Theme: Spend £5.00 in a charity shop
Present: Bob Mark Kul and Martin
As we hadnt seen each other in a while, this was a catch up session as much as anything round at my house.
I used my £5.00 in various local charity shops. In the one on our estate I picked up the 1969 Elvis TV special comeback LP and 2 tapes for £1.50. One of the tapes was Wicked Games a Chris Isaak comp that has the instrumental version of the title track (as used in the film Wild at Heart, but doesnt feature on the Wild at Heart soundtrack album!). The other tape was the Frank Black LP Frank Black from 93 containing a massive 15 tunes An absolute bargain!
Next to the Cancer Research shop in Moortown – Got 2 CD singles – The Sultans of Ping FC novelty hit Wheres me jumper for £0.75, The wonderful I want you by Inspiral Carpets (with Mark E Smith helping on vocals-ah) for £1.00 and a tape of Elvis Costellos Armed Forces for £0.30 that has a live version of Accidents will happen as an extra track.
With my last £1.45 I went along the parade to the Oxfam shop where I found another 2 CD singles Last stop this town by the Eels (featuring a Moog version of their hit Novocaine for the soul) and All the small things by Blink 182, both for £0.4947 pence change from a fiver I was very proud of myself!
Mark used his £5.00 on an LP he heard being played in the Headingley Oxfam shop (it has a large, dedicated music section). I loved the 1st track, then the 2nd was just as good and by the third I asked if I could buy it. Planet Funk Funky 45s features Aaron Collins and Lee Dorsey who Id heard of, and 10 other artists I hadnt (Freddy Scotts Orchestra, Wilbur Bascomb, The Dynamic Conceptsetc.). It instantly made us feel like we were in a Quentin Tarrantino film I felt obliged to offer them drugs whilst waving a gun around and swearing profusely.
Kul hadnt really grasped the concept and spent £5.00 at a charity shopon a new baby chair (he was about to have twins).
Martin (fairly new to parenthood) just hadnt had time to get to a charity shop so brought his vinyl collection round that hed recently recovered from his mums attic which he very kindly donated to my collection, as he hasnt had a record player in years. There were 30+ LPs that I didnt have including (for the 2nd time tonight) Inspiral Carpets Life and a brace of Monochrome Set LPs. There was also 40+ singles including 2 x 45s Id always wanted, Kinky Boots by Patrick MacNee + Honor Blackman and Stakker Humanoid by Humanoid What a result!
During the evening (I cant quite remember how) Marks love of the London Underground map came up, which got me to dig out the map with bands replacing station names and the lines being different musical genres a work of genius.
Mark and Kul are comic aficionados so I got out my latest purchase (The comics journal library, Volume 2: Frank Millar (2003) Fantagraphics Books, Seattle ) a fabulous book of interviews with Frank Millar heavily illustrated with his work. It was one of those books I was flicking through whilst having a coffee in Borders and just didnt have the heart to put it back on the shelf. Millars wonderful illustrations for Sin City lead onto a conversation about his film work. He gets a pencil in his head in the Daredevil movie, wrote Robocop2 not bad and Robocop3 a bloody awful film! We all agreed that the original Robocop movie was one of our top 10 films so we rounded off the night watching it Id buy that for a dollar!