This is one of the very few places where I can make a statement like “I was so excited to find a near-mint copy of the Electric Dreams soundtrack” and get reactions other than people calling me a dork under their breath.
There’s this very cool shop in Reading, Pennsylvania, called Vertigo Music that’s run by this cool indie girl (one day I’ll ask her her name so that I can stop saying, “You know … that store with the cool indie girl”). I stop by on many of my trips to that area. She’s got a nice pile of one-dollar records, and the better albums are very reasonably priced. A few weeks ago I located the soundtrack I mentioned above for $8, which to me is a steal for something I don’t think I’d ever seen before. I also was able to pick up the Nails’ Mood Swings (featuring their only hit, “88 Lines About 44 Women”), another album I’d been searching for a long time.
I mention this for two reasons. The first is because I know you’ll understand my excitement in finding two albums I’ve wanted in my collection forever. No one else really does, to be honest. Second, I feel the need to let the world know about this place. In my area, just finding a record store is difficult, but when you walk into one that’s clean, inviting, well organized, and has a great selection of music without being overwhelming … well, it begs some attention. I’m assuming she does more business through her Gemm site than in-store, but if you’re ever in Reading, you should definitely stop in and check it out. The world needs more of these types of record stores.
Anyway, how about some more songs from artists whose names begin with the letter P, as we take a look at the bottom feeders — songs that charted at #41 or lower — from the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the 1980s.
It was a strange Sunday evening in the wilds of Holmdel, New Jersey. The PNC Arts Center usually allows patrons onto the property two hours before show time at 6:00 PM, and so I found myself on the Garden State Parkway with Elvis Costello’s Brutal Youth CD on the stereo and thoughts of scoring a sensible parking space bouncing in my brain. Little did I know that, as a courtesy to the weekenders, the venue let people in at 4:00. They dumped me out into the adjacent woods to park! This did not bode well.
Now, had the evening ended there, I wouldn’t have walked away from this performance completely baffled. It would have been my shortest concert experience, but we all would have felt like we wanted to be in the same room with each other, band included. We’re all aware of the behind-the-scenes tensions purportedly happening in Camp Police. We’re also aware that even back in the early days, Sting commanded the majority of the attention, a position that could quickly irritate, and while hearsay shouldn’t color one’s impressions so early in the game, it was evident when Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland took the stage that they were plainly irritated.