ANYONE who knows me, whether through this weekly public trepanning or in person, is aware of my penchant for music on vinyl.
Records are hard on the wallet, take up oodles of space and are a nightmare to shift when moving house, but the plusses - sonic fidelity, tactile satisfaction, a sense of communion with the artist - knock these drawbacks into a cocked hat.
It is, then, ironic that an event that aims to raise the profile of independent shops that sell these artefacts does little to sharpen my stylus. The eighth annual Record Store Day (RSD) takes place on April 18 and, while I will in all likelihood be suckered into parting with cash for an exclusive release or two, I won't be queueing up outside my favourite vinyl emporium, the sacred Monorail in Glasgow, with a wish list.
So why choose today to dribble on about an event 34 days hence? You see, last week the list of exclusive RSD releases was revealed. Broadly speaking, it's the sort of fare we've come to expect - reissues of albums nobody needs another copy of (Born to Run, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake) and worthless oddities (a Monty Python seven-inch? I thought not).
But this year, as ever, there are a few gems amid the moraine, two of which share a salutary connection. The first is a 10-inch of Alex Chilton by Minneapolis post-punk miscreants The Replacements (known to fans as the Mats), a tribute to the mage of Memphis who led first The Box Tops and later Big Star, without whom Paul Westerberg's rabble wouldn't have sobered up long enough to record one single let alone seven mostly brilliant albums.
"Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton/ When he comes round," rasped Westerberg on the song from the Mats' 1987 album Pleased to Meet Me. Too right they do, we replied, for we were those children. Unfortunately the last line of the third verse - "If he died in Memphis/ Then that'd be cool"- was wide of the mark, Chilton going to the great gig in the sky five years ago this Tuesday 500 miles south of his birthplace in New Orleans. But let's not get sidetracked.
The second RSD release that caught my eye is a reissue of Slim Dunlap's two solo albums, The Old New Me and Times Like This. Dunlap made the records after playing with the final Mats line-up (including a seminal gig at King Tut's in Glasgow in 1991) before slipping off the radar, his name lost on the winds of time until three years ago when he suffered a severe stroke.
Two of his ex-colleagues, Westerberg and bass player Tommy Stinson, duly collaborated on a limited vinyl EP to raise funds for Dunlap's care and since then have tentatively reignited the Mats' flame, proving bad times can bring out the best in people. That's my kind of groove.
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