The Scrounger's Report

Feb. 26, 2000

Somebody dial 9-1-1!! My credit card and checkbook are burning!!

So I decided to go on yet another CD-hunting trip,
this time to a blue-collar, redneck town of about
50,000 people, about 30 minutes away. These kinds
of towns tend to be good for hard rock and metal
scrounging...Danville was no exception.

I had anticipated spending $40-50....I ended up
dropping $135, and could easily have spent more.

First I hit three pawn shops, taking liberal advantage
of the cheapo bins. I didn't have an opportunity
to listen before buying, so these were strictly
gambles; some may be complete crap (I've only had
an opportunity to listen to a few thus far):

Hericane Alice - Too Late. 1990. Atlantic.
   Promo single. For 50 cents, why not?

Big Noise - Bang! 1989. ATCO.
   Can you say "poppy"? No, I mean *extremely* poppy.

Ashton - Modern Pilgrims. 1988. BMG Records.
   As it so happens, a little too rough and bluesy
   for my tastes.

Opafire - Without a Trace. 1991. BMG/RCA.

Cutting Crew - The Scattering. 1989. Siren.

Natasha's Brother - What's With All This Love? 1990. Atlantic.
   This one was a find! I gambled on it based on the 
   cover art and track listing. It's "Lite AOR", and
   very well done at that. The cover of Hall and Oates'
   "Sara Smile" is good as well.

Lucky 7 - Feed the Snake. 1990. Restless/Buy Our.

After All - How High the Moon. 1988. EMI (Canada).

Dream Patrol - Phoning the Czar. 1988. CBS Records.
  Looking at this closer, it appears that this is an
  instrumental album. Oh well. $2 shot to hell.

Kill For Thrills - Dynamite From Nightmareland. 1990. MCA.
  Completist fodder.

D'Priest - Playa Del Rock. 1990. Noise Records.
  Ditto.

Scott Springer - Hello Forever. 1993. Pakaderm/Word.
  Can you say "POUNCE"? Being a Pakaderm completist,
  I'd been looking for this one for a while. I already
  have the 2 Halo discs (he's the lead singer on those),
  so it will be interesting to hear how this compares.
  It's got John and Dino Elefante all over it as musicians
  so I'm quite hopeful...

Pissing Razors - Cast Down the Plague. 1999. Noise.
  Feeding the heavier side here...

After exploiting the pawn shops, I decided to try one
of the indy retail establishments. I could have *easily*
spent hundreds of dollars at this one. Not so much from
their current releases, but as part of their inventory
they had absolutely *LOADS* of 1985-1992 material brand
new still sealed in long boxes and blister paks. A veritable
playground for a collector. Most of the material I already
have, but for someone just starting out looking for OOP
stuff, this would be the devil's playground. Not cheap;
nothing under $10, most discs $13-16. Another area I bypassed
but could have unloaded major bucks was in the area of
music videos. They had scads of hard rock and metal
music videos (including some of the stuff from the mid-1980s
"silver box" series from RCA), all brand spanking new and
still sealed, $10-20 each. For the condition-conscious
collector/completist, this would be a place to drop a bundle.

I did pick up 3 discs there:

Assassin - Interstellar Experience. 1988. Steamhammer.
   I like late-80s thrash stuff, which I'm assuming this is.
   Brand new, still sealed.

Saxon - Crusader. 1984. EMI.
   Still working on completing my Saxon collection...
   They also had a "2-on-1" of Wheels of Steel + Long Arm
   Of the Law, which was extremely tempting, but it was $28.99.

and my expensive purchase of the day:

David Pack - Anywhere You Go. 1985 (Japanese reissue).
   Having just picked up the Ambrosia reissues, this seemed
   to be the logical next step. $23.99....OUCH!

On my way out of town I hit the "CD Exchange" (used CD store)
and dropped a bundle there as well. A bit expensive for used
discs, IMO ($5.95-9.95, most $8.95), but an excellent selection:

Brad Gillis - Gilrock Ranch. 1993. Guitar Recordings.
   I had found a copy of this about a month ago, and Marko had
   said he was looking for this, so I snagged it.

Zurich - Incommunicado. 1989. Visual Musik.
   This is a weird little minor-label release. The band shown
   on the front cover implies hard rock or AOR, but it's actually
   pop stuff. Not bad though.

April Wine - First Glance. 1978 (1992 reissue). Aquarius (Canada).
   I've never seen this locally, so I jumped at the chance to
   pick it up. April Wine's discography is one I hope to eventually
   complete...

Tourniquet - Stop the Bleeding. 1990. Intense.
   CCM thrash. I just recently picked up the KMG 2-on-1 reissue
   of this and "Psycho Surgery". The collector in me wanted
   original releases as well though. :)

All Stars - N.W.O.B.H.M. 1991. Grand Slamm.
  Ah ha!! Another one of the mysterious and elusive releases
  from the Grand Slamm label (I intend somehow someday to
  complete my list of all the discs they ever released).
  This is a bunch of NWOBHM musicians, collaborating on a
  "superstar project". Snagging this was a no-brainer.

And the last 2 discs I picked up solely to put on Ebay, as
I already have them...maybe I can recoup some of the cash
I dropped today:

Rick Springfield - Rock of Life. 1988. RCA.
   A nice non-cutout mint copy. This usually goes for $30-45
   on Ebay.

Bon Jovi - Never Say Goodbye. 1988. PolyGram.
   This is a gold CD-Video, playable on laserdisc players
   (the audio will play on CD players). It contains the
   video of "Never Say Goodbye" plus the following 4 audio
   tracks: Never Say Goodbye, Social Disease, Edge of a
   Broken Heart (non-LP track), Raise Your Hands. These
   are becoming scarcer and scarcer to find. This one is pristine!
   
(if anyone's interested in either of these 2 CDs, contact me
offlist with an offer).

Well, a tiring, but overall quite productive day. Time to
go listen to music...

-Dan