Vinyl Vednesday 11/25

[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it kinda is. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds! Since Thanksgiving is this week, I thought I’d discuss three of my all-time favorite records, not that I don’t love my vinyl collection in general. Gratitude abounds.]

Records: Jawbreaker’s Dear You (1995) on baby blue marble, The Mountain Goats’ Zopilote Machine (1994) on black, and X’s Los Angeles (1980) on black with media kit.

Place of Purchase: Zopilote Machine and Los Angeles were purchased on eBay. Dear You was a present from my girlfriend. She’s awesome.

Thoughts: My copy of Dear You on baby blue marble vinyl is my favorite record. There, now you know that every future installment of Vinyl Vendnesday will be a lie. But dang it all, it was a really cool present, ya dig? And it plays perfectly! The cover’s a little worn, but I’ve always been a sucker for those sort of lived-in qualities. It makes me feel connected to something. Dear You is my favorite Jawbreaker record. I love those dark, swirling chords and depressing lyrics. Yet as down as songs like “Accident Prone” or “Jet Black” get, I get a little giddy about being able to tap into that world whenever I want. This is one of those albums I’ll start singing along to without realizing it.

I’m the sort of music nerd who wants to get every record my favorite artists have ever put out on vinyl. Being a Mountain Goats fan, that’s probably going to be impossible, but every once in a while, I score a big find. I lucked into a copy of Zopilote Machine on vinyl, featuring one of the Goats’ best songs, “Going to Georgia.” The price wasn’t too steep, and it’s easily the oldest TMG release I own on wax. I’m not going to argue that it sounds better in this format – it’s still just a guy with a guitar and a boom box – but it’s still nice to have and pretty to look at.

I made a decent amount of money temping, which I promptly squandered on an eBay addiction. Having been an X fan since high school, I decided to double-up my collection by getting their best albums on vinyl. Los Angeles is one of my favorite X records, channeling old rock ‘n’ roll riffs through a punk perspective. The best punk bands secretly knew how to play their instruments, as Los Angeles shows, and the quartet still puts on a great show. I was particularly excited to get this album on vinyl, as it was a promo version with a lengthy media kit. My copy came with glossy photos, Xeroxed newspaper reviews, and a neat folder to hold it all. It’s pretty cool.