Wednesday, April 15, 2009

90's Indie Thrift Store Bounty!

As I've long said, the whole "Death of the CD" is great for people who, like me, are stubbornly hanging on out of some neurotic attachment to the medium on which they were raised. Before, people sold CDs used that they didn't like (it was always baffling when you'd see something like Abbey Road in a used shop-- who could listen to that and say, "meh-- I'd rather have three bucks!"). Now, people get rid of entire high quality collections that they've transferred to their hard drive! Score!

I've found that the stoop sale/thrift shop scene is particularly helpful for filling in gaps in my collection of 90s albums, since I spent most of that time checked out from contemporary music (until I got to college). My local thrift shop has a rack of CDs that, while dominated by complete crap, occassionally has some real gems. Evidently someone with taste remarkably similar to our own Drischord's just got rid of a bunch of CDs, because yesterday I picked up the following, all for two bucks each:

-Fugazi - 13 Songs
-Fugazi - Steady Diet of Nothing
-PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
-PJ Harvey - Is This Desire?
-Sonic Youth - Dirty
-Camper Van Beethoven - Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart
-Pavement - Westing (By Musket and Sextant)

Considered but left behind (let me know if I've made a huge mistake): Jesus Lizard - Goat; Dinosaur Jr. - Where You Been; Sonic Youth - Experimental Jet Set Trash and No Star.

You can talk all you want about the "warmth of vinyl" or the fact that CDs are a "waste of space" and "totally unnecessary when you can download high quality digital mp3s for cheap from such music vendors as emusic or for free from bittorrent" but (a) 2 bucks per album is cheaper than even the best emusic deal, and (b) unlike, say, Steely Dan or Neil Young, this shit is from the peak of the CD era, and is absolutely made to be heard on little silver discs, Pearl Jam's early-adopter vinyl revival notwithstanding.

6 comments:

drischord said...

You should turn around and buy Where You Been. Obviously my teenage Dinosaur Jr fandom is the stuff of legend/ridicule, but that album is just fantastic.

texplush said...

i totally support listening to albums on CD that were made during the CD era.

Eric said...

D- done and done. It's kind of funny how much this entire genre of loud 90s guitar rock just passed me by. I have to say, it will never really be my cup of tea, but for the price, it's nice to fill in some gaps.

drischord said...

It's particularly funny that Dinosaur Jr, specifically, passed you by because you lived in Amherst for four years.

Eric said...

I saw J. Mascis at a New Radiant Storm King show (in the audience)-- and actually saw a lot of Pioneer Valley indie rock at the time, of which I have some fond memories. (Pernice Brothers, of course, and Kahoots, The Mitchells, and other bands I can't remember now). But Dinosaur Jr was inactive at that point and I just never went back and listened to the old stuff.

drischord said...

Good point. They were totally dormant at the time.