On our way back from one of our regular trips to visit relatives along the Michigan shore, we found ourselves drawn to quickly pull over, hop out of the van, and paruse piles of stuff along our route. No, we weren’t dumpster diving (although we were tempted to do that at one point, but we didn’t have enough room in the van). The unavoidable, overpowering influence were rummage sale signs on streetcorners and “open” signs in front of antique shops.

1. Sheboygan

When in Sheboygan, we know we have to stop at Georgine’s, a combination thrift-shop and rummage sale that I’ve written about here before. We always do well at Georgine’s, so if we stop anyplace, we stop there. This time, we came away with five boxes of stuff (some of which deserve articles of their own, so you’ll have to wait), one containing some of my favorites: strange records and audio equipment. There weren’t too many new albums since my last visit, so I couldn’t fill a box like I usually do, but I’m still pleased with my record finds. The smallest is a demo record for the 430 Conn Caprice, a home organ with the ability to play numerous instruments, as the narrator will explain in great detail (”you know, when you hear an oboe on the organ, it’s really synthesized from flute sounds?“). In just a dust sleeve is a US Air Force Recruiting Service album, a record composed of lovely orchestral music interspersed with a kindly officer explaining how nurses are highly valued in the Air Force, and should they want to enlist as an officer they should talk to their recruiter. For the geek in me, I grabbed a Blade Runner soundtrack, and for the ‘what the?’ afficianado in me I got Heino’s 1971 album “Die Schonsten Volksleider der Welt”, a collection of national-pride music from several countries, sung in German. Trust me, the guy with the poodles looks nothing like he sounds (”is he trying to sound larger than he really is?” D asks with a confused look on her face). Good stuff all around.

I also had to grab the lovely blue box on the right: it’s an early version of a stereo walkman, although far less portable. The Channel Master Stereo 8 is a portable 8-track player and AM-FM radio that you can carry around with you — conveniently powered by 8 D-size batteries (!) — or plugged in to a nearby AC outlet. I haven’t tested it yet, but — my gosh — it’s too kitschily cool to pass up. It also appears well cared for, the antenna isn’t bent or broken, and the buttons and dials seem to work, so I’ll have to dig out my Jimmy Hendrix 8-tracks and give her a whirl.

After Georgine’s, it’s time to hit the road — but first we gas-up. Destiny and D headed to the ladies’ room and there, in the hallway, was a cardboard candy display. D’s brother-in-law, Garth, loves candy and she decided would make a great gift for him. (What can be better for a giant kid who loves candy than your own two-foot, six-inch cardboard M&M Mars candy display to sit beside his recliner and hold his candy?) D wondered if it’s garbage…She was just waiting for Destiny anyway, so she headed the the cashier and asked if it’s being tossed out.

“Sorry, we have to save that for specials,” the cashier replied.

D smiled and said, “Thanks anyway,” and returned to the back hallway to meet Destiny. After I finished pumping gas and entered to pay, D began to tell me about the great candy display — just then, the clerk yells to her, “Hey, my manager just called in and she said if you want it, take it, because we were just going to toss that candy display anyway.”

“Really?” D asked, and dashed back to claim it before something tragic befalls it. So, look-out Garth, come July this is going to be your birthday gift.

2. Fond du Lac

Just after passing through Fond du Lac, on the westernmost end of town, an open garage and a neon-pink sign caught my eye. With a quick braking and a weave over to the berm, we piled out to this unforeseen rummage sale. First, D spotted a stuffed cat by Dakin, who looks a lot like her old sawdust filled Tiger (name Tigger). This new kitty isn’t vintage; he’s retro 1976. D figured Tigger could use a pal, and for fifty cents she cradled him lovingly.

Wandering the tables in garage D also spotted a flat-box of old cowboy toys, Johnny West toys by Louis Marx. She was reminded of the one she had when she was younger: Comanche, the bay with black mane and tail, and articulated head and legs. I have a Geronimo at home, and as D and I were chatting about the box, the proprietor of the sale came over to say, “Of all the toys our kids had, those were the most played with.”

On top are the two horses, each with their tails broken off. “Oh, how sad! Horses without their tails,” D cooed, lifting one out of the box. “You know it’s going to be hard for a horse without his tail,” she said, “all those flies biting…” The old lady laughed (with D or at her — who can tell?).

D begin to sort through the rest of the stuff: bridles, cowboy hats, rifles, a drum, bags of gold, a frying pan, three coffee pots, feather headdress, chaps, etc. “Oh, it’s $2 for the whole box,” the lady offered before returning to her cashbox. D quickly decided that, with all those pieces, it’s got to be worth at least that.

“Johnny’s arms are missing, so even with all these rifles… Well, she’s gonna have to do the shooting,” D said, and both I and the lady have a laugh. Whether D thinks we’re laughing with her or not, she’s happy — she’s got the toys.

Coming up next: more sales, borrowing from the banker in the van, myseriously scary barns!

Though it’s probably not the most informed or organized method of collecting, I do suffer from the occasional impulse to ‘buy a huge lot of things on eBay and figure out what they are later.’ Perhaps it’s the little bit of detective in me, and a little bit of the compulsive, but I’ve recently won a couple of auctions for large lots of unusual records - a set of green, flexible ones and a big box of multicolored recordings for children. While those childrens’ recordings will be addressed later, the subject of today’s inquiry is these odd green records. I just can’t assemble the clues and I need help, folks. I don’t have the miraculous powers of the Dark Knight Detective, or Ralph Dibny, or hell, even Detective Chimp - but at least I don’t have his alcoholism either. Or gamey odor.

Here’s the clues, as I understand them. We have a series of 11 records inside a Capitol Records mailer, all made of very flexible material and green, and marked with a wax pencil of some kind with the dates of recording, almost one each month from June 1961 to June 1962. Since the mailer is postmarked April 1961 (before the dates of the recordings), this leads me to believe these recordings are unrelated to Capitol Records. However, written across the front of the mailer are the words ‘records from Harrison before we taped’, which may or may not relate to the contents of the records themselves. This envelope was mailed to Radio Station WBBF in Rochester, NY, where I presume these recordings were made and stored in whatever envelope they had around. I have a few records from this era that were clearly made in radio stations by amateur voices, so such a practice is not unheard of. While WBBF was an AM rock station through the 1960s, it went through many changes, including being a gospel station, a country station, a sports station, and currently existing as a Spanish language station. Because of this, contacting the station to trace 40 years of history is fairly impossible.

Interestingly, they’re recorded at 33 RPM, and the pitch of the speaker’s voice drops as the needle continues around the record and the revolutions grow shorter.

Of course, the most important evidence is the sounds on the records themselves. I tried to listen long enough to figure out who the voice belonged to, but whoever it is, they managed to fill up 11 45-sized, double sided records with ramblings about building houses and other autobiographical sketches. All I know thus far is that this man likes building houses, is getting a divorce from his wife Vera, and is sending these records to his mother by way of letters.

Please have a listen to these recordings and tell me what you know in the comments section below! Who is Harrison? What was he doing in Rochester? Will I ever solve the Mystery of the Green Discs?

MYSTERY DISC PODCAST!

You can’t imagine a book collector without envisioning them sitting in a leather wingback chair and a book in their lap. Classic car collectors are cruising down the highway in their restored Mustang, silk scarf around their neck and aviator sunglasses blocking the wind. Record collectors have their vinyl strewn around on the floor, dropping the needle on select tracks and dancing unabashedly when required. Well, that last part, that’s not me…but I admit that, until recently, most of my records remained unplayed.

That’s because I didn’t have a good listening area. At any time, I probably had two or three record players or turntables somewhere in the basement, but nothing set up where I could listen to them. When we rearranged the living area recently, the best of my turntables moved to the top of the electronics stack. I’m sure there’s a bunch of you who have a bunch of records and only sparse ability to listen. Many “entertainment centers” have been condensed down to a TV, a DVD player, and the cable box, and that’s a shame. Here’s some tips to bring your records out of the basement and into the living room, whether you’ve got hundreds organized by genre, or just a box left over from your high school days.

First, the turntable: If you haven’t got one, or if that BSR player you bought in the seventies is showing its age, it might be time to buy a turntable. As I’ve mentioned before, record album technology has been pretty consistent over the past hundred years or so, and that means that you could borrow a brand-new turntable from that budding DJ down the street and play your Herb Alpert disks. The advantage of buying a new turntable is to benefit from the little advances in technology, like better speed control and better needles. If you’re after a player to listen to your 78s, be aware that just because a turntable can spin that speed, it might not come with the appropriate needle. Records made since the late 1950s use a smaller needle, and the sound quality might not be up to par when playing the larger-groove 78s…and there’s a good chance of damaging the needle. Adequate turntables can cost in the $60-$70 range, and the price goes up with quality as you might expect.

Whether you buy a new turntable or hook up an older one, you’ll want replacement needles. A simple fix and almost always an improvement to the sound quality, but often the most frustrating to find a compatible one if you’re using a vintage turntable. There are so many varieties of needles, connectors, and quality that it might take a bit of research to find out which turntable manufacturers are compatible, what the Radio Shack catalog number was for the replacement, etc., etc.

To avoid replacing your needle too often, first make sure you’re playing a clean and undamaged album. Fragile 78s may still have cracks, even if not broken all the way through, that can catch a needle and damage it. Dusty records may not cause sudden damage, but prolonged playing of dusty records can cause needles to degrade. The basic cleaning brush has very short bristles on a 3″-4″ wide bar, allowing the entire album to be covered during one rotation of the turntable. While most brushes come with a secret-formula cleaning fluid, various formulas (mostly diluted isopropyl alcohol, although the Library of Congress recommends Tergitol) can be found online. Be extra-careful, though: things safe for vinyl might not be so good for lacquer 78s. An antistatic brush is also helpful in discouraging dust from further accumulating on your clean albums. Though I own one for nostalgic reasons, I do not recommend using Ronco Vacuum Record Cleaner seen at the right. It uses sponges to wipe the surface of the record, which could push more dust into the grooves than it removes.

To get your turntable hooked up, you might need a phono preamplifier. If you’re not lucky enough to have a phono-compatible receiver, you’ll need to get one of these. OK, here we get a little technical. If you’ve ever hooked up your DVD player to your VCR, you’ve met the red and white RCA cable — this kind of cable, carrying the right and left stereo channels, runs with a low-level voltage that carries the sound. Record players, including many manufactured today, do not operate at the same “line level” voltage as the rest of your audio equipment. Even though most record players have RCA-type cables sprouting out of their rear, the signal is not compatible with the AUX input on your reciever. In order to plug in a record player to your stereo, you’ll need something called a “Phono Preamplifier.” This is a little box with the record player inputs on one side, and line-level outputs on the other. Simply plug it in between your turntable and your stereo, and you’ll be listening to your records in no-time. Audiophiles usually recommend a separate preamplifier, rather than turntables with a built-in one, because the preamp can add noise to the low-level record player signal. Those same audiophiles will also recommend you buy a $200 tube preamp, but that’s at your discretion. An adequate preamp can be bought for $20 online.

If you’re not sure where to hook it up, check the back of your television. Many TVs have two or three auxillary inputs on the back, designed to hook up the various players and videogames in use today. Give their use some thought: if you can banish the videogame to the upstairs television, replacing it with a turntable, you’ve not only added space for the turntable but also removed a distraction from the room. The purpose is to make it easier to listen to the records, allowing you to decide on a whim to drop the needle on some classic vinyl, so connect it in the most accessible way is the best.

A clean, dry corner in the basement might be acceptible for long-term album storage, but it doesn’t make the records easy to get to when you want to listen to some tunes. Visiting rummage sales might be the best place to find classy racks, like the one on the left, in many different sizes, shapes, and styles. You might even briefly wonder where to steal some milk crates from, but any sturdy set of shelves with a 13″ or greater depth will work for LPs. As everyone’s heard, always store your albums vertically to preserve their shape, so you may need to perform some modification to hold the records upright without putting undue weight or pressure on them.

So, if you’ve talked yourself out of making your records more listenable because it seemed like too much work, or wouldn’t fit into your current entertainment center, take another look at it. For a hundred dollars, you could plug a brand-new turntable into your current system and be listening to your records in the time it takes to make a couple connections and clean the vinyl — and with one handly album rack, you’ll have hours of listening right at your fingertips in the room where you spend most of your entertainment hours. Nothing’s sadder than records that haven’t seen the light of day since the eighties; give your collection a chance to be heard again.

Say what you will about Warren Ellis and Frank Miller and Alan Moore redefining the genre of superhero storytelling with their expert and unusual scripts and characterizations, but I’m still a huge fan of an awkwardly written, completely illogical criminal caper. Capers involving time-travel gases and mind-control fluids, uncharacteristic feats of agility and intellect, and rocket boots. Everything is made fifty times crazier with rocket boots. I wish I had rocket boots.

The only thing better than reading these tales on yellowed, old pulp is hearing them. Hearkening back to the pre-television days of radio serials and imagination, I’ve found myself collecting superhero related records, beginning with a dusty old tag sale find of a Batman LP containing four tales. How can you resist ANYTHING that says ‘If Music Be the Food of Death’ and a picture of The Riddler on it? You’d have to be dead inside. I had to know - WAS music being the food of death? And what’s with the grammar on that? Contained therein were a classic set of sound effects, exhortations and stilted voice acting the likes of which I’d never heard. And it was all about Batman.

When I had a radio show in my college days, I made sure to get the turntables in the studio operational so that I could share the wonders of ‘The Scarecrow’s Mirages’ over the airwaves. I didn’t expect the listeners to dissolve into a sea of nostalgia as much as I expected them to giggle at Bruce Wayne’s incessant referral to his boy sidekick Robin as ‘Dick’. It makes for some suggestive and awkward sentences, not at all helped by some of the pre-existing assumptions about the relationship between the Dark Knight and the Boy Wonder.

The thrill of this record became the discovery of more. As far as I know, your friendly turntable is the only place you’ll be able to hear such wondrous tales as ‘Gorilla City’ and ‘Robin Meets Man-Bat’, as there’s been no concerted effort to make official transfers of these recordings, which mainly focus on DC Comics’ holy trinity of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Marvel comics also got in on the action, releasing recorded stories of Spider-Man and the Hulk, among others.

The classic of all of these records, though, is the Justice League of America album. The second you start hearing the shrill, nasally declarations Hyrdo the Dehydrator from the planet Exadoom, you know that you’ve found something very special. Something that will either reinforce your love of comic mythology or destroy your already tenuous connection with it. Among the collection of stories on the album are songs written for a variety of characters by the late Arthur Korb, a man who had also written music performed by greats such as Louis Armstrong. What’s he doing writing songs about Metamorpho and Plastic Man? Blowing my mind is what. Just try and describe The Flash to me using the phrase ‘The Wizard of Whizzle, yes indeed!’ and not steal my heart. I’ll be all yours.

Collecting superhero records has also expanded into collecting records that are even remotely tangentially related to the comics, such as the disco-fied ‘Wonder Woman’ by the Wonderland Band, with such classics as ‘Thrill Me (With Your Super Love)’ and complete with a cover depicting a woman wearing a costume that looks nothing like Wonder Woman’s favored attire or weaponry.

The most recent addition to my collection is ‘The Batman Theme Played by The Marketts’. Now, there are a lot of records out there that feature the 60’s Batman theme song as interpreted by any number of bands, but this one is a boisterous, surf-rock exploration into many themes present in the Bat-iverse, like the Bat Cave, The Joker (which sounds rather a lot like ‘Wipe Out’) and even the Bat Signal, all interpreted musically. It’s kind of like watching an interpretive dance rendition of The Godfather. To your benefit, check out this amazingly funky rendition of ‘The Penguin’.

To the benefit of the super-LP collector, most of these albums can still be found for under ten dollars, the rare exception being a set of four Batman 45s with shaped sleeves released in 1966, each of which include two Batman-related songs. Beyond that, it’s not easy to ascertain a complete list of superhero vinyl, as many different records containing similar stories spanned more than one record label.

Regardless, if you have an operational turntable, there’s nothing like sending one of these for a spin. Grant Morrison ain’t got ’ on this.

Define your collection - not just ‘the items,’ but how you see your collection:

My collection is all the interesting pop music I’ve encountered since I was 10. Literally. I hunted down pretty much everything interesting I heard on the radio or in a record store where I thought, “You know? I think I might want to listen to that again later.” What I ended up with is the very best and the very worst pop music of the past 26 years, with not a whole lot of mediocrity gumming up the works. Fortunately, I have a creative outlet for the collection, and I put it to use every week on my radio show, “Crap From The Past”, which just turned 13 years old. [syndicated, and based out of KFAI-FM/Minneapolis; see www.crapfromthepast.com for details] If I had to guess, I’d say I have about 5000 CDs, 4000 45s, and maybe 2000 albums and 12″ singles.

When & how did you start your collection?

The bulk of my collection was 45 RPM singles. Way back when, you could go up to the record counter and they’d have a list of the 75 best-selling singles, which they’d update every two weeks. They always read at the top, “Please request by number”, and the clerk would fetch your requested song from a wall of mailbox-type bins. I started buying one 45 a week just after I had turned 10, back in December, 1978. My first two singles were “Le Freak” by Chic and “Y.M.C.A.” by the Village People, two songs which still fill a dance floor to this day. A week or two later, I bought two more 45s, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” by Barbra Streisand & Neil Diamond, and “My Life” by Billy Joel.

For the first few years, I would buy primarily just big hits - usually the stuff at the top of the charts. I tried to own everything that hit the top 3, then the top 5, and later the top 10. Once I hit college in the mid-’80s, I just bought everything interesting, regardless of popularity. The first record albums I bought were the Beatles’ “red” and “blue” albums, which I still adore to this day. The only two cassettes I ever owned must have been gifts because I wouldn’t have bought them - the “Grease” and “Saturday Night Fever” soundtracks.

I started buying CDs around 1988, and I had 9 of them before I ever bought a CD player. I’m pretty sure my first was Level 42’s “World Machine”. The first song I ever heard played from a CD was Chicago’s “Stay The Night”, which I heard at a Crazy Eddie’s store in New York.

When did you acknowledge it as a ‘collection’?

It must have been during college. I got started in radio in college, and I would refer to the collection in the context of, “Let’s see what’s floating around at the bottom of the collection.” In the early ’90s, I began to realize that I had more oddball pop music items than virtually everyone else I knew, and in 1992 I got to put them all on display every week on the air when I started “Crap From The Past”. It’s just gotten bigger and bigger since then.

Has it affected you financially?

Back in college I used to joke that I could have had a nice little car, but instead I have a bunch of records. Initially, in the junior high school days, I’d end up spending most of my allowance on records. My parents really didn’t understand it and certainly didn’t approve, but it didn’t slow me down. Long term? No real lasting effect. I never deprived myself of anything important just to have more music.

Has it affected those around you?

Probably, and in a good way. I’ve naturally gravitated toward other music hounds, which lead me toward the community-run radio stations that I’ve worked at over the years. Those stations are pretty well populated by people with the same kind of collector’s bug that I have, and it’s been a healthy creative outlet in the process - I get to give back a little something to the music community every week from the radio show. At this stage in my life, the pop music is pretty well entwined with my personality, and even my non-musical friends know that it’s a large part of my life.

What is the most drastic thing you have done to pursue your collection?

Probably not as drastic as some other collectors. I remember getting quite a yelling from the parents back in high school. I’d found an original release of Diana Ross’s “Chain Reaction”, which came out in two different versions here in the U.S., and I came home with the 45. It was only about $1.50, so it wasn’t a bank-breaking ordeal, but my parents had had enough of my bringing home 45 after 45…

Other than that, the only exceptional thing we used to do was drive into Canada (about four hours from college in Rochester, NY to Toronto) to buy Canadian compilation CDs. Everything else has pretty much involved keep my eyes open in some pretty pedestrian locations - record stores, thrift stores, garage sales (before there was EBay), and so forth.

How has it affected your daily life?

Owning a gazillion records? Not so much, really. I keep them in some nice, restaurant-style metallic shelves in the basement. Concrete floor, no carpet, and a dehumidifier running constantly in the summer. And the whole collection is strictly confined to the basement - you wouldn’t know I like music at all judging from the rest of my house.

The radio show, on the other hand, has some wonderful side effects. Aside from doing my show on Friday nights (generally the high point of my week, since I have a few friends that show up for the show with me), I get a consistent stream of emails from listeners. It’s always nice to hear from people at the other end of the radio. And it has a small effect on my daily work - if an idea springs to mind for the show, I’ll generally scribble it down on the back of an envelope at my desk. Over the course of a week, if I get enough material on the envelope - voila! - I have a theme show all prepared.