Record store day

Today was Record Store Day so I celebrated by going out and buying vinyl. I started the day by going to the Glebe Record Fair, probably Sydney's biggest vinyl event of the year. Technically, it's not an independent record store but a number of stores have stalls there so I reckon it's ok. If I had any illusions that vinyl collecting had become a cool thing to do in the last twelve months, I estimate that there was probably two or three times the crowd there this year than last and it was pretty hard to get around and harder to look through the bins. Even worse, the stall holders have gotten wind of it and there was very few bargains to be had as they'd jacked up the prices on just about everything - good on them for making money but the sheer joy of finding a bargain seems long gone. However, I managed to pick up the Cure's Japanese Whispers, Low's C'mon and Kraftwerk's the Man Machine pretty cheaply. Not a great haul but ok...

I then went to Redeye which is one of the few shops in Sydney that gets the Record Store Day special releases. Being in Australia, they get the records which are left over from the US and the UK so there often isn't a huge choice. I particularly wanted to get the Arctic Monkeys R U Mine 7inch (that song gets better and better), the Feist/Mastodon split 7inch and the Ryan Adams 7inch which featured two Bob Mould covers (here and here) - both great. Unfortunately, they'd sold out of the Monkeys and the Ryan Adams and Feist records weren't available in Australia (just checked ebay - the prices are already extortionate). In the end, I'd got there too late as the clerk said there was a line to get in at 9am, I think I was still in bed at that point. Still good news for the record stores though. Anyhow, I did pick up Mclusky Do Dallas on orange vinyl which is pretty sweet. Still a great album after all this time but my record store day was less fruitful than previous years. Whatever, I've got next year to look forward to.

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Music bucketlists

Yesterday it was announced that the Cure would play three shows at the Sydney Opera House for the Vivid Sydney Festival. They will play three consecutive nights playing Three Imaginary Boys, 17 Seconds and Faith in consecutive order. This does beg the question, which night would you go to given the choice of the three nights? I'd tend towards Faith because that was the real beginning of the downbeat, moody stuff that defined their sound.

Katie pointed out that it could be incredible or terrible depending on how the band plays. Recent albums aren't really a patch on their definitive period and as some crueller people have observed that once Robert Smith got chubby, happy and comfortable was when the music started to decline. I'm pretty sure any genuine Cure fanatic would jump Smith's bones in a heartbeat regardless of what he looks like or what music he makes but I have too much affection for the band to be so mean about them.

The main reason why I'd want to see the Cure though is because I haven't seen them and they're on my music bucket list, essentially bands I'd like to see before I depart this mortal coil but haven't yet. There's some bands who I would like to see even if they are a half arsed, shitty reunion version of themselves - sometimes you have to take what you can get (except the Sex Pistols - that was weird and the current version of the Dead Kennedys who are touring without Jello). Most of them are older groups and I think that's understandable as most bands that are still touring regularly I've had a chance to see.

My music bucket list would also include AC/DC, Future of the Left, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Magnetic Fields, Motorhead, My Bloody Valentine, and Pixies to name a few. I haven't seen some of these bands out of pure bad luck - Motorhead and FOTL toured this year but I didn't get round to seeing them and I had a ticket for the Pixies last year and threw my back out at work and could hardly walk, let alone stand at a gig (that was the third time I missed them).

My bucketlist doesn't include bands which seem likely never to reform: Hüsker Dü, Jawbox, Jawbreaker, The Jam or those containing a bunch of dead people like Pink Floyd. Sure I have a list of bands I'd like to see if I created a time machine but that would be just silly to speculate on because a time machine cannot work in a space which contains no matter with negative energy density. Just sayin'...

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