Record Store Day, after the fact

Playing right now: Dave Holland Octet - Pathways

I missed Record Store again this year because I had to work on Saturday, per usual. At 6 p.m. I was ready to stop at Paul's CDs to see what they had, and also because I had a few discs waiting for me (ironically, it was the little shiny plastic things I was ready to purchase instead of the big black ones). But there weren't any parking spaces close to the store, and the family was in the car, and I was a little tired. So I went yesterday. What I needed wasn't contingent on getting there on record store day. Plus, with 45 minutes until closing, I knew that I had missed the boat on any of the big magic from that day.

I could have picked up the special Record Store Day edition of the Dave Holland Octet CD, for the price of two copies of the regular disc. Had it included another disc of music, I would've grabbed it without a second thought. But it had five concert posters in it, which are nice I'm sure, but didn't strike me as mandatory. If my tax refund had arrived before the weekend, there's a good chance I would've squandered $83 on the six-10"-records edition of the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs. That's a lot of getting up to change the records between sides, but it's also a lot of beautiful 10" records.

The only real Record Store Day exclusive I purchased was a Moby Grape live 45. I'm pretty sure the version of "Rounder" is the same one that I have on the two-disc comp from the 1990s, but the version of "Sitting by the Window" is unavailable anywhere else. Yoink.

I finally picked up the latest Lou Barlow album, Goodnight Unknown, which is as awesome as I hoped it would be. Also got Grant Hart's most recent solo disc and a recent remastered version of Cecil Taylor's Conquistador, which I only had on tape.