Tuesday, July 07, 2009

The fields of England – harvest notes


I have been, variously, too hot, too lazy, and too busy to blog in recent days.

Things have cooled off a little now, enough for me to bring you news of my latest car boot sale haul (the suspense has been killing you I know :). After an initial success a few weeks ago I had decided my mission this year would be to visit as many boot sales as possible in pursuit of the holy vinyl. But recent weekends had been full of other pleasures so it wasn’t until this last weekend that I actually got a chance to get to some more.

No prize marrows, nevertheless my basket runneth over! My latest harvest has a distinctly poptastic, “Radio 1 is wonderful” vibe going on for the most part. Getting these home and playing them transported me back to my early teens when it was all about the Top 30 show and the simultaneous depress of the play and record keys on the cassette deck. For every single or album I bought back then, there were 10 other tracks I had to make do with on a BASF C60 (together with the occasional Fluff Freeman interjection). Now, it seems, I can buy them all in their original (and best) vinyl form for 20 odd p a pop in a field somewhere (once I’ve located them under a mountain of unwanted videos that is).

The latest harvest:

Procol Harum – A Whiter Shade Of Pale
Alice Cooper – School’s Out
Slade – Cuz I Love You
Susan Maughan – Bobby’s Girl
The Supremes – Stoned Love
Stevie Wonder – Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday
Chairmen Of The Board – Give Me Just A Little More Time
Syreeta – Spinnin’ And Spinnin’
McGuiness Flint – When I’m Dead And Gone
Love Unlimited - Walkin’ In The Rain With The One I Love
Stevie Wonder – Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours
Nils Lofgren – Shine Silently / Keith Don’t Go
Peter Sellers – A Hard Day’s Night / Help
The Jam – Setting Sons (LP) - looks and sounds unplayed!
(total outlay £4)

Here’s a succulent selection of these sounds for you to keep you going for a bit. My next two weekends are again of the long and leisure filled variety, so postings will be scarce.

Love Unlimited - Walkin’ In The Rain With The One I Love 1972
(How good does this sound all these years later?!)

Chairmen Of The Board – Since The Days Of Pigtails (and Fairytales) 1970
(Every bit as good as the A side.)

McGuiness Flint – When I’m Dead And Gone 1970
(Oh how I loved this- and still do.)

Nils Lofgren – Keith Don’t Go 1976
(A backstory here – last Friday I caught the end of Guitar Heroes on BBC4. In the past I have vaguely thought I should listen to some Nils Lofgren but never really got around to it. The program included this track. I had never heard it, or even been aware of it, before but it blew me away. In all my digging I don’t remember ever coming across a Nils Lofgren single before but less than 24 hours after the BBC4 program I found this single at a car boot sale! BTW Keith is, of course, Keith Richards.)

Peter Sellers – A Hard Day’s Night 1965
(Genius – even through the crackles.)

4 comments:

davyh said...

Wot a crop! Hope this rain holds off for the next few. Mrs H was a teenage Nils fan and has loads of his stuff; she and her best friend are hardcore, undaunted by the fact that the rest of the world seems to know him only as the guitarist in the E Street Band...

Anonymous said...

Heartily agree on the Love Unlimited tune. I bought my original copy in our village record shop... yes, there was a time when even a small village just outside Derby would have a record shop! I think it was a closing down sale though, so this might have been an early piece of crate digging!

What about that fading bass line at the end, you just want more of it!

Phil

Darcy said...

DavyH: Why is it that the whole world (or at least the music press) seem to hold Bruce Springsteen in such high regard? I'm sorry, I don't get it. Nils on the other hand definitely warrants more investigation.

Phil: "village record shop" - aah, those were the days! And I agree with you on the fading bass line. It hit me right between the ears when I played my newly acquired single and I thought of mentioning the fact in my post. I guess I had only ever heard this record on the radio before and it would always have been talked over. It's a killer isn't it? And now you mentioning it has made my day.

Anonymous said...

Love that "Chairmen of the Board" B side. Never thought I'd hear it again. I bought the 45 for "Give me just a little more time," back in the day. But when I played the B side, I don't think I ever played the A side again.

Thanks for the post,

Keep on keeping on!

Ben