Visiting my dad's vinyl and re-revisiting my own stash!

Recently I was able to visit my good ol' mom and dad in southwest Kansas and dig through my old man's vinyl collection. I've been wanting to do that for a long time because I knew I had a few gems I kept in there from years ago, and it's been high time to take 'em back!

Thanks, dad for keeping them safe!

As I dug through, I found countless examples of classic rock albums - all belonging to my dad. I combed through Hendrix, Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult, Johnny Winter, Nazareth, Judas Priest, Joplin, Beatles, Trapeze, and many more, including tons of blues and jazz.

I kept thinking how cool it was that many of these records my dad owns were bought new off the shelf, right when they came out. At the time, who knew that Hendrix would become the legend he is today or that Smoke on the Water would contain the riff that launched 1,000 guitarists?

Some of my dad's records are weathered and beat to hell from years of use and abuse, but man it felt good pulling those albums out and giving them some overdue attention.

Then I found my stash! You see, my vinyl-buying time was rather brief before I switched to cassette tapes and then CDs. I have only a few vinyl albums, and it was during a time when I was feeling my way through music to see what struck a chord in me.

I found Pink Floyd, ZZ Top, Zeppelin, AC/DC, Kingdom Come, and the Howard the Duck soundtrack.

Yes. The Howard the Duck soundtrack.

That pretty much summed up my vinyl buying experience, but I still picked up a couple more records a few years after I made the switch to CDs, and those were the ones I was after.

Here is one of 'em:

I already had the Garage Days Re-Revisted on CD, but when I saw this poor guy stuck in the freaking CUT-OUT BIN for a measly $2.99, I snatched it up and to this day never opened it. It still has the "Do not pay MORE!!!" sticker on it.

Now, I doubt that I would sell it for $5.98, damn what the stick on the cover says (including the $2.99 sticker).

I plan to get a nice turntable in the near future, and I am debating whether or not to rip the plastic off the cover and give this record a spin. The collector in me was kicking me in the balls as I wrote that last sentence.


Here is the second vinyl I was after:

I got the Whiplash EP at a used dealer YEARS ago for about $10.  This baby still looks brand-spankin' new, and I just love looking at it.

When I spotted these in the up-righted stack of records, I grabbed them up, added them to my sad little pile of vinyl and danced around a bit. My dad blankly looked at me and smiled. He loves music just as much as I do, so he understood my enthusiasm.

After I calmed down a bit, I put my pile to the side and continued to dig through my dad's records, pulling out stuff even he hasn't seen for years. We poured through quite a bit of his collection, dusting off memories and conversing about the magic of music.

Just...awesome.

We still have a bunch we haven't even went though yet. I can't wait to go back and continue where we left off.