The Scrounger's ReportApr. 15, 2000Stock market got ya down? Invest in CDs!!With the NASDAQ and DOW falling through the floor, I decided to follow my parents' advice and invest in CDs. "You can't go wrong with CDs," they've always said. "The stock market is too risky, put your money in CDs. You'll never be sorry!" Wait... you mean this *isn't* what they had in mind? Damn...:) I took a half day off from work yesterday and trundled up north 70 miles to the thriving (*cough* *sputter*) metropolis of Kankakee, IL. I've always gone there for one specific store; this time I printed out the addresses of the 3 pawn shops in town and decided to hit those as well. I'm damned glad I did; they turned into a veritable gold mine, but more on that later. First, a couple of discs for the trade list (or Ebay, whichever): Rick Springfield - Rock of Life. 1988. MCA Records. People claim this is rare, but I can't seem to swing a dead cat without hitting one of these. This is the 4th one I've found in 3 months. It must simply have a high demand factor. The first 3 all sold for $40+, I'd imagine this one will as well. Rodger Hodgson - Hai Hai. 1987. A and M Records. Solo CD from Supertramp frontman. OOP in the U.S. (still available as an import I think). Ok, now on to the discs I found for myself... well, some will undoubtedly end up on the trade shelf. Unfortunately, the three pawnshops I hit had no facility to preview CDs, so I had to gamble based on appearance and cover art. Some worked. Some didn't. Venom - Prime Evil. 1990. Craze Records (Canada). $9.99 This was a mistake. Since it was approximately the same time as the Cronos disc, I mistakenly assumed it would be of the same ilk. Not. This is a disc without a vocalist. BLEAGH! Bad News - S/T. 1988. Rhino/Rampage/ $1.67 Can you say "Spinal Tap"? Sure, I knew you could. Tankard - The Morning After. 1988. Noise Records. $5.00 Fairly unimpressive thrash metal. Midge Ure - Answers to Nothing. 1988. Chrysalis. $1.67 The name sounded familiar (Ultravox). It looked like pop. I gambled. Not bad... Aqua - Aquarius. 2000. MCA. $6.00 Ok, get it out of your system....Yes, I like Aqua. I happen to like a fair amount of Techno/Eurodance stuff. The song "Freaky Friday" absolutely kicks! Uriah Heep - Firefly. 1997 (1977). Castle (United Kingdom). $6.00 I'll eventually own all their stuff. I like this series of reissues, complete with remastering, bonus tracks, and fairly decent liner notes... AC/DC - Live. 1992. ATCO Records. $10.00 I'd never bothered picking this up, the few times I'd seen the 2-CD "ltd. ed." version it had always been too pricey. This time I just said the heck with it... Daryl Braithwaite - Higher Than Hope. 1991. Epic. $6.00 I've listened to some of his other material, and it always struck me as fairly poppy. This seems closer to AOR to me... Vengeance Rising - Destruction Comes. 1991. Intense Records. $6.00 Ever the completist, I want to get all their discs. CCM thrash metal, I think I like the earlier material better. Last Crack - Sinister Funhouse #17. 1989. Roadracer. $6.00 Interesting stuff. Heavy metal, looks way OOP. The cover art is...."different." David Coverdale - Whitesnake/Northwinds. 1990. Connoisseur. $5.00 I was surprised to see this in a pawnshop and jumped for it. Now that I've listened to it, I'm wondering why. Production? WHAT production? Egads... Ian Hunter/Mick Ronson - Yui Orta. 1989. Polygram Records. $5.00 Looks OOP. Sounds OOP. It's not bad hard (well, medium) rock. Jury's still out on this one. Bad Romance - Code of Honor. 1991. Polygram Records. $6.00 Looks like hard rock....smells like hard rock.....guess what? It *IS* hard rock. Female vocals, the band thanks Tom Keifer (Cinderella) at several points throught the liner notes. Anthrax - Penikufesin. 1989. Island Records. $6.00 I'd never seen this one before. Any Krauts out there that can decipher the title for me (I'm assuming the term is German). 6-track EP which includes the French Version of "Antisocial". Now to the interesting stuff... Paul Smith - Live and Learn. 1986. Dayspring Records. $1.67 Paul Smith - No Frills. 1987. Dayspring Records. $5.00 Being on Dayspring, he's obviously a Christian artist. The obviously dated appearance of the artwork is what attracted me. Actually pretty good stuff. Lite "westcoast" AOR, he sounds like a blend of Peter Cetera and Christopher Cross. Alleycat Scratch - Deadboys in Trash City. 1993. Kick Your Cat Records. $5.00 I've since been informed that this is a fairly tough find. It's definitely glam...no doubt about it. The following two, unfortunately, were fairly badly munged conditionwise, which is a crying shame. The discs are passable, but the digipaks are trashed. I've never seen either on CD, so I bought them anyway (also the fact that they were dirt cheap didn't hurt either): Greg X. Volz - The River is Rising. 1986. Myrrh Records. $1.67 Former lead singer of Petra. In good condition, this would cost $40+ on Ebay. I'll settle for this copy, thanks. Matthew Ward - Armed and Dangerous. 1986. Live Oak Records. $1.67 This and "Toward Eternity" were released by Radrockers as a 2-on-1 last year. I didn't even know this had ever had an original CD release! Poppier than the later work, still good. A very surprising find. Till my next "investment" outing, -Dan |
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