Goodwill [Plainfield IN]

I have been through this store and this area too many times to count at this point - I just created a new label to keep track of all these trips so you know it is getting serious!.  I pulled some scores out of here over the years and even when I strike out I enjoy the hunt.  That could be said of all places as I am an optimistic and realistic digger, but especially here in central Indiana as I am almost always in a great mood when I get the opportunity to travel here.

I am a sucker for 12" singles and I love alternate remixes and that kind of stuff.  So it was a no brainer to scoop up this guy.  At work we use this sometimes as a triumphant theme song when we complete a big job (even though it is actually a forlorn love song).  Both versions here are interesting to someone like myself who has long enjoyed and analyzed the song.

What an awesome record.  The vinyl itself was totally covered in cat hair and dust but the grooves aren't dirty, just surface filth.  Took that off easily with a microfiber rag and my custom 99% isopropyl/distilled water mix.  Nice to see that someone actually used an inner sleeve with a generic outer sleeve, often it seems like people think that because they don't have a legit outer sleeve it isn't needed.  Neglect! Ironically it looks like this did come with a proper outer sleeve, which leads me to believe (hope?) that this was used by a DJ or something somewhere.  The outer sleeve isn't beat up like it was abused, but the corners are so soft and worn it looks like it had been rubbed and touched and used thousands of times.  I just used it again to dub both sides and what a delight they are! The instrumental is truncated and is really more of an instrumental of the remix on side A than the normal LP cut.  Also pretty awesome that I was only charged for a 45 so I saved a few cents.  I don't care about the few cents but it is nice to keep it under a buck and not have to carry around a load of change the rest of the day!

Rock Bottom Treasures [Plainfield IN]

I've been to the Plainfield/Avon area a bunch of times now but somehow never bothered to check the area for record stores.  Obviously I underestimated the area because I found Rock Bottom Treasures on a cursory glance at the map! I had my work planned for a Sunday which gave me a very leisurely drive on Saturday to do whatever I liked.  It turned into one of the most fruitful digs in recent memory!

The place bills itself as selling 'vintage goods' first and foremost; they do sell some other stuff but the record inventory is large and fairly well organized.  I first saw a wild mess of 7" as I walked in and decided I didn't feel like navigating that craziness so I moved to the jazz section where I found an array of good stuff very quickly.  A long, long time ago I saw some Eric Gale records at a garage sale.  I remember it so well.  I decided against buying both.  Later, I did score a different one.  I have always enjoyed it, which has left me forlorn for years pondering what might have been with the others.  No matter, I found the second one here and it is even a promo. What a steal! I also found a really nice Jimmy Smith 2xLP Blue Note comp that was too good to pass up.

Lately I have been buying a select number of my favorite LPs on CD just to listen to in my truck.  I had some Pat Metheny CDs on order at the time and one still had not arrived.  Of course, this place had a ton of Pat Metheny CDs, and everything was only $3.  I held off on the one I order, but I did grab another more recent release which I am really pleased with. 

This fella was stumbling around with his cane for a while, then really
got deep into the game digging in some old plastic totes for...
who knows.

It wasn't until later that I realized that my promo contained some goodys! First of all there was a glossy one sheet for other contemporary Columbia releases.  Sort of cool, sort of...meh.  But then I found this! Folded in half, it is just a plain Eric Gale promotional flyer!  Scanned for your pleasure.  Enjoy!

Goodwill [Plainfield IN]

I've had a bad habit of neglecting the Plainfield Goodwill while I have showered the Avon Goodwill with attention during my numerous visits over the past couple years.  It wasn't intentional - the Avon store is right next to my hotel and I honestly forgot there was another one just a couple miles away.  I'd say that often times I was tired after working and didn't feel like driving over there but there were definitely some times the work was light and I had time.  But again, it just didn't dawn on me.

Well it did on this trip.  I found a junk heap of records stuffed into their bins and I dug them all, and even pulled a couple out.  And of course had to artfully line up all the Enge records I found.

When you have dug thousands and thousands of junk records you start to develop a skill to recognize the same junk you see again and again.  This is what allows you to move through 100s of records quickly.  Because I am not looking for the good records, I'm looking for the bad records, and ignoring them.  So things stand out easily, there is a huge contrast when you see something that doesn't belong with the same old thrift store junk.  When I found this Braziliaan record, it stood out for many reasons besides the artist name and cover art.  For starters, the record label logo was unfamiliar.  Once I removed it I noticed instantly the quality of the jacket stock and then the strange way it opened like a gatefold, but not to reveal anything but the record inside - only the spine held the jacket front/back together!  This seems like a great example of people trying to seize upon the Bossa Nova trend (it is dated 1969).  I say that because the musicianship isn't very good, and I qualify that opinion with the multitude of bossa nova albums I already have in my collection.  But it is almost in an endearing way and regardless I'm glad to have such an odd import in my collection.  I did some research on the group and can find almost no information about them, though I did locate a number of other releases which I also added to the db.

I also grabbed another Foursider, I have the Sergio Mendes edition which I picked up long ago and I realize now I have to keep my eye out for the Baja Marimba band release.  I already have just about every A&M release for each of these three artists and I'm surprised I never came across this one before.  Glad I was able to scoop it up.

Goodwill [Avon IN]

I've spent quite a bit of time in the Avon/Plainfield area.  I worked on a job site in Avon twice about 12-18 months ago, now I have worked twice at a totally different job site which is about 1 mile away, but across the border in the adjoining town of Plainfield.  All of these times I stay in the same hotel in Avon which has a Goodwill right next to it.  Part of my tradition is walking over there and navigating through the thorny bushes that separate the empty lot next to the hotel from the Goodwill parking lot.  On my last trip, this wasn't so bad but now that spring has arrived the foilage has increased big time and it is chock full of brambles and other sharp horrible things.  I wouldn't want to try this in shorts!

Everytime I visit I remember the first time I came to town - its been over a full two years now.  I found a bunch of scores at the Avon store and even checked out the Plainfield Goodwill which I think I forgot existed, I don't think I've been back.  Anyway, I've been into Avon three or four times now but never had much luck.  Well this time they actually scaled back their records and put them into flippable 'bin style' organzation, a far cry from the horrible ground level 'bookshelf style' storage they had going.  This very much looked like a Savers bin.

Just touching on the records you see in the front of the stacks (which I placed there), the first religious record was autographed and well personalized (should have taken a pic).  The 5th Dimension debut did not have anything inside the jacket but it was in crazy beautiful mint condition (I already have their first 8 LPs).  That greatest hits actually intrigued me just a little but I did a catch and release on that one.

But in the last bin I did find something that I grabbed right away.  It is a promo but not in the true sense, but does have a pretty big promo sticker on the jacket itself.  (Not sure if Nemperor did legit promos).  Many, many years ago my Uncle Rick used to make me mix tapes (on cassette) from his expansive record collection.  He got me into some jazz fusion and other stuff that I still enjoy to this day back then.  He used to write 'A Rick Slick Production' on the tape.  He put the title cut from this LP on one of those tapes and I listened to it millions of times.  Years later when I found out who played on the album I was so excited to hear that it was Jeff Beck of all people who played the awesome leads on this song.  But then I found out he wasn't on this track, it was someone else who I never heard of but who is obviously super talented.  The record actually turned out to be pretty beat, its mostly really dirty, no violent scratches on it but it does skip a little bit.  

A long time ago I was at my uncle's house for a holiday or a party or something.  I was probably around 20 and thought it would be a good idea to take some LSD before the party.  I did this other times at family events, don't ask me why.  So I went down into the basement to kind of hide out and my cousin was down there.  At this point my uncle had put all his CDs into CD books so he took all the inserts and tray cards and taped them around the perimeter of the basement up near the ceiling like crown molding.  I spotted  the tray card for this one which has the awesome rear jacket seen below (along with some Indiana beer, in my hotel room).

So I was pretty out of it and I was obsessed with this pic because I remembered the mix tape from when I was younger.  I told my cousin I wanted it really bad and I was going to rip it down off the wall.  She told me to leave it .  At this point I don't remember if I told her straight up I was on hallucinogens or if she kind of knew or what.  But I was begging her for it and she kept laughing and saying to leave it alone.  So as you can see I have a very special attachment to this release.  My uncle got me into Return to Forever via one of his other mixtapes which remains one of my favorite groups ever.  He bought me a copy of a Manhattan Transfer album on cassette (I found it on my birthday a few years ago).  Pretty heavy stuff for a pre-teen to be jamming out to.  The record had a weird stamp on it which is kind of smeared and hard to read, I did a bunch of google searches but couldn't come up with anything.  All in all another nice run through Avon and I already scheduled yet another trip in a week!

World Record Shoppe [Indianapolis IN]

You get the feeling they've been 'remodeling' for a long, long time.  And there is no 'sale' anywhere beyond that door that I saw.

Found myself in Avon again - couldn't wait to get free from my work and head back to that Goodwill I had so much luck at.  Of course, there was nothing this time.  Oh well.

I went back to my hotel and laid low for a minute then decided I wouldn't strike out that easily! I checked the map and found a couple record stores but none were that close.  One was especially odd, it had only a couple reviews and they were really bad.  There was no photos for the place and I was convinced it wasn't a legit, operating store.  So I called and asked if they had records.  Someone answered the phone - then they answered yes.  And I was off!

World Record Shoppe is a real dump - about half the store is CDs in those old plastic 'racks' and they are all $10-15 and looked like mostly junk.  The records are along the back wall and sort of organized by genre, but then there is a large $1 bin as well.  The place is on Keystone Court, which is kind of just part of a larger parking lot for a whole bunch of other stores.  I actually parked, got out and walked about a block because I didn't understand where the place was.  It is in the back of the little strip mall, kind of in another strip mall of it's own.  Inside, there was a lot of cluttered junk around and I swear there was no heat in there.  At the counter, a fella sat behind the register, surrounded by all the other stuff he sells like marijuana smoking junk like pipes and what not, cologne, dollar store type stuff.



I initially glanced through the genre/artist specific bins looking for a few odds and ends but nothing panned out.  So I went over to the dollar bin and just went through it all.  The bins were so stuffed I had to pull a pile out of each so they would flip.  There were also a few stacks just laid on top which I had to move around.  Found absolutely nothing of interest except a marginally cool Tom Jones live album (which I already have) with a cool retail sticker.

                                     

Speaking of this album, I was always told that on Parrot releases, if the Parrot logo is in a box, it is a stereo only release.  If the Parrott logo is NOT in a box, it comes in mono and stereo.  I have proven this correct already on the first two Engelbert albums and the first 5 Tom Jones albums.  But this one is a mystery because it has the logo without the box but I have never, ever seen a mono version.  Now, you might say that I haven't seen many so how would I know.  Well of course you can look through this blog and imagine how many 100s I've looked at in thrift stores (as Tom and Eng are populated in every thrift store in the land).  But that isn't why I think I have a strong case the record doesn't exist.



I have the eBay app on my phone which is really cool because you can 'follow' searches.  So you have your set of keywords and refinements and whenever there are new items, a little dot appears next to that search in your list.  Then you click and see the new items.  I can assure you that people list at least one copy on eBay every single day of the year.  So I have looked through many more hundreds in this way, I even have a couple different searches saved to make sure none fall through the cracks.  So unless someone can show me a mono USA pressing, I don't believe it, logo be damned.

Back on track - after I dug the entire dollar bin I decided I'd go back and just look through everything else top to bottom.  I didn't have anything else to do and there weren't that many albums in this dump.  So I started at 'A' and just kept on truckin'.  And what do you know - I found something that has been on my want list for years, plus it was sealed and it was only $4 (which says a lot as everything was overpriced in this place).

So I started to walk over to the counter when I noticed a whole ton of 7"s right by the register.  As soon as I started to stoop down to start digging again, the clerk said 'those aren't for sale'.  I couldn't believe this attitude in a place this corroded.  I have a lot of trouble believing they sell many records (or CDs) here, period.

                               

So I casually said 'that's interesting....the records aren't for sale...in a record store'.  He responded with "c'mon, they do that everywhere".  I asked who exactly 'they' refers to and he elaborated: he claimed that all record stores have huge inventory that they refuse to sell.  Well I hate to brag but I have more hard evidence of record store visits than most people (even if I haven't visited the most), so I beg to differ on that.  But I just shook my head and laughed, paid and got out of there.  One last time: what a dump!

Indiana Goodwill 2-fer

Did some work in Avon Indiana and had a chance to hit two Goodwills in quick succession to great results. 

GOODWILL AVON

Did not find the familiar white bin I see at Goodwills across the Midwest. The stash was stored vertically in a long - probably five feet - row. 

Things started quite tame but before long I came up on some nice records. Not one but two records long needed to help fulfill those respective discographies. But most exciting was something I found inside the latter.  I got back to my hotel and was just going over them and I could feel there was something extra inside.  I don't know how I did not notice this at the store but it was quite apparent here.  It was a note, folded up the way that teenage girls have been folding them forever (or at least as long as I have been alive).  It is of an overtly sexual and flirty nature and I can only think that 'Patrick' saved it for those reasons, most titillating to a teenager.

I also dug out more Rog and even the last of a country comp trio I've been working on for probably a year. 

GODDWILL PLAINFIELD

Only 5 miles away laid another store and another atypical rack.  This was a 5-tier reminiscent of Savers. I pulled one score out of one of the excess stacks piled on top. When I grabbed it it felt heavy. I thought there might be an excess record stuck in there but it was actually a smashed 78!

I was lucky enough to find a weird and local (local to home, not Avon) sound effects album. There was actually two and both were mint and autographed. I just read a record blog extolling the virtues of this genre and I was certainly influenced.