As stated earlier, I had been in Boston twice in three weeks. Unlike previous trips to Boston, I got some shopping in. I hit record stores and book stores.

Trip #1:

I managed to hit Newbury Comics while the group was waiting for our table at the fantastic Capital Grille, which was just down the street. Newbury is one of the great record stores and I would recommend hitting it if possible. Plus it is down the street from one of the best ice cream places I have been to. It seems this was my vinyl trip.

Cat Power : The Greatest on 180 Gram vinyl (!) Thank goodness for Matador Records and their devotion to the preservation of vinyl. This pressing allegedly has “an extra track not on the regular version of the CD.” That said, I can’t find a version of this on CD that has less tracks on it.

Cat Power : “The Greatest” b/w “Hate” 7″. Sticker says “Pay No More Than .99” and damned if I didn’t!

Stereolab : “Whisper Pitch” b/w “Widow Wierdo”

Stereolab : “Eye of the Volcano” b/w “Vodiak”

Stereolab : “Excursions into ‘oh, a-oh'” b/w “Get A Shot of The Refrigerator” These last three singles complete the set of singles released last year. All of these tracks are compiled on the economy-priced Fab Four Suture collection. I’ve been building a collection of Stereolab releases since last year. Stereolab are very prolific and have a tendency to release great songs on one-off tour releases or on limited-pressing singles. Attracts the collector in me, unfortunately.

A good run, but a pain in the arse to bring back on the airplane!

Trip #2

This is the LinuxWorld trip last week when I went to the Blackalicious show. Hit a number of stores this time.

Newbury Comics:

Athens, GA Inside-Out (DVD) Finally! One of my favorite music documentaries from the late 80’s. I owned this on VHS. The OOP soundtrack came out on IRS at the same time and is one I listened to a lot at the time. The rare R.E.M. acoustic tracks “Swan Swan H” and “Dream (All I Have to do is)” eventually came out as extra tracks on the UK import release of Life’s Rich Pageant. This movie made me a fan of Love Tractor and Pylon.

I didn’t find anything else I was really interested in.

Virgin Records on Newbury:

(If) I’m A Ham, You’re A Sausage: The Don Dixon Collection. Frankly, the big find as far as I’m concerned. This is a drilled cut-out that I found in their discount bin. The only copy! Very Out-of-Print. Unfortunately, Don is one of those lost great Pop Rock guys. He produced some of the greatest records from the 80’s including the first two R.E.M. albums and two Game Theory albums in addition to most of his wife Marti Jones’s albums. He had a notable solo career as well. Mostly known for his song “Praying Mantis” that got some airplay on 120 Minutes back in the day. His best works were on the Restless label– home to the Smithereens (who he worked with), Game Theory, and Poison. Capital ended up buying Restless– I suspect for Poison. Most of the catalog from Restless is OOP. After retiring from music for a big stretch, Don has a new album due out in June on 125 Records titled The Entire Combustible World In One Small Room. I plan to try and get all of his back catalog.

Looney Toons:

Looney Toons is a great old record store with vinyl stacked to the ceilings in moving boxes! Next time I’m in Boston I plan to dedicate some serious time in here digging. They had Dark Side of the Moon on the original Harvest pressing with stickers and poster for $24. I just about bought it, but I didn’t like the cover condition. I think I’ll hold out. I did get some CDs:

Calexico : Convict Pool EP Has their great version of Love’s “Alone Again Or” which is pretty much a live staple for them. Includes a Cartoon Shorty from the Cartoon Network titled “El Kabong Rides Again.”

Calexico : Even My Sure Things Fall Through EP This one has some videos on it as well. I haven’t listened to this one, yet.

Calexico : Feast of Wire. So this is the real beginning of my Calexico collection…

Fargo Rock City Chuck Klosterman (Book). I picked this up at a book store/cafe on Newbury in their cheap book section. This is Chuck’s thoughts about Heavy Metal and growing up in a small town in North Dakota. I like this book quite a bit. Before I discovered REM in 1985, I was a Heavy Metal fan, so this book rings true for me. It seems that Chuck held on to Metal a bit longer than I did, but I remember most of the stuff he’s talking about.

Radio Shack:

Sony MDR-NC11 Noise Cancelling Headphones. This was a bit of an impulse buy. We stopped in the Radio Shack and I saw these headphones on sale for $79, but the sale had passed. So, the manager of the store offered to sell these to me for the sale price, which was $20 off. I already have a pair of Philips noise cancelling ‘phones, but these work better as they seal in the ear canal, so that helps keep the noise out.