Top 10 Vinyl Finds of 2024
Photograph by Paul McDermott.
The “Top 10 Reissues of 2024” is here.
The “Top 10 Irish Albums of 2024” is here.
A Top 10 of secondhand Vinyl Finds in 2024. These were picked up in record shops in Manchester, Sydney, Tarragona, Dublin and Cork. There are a couple of rare collectables here, but mostly it’s just a bunch of records I couldn’t leave behind. Notes on all ten records are below along with an episode of Songs to Learn and Sing with tunes from all ten finds!
Songs To Learn And Sing EP 989
11pm Wednesday, 27 November 2024
Top 10 Vinyl Finds of 2024
Ben Watt – North Marine Drive (North Marine Drive LP)
The Driscolls – Julie Christie 7”
Hunters and Collectors – Sway 7”
The Raveonettes – Love in a Trashcan 7”
Boxhead Ensemble – Two Ravens (The Last Place To Go - Recordings From The Dutch Harbor Film Screening Tour LP)
Buzzcocks – You Say You Don’t Love Me & I Don’t Know What to Do With My Life (A Different Kind of Tension LP)
The Freshmen (w/ Micheál MacLiammóir) – And God Created Woman (Peace on Earth LP)
Ultramarine – Kingdom & Happy Land (United Kingdoms LP)
The Boo Radleys – Lazarus (Giant Steps LP)
Seán Ó Riada – Mná na hÉireann (Our Musical Heritage 3xLP Boxset + Book)
Special Mention
Therapy? - ‘Meat Abstract’ 7”
Multifuckingnational Records, 1990
Not a Vinyl Find but a gift, a really generous gift. A listener to the podcast (To Here Knows When – Great Irish Albums Revisited) sent me a copy of Therapy?’s debut single. The band self-released ‘Meat Abstract’ in a limited run of 1,000 in 1990. The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze!
No. 10
Ben Watt - North Marine Drive
Cherry Red Records, 1983
I picked up 1982’s Summer Into Winter EP, Watt’s collaboration with Robert Wyatt, a few years ago so I was thrilled to find a nice copy of North Marine Drive, his debut album from 1983. This is mostly a stripped-back acoustic affair with Watt accompanied by Peter King’s alto saxophone. Eden, Everything But the Girl’s debut album, was released the following year.
No. 9
The Driscolls - ‘Julie Christie’ 7”
Restless Records, 1988
“and then you turn and pull that Julie Christie face.”
140 seconds of jingle jangle heaven. Bristol’s The Driscolls released a couple of singles and ‘Julie Christie’ was followed with a self-titled mini-LP in 1989. The sleeve is a still from Doctor Zhivago (1965).
Rod Steiger and Julie Christie in Doctor Zhivago (1965).
No. 8
Hunters and Collectors - ‘Sway’ 7”
White Label/Mushroom, 1983
“This is Paul who produces that podcast I was telling you about,” said my friend Pádraig to the guy behind the counter of Red Eye Records in Sydney. 10,000 miles from home and I’m chatting about Episode 22: Chemicrazy by That Petrol Emotion of the podcast. How crazy is that? The first press Go-Betweens’ albums on the wall were out of my price league but I was very happy to find ‘Sway’ by Hunters & Collectors, taken from the Melbourne band’s second album The Fireman’s Curse, produced by Conny Plank in 1983, a fabulous slice of Art Rock, punk-funk.
Red Eye Records, Sydney - Australia’s “biggest indie record store”. Photograph by Paul McDermott.
No. 7
The Raveonettes - ‘Love in a Trashcan’ 7”
Columbia, 2005
The first 15 seconds of ‘Love in a Trashcan’ by Danish duo The Raveonettes has been the theme music to my radio show, Songs To Learn and Sing, for the last 19 years. I was very, very happy to find this on 7”. Taken from Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo’s brilliant second album, Pretty in Black, ‘Love in a Trashcan’ is a fuzzed-up rollercoaster ride that I never tire of.
No. 6
Boxhead Ensemble - The Last Place To Go (Recordings From The Dutch Harbor European Film Screening Tour)
Altavistic Records, 1998
In 1998 I bought the soundtrack to Dutch Harbor - Braden King and Laura Moya’s documentary about an Alaskan fishing community - because of the names involved: Will Oldham, Jim O’Rourke, David Grubbs, Douglas McCombs, Michael Krassner and others. I now also own a live performance of the soundtrack. The Chicago Tribune wrote that, “rarely has the relationship between sound and image been so deeply explored.” I couldn’t possibly comment, as I still haven’t seen the film. God damn it!
No. 5
Buzzcocks - A Different Kind of Tension
United Artists Records, 1979
About two weeks after finishing Paul Hanley’s brilliant Sixteen Again: How Pete Shelley & Buzzcocks Changed Manchester Music (and me) I found a copy of the band’s third album in beautiful mint condition. Prior to this find the only Buzzcocks album I owned was a CD of the superlative Singles Going Steady. As anyone who DJed in the 1990s will tell you that compilation was a must have. A Different Kind of Tension is the third Buzzcocks’ album and the last of original band’s trilogy of landmark releases. My review of Hanley’s Sixteen Again is here.
No. 4
The Freshmen (with the voice of Micheál Mac Liammóir) - Peace on Earth
CBS Records, 1970
I blame/thank Colm O’Callaghan for this one. Last year on The Blackpool Sentinel, Colm recounted how the Ballymena showband recorded, “the country’s first popular music concept album.” It’s a great story, well told and put Peace on Earth straight on to my wantlist. Extravagant – check. Pretentious – check. An overblown folly – check. A great find – 100%.
No. 3
Ultramarine - United Kingdoms
Blanco Y Negro, 1993
I once lent a few records to an acquaintance. A few years ago a Cork member of the “vinyl community” showed his latest vinyl finds in a YouTube video. He was shocked by how lucky he’d been. My acquaintance had given my records to a charity shop. I was in shock too, but I’m not bitter.* United Kingdoms is one of my favourite albums of the early 90s. Robert Wyatt lends his voice to a few tracks on United Kingdoms. It’s an incredible album. I’m delighted to have a copy of it again. The lesson - never, ever lend records to acquaintances.
* I am bitter.
No. 2
The Boo Radleys - Giant Steps
Creation Records, 1993
A few months ago I spotted this in Freebird’s secondhand section. It was in good nick but I balked at the price. I moved on to the next rack. A guy moved in and grabbed it. I immediately regretted my decision. I bought this in 1993 on tape and later upgraded to a CD. I’ve been looking for this on vinyl for 30 years. You never see this on vinyl. EVER. I was an idiot. Down in the basement of Manchester’s Vinyl Exchange this was the first thing I spotted. It was shouting at me, “PAUL, take me home!” I didn’t make the same mistake twice. Imagine having the audacity to name your album after John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. It would have been laughable except for the fact that the Boo’s Giant Steps is a genuine masterpiece.
No. 1
Seán Ó Riada - Our Musical Heritage
RTÉ, 1981
I’ve been after this for years. I’ve only ever seen it once “in the wild” and that copy had a battered box and no book. The book’s important to have.
A few years ago a copy came up for auction online. The seller worked for RTÉ. I wondered if the copy they were selling emanated from within the organisation. The seller had copied the photographs for their listing from Discogs. I asked if the boxset on sale was the actual copy from Discogs. The seller blocked me. Ho hum.
Our Musical Heritage was a series of programmes, “on Irish Traditional music which Seán Ó Riada presented on Radio Éireann in 1962.” This boxset contains a book of, “the text of Ó Riada’s talks, edited with a preface by Thomas Kinsella.” The three LPs provide a selection, “edited and introduced by Tomás Ó Canainn, of the performances by sean-nós singers and traditional instrumentalists chosen by the author himself to illustrate the character of the Irish musical tradition.”
The boxset has three vinyl LPs with an accompanying 84 page book printed by The Dolmen Press. My box is scuffed around the edges but otherwise in very good condition. The vinyl LPs and book are in mint condition. I doubt if the LPs were ever played more than once. I found both Our Musical Heritage and The Freshmen’s Peace on Earth in Spindizzy Records. Someone had sold an amazing collection of Irish trad and folk records to the shop. A few people had been through the collection before I had my chance so god only knows what treasure I missed.
The three LPs are themed as follows:
1 - Irish Vocal Music
2 - Instrumental Music
3 - Group Playing
Tomás Ó Canainn was a member of Na Filí and was mentioned in a recent post (Peel Sessions). Ó Canainn was from just outside Derry and moved to Cork in the early 60s. He was Dean of Engineering in UCC and after Ó Riada’s death in 1971 he succeeded the composer as lecturer in Irish music.
Back page of the book which accompanies the Our Musical Heritage boxset.
“It is not often that a single person, however gifted, can alter the character of a nation’s culture. Ó Riada managed to do this. The preparation of these talks was part of a process of creative exploration and recovery. It helped him to establish a necessary order and settle a strong foundation for his masterly practice.”
Thomas Kinsella
“Seán Ó Riada produced a reasoned and logical framework within which Irish traditional music could be discussed and, to a certain extant, assessed by its devotees and practitioners, as well as by those not directly involved in it. Our Musical Heritage was, and still is, a remarkable achievement.”
Tomás Ó Canainn
The painting on the cover of Our Musical Heritage is The Blind Piper (aka The Limerick Piper) by Joseph Patrick Haverty.
The “Top 10 Vinyl Find’s of 2023” is here.