Category: Vinyl

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Rural Alberta Advantage “Hometowns”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Rural Alberta Advantage
Album Title: Hometowns
Year released: 2009
Details: Black vinyl

The skinny: I saw The Rural Alberta Advantage live for the first time at Ottawa Bluesfest in 2010, before I had ever listened to any of their recordings. I was so impressed by their crazy blend of folk/country, punk, and simply wicked percussion, that I immediately afterwards sought out their debut album, “Hometowns”, and then, proceeded to see them live twice more in the span of the following year. The Toronto-based trio of Nils Edenloff, Amy Cole, and Paul Banwatt fast became a favourite of mine so when I found a copy of this debut album at the now-defunct Record Shaap, I quickly made it part of my collection. And this, in 2012, in my collections’s early days, back when it was in the single digits and before I had even purchased my turntable. I still spin this original, plain black pressing with regularity because it is simply an excellent collection of raw rockers.

Standout track: “Don’t haunt this place”

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Rolling Stones “Hot rocks 1964-1971”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Rolling Stones
Album Title: Early tracks
Year released: 1971
Year reissued: 2021
Details: RSD2021 drop 2 exclusive, 2 x translucent yellow vinyl, OBI strip, 2 8.5 x 11″ lithographs, limited to 7200 copies

The skinny: Yesterday, I posted about a Rolling Stones Record Store Day exclusive I was handed for free back in 2019 and today’s feature is a (definitely not free) exclusive that I purchased on this year’s second drop a couple of weeks ago. “Hot rocks 1964-1971” was a compilation that was released 50 years ago and was my own introduction to some of the band’s great early work. I bought a copy of it on cassette with my own money as a teenager because I recognized a few of the song titles from listening to oldies radio while riding in the family car with my parents. Well, after years of listening to this cassette, almost to the point of wearing it out, I knew all of these tracks intimately. I’m pretty sure I still have the cassette in the basement somewhere but with nothing to play it on, adding the record to my vinyl collection became something of a mission for me. I had seen it in shops before but had passed it over and then, regretted doing so. When I saw it announced as an RSD exclusive this year, it became my only target. I won’t lie, it wasn’t cheap. But the colour is lovely, the pressing is sweet, and the lithograph reproductions are a nice touch. And oh yeah, an OBI strip!

Standout track: “Sympathy for the devil”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Rolling Stones “Early tracks”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Rolling Stones
Album Title: Early tracks
Year released: 2019
Details: Black vinyl, RSD2019 exclusive, available for free at certain stores

The skinny: Brace yourselves. I’m kicking off a two-part Vinyl Love weekend, both posts showcasing a couple of Rolling Stones items obtained on two separate Record Store Days. Return to Analogue pressed this disc specifically for Canadian independent stores in 2019 and it was made available for free at select locations on Record Store Day that year. It just so happened that one of these stores was Ottawa’s The Record Centre and because I was one of the first handful of customers to make a purchase, I went home with this record. “Early tracks” is a compilation of tunes from some of The Rolling Stones’ earliest recordings, all twelve songs from 1964. Many of these are actually covers of R&B standards, including the only one of these recordings that I had heard before: “Time is on my side”. It is an album that I likely wouldn’t have put down money for but for free, I definitely didn’t refuse it.

Standout track: “Time is on my side”