Lost gems

Today, I decided to do what I have been putting off fer five fooking years. No, its not to give up smoking or start exercising or any of that bollocks. I finally took the time to actually catalogue and arrange me precious record collection.

Yup, took me whole fooking day & some of you may recall in me earlier post I talk bout the joys of collecting vinyl. It's just one of those things I have stuck to all these years; I bought me first LP with me saved pocket money in 1983 - Howard Jones's "Human's Lib" (ring a bell anybody?) & haven't looked back since. And it has steadily grown over the years & it really took off when I was in UK. But I still collect whenever I come across interesting titles & the total tally is just over a thousand pieces (yes, I have wasted/invested that much money on records). And I make it a point to actually listen to my collection at least twice a week.

Previously, all me albums were carefully arranged according to genre & I even put each band's output in chronological order. Anyone who has read Nick Hornby's tome Hi-Fidelity (or seen the movie adaptation with John Cusack & Jack Black) will know just how seriously fooking anal record collectors can be!

Well, when I moved into me own place with me wifey, everything got jumbled up & they just got shoved into any possible storage space. I just kept putting off the task as it was just too daunting; so fer five years I had Black Sabbath LPs sitting next to John Handy while the Sex Pistols snuggled up to Spyro Gyra (I know, I know, every collection must have its fair share of embarrassing mistakes).

Two things occurred to me while I finished the gargantuan task. Firstly, I actually have more jazz LPs than death metal titles! So the common misconception of me being metal-ccentric to the core is way-off the mark (just happened the other day when a visiting friend mentioned how I only listened to metal coz of all the tengkorak on the album covers!). Even I was a bit surprised by sheer number of jazz LPs sitting on its now dedicated shelf. Secondly, there's just soooo many albums I haven't listened to in fooking years & sadly, forgotten about. Of course, some were slipped out of their sleeves & plonked onto the turntable.

Dark Angel's Time Does Not Heal, anyone? Or how about Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger? I also stumbled across me copy of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours & I had to give it a go again since Premo has been nattering about it non-stop. Yes, yes, soft rock rules. . .

One of the lost gems was Monster Magnet's Spine Of God. Brilliant! The album sleeve carried the motto - "It's a satanic drug thing . . . you wouldn't understand" (!!!). If that isn't a sure sign of great contents within, I don't know what is. Awesome stoner space rock that still sounds fooking way out there today! As such I have taken the trouble to find a band video (above) fer yer viewing pleasure (those of you familar with Monster Magnet, enjoy; those who aren't, trip anyways dudes).

I was well chuffed with me efforts when wifey came home & she asked how were the LPs arranged. "Genre & chronologically", I replied smugly. "You mean not alphabetical, ah," came the reply. I told her she could fooking do the CDs on her own . . . and that's another posting fer another time.