THRIFT STORE Gems - Why FOUND SOUND is Always Awesome | MUSIC is not a GENRE - Season 2 Episode #20

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Back when walking around indoors amongst strangers didn’t cause massive physical anxiety, I used to take every chance I got to pop into a thrift store and see if it had any interesting vinyl. The truth is ANY vinyl you find in a thrift store is interesting. It’s something someone else owned and listened to, that for whatever reason they’re now sharing with someone new. The randomness of thrift store vinyl makes it interesting by default, whether what you find is well-known, a kind of obscure gem, or completely unknown on every level. Which describes this week’s three albums. I found all of these in thrift stores, and bought each of them for different reasons.

The Beatles I got because despite having every Beatles song on cassettes & CDs & digital/streaming formats, I’ve never owned an actual Beatles album. I have a 45 of theirs and that’s it. Plus I knew this particular album’s look from my dad having owned originals of all their American albums, and the one I found didn’t look like it. It’s the film soundtrack version. Not obscure by any means, but cool to find and have.

Artie Shaw was my first big band love when I was a wee lad, mainly because I’ve always loved the clarinet. And again, I never owned him on vinyl. Finding this big bright package of an album was like the universe saying, “We know.” These days, someone like Artie Shaw is kind of obscure, so this was a nice find. And it’s a damn good collection!

Then there’s the famous (?) Eddie Heywood. I’d honestly never heard of him. It was the complete unknown of this album, coupled with the title & Bob Ross–Yacht Rock mashup cover art, that compelled me to get this. I figured I’d never ever run across this album again. It makes me wish there was more blatant cheese in pop music. And it doesn’t disappoint. It’s that certain kind of swingin’ 1950s late-but-not-too-late in the evening lounge jazz, smothered with super sugary strings, and with just enough quality and flourish to rise above Mantovani, yet not quite enough to match Guaraldi or Esquivel. All the music was composed or cowritten by Heywood, who worked with big names like Benny Carter & Billie Holiday, and he even has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Who knew?

Just to bring it around to something super mega connected, my brain told me that well-known-kind-of-obscure-unknown is a perfect description of how I like to create music. I almost always take some well-known phrases/chord progressions/rhythms, mix them with kind of obscure words & sounds & arrangements, and throw in some completely unknown elements that are unique to me – manipulated sounds or lyrical phrasings that come straight from the weird way my mind mashes words together. OR I do the opposite of all those things. Either way, what comes out is an amalgam that sounds familiar, feels connected, and is totally its own thing. These two songs are perfect examples. The first combines hooky melodies & rhythms with more obscure lyrics and flat out weird backing vocals. The second combines hooky synths & rhythms with more obscure lyrics and at least three tracks of actual “found sound”:

REC - “Make Me Mic My Mouth” (from the album Syzygy for the Weird)

REC - “The Power of Repetition (Everlasting)” (from the album Syncopy for the Weird)

Do you have any connection with any of these artists? Do you like stumbling across music you never thought you’d find or buy? Don’t you think thrift stores are awesome on like every level? Discuss dammit!

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