Dalton and I were heading into Madison to get some lunch, get him fitted for a tux for the wedding and to stop in to Pre-Played of course. I had packed some DVD’s that I didn’t need anymore on the off chance that they would buy some and I could turn them into guilt free vinyl. I say guilt free because I had just gotten a huge gift cards worth from Half Price Books with my mom’s birthday gift card.

To my surprise, I was offered enough to get these vinyl gems in trade.

“Alice Cooper – Greatest Hits”

I had this one when I lived in Ann Arbor and it is a great place to start if you are squeamish. I only knew Alice Cooper from the radio and this has all of those greats. Later when I started getting other Alice Cooper albums I realized how “normal” most of these songs are. That is not to say that I don’t like abnormal Alice. My favorite album is “Muscle Of Love” which came in a brown box. Kind of like the “In Through The Out Door” Zeppelin album. Little or no info on the outside. If you can find an original “Muscle Of Love” album I have to believe it might be worth a bit. At any rate, this album is awesome and full of top notch Cooper. I’ll save for another blog post a conversation that I had with someone comparing Alice and Marilyn (wow, that sounds weird).

“Jethro Tull – This Was”

This was… Jethro Tull’s first album. Pardon the wordplay. I never owned this one before but I know the songs and can’t wait to give this one a spin. Any Jethro Tull album before “A” is worth having.

“Yes – Going For The One”

I remember seeing this in the cutout bins back in the day and figured Yes had lost its way. No Roger Dean cover? What is going on? I had only a passing fancy for Yes back then and had no interest in a Yes album that was clearly a cutout bin resident. It wouldn’t have been my first album with male nudity (see Rush) but that didn’t help either. Turns out that years later I would have a Yes revival and that this album is probably my favorite. Time is a strange thing and what was old can become new again.

Not sure why they invested so heavily in the double gatefold (trifold?) album cover since it is only a single album

but I was glad fate gave me the chance to find this in the bins again and this time, buy it.

“Judas Priest – Hell Bent For Leather”

I was shocked to find this one for only $2.99 but in this picture you can’t see what probably brought the price down, and only took me a couple of minutes to ever so daintily and carefully peel off:

WSRM. I figured that this was a local station, but a quick Google of the station turns up this:  http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/finder?sr=Y&s=C&call=WSRM&x=16&y=6

Christian radio? Huh? Do they reuse call letters or did that station change format? Certainly explains why they would dump an awesome Judas Priest album. I tucked the Demonstration Not For Sale label inside the album sleeve to save for posterity. If anyone from WSRM should read this I have your album and I am not giving it back!

This one is from my favorite period (1978 – 1972).  Every song is an anthem and if someone asked me what Priest was like who had no idea I may give them this one to initiate them.

And now it’s mine!

“Bruce Springsteen – Darkness On The Edge Of Town”

Bruce gives his best taxi driver stare on the cover of this one and I forgive him because this album is crazy good. It is another, like the Priest album where I think it is representative of the best of the era. There is something about Bruce that spans so many different moods and creeps up on you and you find yourself singing snippets of songs, parts that he has strung words together in just the right way to describe a scene in your head that you can’t forget. You believe that he knows all the people and places he sings about and appreciate that he tells you the stories.

“Jethro Tull – Thick As A Brick”

Yes. I bought this one before, but the records was in bad shape, even though the newspaper inside is intact and I will probably create one good copy out of both of them. Maybe put the leftover in a frame in the man cave.

“Led Zeppelin – Coda”

I remember buying this one when it came out and finding it a great but odd collection, and maybe even felling that it was a cash in attempt after the death of John Bonham, but when I saw it there and it looked so clean, I couldn’t resist.

When it hit the turntable and I turned the volume up it blew my mind. I loved it! Man, this one is awesome. For future Mike reading this, remember, you were stringing cranes for the wedding at the table set up in the living room and blasting this. Yeah, that was the moment.

Well worth the highest price I have paid for a Zeppelin album yet.

All I need now is II, III and ZOSO.