So I received four $25 gift certificates to Relics Antique Mall for my birthday. If you recall, gentle reader, these are certificates, not gift cards, and Relics does not give change from them. So you have to spend the whole amount (or more), which is why I had four certificates and not one for $100. Also, remember, gentle reader, these have fairly quick expiration dates–six months from issue.
So I made my way to the antique mall, hoping to find a katana in the bladed weapons cabinet since I bought a tachi/wakizashi pair last year and had purchased a rapier that I mentioned caressing in 2023 with some other gift cardery or certificatage. But, as periodically happens, the bladed weapon cabinet was gone. No axes, no sword canes, and certainly no katana.
I’d also thought that I would look through some of the higher-priced record album booths since I have the notion of rebuilding my Billy Joel record set. I’d gotten a pretty good set of the late 1970s and early 1980s works around 1990 from Recordhead in Milwaukee, where records were cheap because everyone was getting rid of them to go to CDs. But I sold them at garage sales in the middle of that decade when I needed dollars more than LPs, and after I’d sold the stereo that had a turntable.
But: No Billy Joel records. Seriously, where have they gone? I have not seen many in the wild–I picked up Songs in the Attic and 52nd Street at some point (Songs in the Attic in 2008, The Bridge in in 2023). But I haven’t seen a lot of them in the wild. Which is odd: He sold a pile of records. So where have they all gone? Do Billy Joel fans have them? Did Columbia Records cheap out on the materials?
Ah, well. At any rate, I was going to just quit and save the certificates for the end of July (right before they expire, where I would be a little less choosy and more driven to spend them) when something caught my eye.
Can you guess what it was?
Yes, Fandango, by Herb Alpert. Which I have on CD, but now I have it on vinyl. I might have mentioned that Herb Alpert is the only 4-media artist at Nogglestead. We have records, cassettes, CDs, and MP3s–albums bought electronically (the CDs have been ripped to the electronic library as well).
So once I committed to, what, $6? I had to spend the remaining $20, so I got two Bob James records (“H”, which also features Grover Washington, Jr., and Rameau) and a David Sanborn record (Close-Up). The booth had a lot of David Sanborn, but records I already have.
So I still have $75 to spend, most likely this summer. And once I have to spend it, maybe I’ll pick up some of the inexpensive Clifford Brown records I saw. I do listen to his son’s radio program on KCSM sometimes.
