Put the Needle on the Record

This year I tried to stay away from Record Store Day this year. Currently being a man of leisure I'm trying to watch the pennies. Then my friend James Gent posted on my Facebook feed that the soundtrack of the 60s Dalek films were being released on colour viynl and goddamn it I was back in. Although I did set myself a budget and what complicated matters was that this Record Store Day I was doing the first 'Saturday Morning Vinyl Hour Live!'. I've been doing SMVH for about two two years. Basically just posting on Facebook what I listen to and people seemed to like it, so I decided to spin the wheels for real at the Little Man Cafe with the help of my pal Jason Maybury.

Steve Ford my usual Record Store Day companion and I normally go to Diverse Records in Newport to beat the crowds. I wasn't going to get back in time to DJ so I suggested to Steve that we try the recently opened Head store in St Davids 2 cardiff. Steve picked me up at 6:30 for the 7am opening of the Mall. We parked and got into the deserted shopping Mall which resembled the Mall from 'Day of the Dead'. The queue was pretty reasonable, around a dozen people before the store opened, so we yapped, compared notes and chatted to the other people in the queue. I always love the anticipation and atmosphere of RSD and we got chatting to a rabid Orbital fan.

It was very civilised when we got in there with the staff lettting small groups of people in and asking us what we were looking for. As soon as I got in I saw the Dalek soundtrack on my left so Yoink! ''Genesis of the Daleks' was on blue viynl but frankly I've spent enough money on that story over the years so I didn't pick it up. Amazingly they did have the two Bowie picture discs so I did have those two, I was very tempted by the C86 album, The Wedding Present releases and a Low ten inch, but I stuck with what I had. We wondered around a little and then were off.

I hung arround outside Little Man then helped Jas in with the equipment. Like many things in life I had little concept in what the effort it would take to set up the turntables 'n' stuff. Jas was very patient with me and wasn't exasperated with my ineptitude, much. The theme of the hour was 'Grunge v British 90s indie' it was only when I started to look through my collection that I realised that I had little Grunge on vinyl. I bought 'NIrvana Unplugged' specially, so he leaned heavily on the British indie. Our friends Captain Keef and Anna came along and were joined later by some of Jas' mates. This was very much a dry run for 'Saturday Morning Vinyl Hour live!' so Keef and Anna could see my fledgling mistakes such as putting the Unlpugged record back in the sleeve and promptly dropping it on the floor. 

A fun, full on morning which has set me up for the next one on Saturday the 21st of May where the theme will be 'Laurel Canyon Lovelies' Crosby, Stills, Nash, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and many many more!