Good Album Hunting, December 30, 2019: Relics Antique Mall

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.

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