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...the simultaneous collision of a record fair, a BYOB concert and my good friend and fellow skullblogger Jon visiting will do that to me.

Jon and I hung out together for the first time in over two years this weekend. He's back in P-Town, Illinoise, and so he traveled down to Champaign after work on Friday night. I'm not going to recap the entire day we spent together--for obvious reasons--but I will say that the magical pull of the stars aligned in such a way that we had some memorable, music-related events worth discussing.

First of all, Friday night we headed to a BYOB, all-ages venue in downtown Champaign--just a ten-minute walk from my apartment--whose existence was news to me. It was an odd choice of venue, considering that the small warehouse is the home to a pottery business, Boneyard Pottery. The pottery barn turned out to be a good space for a show, though, and maybe the music aided in massaging some of the pottery into top-dollar form before it headed off to the kiln. At any rate, a pair of local bands opened the evening, and we made it in time to catch a full set from headliners the Tractor Kings, also a local product who has released a pair of solid albums under the Parasol Records umbrella.



The Tractor Kings have always been a country-folk tinged rock band, which for central Illinois is surprisingly a rare breed. They started out as a duo with heavily-affected twelve-string acoustic guitar and primal drums, then morphed into a full band with pedal steel before ending up where they're at now, as a more rocking country act in the Uncle Tupelo tradition with wonderful electric guitar leads provided by Steve Ucherek (frontman of The Living Blue). The one constant throughout this process has been singer-songwriter Jacob Fleischli, whose knack for sounding like the step-child of Bob Dylan and Jeff Tweedy makes for an interesting pairing with the wall of sound he achieves with his chorus-drenched twelve-string. They went through a set of ten or so songs--including my favorite country song of the new century, "Gone to Heaven"--while Jon and I finished off our brown bag PBR six pack.

Tractor Kings - "Gone to Heaven"

The night was still a young 12:30 by the time we made it back to my place. We had been out drinking for the previous six hours, however, so we were both feeling a bit under the influence. We threw on some records and chatted away for another couple hours before calling it a night around 2:30. We needed some sleep, after all, if we were going to be bright-eyed for the record sale tomorrow morning.

It just so happened that Jon arrived the same weekend as the annual WILL record sale. WILL is a university-run radio station which supports the local arts, and each year they have a sale of donated albums. How many they actually received is beyond me, but I would have to place the number at a couple hundred thousand, easy. Almost all are marked at a dollar, with a handful set aside in the "collector's corner" and priced, for the most part, over what they're actually worth. The show started at 8 a.m., but we didn't make it out there until almost 10 due to our hangovers.

I made quite a significant haul for $44. One of my biggest catches was a copy of Dino, Desi and Billy's 1965 debut on Reprise, I'm a Fool. The rock and roll trio featured three incredibly young-looking lads from L.A., essentially a call and response to the Monkees. They obtained a record contract on the strength-of-name of member Dino Martin, son of Dean Martin. None of the kids were even 15 years old when their debut dropped. The record was produced by Lee Hazlewood and scored the band a Top 20 hit with the title track and a Top 30 hit in "Not the Lovin' Kind". (I'd hope not at that age!) They recorded a few more records thereafter, but failed to achieve another sniff of success. Richie Unterberger sums the group up best: "Dino, Desi & Billy anticipated the bubblegum fad with records that usually featured none of their own contributions, except their characterless vocals. That may be phrasing matters too kindly." But anyway, they've gone down in history as sort of a cult curiosity, and I was psyched to pick up a copy of their record for just four bucks. Most of the record is comprised of fashionable covers of the day--including four Dylan tunes--but I've chosen a Lee Hazlewood-penned number to share with you.



Dino, Desi and Billy - "The Rebel Kind"

In the dollar bargain portion of my booty, I landed an incredibly warped copy of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen's 1971 debut, Lost in the Ozone. These dudes from Ann Arbor were the oddballs of country rock in their time (in case you couldn't figure that out from the their chosen moniker). They scored a fluke Top 10 hit from their first record, "Hot Rod Lincoln", which doomed them to one-hit wonder status. Musically, they were a straight-forward country rock band, more a bar band than anything else. It was their subject matter which aligned them with the weirdo set. See songs from this record like "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar", "Lost in the Ozone", "Wine Do Yer Stuff", "Daddy's Gonna Treat You Right", and (a real shocker) "Family Bible". Gotta love a band of country misfits that included "West Virginia Creeper" on pedal steel and "Buffalo Bruce Barlow" on bass. Unfortunately, my copy is so warped that only about half the songs will play without skipping. Oh well, still a fun find for a dollar.

I also snagged a couple Chad & Jeremy records, a couple Kris Kristofferson records, no less than five Lynn Anderson records (she of "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden" fame), John Prine's 1971 self-titled album (on the recommendation of Jon), and a great find--Here Comes Bobby by late-'60s teen idol Bobby Sherman. That particular record featured a couple hits for Bobby, but the music isn't the reason that I picked it up. The artwork is simply brilliant, featuring a three-flap foldout which gives you a head to toe poster of Bobby. It's just too cheesy to pass up for a buck. (And, since there were two copies of the record on hand, I forced Jon to get the other as a memento of the record fair.)



I also scored some cool "motivational" records, which have always been of interest to me. Among the winners is the ten-inch Earl Nightengale Gives You "The Strangest Secret" (How to Enjoy Greater Happiness and Peace of Mind). The cover has seen better days, which isn't surprising since the record was released in the '50s. But, the record plays fine, and included in the sleeve was the original order form for additional records--including a self-addressed, postage-paid business reply envelope. How cool is that? Among many others, I also picked up Lessons in Ventriloquism by Edgar Bergen and The Lou Moses How to Sell Men's Wear Training Tool (produced by the Menswear Retailers of America). These will make great fodder for future mix tapes.

How to Sell Men's Wear sample

I really wanted to splurge and get a copy of Leona Anderson's Music to Suffer By, which years later inspired the cover art (actually an exact rip-off) for a Makers' seven-inch of the same name that I own. She was essentially William Hung before William Hung was born, i.e. "the world's worst singer". The LP was a steep $35 and well-worn, so I passed.

We spent the balance of the afternoon on Saturday listening to and swapping records. Overall, it was just good to be back in the same state with a like-minded friend. I'm sure there will be plenty more days like these in the future, and they'll go unwritten about as they become more commonplace. But for now...it's time to smell the roses.

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Buy the the Tractor Kings' Gone to Heaven here.