Perfect Circle

It comes but once a year. Yes! It was Record Store Day 2019 and me and my merry band of pranksters were on the hunt for overpriced vinyl! There had been some discussion as to whether we were going top Aberdare or Newport. Steve Dixon had been making the case for Aberdare, but I am a creature of habit and despite hearing that Diverse weren’t getting as much in this year, their list was pretty impressive. Steve D had also made noises that he was going to duck out this year, but on a trip to Rough Trade in Bristol to see an excellent Fontaines D.C in-store I convinced him to come along for the laffs. he said he wasn’t going to buy anything. Yeah, right. Anyway it wouldn’t feel like Record Store Day now without Steve D.

So as per we joined Steve Ford and Mike for the drive down to Newport and freezing O’Clock, and blimey it was bastard cold. I swear we were stood in the exact same place that we were last year, pretty close to the front and but not ridiculously eager. As has become the new tradition i didn’t think it was a bumper year, but had been strategic when I’d made up my list. Yes, list. A CSNY live album was £50 so I Spotimified it adn didn’t think it was £50 good, which freed my cash up for other stuff. I couldn’t find the fucking list when Steve Ford turned up so went through the releases in the car on the way down and remembered that the firs Soccer mommy EP was out. She’d ‘Clean’ my favourite album of last year, so that went on the list along with the Bingo Hand Job (R.E.M bootleg), the first This is the Kit album, the first Frank Black album, an Idles EP and a Kristin Hersh album amongst a few other things.

Of course the best thing about RSD is yapping with the Steve’s and Mike. There were many yuks as we shivered, we took turns at getting coffee, and lordy lord I couldn’t stop going to the bog. To the extent that when we right at the front of the queue i asked the owner of Diverse if I could pop across the road for a slash. I had time just before we were let in. I didn’t want to be jumping from foot to foot when I was in the store.

Mike and I were let in soon after 9 and I got seized by RSD panic and confusion, while Mike kept a cool head and snagged the one ‘Bingo Hand Job’ copy. The only thing I could find on my list was the Soccer Mommy EP, but when the Steves got let in I gradually got handed and found all the others. We’d agreed if we found something that the others wanted that we’d hand it over and that worked like a peach. Diverse even gave me a fiver off the This is the Kit album cause it had a crease in the corner. Steve Ford only fancied the ‘Black Mirror’ soundtrack and Steve D ended up getting more than him, cough. We had time to pop down to Newport market’s second hand record stall where i picked up a reissue of ‘Tommy’ by The Wedding Present and then when we got back to Cardiff I was like a crate digging ninja and shot into D’Vinyl’s for the 50% off sale and picked up a heavy weight reissue of ‘Never mind the Bollocks’ inexplicably still in the shrink wrap and a copy of Bowie’s ‘Lodger’ for next to nothing. It looks like shit but plays well.

The cherry on the RSD cake was that Mike was then able to pick up a copy of ‘Bingo Hand Job’ at another record shop. So a great Record Store Day where I stayed comfortably within my budget and had lots of laffs and I’ve just managed to defrost.