It's been ages! The Pandemic cancelled a lot of stuff, including several record shows. There was a Fall 2021 show but honestly I didn't get much in the lines of CDs/Records to make it worth doing a post. I bought a ton of DVDs at that time.
This time at the record show, I got some comics which I won't mention and loads of CDs.
You can see them all there. Rather than waste hours getting cover images of them, I'll just make a list and comment about each one and my opinion about it.
The World of Disco Fever (not shown). - Put out by ZYX records and it's a 2 CD set. Honestly, anything by ZYX I usually like. It was a dollar, so I couldn't resist. It's a very mix bag of 70s to 90s Disco. Some of them I've never heard, like Gloria Gaynor's "I am what I am." It's a cover of a showtune which I do know. Totally worth a dollar to hear some disco that I've somehow overlooked.
Colonial Revolution Songs by Keith and Rusty McNeil - It was $1 and I just couldn't resist. Basically REAL American folk music. A lot of these are forgotten to time and only fans of this stuff really knows most of these tunes.
The Very Best of Bobby Sherman - It was a $1 and I just couldn't remember if I liked him or not. It's one of those bucket list musicians I wanted to try out. From the era with Brady Bunch, Partridge Family and that sort which gets little love from outside of their fans, but like the Monkees, they have decent enough songs. I think getting the best of stuff from people of this ilk is the best way to go. I just picked up a very best of Monkees CD the other day in fact!
The Best of Stargate SG-1 - LOL I love Stargate SG-1 and I've watched all the eps twice so far! I never thought about there being a CD to go with it! So I had to buy it for only $1!
Cusco (Several of them, the names rarely matter with his stuff) - New Age Jazz Fusion guy, he made a ton of CDs. I like him! The seller had a load of New Age music for $1 each and I wish I had my CD player with me, as I didn't know which ones were "good" and which ones were crap. So I had to pass over a lot of them, as most looked a little too tribal. New Age (the 80s definition) can be anything from grunts and strumming a strange instrument to electronic funk. Of course I'm after the cool electronic music stuff.
Mars Lasar (two of them) - See Cusco. Basically the same exact story.
The Who - Thirty Years of Maximum R&B (Disc 4) - I hate buying random discs from boxsets, but I love the The Who and it'll be until I can get the boxset cheap someday. It was only a $1 and I wanted to sample some of those rare tracks ASAP!
Two Greek Double CDs 30 Και Να Καίνε and Όλα Τώρα !. OK, about 25 or so years ago, I bought a random Greek compilation CD and it became one of my favorite CDs of all time. Super cheezy stuff. So I found these and I recognized one of the names, Άννα Βίσση (Anna Vissi). I'm sure if I could actually read and comprehend Greek, I would know more of the names as I have several of them with their English names on my PC, but seeing Anna was enough for me to get both. Anyway, it was as expected, more Greek pop of the 90s! Love it! Imagine Mexican pop but with Greek instruments and sounds rather than the Latin ones. Both were $1 each!
Electrobeat Toys for the Revolution ... Beyond the horizon. - Not really sure where the band's name is in all of that, but whatever. It's more Cusco-like New Age, but a little more Electro-90s beat/trance. Very good for $1 and right up my alley. Seems Toys for the Revolution is the band's name and they only have two CDs.
Queen - A Kind of Magic - Upgrade to my old CD. I need to upgrade on sooooo many of my CDs. My collection is mostly from the 90s and nearly all of it was redone some 15-20 years ago with bonus tracks. This is the UK 2 disc import with new stuff that I've never heard before. Nice! I had to pay $15 though, which is the current going rate, but I wanted it a lot! Queen is probably in my top 10 bands and I have all of their albums.
Peter, Paul and Mary - S/T - I got into PPM collecting rather late but I do really like their music. Late 60s, early 70s POPULAR music is iffy as I don't really know the rest of what these bands do other than their AM radio hits. Stuff like Wings, The Doors and Cher I don't care for, but Donovan I love. It's really random. Paid $1 but I need to make a list as I don't know which ones I need now from PPM. I knew I didn't own this one though.
Maná Sueños - Líquidos - AH! Another CD that I wanted so badly which had eluded me for years. Well it's not like it's uncommon or anything. If there were a Latino community around here, they would have have this CD at every yard sale. LOL It's not something English speaking people would have typically though which is why I was never able to pick one up cheap. It was the one of the top selling Latin Music CDs of 1997 and won an Academy Award. I remember seeing it everywhere when I took a trip down to Mexico City in early 1998. It has a four armed mermaid on the cover and I wanted it mostly for that. The music is very light and not really amazing compared to other languages popular albums but it's really good for a Spanish album. It's just slightly Spanish sounding rather than being obnoxiously so, which a lot of Spanish music was like prior to this period in time. It's like how modern country music sounds sorta like the terrible classic county stuff and is sorta OK but no where as good as proper rock music. Worth a dollar.
Rosanne Cash - Seven Year Ache - Country and Country Rock that goes all over the place, which is sorta typical for early 80s stuff. Usually a couple good songs and the rest filler. It's worth $1 but most of the album here I would never willingly listen to. It's one of those CDs you take the best tracks from to make MP3s of and shelve the CD forever. I have several random country songs like that in my collection. So I sorta like country, but not really? Going by that logic, I like rap and heavy metal too. ;)
Yes - Going for the One Remaster - An $8 upgrade to my Yes collection. I don't really like this album as much as the others which precedes it but it has new to me tracks on it that I wanted to hear. It's basically where they start to stray from being completely proggy. 1977 wasn't a year you wanted to be putting out prog LPs. The next year they put out Tormato that no one likes.
Spoons - Collectible Spoons - $5, I knew the name, but I couldn't remember from where. I looked them up when I got home and then I remembered. I get tricked like that as I sometimes need to see the LP covers to remember bands. I would like their normal albums on CD but I doubt that'll ever happen as this is a super obscure band for the USA. I do believe I have some of their LPs. I like them, very weird! So I'm happy with a $5 best of CD for now.
The Fantasticks - Now this one threw me for a loop. I know the name, but WHERE!?! "The Fantasticks is a 1960 musical with music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones." Hmm...doesn't ring a bell. I did sample some online before buying it for a dollar and it was worth it. I do like musicals generally if the music is interesting and this does have quite a few interesting songs! I think I may need the newer version of this though, as I have the classic one and the modern off-Broadway revival one found on Youtube is far more interesting and way better sounding. It was worth a dollar just to lead me to a new album experience!
Japan - A. Sex - $5. I won't spell that "A" out. LOL! I've been after this one for ages, like 25 years but I refuse to pay collectors prices for it! I've been after all the Japan albums actually. I have some on vinyl and I think one other on CD. I've never actually owned a real copy of this. Good stuff! It's not the newer remastered version, but whatever. I got it with the Spoons and Yes CD. I was looking hard at that booth to find more CDs which I've been wanting badly as they had two really hard to get ones cheap but sadly no. I'm sorta wondering how the guy ended up with these as the rest of the stuff was like deathcore and whatever crap that fans of this stuff wouldn't listen to.
Tina Turner - Private Dancer (remaster) - She's not something I go crazy for. I loved her hits and this has remixed versions of those on it, so I couldn't pass on it for $1. A lot of these black musicians from the 80s has terrible albums from the 70s. It's like night and day, so I usually avoid their 70s output. It's like loving 80s Genesis or Yes and then thinking their 70s stuff is going to be more synth pop. LOL! That's basically how every popular black female musician went for me. Bonnie Tyler as well, but with her it's extremely bad country music instead of awesome Wagnerian rock.
Gentle Giant - Free Hand, Live Playing the Fool, The Power the The Glory. This is where I really raked over an old guy. I don't quite understand his pricing but he had some REALLY good stuff at amazing prices. I wanted more of his CDs (like Blodwyn Pig, which I know of but I've never listened to and several Coliseum and Traffic CDs which were sadly the unpopular ones) but I stuck to the stuff I really wanted as I had a limit of $100 and I was already down to very little to spend. I don't think he knew what his stuff was worth. He was selling his CDs $5 each or 3 for $12. But he had several "One Way Records" releases which almost all of those are rare and worth $$$. I know this because that's how it was 25 years ago! Those releases are horribly overpriced used and of dubious quality and yet I wanted so many of them for my personal collection. So I got 9 titles in all, three of them Gentle Giant releases. GG is a band that my friend who got me into prog music really loves but strangely enough I never got around to actually listening to their full albums because I just couldn't find them on LP or CD. Either way, $4 is a really good price as I think most of these are in the $25 range on eBay. I'd assume someone by now had remastered and re-released them but I've yet to see those in the wild. Gentle Giant is usually the very best of the B ranked prog bands like Camel and Kayak. They tend to get scoffed at by people who believe that Pink Floyd and King Crimson are the best prog bands ever.
Family - Fearless & It's Only a Movie. Super happy to find this. I have Fearless on LP, but it's trashed but I liked it a lot and wanted a better copy. I'm assuming this two pack was considered the worse of Family as that's how combo packs usually are but I was still happy to get it. Seems to be a UK import, as I cannot find any from USA sellers on ebay. It's not worth a lot, but I don't care. Paid $8 as it's two discs and some sellers charge per discs. Meh!
Happy the Man - S/T, Crafty Hands, Deaths Crown - OOOOH BOY! I love the first Happy the Man album. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! I was going to shell out collector's price on this a while back but I decided not to as I was being cheap, but it was always on my high want list. I have the LP of course. I think it's been remastered but that's out of print now too. I cannot recall if I had liked Crafty Hands though. I think I was disappointed in it vs the first LP. And I don't know Deaths Crown, but I see it's pre their first LP!?! WOW! Actually, I see they have THREE albums of stuff which was recorded but never released until the last 20 years ago or so? That's how outdated my knowledge is of them! I'll have to look into that later. Either way, $4 each and it super made my day as it was a high level want. If I hadn't already spent most of my money prior to this, I would have bought a lot more of his CDs. OH WELL!
Le Zénith de Gainsbourg - A fairly well known French musician but unknown in the USA. I bought two of his 70s albums on CD at the thrift store a few months ago as they were rare and worth a little $$$. Turns out that they were rather good too in a very cheesy way so I kept them. This one is I think his last live album and of course it has the cheezzzzz-iest opening track for a live CD that I've ever heard. It's so bad that it's good! I'm going to put that on MP3 and have it in my van. It was $1 and totally worth every penny! "You're Under Arrest, 'cause you're the Best! Slippity slam, bam a boom bam jam, SURGE!" LOL Seems that song was actually from his last album, so I'll have to see what the rest of that album is like. This is why I pick up music in other languages as sometimes they have really strange releases that are so awesome in their terribleness.
Ozric Tentacles - Strangeitude. Basically I had to pick a 9th CD (although I wanted about 15) and I just didn't know which one to pick and so I panicked and grabbed this one. LOL! I would have picked up the It Bites Eat Me in St. Louis CD if I had seen it before paying for everything. OOPS! Seems like a good pick either way, as both are newer prog and I couldn't go wrong with either selection. But I've wanted any It Bites on CD forever as I only have promo vinyl singles of them. It's not that It Bites are actually worth a lot, they are not, it's just so rare to find in the wild. These record shows never have neo-prog or even classic prog CDs below A-ranked ones. And if they do, it's never at reasonable prices. Like, I'm not going to pay higher than Ebay prices for anything, thank you! It takes a high ranking band like Queen for me to pay actually pay Ebay prices locally. But then again, these sellers are trying to cater to people who are casual buyers who doesn't really know their prices. Today I saw someone who actually paid $20 for the Police's Synchronicity on vinyl. I have a copy of it next to me which I paid $2 for at the thrift store and I'd be lucky to get $4 for if it if I decide to resell it. LOL! ANYWAY, it seems Ozric is rather interesting now that I'm listening to it. I don't remember It Bites being so weird. They are more like Marillion and Ozric is more like New Age but with more meat. I think I made the better choice! But I still want a It Bites cds. ;)
And that's it! I think I done really well with getting bang for my buck! I came in expecting nothing and I got quite a bit! I've stayed away from buying more vinyl as I'm thinking seriously of getting rid of it. Plus no one had $1 vinyl this time. Records I rarely play and they take up tons of space vs. CDs. Well perhaps if I purge about 50% of my vinyl collection I'll take interest in it again. I really should pair it down to bands I'm excited about. I did bring two boxes of vinyl to a garage sale my brother was having last summer, but I didn't do very well. They wanted everything for like $1, even though I easily had $10 and up vinyl in there. It was an experiment to see how I should sell my vinyl. A record show is iffy too. I think I'll probably have to make a list and put the list on ebay and let people pick from it. That will weed out the good stuff and I can then later sell the crap for whatever at a garage sale.
Well that's all for now. Let's hope for a good summer of music getting. I done rather well in 2020 for music to flip. Someone donated a Grateful Dead CD collection with rare bootlegs. I paid $1 each, I am projected to get about $4500 when all is said and done. Sweet!
Peace out!