SS Stargard - Warp Factor 78*

After a good start to the car boot season the last couple of weeks trawls have been completely fruitless on the vinyl front. The trouble is I find it impossible to leave these sales empty handed and so it was, a couple of weeks ago, I returned home the proud owner of a Monkees annual, a book on Kentucky including some beautiful photographs, and a pair of miniature brass deer! And last Sunday, despite the CD being my least favourite music format, I picked up 19 of them for a total of £7 and I have to say I am very pleased with my haul (Fleet Foxes, Procol Harum, The Bees, Lambchop, Ben Harper, Emiliana Torrini, Arctic Monkeys to name just a few).

Anyway, on the vinyl front I am returning once more to the batch of soul albums I picked up at the beginning of the month. Amongst them was an original copy of Stargard’s album What You Waitin’ For. In all honesty there was only one reason I bought this album - it was still sealed! I don’t think I could not buy a vintage still sealed album no matter what it was, and it was only 50p to boot.

When I got it home I noticed that what I thought was just a storage bend on the sleeve looked a bit more serious and I guessed the record was warped. (I have read that records if sealed tightly for a long time can warp). It was just a guess that it was warped at this stage because I like to live with a long sealed record for a week or so, marvelling that it has stayed in that condition for so long, and working myself up to the actual act of slitting it open - a moment that has to be savoured.

So, a week or so ago, I finally opened this record, about 36 years after it had been shipped out of the packing plant. Just for an instant I was instantly transported back to 1978 and I like to think I was breathing in a tiny amount of 70s air that would have been trapped within during the sealing process.

Sure enough the record was warped, quite noticeably. But, miraculously, it plays fine, and I am sure that in the week or so it has been freed from the confines of its shrink the warp has already reduced.   

I wasn’t expecting much from this album – my hunch was it would be full of disco orientated filler. But I have been pleasantly surprised, and corrected. Stargard were more a funk act than a disco act – like the Brides Of Funkenstein with some sweetening -  my memory had just managed to file them in wrong compartment. This album offers up some enjoyable funk jams, and some more soulful numbers too, and I am now very pleased the warp didn’t render this album unplayable.

Stargard – Sensuous Woman 1978

This one is insanely catchy to my ears…..

Stargard – Love Me Back  1978

*Ha! Asterisks again! In your average spaceship once you reach a warp speed in double figures you start to go back in time (I just made that up  J ).