bargain classics?

The scene: the Atlantic Ave. Goodwill store in Brooklyn. Halal fried chicken, indian rug dealers, pawn shops. Stacks upon stacks of Barabra Mandrell and Zubin Mehta LPs, shoved away in the back corner behind musty jogging sweats. "Shorty Swing My Way" by K.P. and Envyi nestled next to its own Carl Mo 12" remix. $1 each. What a rush. Also found a Junior Vasquez remix of Funky Green Dogs but unsuprisingly it was crap.

Whatever happened to the Warner Bros.-style loss leaders? - compilations of a label's lesser-known or experimental bands that eccentric bargain hunters would snap up in a second just for the *possibility* of finding that one good song.

Napster ain't quite the same.

Well, I got the first Silver Jews album for £2, I thought that was a bargain.

Hey, stop disrespecting the Primitives.

Not really a bargain bin but most of Neil Young records can be acquired at a reduced price. And I found Basehead's Play With Toys for next to nothing. As well as V3's output for a few pounds.

James, that was a rip off. I once paid 6 pence to rent a Silver Jews record from the library. I asked for a refund.;-)

Some bands never leave the bargain bins.

The Kinks have been bargain basement for as long as I can remember. Motown have released great Smokey Robinson, Supremes, Four Tops greatest hits for £4 each. The best Pink Floyd collection is 'Relics' which was released on Music for Pleasure (lo-budget label), Lonnie Donegan is cheap, as is Lesley Gore, Johnny Cash used to be cheap but Rick Rubin made him expensive.

albums i have bought for 33 cents:

bob dylan's greatest hits

yes's _fragile_

beethoven's 5th and schubert's 8th on one record

an album of piano classics perf by jean-philippe entremont

for 20 cents:

a compilation of great 50s pop including chuck berry, jerry lee lewis, the shangri-las, leslie gore

in fact, most of the classical in my collection was acquired for $2 or less.

oh, and _changesonebowie_ for $2.

the campus station recently had a "1st six for $1, the rest @ 25 cents" sell-off where i got the jurassic 5's "quality control" 12", rush's _2112_, deep purple's _machine head_, the strawbs' _hero and heroine_, the mott the hoople album with "all the young dudes," and a bunch of other stuff. the awful record i got for 1 song was journey's _escape_ (for "don't stop believin'").

yes albums can frequently be found for $2 or less. in fact, the smiths albums can be easily obtained for $6 or less.

(a new cd regularly costs $22 here)

Skylarking for a quid. The best money I ever spent on a non-alcoholic item.

Received wisdom had it that the best single you could routinely buy for 10p in the MVE basement was the NME freebie with Steinski's "The Motorcade Sped On" on it. Given you could get practically every record released in the 1980s for that sum this was a bit of a stretch, but it was probably the most notionally valuable.

The KLF's "Chill Out" on vinyl for 20p was good too.

why do all cheapo record shops and charity shops have 'flesh' by A Split Second? such a bloody awful record as well.

cheap buys aphex twin. i care because you do. 99p. help the aged in kentish town tricky disco 12" 50p finchley high st charity sop bodenstandig 2000 & dmx krew lps for a quid lounge lizards album for 10p. north finchley banbarra. shack up. original 70s 7". don't know if this is worth a lot or not.

vinyl exchange in manchester is good for cheap recs. had accelera deck and cornelius albums for £2 before they'd even come out.

One of the best things the NME (or was it MM?) ever had was that second hand record shop chart - not of sales but of what people were trying to flog them. Always interesting to see what the public was regretting buying.

Once picked up two Pharoah Sanders late sixties albs for a couple of quid each from an Amnesty International charity shop - they're prob. worth about 20-25 quid each. Afterwards I felt a bit guilty, as this almost amounted to stealing from a 'good cause', although I did want the discs and wasn't buying 'em to make a profit or anything. The shop in question was also trying to flog the usual bargain basement fodder - simple minds, dire straits lps - at stoopid prices (four or five quid each) which annoyed me. So should I have pointed out their 'error' or simply celebrated my rare good fortune? And what's the most ridiculous prices you've seen on unmitigated, unsaleable crap?

Pop tip. The one record that you will never find second-hand is Strawberry Switchblade by Strawberry Switchblade. If you see it, snap it up at once.

i got strawberry switchblade's since yesterday 7" from a record shop in halifax. the thing was, it wasn't a second hand shop, it was the original 7", and i bought it in about 1997. which means it must have been languishing there for, what, 12 years or so?

That Steinski track on the NME 7 inch had a great dialog bit - "Mrs Kennedy jumped up, she cried 'Oh No' she cried 'Oh No'.......and the motorcade sped on".

I bought Abcaderians 12inch 'Smiling Monarchs' on Factory from Oxfam in Twickenham. 20p. It was nestling quietly between the usual Paul Young and T'Pau albums.

one of the great things about living in japan is the number of superbly stocked second-hand cd shops. One particular chain has a sale every few months or so with a whole load of junk at 3 cds for 1000 yen [about 5 UK pounds].

though one in every ten cds seems to be scatman's world, there's always a hell of a lot of good stuff, and the fact that you have to be things in batches of 3 means that you're always having to take a chance on something you wouldn't normally buy in order to get something you want. so, today, for instance, dawnrazor and some dodgy loungecore to go alongside daydream nation, kahimi karie, and takako minekawa.

no strawberry switchblade, though.

[and there are more than 3 good tracks on pure, by the way... ]