26th Year

A little over a year ago, I bought a record player and began collecting vinyl records. It’s not a great player, but it does its job, which is all that I ask of it. A real audiophile would probably laugh at me for having such a cheap setup.

Records were almost killed off by cassettes and CDs, but in the past decade, they have had a real reemergence. Most new albums are now released on vinyl as well, and many of the albums released in the last 15 years that were not available on vinyl are being re-released.

In my year-plus, I have picked up around 60 pieces (including a few I stole from my dad’s old collection that just sits in my parent’s basement). In Kansas City, it’s not easy to find good records. There are the resellers that have some small collections of differing quality, like Half Price Books and Vintage Stock, but they are either limited or way overpriced. I’ve stopped even looking at Vintage Stock since I’m not interested in Ted Nugent or torn-up, scratched to hell records. I’ve actually had pretty good luck at Half Price Books with some older records, so I stop by there every few weeks and just give it a look. I’ve managed to walk away with The Beatles’ “Let It Be”, John Lennon’s “Imagine” (while not in good shape, it was only $1 as was “Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits”), Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” and “Animals”.

When it comes to new vinyl, there are only really 3 places in the area worth visiting (while Best Buy does carry vinyl and was where I purchased The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” and The Police’s “Certifiable”, it only offers up the most popular bands).

If you’re willing to make the drive, Love Garden Sounds in Lawrence, KS has a pretty decent collection. If I’m in the city with some time to kill, I usually wander over there and just take a look around. I’ve only found a few things there I was interested in, but they seemed to have a pretty good collection.

Closer to home, there’s Vinyl Renaissance in Shawnee. This is the closest to me, so it’s also the one I visit the most (every 2-3 months). They have a large collection of used records (mostly from 60s, 70s and 80s), and a decent sized collection of new records. Except for a few bands (The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Queen, for the most part), I’m mostly interested in new records and usually find at least 3 records I’m interested in on each visit (though paying $40 for a copy of Beck’s “Sea Change” keeps me from buying them).

Today I visited a new one, Earwaxx Records in Gladstone, which is north of the river up near where I lived for the first year I was out here. It’s only a couple years old, but it already has a very impressive collection. I found out about Earwaxx when I went to the Hooligan Record Swap Meet at the Beaumont Club. I don’t recall if I bought anything from them that day, but the owner gave me his card. So I took some time to make the drive up today and check the place out. I ended up walking away with a copy of The Beatles’ “Revolver” (leaving me just “Rubber Soul” short of my collection of “must-have” Beatles’ records – also featuring “Abbey Road”, “Beatles (White Album” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”) and a new copy of The Black Keys’ “Thickfreakness”.

Speaking of The Black Keys, I think they were made for vinyl. They’re a real bluesy garage rock band. It’s just so rough that vinyl seems to capture it perfectly. You would probably recognize them from Hung or various commercials.

I meant to write this up yesterday night, but I got busy (ie left work late, got home, started playing video games and never stopped) so it had to wait until tonight.

Thursday night I saw one of my all-time favorite bands, Something Corporate, for the first and likely last time. I started listening to Something Corporate around 2002 or so. They were one of the first bands that I actually downloaded a CD from (though I did later purchase it), Leaving Through The Window. And over the next 2 or 3 years, I managed to never see them.

Then the band went on hiatus while their lead singer, Andrew McMahon, worked on his side project, Jack’s Mannequin, which has gone on to have far more success than Something Corporate. Their guitarist, Josh Partington, also formed another band, Firescape, who I did manage to see once in Atlanta and then again in a tiny dive bar (at the time called The Hurricane, now known as Riot Room) out here in Kansas City. Just as recording of the Jack’s Mannequin debut was completed, McMahon was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He recovered and has released another album with Jack’s Mannequin as well as lots of touring.

Last year they announced that Something Corporate would be reuniting for a tour and working on new material. However, they did send out an email last week claiming it was their final tour together, though a recent interview with Alternative Press suggests they may be working on an album and further tours, so we’ll see.

But anyways, I saw them at Uptown Theater here in Kansas City. Doors were set for 7, and I arrived around 5:45 behind at least a hundred other people. I figured I would surely be stuck in the middle of the floor and have a difficult time seeing the stage. When I finally got in, I was in the 3rd row on the left side of the stage. After some adjustments by people, I managed to make it to the second row. Around 8 the band came on (they had no openers, which was somewhat nice), and they played for the next hour and a half or so (with a slight break before returning for an encore). I didn’t really track the time, so it could have been later. They played the only 2 songs that I was really hoping they would, “Globes And Maps” and “Konstantine”, and I recorded them both on my phone. Sound is a bit difficult at times due to the crowd, but they are still fun to look at and a semi-permanent remembrance of the show.

I hope it’s not the last time I get to see them, but if it is, it was an absolute blast to finally see them after all these years. It’s one less band on my “I wish I could have seen them live” list.

Ever since I first saw the trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs The World, I have wanted to see the movie. Last Monday, I was invited by a friend to attend a screening of the movie that Thursday at one of the local theaters. I jumped at the opportunity to see the movie eight days before it officially came out. And I went in with huge expectations. I am a big fan of Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Juno, Superbad), Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore, Bored To Death on HBO, the band Phantom Planet) and Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), and when I saw that they were all involved in the same movie, I expected nothing less than awesome.

I was surprised when I arrived about an hour and a half early that the line was unusually short. After attending many of these screenings over the past year and a half or so, I was used to longer lines. And who wouldn’t want to see Scott Pilgrim? As we finally got into the theater about 30 minutes before the movie, I was even more shocked to see how empty the theater was and how the pace of attendees entering slowly dwindled, ultimately ending with a half-empty theater.

Now, remember those expectations? The huge ones? Totally exceeded. Blown away even. I loved every moment of the viewing experience. I have certainly laughed harder and louder at other movies, but none of those provided the full experience like Scott Pilgrim did.

So what was the first thing I did when I got off of work on Friday? I drove to comic book store down the road and grabbed a copy of Bryan Lee O’Malley‘s first two volumes of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series, Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life and Scott Pilgrim vs The World. By the end of the night, I had read the first and was halfway through the second. So while I was out, I stopped by Borders and saw that they had the other 4 in the series (Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe, and Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour). Yesterday, I finished the series, and I probably enjoyed it even more than the movie, which is saying a lot. It was interesting to see where the movie kept with the story (which had to be difficult considering the final book was not released until 3 weeks ago) and where it took some creative liberties to fight the story into 2 hours or so. Where the books take place over a year or so of time, the movie is a few weeks. I plan to see the movie again this weekend to get a new view on it having now read the source material. (As a brief aside, Edgar Wright just posted this really awesome adaptation of the trailer using the graphic novel.)

With the movie and the books done, where else to take a story so musically driven than to the soundtrack? Which is exactly what I am listening to now. It has songs performed by 2 of the bands in the movie: Sex Bob-omb (with the actual actors plus Beck) and Crash and the Boys (basically Broken Social Scene). Bryan has a good story (that Edgar Wright briefly mentions in the liner notes) about how many of these songs came to be on the CD. And from Bryan’s site, I just found out about the digital release of the score, which includes some work with Dan The Automator; I’ll need to pick that up.

There’s also a funny story from earlier as I left work to head out to grab the CD. I had a voicemail from my dad saying to call home. So I called home and my dad told me that my parents had gotten me the soundtrack on vinyl for my birthday. He also said that he tried to get it signed by Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman at Criminal Records, but he got there late and they apparently took off early, so no signed copy, but it was nice of him to try. So I now have an overload of Scott Pilgrim memorabilia, all in the matter of a week. But go see the movie!