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.

'Going down to Yasgur's Farm, gonna join in a rock 'n roll band. Got to get back to the land & set my soul free'

So went the line on one of the classic songs - 'Woodstock' - on this album 'Deja Vu' from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young... This 1970 classic is great because it brings together influences from all members, has some classic tracks -- 'Teach Your Children,' 'Woodstock,' '4+20,' 'Our House' -- and is like sonic bridge between the 1960s and 1970s, musically speaking. And that album cover!

I hadn't listened to this album in I don't know how long, but gave it a spin today and it got me thinking about how I ended up with it and its place in its own era. I found this gem in Uptown Minneapolis' own Cheapo Records... it was rated in 'Good' condition and was selling for $4.20 -- perfect price. What's great about my copy is it's in fine playing condition, but just beat up enough to have a little hiss/static throughout. Some of the audiophiles out there might cringe at that, but in this sense it makes the listening experience. The dirty sound of 'Woodstock' coming over the speakers grasps what was, of course, an incredibly dirty festival.

The static running through 'Almost Cut My Hair,' exemplifies the era. In flux, uncertain, loud, challenging. The scratchy, hissy sound completely matches the album cover and the subject matter. I mean, it looks like the old west, Crosby with what appears to be a rifle and that dog just sitting in the foreground of the photo. The lyrics on 'Our House' -- 'I'll light the fire while you place the flowers in the vase that you bought today' -- are just so simplistic, but carry some kind of vivid imagery. And that very simplicity is the contradiction of the time this album was made. Social upheaval coupled with a certainty self-identified righteousness among a a segment of the movement.

The album is better for it. I had this on CD (and, as such, MP3) before I landed the vinyl, but I haven't listened to it in either of those formats since I got this record. The music itself on this album is a relic to a very specific period of the past -- just think of how different 1968 was from, say, 1972, from music to politics to culture. It's a snapshot of the past, musically, and listening to it in all of its dirty, scratchy, vinyl glory is like a worthwhile adventure on the greatest time machine of all time.

Saturday buys... Greatest Hits edition

If it's the weekend, I'm probably either headed to, returning from or at the record store. Today, I stayed close to home and checked out Silver Spring's CD/Game Exchange, a favorite of mine for random used records and for the fact that it's close by.

And it paid off. Here's what I picked up:

Simon & Garfunkel -- Greatest Hits
Clapton, Page and Beck -- White Boy Blues 2xLP compilation
Cat Stevens -- Greatest Hits
Neil Young -- After the Gold Rush
The Byrds -- Greatest Hits
Santana -- Borboletta

That's it for now. It's sunny and 73 (!!!!!!) in Washington today, so any further posts are not on the to-do list, to say the least.