dump – Razormaid Records ‎– RM-002 – USP – EP – Repo Record/$6.00

After checking out and turning back to the 7″ material for another round, my wife arrived and we were going to return home, or so I thought. Instead, she had been scouting around and asked me if I wanted to go to Lunchbox Records next. I replied that I was not too concerned with shopping at Lunchbox, since the last time I was there I could hardly wait to leave the dark, hot, grimy pit. She said that she had been there while looking at consignment shops and had seen a Franz Ferdinand CD that I did not have, so I figured, well, why not? After all, she had already found something I’d want. It would be a shame to ignore her good research.

Next: …Big Changes Afoot