Dear Cheapo: I think you're great

Since the very beginning of this blog I lamented the fact that I was, in fact, located in Washington, D.C., half the country away from the record stores of the Twin Cities, where all of this began. Sure, I grew to find some really good shops in Washington, met some cool people and found some good stuff. But the whole time, I was always comparing it to what I left, and I publicly celebrated my (first, temporary) visit to the Twin Cities followed by my permanent move back.

The whole time, I always had one shop in mind: Cheapo Records. It has two locations in these Twin Cities, one in St. Paul a mile or so from where I live, and another in Uptown Minneapolis. The former is in two locations, one for CDs and DVDs, another across the street strictly for records and tapes. Minneapolis' is in one location, with the entire basement containing only vinyl records. So, yup, I really like it.

So far, I've visited St. Paul's Cheapo twice, and both times I walked away with more than I had intended to buy and more than I could've hoped to find. Today's buys?

• The Sex Pistols -- Never mind the Bollocks
• Woody Guthrie -- Best of (2xLP)
• Jefferson Airplane -- Volunteers (which happens to be one of my favorite records from the whole West Coast, San Francisco 60s sound/era).

On my first trip?

• An Ella Fitzgerald/Billie Holiday compilation
• Neil Young -- Harvest
• Sly & the Family Stone -- Greatest Hits

Not bad, and that was just in the recent arrivals. So, yeah. In short? Looking forward to visiting many more times, and buying many more records, for a while.

5th of July Pickups

As I mentioned earlier, I am indeed leaving D.C. and headed back to Minneapolis. Vinyl-wise, I'm excited to do some digging at my old favorite shops. But I'm quite sad to be leaving CD/Game Exchange, which I've mentioned a number of times on this very blog, mostly because I tend to go there and find great stuff all. the. time.

So, despite the heat today in D.C., I biked on over to CD/Game Exchange this afternoon and found out there was a 20 percent sale going on. You didn't have to tell me twice, and I left with seven great albums, five of which are pictured above.

Here are the pickups:

• Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass -- Going Places
• Frank Sinatra -- Strangers in the Night
• Ella Fitzgerald and the Tommy Flanagan Trio -- Live, Montreux '77
• Kiss -- Alive (!!)
• Talking Heads -- Speaking In Tongues
• Black Giants -- Compilations of jazz featuring Armstrong, Ellington, Davis, Monk, Gillepsie and more.
• Ella Fitzgerald -- Newport Jazz Festival, Live at Carnegie Hall '73

Now, I realize Kiss is way out of place on that list. But, I used to have Alive on TAPE when I was younger, and as I was looking over the sleeve and the full-color photo book that came with the record I knew I was going to buy it that very moment. Who could pass that up, honestly?

Anyway, once again, CD/Game Exchange pays off. It'll be too bad when it's no longer a short bike ride away. But, I plan to keep talking about how great it is here at least until I leave -- truth be told, I almost bought a store T-shirt today, but opted to buy more records instead of the shirt. It was the best choice, I imagine.

Hopefully sometime this week I'll have a great, thoughtful opus on D.C. record stores before I leave -- but, honestly, I report and write for a living. This blog, the more work I put into the writing and so on seems more and more like work every day. To that end, it might not be so great, or thoughtful, this opus I'm talking about. But, I hope to have something. Until then, I'll be listening to some great jazz, big band and 70s-80s glam rock/new wave to pass the time. Sounds good to me.