DIG OF THE DAY (Sunday 13/06/10)

On Sunday morning, the missus & I often hit this second-hand market in the Melbourne suburb of Camberwell and, invariably, I come back with a stack of cool records to keep me busy for a while (...well, a couple of days). As I am experimenting with this blog, I thought I'd discuss my finds. It may not be as interesting as it promises to be, but heck, I'll give it a go.

First I finally got round to buying The Mothers' classic double avant-garde LP, Uncle Meat. This is a very neat Canadian press in extremely good condition. I listened to the first disc and it's promising. In typical Zappa fashion, it will require repeated listens in order to pay of but I'm willing to wait.

Then I moved on to a dude who has this Soul/Funk/Hip-hop stall (well, mainly that and a bit of classic rock too). He has stacks of groovy records but as I am not made of money I had to pick a couple. This is a classic slice of Jazz Funk from Herbie Hancock's backing band on his Headhunters LP. God made me funky is worth the purchase alone. Great drum break at the start and an incredibly funky bassline. Essential! At the same stall, I snapped a copy of a rarely seen Hancock LP called Mwandishi. It was released in 1970 and is quite reminiscent of what Miles Davis did on Bitches Brew or In A Silent Way. Electric Jazz with touches of funk, very understated but quite powerful.

 I then found this Ten Years After LP for very cheap and since I like the band, I gave it a shot. Some excellent songs on it but nothing mind-altering if you get my drift.

Finally, I rounded up my purchases with three very different LPs. In fact you couldn't get any more varied LPs if you tried. The Innocence is bubblegum pop from the US Kama Sutra label. It's very Monkee-ish, has a couple of nice tunes on it but it's not something you would spend ages listening to. Pleasant enough. I think I got seduced by the slightly psychedelic sleeve. I'm always sucked in. I also got the first Henry Cow LP which I haven't listened to as yet but I expect some cool avant-prog at the very least. The Serpico OST sort of fell into my hands and it looked cool enough to come home with me. Some very groovy cop-show style tunes on this. This ain't Bullitt however.