"So who truly is to blame for the death of my stupid neighbor? I blame independent record stores." pt. 2

Record Store Day is coming up.

So I thought I'd talk about my craziest record store find. I'll take pictures of the record and edit it into this post later...

Band: Cheesecake
Record: Coq Fighter, 7" on Maroon vinyl
Where: Freakbeat Records
Why: Personalized note/sticker/flyer
How much: $6-8$

Never heard of this band before seeing this record, but I gathered from the record label that they were from Boston. They are Riot Grrrl, formed sometime around the early 1990s which would make them one of the first Riot Grrrl bands and have remained extremely obscure. They kind of sound like Mika Miko. Anyway, I happened across this while digging through the 7 inch bin at Freakbeat, which is just a box full of them in random order so it requires you (for better or worse depending on what you find) to just look through the entire thing. So this record catches my attention and I listen to it (because they let you listen to records that are already open, i.e. the used records) and I liked it. Upon closer inspection, I found a handwritten note in the jacket on the back of a concert flier, from the drummer of the band...To Phranc! At the time, I didn't know who Phranc was, but I was soon to find out when I bought "Captain My Captain" from Team Dresch and doing a little google search when I got home.



Also included was a sticker, I asked about it and the guy working there said that it actually did belong to Phranc and that she dropped if off fairly recently, I also picked up a Tribe 8 record there that I also assumed to have belonged to Phranc.

I don't know how many copies of the maroon colored vinyl of this there are, I can hardly find any info on Cheesecake itself let alone their releases, but its really good.

Some of the members of Cheesecake later went on to form this band.



[Edit, i.e. that thing I said I was going to do.]

Front cover.

The whole deal.

The sticker.

The flyer.

The note on the back of the flyer.

Lyrics sheet.

The back cover.

In A Few Hours of Madness

One of my favorite 7", absolutely the best Crust in my opinion.









I don't think thats the order of the songs.

"So who truly is to blame for the death of my stupid neighbor? I blame independent record stores.”

Record store day, fucking riot man.

But me and Ryan made it out with what we were looking for.

Our own "Whats in the bag?" special I guess.

Me:

Flaming Lips/Stardeath White Dwarf - Dark Side of the Moon (Barely!)

Fucked Up - Daytrotter Sessions 7" EP (Spiral Scratch Cover)

DJ Ilya Monosov & the 21st Century Punks - New Music

Total Abuse - Sex Pig 7" EP

Ryan:

REM - Chronic Town 12" EP/Automatic for the People (CD)

Coheed & Cambria - Guns of Summer/Pearl of the Stars 7" (picture disc)

Avenged Sevenfold - All Excess

I knew it would be crowded, but that was ridiculous. At the same time it was fun, I do not get many opportunities to make big purchases at Amoeba.

Alas I did not check out Freakbeat this year. Out of money.

Post Script

I know record collecting, or just collecting can be fun in general. But when it takes records out of the hands of people that actually want to use them (and yes, that means through removing the shrink wrap) then it annoys me. While I was searching for the Flaming Lips record I overheard some gentlemen saying that they picked up a FEW copies of  record store day exclusive records to negotiate some deals with people, thankfully record store day protocol allocated ONE copy of each record to an individual but I didn't know this when I heard it. The same thing goes for instrument collecting. Lets face it, your making things unnavailable to people that cannot put down the now $50 going rate for the Flaming Lips record, for the $25 profit. I'm not going to make judgements on people for doing this, but if you are you have to know what your doing.

The "Daytrotter" EP from Fucked Up is a good example, limited to 1700 copies total, I see about 1697 of them on ebay. Going rate for that is $9.99, which is $4 profit, most likely from oversaturation, might as well had left it on the shelfs so a Fucked Up fan could actually listen to it.

I have the same tiff with instrument collectors, probably actually to a greater intensity, because old instruments used to be a source for budding musicians to get decent sounding equipment for a reasonable price, however now its not an option, and all that we have available to us is trashy-sounding assembly-line-from-Indonesia equipment. Me and Ryan have been able to manage getting a decent sounding rig for much cheaper than it would appear, but it took a lot of time, effort, and luck.

Guitars are for playing, they sound better the more you play them, it gives them character, and when someone takes a '72 fender and sticks it in some glass showcase it just takes it away from the hands of someone that can use it to make art.

And when someone sells a record for an unreasonable amount and makes people think twice about opening it to listen to, it ruins that experience.

I opened the Flaming Lips record, and I enjoyed it a lot, so there is now 4999 pristine copies at the most.