Salutations™!!

Yesterday had to be one of the weirdest days we’ve seen in the last bit and this is 2020 where everything is weird. Even the most usual of things. So, we get up and get going. Routine. We run over to Underdog Records and I have a field day with some classical.

You see, The BCPF and I have turned our Sundays (for the most part) into Classical Sunday. We listen to a lot of rock and folk and all that stuff during the week and then Sunday has become the “day of rest” and with that a little culture. You saw over the last few weeks we had gotten the “TimeLife – Great Men of Music” box sets from the 1970s for Guiseppi Verdi and Sergei Rachmaninoff. I have quite a few full sets of TimeLife collections on CD and now I’ve decided I want to find the full collection from this series  ~1975. I didn’t decide that until yesterday and you’ll see why in a little bit.

©Geffen

But first, the rest of the reason why yesterday was one of the weirdest days. We got three new records and there were skips in the first song on the second side of two of them. Okay. While listening to the second of the three new ones, the power goes out. A car hit a pole or something the text from the power company said. It was out for about 90 minutes. Then it comes back on, we finish album number two, put on album number three and the power goes out again. This time a tree had fallen. So, we start looking into what to eat for dinner. The power comes on again.

We pick our place for dinner, order it, and go pick it up. We get it home and the entire order was wrong. Practically everything on the order was either the exact opposite of what we ordered or stuff that we hadn’t even said. So, we drove all the way back and the place was closed. But, a few forceful knocks and a masked smile got me in the door. They apologized profusely and remade my order. They even threw in a few extras. They were nice. I will go back (of course).

So, that was the weird day we had. Here’s the weird haul we got:

• R.E.M. – Out Of Time — The BCPF has been looking for this one. Jonathan ordered it special for us and here it is. This one has “Shiny Happy People” and the song that really broke them mainstream, “Losing My Religion.” New.
• Guns N’ Roses – Use Your Illusion II — Jonathan special ordered me this one. I like a lot of aspects about this one but upon listening to it yesterday (including the power outage), I realized that it doesn’t have the same oomph that Use Your Illusion I had. But, there is a caveat for me. The “filler” songs on this one are better than on I. The main meat of I was better but the peripheral songs on II were better, in my opinion. I used to like the “alternate” lyrics for “Don’t Cry” (and I still do) but realized over the last few weeks that the “original” is the better version. 2xLP. New.
• P J Harvey – Dry — She is a strong and powerful woman and it shows in her music. This is a reissue of her debut album from 1991. This one I have to take back as B1, which was one of the main reasons why The BCPF wanted this, skipped all the way through. It knocked around 30 seconds off the song, I’d say. I examined it and can see little nicks and imperfections. We bought it new, too. Jonathan has another one held for me and we’ll exchange it. But, I really enjoyed listening to all but B1 and part of B2. New.

So, from here on in, it’s all classical, all the time. The first isn’t part of the TimeLife (TL) series but what follows is many Sundays of listening pleasure. Now, being the completist I am, I have to find the ones I’m missing. Dang it, whomever you are that unloaded your entire TL collection on Jonathan this week! Each of the “Great Men of Music” series are 4xLP and I list their grading. Here we go:

• Haydn, Dekany Quartet – String Quartets, Volume III —  Joseph. 3xLP. NM.
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Great Men Of Music — EX.
• Johann Sebastian Bach – Great Men Of Music — EX.
• Prokofiev – Great Men Of Music — VG+ (Sergei, by the way).
• Franz Schubert – Great Men Of Music — EX.
• Gustav Mahler – Great Men Of Music — VG+.
• Antonín Dvořák – Great Men Of Music — EX.
• Handel – Great Men Of Music — (George) VG+.
• Richard Strauss – Great Men Of Music — VG+.
• Maurice Ravel – Great Men Of Music — VG+.
• Richard Wagner – Great Men Of Music — EX.
• Jean Sibelius – Great Men Of Music — VG+.
• Anton Bruckner – Great Men Of Music — VG+. I had never heard of Anton.
• Franz Liszt – Great Men Of Music — VG+.
• Dmitri Shostakovich – Great Men Of Music — VG+. I had never heard of Dmitri.
• Aaron Copland – Great Men Of Music — VG+. The lone American on the classical train this week.

So, there you have it! Now, I only have about 20 more to go! I don’t know how many there are. I need to look that up. But, Underdog Records was jumping yesterday. Good crowd (still only five allowed in at a time – okay seven yesterday but people were checking out). I love seeing it that way. It reminds me of the “old” days. Maybe we’ll get back to the TLD/UR specials of the week and playing songs on TLD again. Check out the Underdog Records social media for the latest finds that can be yours. Jonathan still does deliveries during the early part of the week and will ship unlimited records for $4. Also, I use Discogs to keep up with this crazy collection of mine!

Until tomorrow, same blog channel…
Scorp out!

—
“Whaz so civil ’bout war anyway?” – “Civil War” (Rose/Slash/McKagen)