You may have noticed that this blog hasn’t been updated in almost a week. Lots of things are pulling me in other directions these days, but last week we had to take a trip to Akron for family business. We had one day up there where we decided that we needed a day off from our duties, and I took the effort to try to link up with our friend Dean from the comments. I like to have lunch and chat with him and since he is of a music loving disposition [what a shock]. I also like to search for the round spinning things with him since shopping with friends is its own reward.

Normally, we like to visit Time Traveler, but Dean had already told me the last time we were here in August, that the proprietor of Time Traveler has been laid up with serious health issues and that the store has been closed in the interim. In August I had another visit to The Bomb Shelter, which had blown my mind with $1.00 record gems in March but had not seen any further churn by August. So I was not going there. The last visit I had not been able to get to Square Records, which had been a new discovery for me in 2019. I made a plan to pick up Dean, have a nice lunch at an outdoor cafe on a Beautiful Akron Day [rare as hen’s teeth], and walk to the nearby Square Records afterward for a perusal of the silver and licorice platters.

The shop was doors open on a lovely September afternoon and we went in and looked first at the CD stock, which was modest. I had gotten some great finds here the last time but no silver discs had my name on them this day. So I joined Dean in the 12 inch used wax and immediately noted that most of the stock was still priced to move, in spite of the horrifying Vinyl Bubble we live in. In A$heville, it’s difficult finding any used records for under $10. Here, the bins were filled with used records at the price points that I can recall spending 40 years earlier for used wax! Almost everything was under $8.00 and most were less than that. I started in the “F” section and immediately found a gem that I had owned before the Great Vinyl Purge of 1985 and held it up to show Dean.

I hand always loved Ellen Foley’s first album made with Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson producing. The song selection was peerlessly great with tunes by Ian Hunter, Phillip Rambow [Doll By Doll], Jagger/Richards, and Graham Parker. Ms. Foley’s voice belied her petite frame and Dean asked me if I had ever heard her “Spirit Of St. Louis” album that then-boyfriend Mick Jones of The Clash had produced. Sadly not, but it has been on my want list for ages. Along with the scarce CD of this title. But I’m not getting any younger, so for just a $2.00 investment, I was definitely buying this record to make my own CD of it. I had missed it for decades.

I kept looking afterward and was not seeing much that I didn’t already have. But the records that I already had were the kind that compel me to keep looking! The one “collector’s priced” record on wall display I saw that warmed my heart was Magazine’s second album at $18.00; what is actually a great price in the current market. And tucked in here and there were 7” single bins. A glance through them showed that they were salted with some real gems, also at great prices as we can see below.

As much as I was browsing to some fine sights, I wasn’t finding much that merited purchase in my time of downsizing. I checked the “S” selection; usually a hotbed of desired vinyl and came up empty handed. I ended up going back and forth in the alphabet before striking paydirt in the “N” section, of all places.

Back in 1983, I had bought the first copy of New Order’s “Confusion” I had seen. Which was the common US edition on the hip, but generic Streetwise label. The song’s co-writer Arthur Baker ran that label as an impeccable NYC dance boutique imprint. The wax on that pressing was virgin vinyl and I can vouch for its fantastic dynamic range, but the UK Factory Records edition was thin on the ground in Orlando at the time. It wasn’t until months later that the UK edition manifested in the Record City import cutout bins. With possibly my favorite Peter Saville cover of all time on its embossed sleeve. Since I already had the tunes, back then I didn’t buy one of the plentiful copies at $2.50 or whatever the going rate was at the time. I was not yet “collecting” records and I thought that buying records just for their sleeves was…crazy!

<FLASH FORWARD 40 YEARS>

It’s gnawed at me for ages now that I’ve never had the stunning UK sleeve for what is my second favorite New Order single, but for the last 15 years prices on Factory New Order twelve inchers have skyrocketed. But not here on this day when I was able to take this Netherlands pressing of it home for just $6.00.

A cursory glance at the T-V section for Ultravox and Visage records yielded nothing I was searching for from those core collection bands, but the big surprise of the Thinkman album of “The Formula” album – still sealed – for only $4.00 I then ended up looking briefly at the large selection of new wax and noting the good prices though I can never remember what things, if any, that I would actually buy from the contemporary stocks. I keep on looking though, because I thought that there might be restrictions on debit card purchases under a certain amount. A few more bins of 7” singles tucked away here and there gave me just what I needed when I finally found a Eurythmics want list item that will possibly allow me to make that long mooted Boxed Set Of God for them.

“You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart” was not only one of the best late period Eurythmics singles, but also one of the most difficult to collect. I had the US 12″ but the UK 12″ was something that I had to aggressively hunt down in the “Discogs Era” of my collecting. The US had the remix, but not the B-side extended mix of “Do You Want To Break Up.” I finally got one about 15 years ago thanks to Discogs. Then, also thanks to Discogs, I found out that there was a North American [US and Canada only] 7″ remix or “Chill Mix” of the track on 7″ only. Many was the time I would see the distinct PS in the bins only to find a double A sided promo of the LP version on the disc inside. Not this time!

Now, there are only a pair of Post-Modern remix singles from the 1991 “Greatest Hits” campaign and a few of the “I’ve Got A Life” remixes and I think we can finally get going on the loooooooong percolating [for at least a quarter century…really] Eurythmics BSOG of their non-LP tracks. I’d better get to this next year after our vacation!

So with $10.00 worth of records, I was finally ready to check out. Dean no longer had a turntable, so he mainly peerused the CDs; leaving the vinyl inspection as a reflexive act. I was surprised to get charged exactly $10.00 [i.e. no tax!] for the merchandise, so does anyone know if this is an Ohio tax law thing, or was the shop just going to take the hit out of their net? It felt nice to buy some low cost music for a change. Anything I’ve gotten in recent months had been online orders for costly core collection releases that I should not have been buying. This was more relaxed. It’s greatly appreciated to walk into a record store and not become angry at the:

1. Modern stock I have no interest in buying and…
2. Exorbitantly high prices in The Vinyl Bubble!

Square Records was the sort of place where [as indeed happened this day] a father was taking his teenage daughters out for a little record shopping for less than the price of a week’s food! Such sights warm the cockles of This Monk’s heart. And the young ladies were really engaged with the used records they were seeing in the bins. As the hobby is headed for an iceberg currently, it’s nice to see a place where the horrors of modern record collecting aren’t riding roughshod over the audience. Buying used records should be fun and affordable. It certainly is at Square Records in Akron.

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