So...

 

After a lifetime of opting for the COMPLETE FUCKING CHAOS!!! school of record organisation, I've decided it's time to move towards a more ordered 'ROUGH GENRE AND ARTIST LENGTH!!!' kind of system of vinyl filing...

Yes boss, when I had acres of days in which to arrange and shuffle and meander, I didn't feel the need to be organising things all that well. I felt I could start by looking for a Diana Ross record and quite happily not find it for weeks months and even years. Instead I'd go on one long floopsy ride via Male Voice Choirs, Dub Syndicates and Tijuana Brass...

However now is such a time that I have roughly -4 seconds too doooo everything TWICE...

And so I need a little more organisation in my life, and therefore in my records if I'm to prevent my head popping off...

ORDER-ish MUST PREVAIL!!!

 

So, the wierd thing about this - the rough and amateur filing of aroundabout 1300 LPs and 12"s - is that I'm enjoying doing it...!!

Yes boss, when you start to really engage with the piles of crap you share your life with, you often find a whole bunch of stuff you either didn't know you had or forgot you had...

The vagueness of knowledge in this case, was helped by my tactic of late with records, has been to buy and acquire for free, LARGE batches at random from ebay and freecycle and from bags next to bins...

I pick the fucking piles up, wedge them into whatever space I can find, and then gently work my way through them as and when...

I mix and match them and try and work out what might be keeping and what might not...

 

A result of this approach is that I never quite know what I've got or how I got it...

Another result, is that I've yet to fully listen to about 1/6th of what I've got...

Anyway...

Here we with a run down of some of the records, I found or re-found I had today...

 

Gregory Issacs - No Good Girl 12"

This is a 'I HAD NO FUCKING IDEA IT EXISTED IN THIS FISHY FLAT ON FISH ISLAND!?!?!' record..

Yes boss, criminal as this is - if there's one area of music I have little vinyl of it's reggae and dub - and so to find a mint condition 12" by Issacs today was something of a surprise...

Who knows where it came from or how it ranks amidst his canon - I like it, but would i sail a boat for it...???

 

The Icicle Works - Little Girl Lost 12"

Ditto this one..

You'd call it indie - but don't hold that against it.

The title track is pretty fucking good in that bold indie anthemic tradition and the others hang together OK 'n all...

 

Galliano - Twyford Down 12"

I know all about this one..

Yes boss, I mis-spent LARGE illegal portions of my life on Twyford Down - the place of which this song is written of - trying hopelessly to save it from the BIG BAD CHOP!!!

I remember the day we got a call from Galliano saying they had read about our campaign and had written a song about it. I know the images on the sleeve, the photographer, the people in the images, the day many of them were taken, I know who was sleeping with who - ALL the action and ALL the drama..

Shit, this record is so familiar that the girl who gave me my first blowjob can be heard shreiking away at the beginning of the record something to the effect of 'GET OFF THIS LAND!!! FUCK OFF!!! NOW GO AWAY!!!!'...

This so, I hadn't played it for a while, and when I did today, i rolled back into the warm comfort of my memory and felt good that I've lived...

 

Imagination - Bodytalk LP

I reckon this came to me via a bag of about 80 disco records I got from a bloke on Bethnal Green Road via freecycle...

At the time, I was having a great deal of fun whizzing Mrs Giovannis Scooter around London collecting bits and pieces for cheap and free.

I had no licence, no insurance and not too much idea what I was doing - but I didn't come a TOO BAD cropper and the bike was eventually nicked (before I was)..

 

Anyway..

This record is a slinky smooth disc smooooooove groove LP that's well worth the dry ice and white grand piano that adorns its cover...

 

Wah - The Story Of The Blues 12"

Here we go with some OK and worthy properly political record from Pete Wylie...

I can't remember who Pete Wylie is, but I've heard his name and in this he takes a rant about the lack of jobs and the price of bread..

I should imagine Wylie blamed Thatcher for most things, back when politicians were covered in dust and musicians genuinely thought they knew how to better run the country...

 

Philip Bailey - Triumph LP

This is a good poppy vaguely soul American Africa record - nothing to blow your tits off with, but a pleasant enough spin once every 4 years...

 

Oscar Grasso, Marie Goosens & The Serenade Orchestra - These You Have Loved LP

I had this one down as being yet another of the 200 hundred or so 'Easy Listening' records I have that follow the same basic warm and cosey ear hugging lush line

but it's not...

No boss, it's a bit wierd in the production - sounds rough and amateur. It has unusual instrumentation, a rather dark cover and some definite strange moodyness...

I'm looking forward to hearing this again and getting to grips with just WHAT IN THE FUCK IS GOING ON!!!

 

OVER & OUT!!