Tag: Crate Diggers

WXNA Crate Digger’s Week – March 23, 2025

WXNA FM

In honor of the first WXNA Record Fair today, Sunday, March 23, noon to 6 p.m. at Eastside Bowl, March 17-23, 2025 has been Crate Digger’s Week on WXNA! Today we close out the week with a story about discovering music from just slightly before your time, discovering music from a distant lands,  and a tale of an epic quest from WXNA’s Unofficial Crate Digger King!

 

The Velvet Underground – The Quine Tapes V.1-3
Drew Wilson (& DJ Duck)

 

Growing up in the sweaty mosh pits and tiny back bar shows of New York in the last days of CBGBs, legends of the early days of punk were always around but so far away.

It was one thing knowing of the Velvet Underground, but another thing completely hearing an actual high quality recording of the Velvets live in their prime! And that was The Quine Tapes. Finding Vol.2 in a record bin and hearing what we will swear is the greatest version of Heroin anywhere (so far?) was an earth shaking experience. And sent us on a years long hunt through the crates to add Vol.1 & 3. Those records (and the also fantastic Matrix Tapes) felt like a connection to a music scene that will always be talked about, but we didn’t get to experience.

When we moved to Nashville and wanted to share the love of punk rock over the airwaves, we immediately fell into a music scene here that was so good and had that feeling of something special. Immortalized by so many great records, especially the Live at Glenn Danzig’s House 7”, the most meaningful record we have in a massive collection of punk and garage that we are thrilled to spin weekly on WXNA, on the show @LoudLoveShow.

The popular quote is that The Velvet Underground didn’t sell that many records, but everyone that bought one started a band.

Well, this one started a radio show.

 

Various Artists – Love, Peace & Poetry – Asian Psychedelic Music
Michael Buhl – The Scatter Shot & The Squirrelly Compass

Around 25 years ago I bought this collection of Asian psychedelic rock music at Matt McKeever’s record store, which was called Off 12th Records. I bought it because of my interest in ’60s garage and psychedelic rock, and most of the music on this record was in that vein. However, the Turkish music was different. It was a fascinating blend of Eastern and Western music. It started an obsession with Turkish psychedelic music that’s lasted over two decades. In fact, one of the things that led me to visit Istanbul in 2002 was a desire to look for more of this kind of music. All of that was inspired by an impulse record purchase driven mostly by whimsy.

 

The Stooges – The Stooges (and more!)
Paul Glavin – Eargasm

There was time when once a record was out of print, it disappeared and was gone. Unlike the age of the Internet where even the most obscure records can be seen and heard at the press of a finger. These items ceased to exist in retail stores which meant you had to know someone who owned it or go out and find a physical copy if you wanted to hear it.

I was 14 in 1974 when Creem magazine published an article covering The Stooges and referencing another band I’d never heard of called the MC5. The photo of the first Stooges album released in 1969 showed four faces looking completely detached from the 1960’s Love Generation with glaring stares leaving no doubt this record was for real. Finally, a record with no trace of the suburbs or coffeehouse and a band looking like me and my friends, seething with the aggression and hostility of my neighborhood.

Youth gone wrong — Paul’s junior high notebook

I special ordered Raw Power because the local record store didn’t carry it and their first two albums (The Stooges and Funhouse) were unavailable because they were ‘out of print’ as were all three MC5 albums. I was told to look for them in a used record store but what the hell was a ‘used’ records store? It never occurred to me people wouldn’t want their records anymore and could be resold. The concept was new to me, but I followed their advice and upon further investigation located a local head shop with a used record section and prices less than half that of new records which fit my teen budget just fine. I discovered Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, Love, Blue Cheer, Ultimate Spinach and many others here, but no Stooges or MC5 albums!

I realized I had to take my digging on the road, so in the winter or spring of 1975 off to Boston and Cambridge I headed. This involved considerable amounts of time because I wasn’t old enough to drive yet. I relied upon buses, subway trains and lots of walking to get me there from my hometown of Lynn. Harvard Square was a record diggers paradise with used record stores galore. I quickly found the first Stooges album, The Velvet Underground and Nico, and VU’s White Light/White Heat but Funhouse remained elusive until a couple years later when a copy turned up in my all-time favorite used record shop, Déjà Vu Records. I still own it to this day with the big store sticker deeming it ‘out of print’ plastered on it to remind me of the hunt for it!

Although I was now clued into used record shops, a happenchance occurrence made true crate digging the obsession I feed to this day. I happened to be in town when a musical instrument business was dissolving their unsold record stock at a sidewalk sale. They once were a retail store but kept these records well-hidden and out of sight until this day. I found sealed copies of MC5’s Kick Out The Jams (unedited) and Back in The USA, among other gems and one album I’d never seen called Nuggets. I recognized a few songs on the album and it was on Elektra, so why not? That’s when things got real.

The Chocolate Watch Band and Thirteenth Floor Elevators completely blew me away with Lenny Kaye’s liner notes basically challenging me to find a copy of the Elevators first album. What about this Boston band I never heard of called The Remains? I needed these records and realized I was searching for singles more than I was for albums! It didn’t take long to own every record listed on Nuggets and in the process find many similar sounding ones not included on it.

By 1979 the term garage rock was being used and compilations such as Pebbles were exposing the true depth of these unknown bands and singles. When the first of three New England Teen Scene comps was released in 1980, I realized for the first time how vital and active my own backyard was with these teen sounds and vowed to own every original record released from my area.

Flea markets, antique shops, barns, and even the local phenomenon of barber shops selling records were on my travel itinerary for digging up records released locally in small quantities. The migration of records found geographically hundreds or thousands of miles from where they were pressed still fascinates me to this day when I dig them out. Tracking down band members with information found on the label and the phone book was time consuming but sometimes yielded results of records and information that could be used for further digging!

I began this journey of hunting and gathering over 50 years ago but there are still gems left to mine, so get out there, hit those crates, and dig!

See you at the WXNA Record Fair, today, noon to 6 p.m. at Eastside Bowl!

 

WXNA Crate Digger’s Week – March 19, 2025

WXNA FM

In honor of the first WXNA Record Fair on Sunday, March 23 at Eastside Bowl, March 17-23, 2025 is Crate Digger’s Week on WXNA! Watch this space for stories from our DJs about some of their favorite record finds!

 

The Great Society With Grace Slick – Conspicuous Only In Its Absence
Michael Roark – Hazy Ways & The Friday Afternoon Club

I can endlessly tell stories (as I’m sure everyone can) about how this song or that album or which artist hit me, hurt me, or healed me. I do it every week in some capacity on both of my shows (Hazy Ways and The Friday Afternoon Club) whether consciously or not.

I was the youngest of five, living in a small town in Southern Colorado that housed the state penitentiary. We were Irish quintuplets. You do the math. I was introduced to music, as most people are who have both parents and older siblings in their life,  and to an array of artists and albums.

It was a classic early-70s split level home. I shared one room with my brother closest in age, one year my senior. The two eldest boys (also a year a part) shared a room next door. My sister — in the middle, age-wise — had her own room squeezed in nearby. My parents were downstairs and from their turntable in the family room I was turned on to Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, Carole King’s Tapestry, and The Beatles’ Abbey Road, among others. I recall my sister playing The Best of Bread and the soundtrack to Grease on her stereo. It seems my brother and I were always listening to ABBA in our room, the closest I ever came to musical theater. But the music from my older brothers’ bedroom had a different patina, which eventually led me down roads I will forever travel. Not to say the music from my parents stereo or Bread or ABBA or the soundtrack to Grease won’t always color the edges of my musical journey.

Two albums stand out from my elder brothers’ room. First, was Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s You’re Gonna Get It. My brother played it one day, and when he left, I snuck into his room, took it, and listened to it in mine for the rest of the afternoon, flipping each side over several times. When he came home and heard me playing it, he immediately took it back with a light scold, as he was probably secretly pleased I glommed on to his new favorite band. A year or so later my other brother put on a record and I recall the first song rattled my little mind. I never imagined it possible that I would hear my mother’s favorite expletive sung out loud in a song. “Precious” was the song from The Pretenders debut album.

As I got older, years passed and music filtered in, as music always does. At some point, I became smitten with Jefferson Starship, which led to Jefferson Airplane. I loved Grace Slick. Her album Software was a favorite of mine my senior year in high school. One day in spring of 1985, coming back from a Speech and Debate meet in Denver, our school bus stopped in Colorado Springs for lunch. It so happened that one of southern Colorado’s best record stores, Independent Records (which is still there today 40 years later), was across the street. I hit the bins and looked through the stacks. In the Jefferson Airplane section I found a curiosity, The Great Society with Grace Slick – Conspicuous Only In Its Absence. I wondered what this was. Curiously, “White Rabbit” was on it. “Somebody To Love,” too. I was unsure if it was real. The cover had this nearly absent, faded overlay of Grace Slick, while prominently displaying four young men with shaggy hair. Was this some kind of ruse? I presented it to my favorite friend, one who turned me on to Talking Heads, and asked if I should get it. He said that I definitely should get it, probably knowing that this gem, which was said to be pre-Jefferson Airplane, might knock me out of my flighty gravitational pull towards mid-‘80s synthesized Grace Slick. (For the record, the cheese of Software still holds a kind of sticky-fondue love in my heart.)

So, digging through crates, bins, or stacks can lead to life-changing roads to travel down. Conspicuous Only In Its Absence opened up my imagination to a time and place gone by. Suddenly I was hanging out at The Matrix in San Francisco circa 1965. Its raw sound was startling to me on first listen. Was it good? I wasn’t sure. But I knew after subsequent turns it was realigning synapses in my brain. Not unlike digging through these memories has reminded me of the inroads of my mind at a time when everything was new. But music is never old. It is always new, forever reverberating, always and anon, like a tsunami in the atavistic ocean of being. Oh, boy. I think it’s time to end there. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!

Watch this space for more Crate Digger’s stories all week long!

WXNA Crate Digger’s Week – March 18, 2025

WXNA FM

In honor of the first WXNA Record Fair on Sunday, March 23 at Eastside Bowl, March 17-23, 2025 is Crate Digger’s Week on WXNA! Today we have a double-sided serving of Crate Digger’s stories, and you don’t even have to get up to turn the record over!

 

Fleetwood Mac – Live at the Boston Tea Party
Jaimie Hart – Web of Sound

My dad, the infamous Rick Hart, was in the audience for these legendary shows during the weekend of his 22nd birthday — February 5-7, 1970. I love listening to these records, not just for the music but because I can imagine him having the time of his life. I like to think that some of the applause captured in the recordings includes his own cheers and claps.

I’m also a big Peter Green fan, thanks in part to my dad’s impeccable taste in music, which he passed down to me. It’s wild to hear live versions of some favorite songs bursting with even more energy than their studio counterparts. The band sounds completely unhinged at times — especially during a 24-minute version of “Rattlesnake Shake.” Other highlights include the punch of “Oh Well,” a ridiculously punk take on “Tutti Frutti,” and the mesmerizing call-and-response between Peter Green and Danny Kirwan on “Like It This Way.” No one held back that weekend, and it’s easy to lose yourself in these recordings… almost as if you’re right there with Rick.

I also love how the three releases form a cohesive design. When they came out, I’d buy one, listen to it, and then get excited to pick up the next — stretching out the joy a little longer. If you want to feel like you’ve traveled back in time (or just need a good way to disassociate), I highly recommend giving these a listen. If you haven’t yet experienced the raw power of OG Fleetwood Mac, you’re welcome.

Happy listening—and don’t forget to wish Rick a happy birthday!

 

Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed
Gwil Owen – Salty Candy

When I was nine years old I was obsessed with the Rolling Stones. I had one album; the greatest hits record with the octagonal cover. I’d asked for it for my birthday and I played that thing over and over and over.

One day my dad offered me a penny for every dandelion I dug out of the yard. He went off to work and I worked all day too: I dug up 500 dandelions. That evening we sat in the grass and counted them, then he handed me a five-dollar bill.

So, next morning I walked downtown to a little store called Huzza Huzza. It was the local head shop. It was dark and mysterious in there, and the air was full of incense. They sold paraphernalia, blacklight posters… and records. The records were in the back room; I pushed through a bead curtain, found the Rolling Stones section and started flipping through the albums. But they all seemed very dated: the covers were black and white and the band had short-ish hair and some of the guys were even wearing suits.

The girl behind the counter said “Are you looking for the new Stones album?”

I didn’t even know they had a new album, but yeah, I guess that was what I was looking for. She pulled out a copy and handed it to me: Let it Bleed. It definitely did NOT look dated; the cover was just… weird, like nothing I had ever seen before. I forked over the five dollars and walked out of there with my new prize: the first album I had ever bought.

And it did not disappoint; I still have it, and it’s still one of the most mind-blowing things I’ve ever heard in my life.

Watch this space for more Crate Digger’s stories all week long!

WXNA Crate Digger’s Week – March 17, 2025

WXNA FM

In honor of the first WXNA Record Fair on Sunday, March 23 at Eastside Bowl, March 17-23, 2025 is Crate Digger’s Week on WXNA! Watch this space for stories from our DJs about some of their favorite record finds!

 

Ramones – It’s Alive
Randy Fox – Randy’s Record Shop

Some record collectors are born, others are made, and then there are those of us that get struck with divine revelation. Although I’ve always loved music, all through my childhood and teenage years I was never a fanatic about it. Sure, I would hear something I liked on the radio and buy the record occasionally, but for the first 18 years of my life my obsession-gene was satisfied with being a comic book collector, a science fiction and horror fan, comedy nut, and cinephile.

The music thing began to appeal to me more when I was 15 and bought my first Beatles record — The Beatles/1967-1970 aka “The Blue Album” — in 1978. I was soon on the hunt for every Beatles record, but my obsessiveness only applied to that one band. The rest of my record collection was movie soundtrack albums and comedy records. (I could recite, from memory, the entire contents of The Album Of The Soundtrack Of The Trailer Of The Film Of Monty Python And The Holy Grail (Executive Version) just to give you an idea of how big a nerd I was!)

I blame part of my lack of musical interest on the fact that I lived in the sticks. No, scratch that, Dunmor, Kentucky was on the other side of the sticks. I was at least 50 miles from any record store, even a crappy mall chain store. I also had no “music mentor”— an older sibling, cousin, friend, etc. — who could hip me to the good stuff. All I knew about music, other than John-Paul-George-Ringo, was what I heard on the couple of radio stations I listened to, most of which didn’t excite me much. Even when I heard something that I kinda liked, I was often disappointed by the vinyl follow-through. I remember hearing some song by Foreigner that seemed catchy, so I actually ponied up the cash for the LP, which I found to be pretty damn bland. It ended up behind my 45 of the Welcome Back, Kotter theme song in order of preference.

In October 1979, movie critics (and my biggest pop culture “rock stars” of the time) Siskel & Ebert aired a special “Midnight Movies” episode of their movie review show, Sneak Previews. They reviewed and discussed The Rocky Horror Picture Show (which I had the soundtrack album!), Pink Flamingos, Dawn of the Dead, and most significantly, a little film called Rock’n’Roll High School starring The Ramones.

Now here was a band that I could dig! From just a few film clips, I was hooked. I knew nothing about punk, new wave, or whatever ya call it music, but these Ramones guys looked awesome! However, finding a Ramones record in Muhlenberg County was pretty much impossible. Who knows why, but none ever turned up at Uncle Lee’s Discount Center in Powderly, Kentucky in between the ample supply of Skynyrd and 38 Special LPs.

Flash forward to late August 1981, and my first semester at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The second week of school, the campus bookstore announced a “RECORD SALE!” which turned out to be just a table full of cut-out LPs, budget line releases, and cheap imports. But that’s where I found a Portuguese import of The Ramones’ 2-LP live album, It’s Alive, for the cheap price of just $6.99. It was my first Ramones record, my first punk record, and it changed everything!

The “Brothers from Queens” not only proved to be a perfect embodiment for my late-teens frustrations and growing sense of weltschmerz, they were also simpatico with my MAD magazine-nurtured love of snot-nosed absurdity and general disdain for so-called normal society. Plus, it was all wrapped up in three-chord bubblegum pop hooks that I’d loved since I was a card-carrying member of the Banana Splits Fan Club.

Beyond the Ramones however, the record hipped me to the fact that there was an ENTIRE WORLD of exciting music out there that I knew nothing about. Not only punk rock, but even older music that had never breached the walls of late-70s Classic Rock radio playlists. I pretty quickly met a couple of “music mentors” who began pointing me in the right direction (“You’ve never heard the Sex Pistols? You need to go buy the Sex Pistols album RIGHT NOW!!!”), and I was on my way!

Within weeks, I was full blown record collector — haunting the “hip” record store in Bowling Green, seeking out record stores whenever I traveled, checking out new albums as soon as they hit the racks, reading magazines like Trouser Press and Goldmine, digging through crates of old records looking for that outta print Kinks album I read about, special ordering weird indie releases, dreaming of someday starting a radio station that played nothing but the good stuff — you know, CRAZY ideas!

More than four decades later I’m still at it. So hey, ho, I gotta go. There’s a crate full of records somewhere I gotta dig through!

Watch this space for more Crate Digger’s stories all week long!