So my beautiful wife gave me some Relics gift certificates for Christmas. Relics has gift certificates, not gift cards, and they do not offer cash back when you present a gift certificate, so if you don’t spend the entire amount of the certificate, the remaining balance is lost. To account for this, she gave me four certificates valued at $25 each. As I entered Relics, I thought about what I might buy for $100.
And I bought records.
I did not get $100 of records. I could have if I wanted; heaven knows some of the dealers are starting to mark up the records above ten or twenty dollars each. Fortunately, I don’t listen to that kind of crap.
Instead, I got:
- Una Noche en Villafontana by Jorge Ortega, Roberto Pérez Vázquez, and Arturo Romero
- It Looks Like Phoebe Snow by Phoebe Snow. Still no sight of the elusive self-titled debut album.
- Jacquet’s Got It by Illinois Jacquet and His Big Band.
- Live at the Whiskey A Go Go by Herbie Mann. Not listed on Discogs except as part of a compilation CD.
- Bird in a Silver Cage by Herbie Mann.
- Shandi by Shandi Sinnamon. I got her album Shandi Sinnamon in October.
- Lisa Dal Bello by Lisa Dal Bello. Latin pop from the 1970s with a Pretty Woman on the Cover (PWC).
- Carnaval by Spyro Gyra.
- Collaboration by George Benson and Earl Klugh. The most expensive record I bought at $4 before discounts.
- Gallant Men: Stories of the American Adventure Told By Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen. Apparently, I am a sucker for legislators on LP as I bought Robert Byrd’s fiddling album in October.
- The Cantebury Tales read in Middle English by J.B. Bessinger, Jr. I haven’t listened to the copy that I bought in October–many of those LPs got shelved without a listen to make room for the Christmas LPs–but this one has a better cover.
- Holiday Cheer by Dean Martin. Upon further review, this is the same tracks as Winter Romance.
- Apollonia 6 by Apollonia 6. The other female pop group created by Prince after the Vanity 6.
- Hideaway by David Sanborn. A promo copy not for sale. Mine isn’t, unlike the vendor who violated the letter and spirit of this law.
- Skyway by Skyy. On the cover, the eight person band wears matching track suits. So you know what you’re going to get: 70s Disco Funk.
- The Christmas Song by Lawrence Welk. Even though I didn’t get to listen to listen to Christmas records much this year, I did feel that my collection was growing a bit stale, so I added, I thought, two records today. Given that the Dean Martin is really just a duplicate, I have only added this one.
- Winner In You by Patti LaBelle.
- Patti LaBelle by Patti LaBelle.
- Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta by Syreeta.
- Intimate Excitement by Vikki Carr.
- Now by Patrice Rushen. PWC, and further evidence that I have completely turned the corner into collecting 80s pop as long as it looks to have an R&B sensibility.
The total came to $47 and change, which was not quite two gift certificates. So I only used one certificate and paid for the rest.
Which means, essentially, that the Christmas gift is four guilt-free trips to Relics to buy records. Not that I felt guilty, well, too guilty when I found my way to Relics and then home with a dozen or so records.
At any rate, flipping though Discogs and eBay has shown me that I didn’t really overpay for these records, but I didn’t get any real steals, either. So long as I enjoy them from time to time and can organize them when I build more record storage.
