Record Collector Problems

So for my birthday, my grandmother took me shopping. Most females my age would probably buy clothes and shoes in such a situation, but to me, 'shopping' means 'music.' So on the Monday (freaking holiday Monday -- me and the August long weekend have a hate-hate relationship. Actually, me and long weekends in general have a hate-hate relationship), I hit the vinyl shops (all two of them) and came away with a pretty good haul if I do say so myself.

Some points I would like to make about the excursion:

Do you have any idea how much willpower it takes to leave the second copy of DA's ¡Alarma! at the store? I was seriously tempted to get both copies. Even though they were exactly the same. And I had already bought the first one. And I have the deluxe CD reissue they put out last year (buy it here. It is just as awesome as they say it is).

Found an After The Fire album that I only bought because I vaguely remembered reading about it on the 500 Greatest Albums blog. In fact, I found three copies of this album. Of course I bought the one with the skip in the middle of the best song.

Bought the 1977 Pantano/Salsbury album (entitled Hit The Switch) purely because of the ravings of those over at the Jesus Music forum on Facebook. Completely worth the money. Imagine mixing the songwriting of Prodigal with the playing of early DeGarmo and Key. And a talking guitar that puts the then-future Bon Jovi to shame.

Found the one Margaret Becker album we don't have... for $24.95. This at the shop where I snagged a pristine copy of DA's Horrendous Disc (which is, to my understanding, the most sought-after and hard-to-find DA record) a month ago for ten bucks.

Also saw Stryper's To Hell With The Devil not once, not twice, but three times... in the same store. In three different places.

Was hoping to find some Randy Stonehill -- nothing.

Why do they make the crate units at the shops so darn high? I had to stand on my very tiptoes and lean forward onto the tableau to flip through the records at the very back of each crate. I'm not very heavy, but those things were wobbling.

I realised today, while importing the ATF record and trying to classify the genre of it, that I really only need two genre tags for my iTunes library: Rock and Not Rock.



Also, two big pieces of music news!

1. White Heart is touring... and we have cities! Columbus, Atlanta, Dallas, and Chicago -- go buy your tickets now and bring these guys out of retirement! If these shows go well, we may just get another tour in 2015... and maybe they'll venture up to Canada for that one. Also, they've been dropping hints on a new album. They haven't actually come out and said, 'we're making a new album,' but they keep talking about new music coming soon, which is basically (hopefully) the same thing.

2. One of my favourite albums of all time, Daniel Amos' Doppelgänger, is being reissued in a deluxe CD package. This is cause for extreme excitement. No timeline on that yet, but I assume it'll be by the end of the year.

Music Day - Only Jesus

This album (along with David Meece's 7) was the soundtrack to my life when I was eleven/twelve years old. I happened across it again while organising my iTunes library (and by that I mean procrastinating on two papers).

I always thought Betsy's voice was so sweet, and to hear it again is like a soothing balm to my frazzled soul (see above parenthetical regarding academic papers, plural). These songs communicate nothing if not 'everything is going to be okay.' Yeah, okay, so maybe they were a REALLY inoffensive blend of Maranatha! singers and Second Chapter of Acts in the mid-eighties to boot, but this stuff has a simplistic beauty to it. Betsy's lead vocals are saturated with childlike faith, and that's what makes this group so darn endearing. (Plus, you know, ethereal synthesizers.) If the members of ABBA had been Christians, this is what they would have sounded like.

Now that I actually know a thing or two about music and singing (specifically, harmonising), I'm a lot better able to understand how intricate this group really was. When I was eleven, I had never even heard of the concept of harmonization. I never really thought about why this group always sounded so rich and full -- I just assumed that since there were two ladies singing, it sounded like that. Turns out I was partly right, but I never would have figured out the whole 'harmony' thing. Betsy Hernandez may be the sweet voice in the front, but Patty Gramling really held this together, lent Betsy the strength.

I could pick any song from this album. This particular song has always seemed like the perfect seventh track on an album -- it's not radio-friendly enough to be on the first side, and it's not edgy enough to bring in the second side. But it's not the graceful perfect cadence (or hard-hitting rocker) to close out an album either. It's that unexpected sliver of a sunbeam on the second side, where you don't usually expect much, but then something graceful and soaring rises out of the vinyl. How fitting that the lyrics explore bird imagery.

Title: Only Jesus
Artist: Silverwind
Album: By His Spirit
Year: 1985
Label: Sparrow Records
iTunes here; YouTube here (yes, it says 1986. I own the vinyl, which says 1985. So there).


In other news: Prodigal (who longtime readers of this blog may know as the creators of the FANTASTIC song Future Now) is releasing not one, not two, but ALL THREE of their amazing albums on CD later this year. Rest assured that I will be spamming this blog with the website information once I have it. For now, be aware that you need this album in your life. Even if you never buy a White Heart album (though you should do that too), you should at least buy Prodigal's Electric Eye. It is a work of art. Full stop.