My $6 Cult “Live at the Lyceum” mispressing. Side 1 is correct, Side 2 is actually Side 2 of Canadian folk rock icon Bruce Cockburn’s “Further Adventures of” album.

When it comes to thrift store record scores I have been in the midst of what can only be described as an historic slump.  Until this past Thursday.  Thursday was one of those magical days that all record hunters/collectors dream of.  The dream where you walk into the thrift store just as they’re brining out the “new” stock from the back.

I was standing at the racks thumbing through the thrift store usuals (Charley Pride, Linda Ronstadt, Herb Alpert, Roger Whittaker) when I heard a shopping cart crash through the swinging doors that separate the record collecting masses from that magical, mysterious, enchanted, off-limits place that is the thrift store sorting room.  The girl pushing the cart pulled right up beside me and started jamming the new arrivals into the shelves no more than 5-feet away. ( TANGENT: why do the thrift store workers put records into the shelves backwards, upside down, opening facing up, opening facing down?  They don’t put the books on the shelves that way, why the LPs?)

At this point fireworks are going off in my head.  Alarms are sounding.  Microscopic children take turns whacking the pinata that hangs inside my skull in the space my brain normally occupies.  And then, as quickly as she appeared, the thrift store lady disappeared.  I looked around and there was not another soul.  No one.  Just me and, well, who knows? A Beatles “Butcher” cover?  An original Island pressing of Nick Drake’s Fruit Tree box set?   Sadly, neither of those but of the 70 or 80 records she put out, I grabbed 12.  There were more–like the complete Police discography, some Queen and some Rush–but I threw those back like a fisherman tosses back a pike.  In the end I walked away with an original import (Holland) first issue of  The Best of Pink Floyd.  I grabbed 3 Joni Mitchell LPs, 3 Traffic LPs, some R.E.M., the Pogues, Lou Reed and a copy of the Pretenders Get Close.

A dozen VG++ to near mint records for less than $24.  You’ve got to like that.  Feel free to share your super-amazing thrift store scores in the comments section.  Thanks for reading and thanks to Brad for calling my radio show the other day and nudging me to update this blog.

Now, good day and good record huntin’.

Garner