my favorite album covers, Lava Hay, Uriah Heep, and whatever

Something someone at work brought up the other night got me onto a contemplation type of turntable mood.more 33 1/2 rather then 45rpms.

Normally reminiscing is something i cannot stand, and try to avoid. It's something old people do, or at least older then me, and when others start to remember when, i usually remember to either make fun of them, or just leave. But this subject matter jarred a few lingering thoughts. Even though a listing of anything favorite, is meaningless, and is flavored by a whole pile of things - like what happened this afternoon, or 33 years ago, but maybe there's a point. Must be, because i'm writting about it.

My immediate list was album covers of old, and rare stuff that anyone born after 1970 wouldn't have an inkling of. stuff like Rainbow Bridge by Jimi Hendrix, or Fleetwood Mac (Bare Trees),

And yep, something just to impress (ELP's Brain Salad Surgery).

After leaving work, i gave this subject a bunch of other thoughts (while i was attempting to go to sleep, you bastards!), and started thinking of the 1st albums i bought, and then thought of albums that were special not because of the album art, but of because where they came from, and what they were, and the record stores that they were bought from.

For instance, Uriah Heep's Magician's Birthday.

I remember 1st hearing that when i was in Grade 7 at Eastwood Jr High School, and marveled at the album art, and of course the music inside that gate fold sleeve. But that's not all of it's magic (pun intended). I remember the store i bought it at as something to remember.

only old timers will remember this, but in downtown Edmonton at one time on 101st street there was a stretch of 2 story buildings on the west side of the street, and in amongst them was a store call 'the place for pants,' (which eventually became, thrifty's, the place for pants, then, yep, just thrifty's. catchy huh?)...to get to the record store, one of the 1st A&A record stores in Edmonton, you had to walk into this clothing store to a door in the floor, and walk down a ladder . Weird huh?..or at the time really really cool.

Then there was my very 1st Bob Dylan album.

Think i was really really young when i bought this, because i remember buying it with my folks in tow at the Opus Music store on Jasper ave and about 106th street?....I think i was a youngster at that time because i remember wanting to become a member of the Monkees...but the thing about buying the record was the empassioned pitch the guy at the store made while making the sale. it was a 'campus import rareity,' whatever the hell that meant. But also, what that album did to me is important, because it was out with the Monkees, and in with whatever was blowin' in the wind.

Bruce Cockburn's High Winds, White Sky was the 1st album i'd bought at the old record store that was located at the University Of Alberta's HUB mall way back when. Actually there were more then a few seminal albums bought at that shop. Murray MacLauchlan's Sweeping the Spotlight Away, A double album collection of Richard Thompson's solo stuff, (called Here and Now, i think), and i also bought my 1st Chris de Burgh album there as well (Crusades). that store and those purchases had a lot to do with why i now listen to what i do now, and why i never seem to listen to what everyone else is listening to.

At the same time there used to be a program on the local indie radio station here in Edmonton, CKUA on the dial, called the Ritz, that pretty much shoved my high school mind off the beaten path. i used to drive around Edmonton in my 1968 Newport Custom, and just listen. Joe Pass, Larry Coryell, Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Shawn Phillips, everything and anything that wasn't being played anywhere else. That music, and an older family friend's extensive collection led me to the section of music that wasn't in the Top 40. And that's where it started.

A funny story too, was the 1st time i walked into that record store i was looking for an album by someone else (don mclean), and i knew what the album cover looked like, and grabbed Sweeping the Spotlight Away, thinking that was it. It wasn't, but an amazingly influentual mistake it was.

Lava Hay's Picture In Mind album was something i didn't actually have to buy, it was one of the 1st albums given to me by the guys at Nettwerk Records in Vancouver when i began writing, and hosting a music/video show in Kamloops, way back when. The 1st thing i did on the beginning of that journey was attend a parking lot BBQ at Nettwerk's digs next door to Mushroom Records, and Lava Hay were the act on stage. Sarah McLachlan was also on hand, just arriving from a gig in Edmonton with Jr Gone Wild at the Fringe Festival. It was an amazing time, and pretty amazing, and it blew me away that i was even there.

The other cool thing was when i 1st moved into the lower BC Mainland in about 1981, i remember settling into my apartment in New Westminster, and these 2 girls came to my door selling these amazing homemade candlles out of a card board box, and when they noticed my guitars, mentioned that they jammed together at a club called the Barrel i think, and i should come out one night (of course i never did) for some reason seeing the Lava Hay reminded me of that, yet another important time in my life's story.

So favorite album covers, it's intersting just how a thing like that can jar a host of memories....not sure if that's a good thing, but it just is.....now , i wonder where these thoughts will send me, and how they'll shape my future

oh wait a minute, they have. just found my new fave album cover, and album ever. colleen brown's newest, because it's local, because i bought it at my fave local music store (Blackbyrd), and because of the tunes inside.

w