Vile Charity Shop Harridans - Pt 4 (A New Hope)

The tide is turning.

Ive had 2 positive encounters in the last week with charity shop workers that has changed my views and made me realize human nature isn't completely fucked in this day and age.

The first was with the man running the YMCA shop in Ramsgate High Street. I popped in there briefly after work a few Fridays ago and picked up some random reggae 12"s that were lying in between some random charity shop fodder. Not in the best condition but still nice to find given the records that were sandwiching them for 50p each.

Dennis Malcolm - So Many Ways
Foxy Brown - Fast Car
Lord Creator / Me-You And The Crew - Creation Medley / Creating Dub
Ray Mondo & Samantha Rose - Book Of Rules / Easy Loving
Pat Kelly / Dean Frazer - Whiter Shade Of Pale / Youth Sax

As i was leaving the shop i asked the man if he had any other records to look through. Immediately he said he had loads out the back and i could come back anytime and ask for him and he'd let me have a look through them. I went back the next day and sure enough he let me out the back and i spent about 30 mins looking through what he had. It wasn't very good but i spent another £6.00. As i was leaving again he said that he had a couple of storage containers full of 1000's of records and i should pop back in the new year and he'd bring some more in for me. Result!

The second encounter was the week after the first as i did my monthly circuit of my areas charity shops. It was a very good day for digging (possibly my best ever) as every shop i went into had a couple of bargains waiting for me.

In the Sense shop at the top of Margate High street these greeted me all in stunning condition for 3 for a £1.00:

Gary Numan – Berserker
Bushido - Among The Ruins
Maxtrack Orchestra - Another Day
Brandy - What About Us
Paula Abdul - Forever Your Girl
Newtrament - London Bridge Is Falling Down
Colm III - Take Me High
The Gap Band - Beep A Freak

A bit further down the road i pulled a couple of sealed Motown LP's out of another shop but the real gem i only noticed as i was leaving. A boxful of classical LP's yielded one of the best finds of my year. Now i've had a few of these in the past cheap (a white label copy for 10p and label copy for 50p) but never locally and i definitely wasn't expecting it from the box it was in as it was the only record of its style in the shop. D-Livin - Why is the name of the tune and it seems to have gone up in price since i sold my last copy for £25.00 a year or so back. Ive chucked this one up for £50.00 for starters and its still cheapest copy around!!

So onto Cliftonville and into a shop id only noticed the previous time id gone by. The 2 middle aged women manning the till were very friendly and after i looked through the same pile id gone through the time before and cracked a few jokes i noticed about 5 boxes of records next to the counter which i asked if i have a look at. No problem said the women as they got their coats on to go for a sly fag outside. 4 of the boxes were filled with the same old tat as you see time and time again but the last box had some assorted 12"s in pretty good nick so i pulled out all the ones that looked interesting. From the track titles and artwork i gathered that 3 of them were reggae records (2 of which were on coloured vinyl) so they went straight into the yes pile along with a few more random things. The women came back and we chatted a bit about vinyl and i obviously asked if they had any more out the back. Not out the back they said but 1000's more in storage. I bit the bullet and offered my services to sort the records out for them as they needed records cleared out of the shop that wouldn't sell. Well that's pretty easy for me as i pretty much know if the record is run of the mill pap and 90% of the stuff i looked through would fit into that category. They seemed more than happy for me to do this so numbers were exchanged and hopefully in the new year i can go back and look through the rest of what they have. Result!

Back to the reggae 12"s. When i got home and investigated them it seems that the Creation Rebel one is a seriously rare roots reggae tune from 1979 which routinely goes for £50.00 + on eBay.

Creation Rebel - Beware / Natty Conscience Free
Dennis Pinnock - The Feeling / Saturday Night Feeling
Freddy Clarke / The Internationals - My Star Attraction / Crucial Dub

Vile Charity Shop Harridans - Pt 3 (Justice Is Served)

A breaking news update which greatly brightened my day and to a lesser extent made my Christmas.

Walking along the mean streets of Cliftonville this morning i passed the charity shop where i was barred from entering last month by the most foulest of crones. My eyes lit up as i saw the shop completely cleared out of all its stock and lying empty.

Now i can only dream of this Beelzebub being visited by the police or taxman and being carted away screaming to face some hard time for crimes against common decency. I still can hear her clearly saying that she "i make enough money for charity already". Obviously not enough. Beeeeatch!!

Insomnia - Nostalgic

The infamous stamped white label.

Back in the late 80's and early 90's bedroom producers churned records out by the 1000's. The arrival of cheap samplers, cheap home computers (Amiga and Atari ST to name two) and the burgeoning rave scene and the enthusiasm that went with it helped catapult countless non-musicians music into the psyche of raving hordes. I say non-musicians as on a parallel to the earlier punk movement which predated the rave moment by roughly 10 years you didn't need to be able to read or play the music to enjoy success. All that was needed was a good ear, a creative mind, a little bit of money to get your record pressed and the ear of a few DJ's to get your tunes played out.

I stumbled on the above white label probably back in 1996 or 1997 when i was first starting to really travel to London to dig in the dusty basements of the famous Music & Video Exchanges spread through the capital. I remember clearly pulling this record out of the Notting Hill basement for either 50p or £1.00 just because it looked old and could be an old breakbeat record. When i got home i got evil looks from my friends as they immediately recognised the tune from their old 1992 rave tapes. Ive since only ever found 1 other copy cheap for about £5.00 with a full release label which i think i swapped at the time for another rare record i was after.


















So to Insomnia. Who were they? From the label and the 2 other records (although the Nocturnal Grooves E.P. could potentially be another Insomnia) they released back in 1991-2 we can ascertain their names were C. Rossi and J. Holloway and that their engineer was John Gould. We can also locate them to central London by the 071 telephone code. Now if i had more time it would be worth trying to track them down to see if they had a spare box of this record lying around as it currently goes for £50.00 + in mint condition. But alas like many other producers of this era they are lost to the sands of time leaving only their music as a legacy.

Have a listen to the record below. It ticks off virtually every element required for a classic breakbeat tune. Piano. Check. Huge bassline (you may not get this from the YouTube link but believe me the bass on this record is insane). Check. Strings. Check. Tough breakbeats. Check. Female vocals. Check. Ragga vocals. Check.

Now everyone time to raise your hands in the air and blow that whistle!

Insomnia - Nostalgic


PS The A-side is pretty good as well.

Vile Charity Shop Harridans - Pt 2 (This Time It's War)

Following on from the last rant about charity shop Hitler's it was just an hour after the encounter in the previous post that me and my digging partner Matt found our way by the wonders of public transport to a not so delightful town called Cliftonville. Now Cliftonville (often known as Kosoville or Foreign-nation street round our ways) is a not so delightful small town which borders the also quite horrible Margate. Long gone are the glory days (not sure when they were exactly anyway) and the main drag of Cliftonville consists now of regional takeaway shops, furniture removal shops, Happy Shopper style supermarkets and most importantly a shit load of charity shops.

Now I'm not going to name the charity shop this encounter describes mainly as if you ever find yourself in it i want the hag who works there to surprise you with her evilness. I'd had a previous encounter with this harpy 6 months previously where she had accused me of trying to steal some records (please disregard the contents of pt 1 lol) which i obviously had not done. On that instance i think i called her a cunt in front of the whole shop and walked off.

We were on the other side of the road when i spotted the lights of this charity shop on (on previous times me and my digging partners had not been able to go in as the shop was closed). We crossed the road and the signs looked promising. I walked up to the door hoping it would be unlocked. It was. The door opened and a cry came out from inside

"We're shut".

I looked at my phone clock. It was 12.20pm. I peered inside and saw the venomous creature sitting down drinking a cup of tea.

"Oh I'm sorry" i said "Its just that all the lights were on and the door was open".

"We're shut" the reply came back.

I was annoyed.

"Oh .. didn't you want to make any money from us" i sarcastically shot back.

She staggered onto her devil like hooves and strode towards the door and uttered the words that marked her out as a desperately poor human being.

"I make enough money for charity already" she bellowed and went to close the door.

Now on hindsight i should have retorted with something like "Prove it" or "Charity never ends" but with a degree of inevitability all that would come out was

"Well fuck you, you fucking bitch"

Walking down the road it occurred to me that i would have been a hero to diggers worldwide if i would have forced my way into the shop at that point and started perusing as normal. Surely she would have been forced to call the police at that point to evict a potentially paying customer from her charity shop.

Here's to next time. I cant bloody wait!

Joni Mitchell - Ladies Of The Canyon

Released in 1970 a year before her most critical success the introspective and deeply personal Blue, Ladies Of The Canyon perhaps paved the way as its popularity enabled Roberta Joan Anderson - stage name Joni Mitchell to stop touring for a year to spend time writing and painting (the painting you can see above on the record sleeve is one of several Joni did for her LP sleeves).

Back to Ladies Of The Canyon. The canyon in question was Laurel Canyon in California. In the 1960's it housed the cream of counterculture west coast American singers with residents including Frank Zappa, The Byrds, Neil Young and Love. This fertile breeding ground inspired a generation fed up with the mass produced pop of the late 60's and Joni's close association with Crosby (Crosby brought Joni to California after being amazed by her talent after walking into a bar in Florida), Stills, Nash (one of Joni's lovers) and Young greatly influenced her sound slightly away from her earlier folk period and before the more introspective and experimental jazz sound that formed her later output. They also provided background vocals on this record and Graham Nash wrote "Our House" at this time as an ode to Joni.

The album spawned a number of hits most notably "Woodstock" and "Big Yellow Taxi" but the track i want you to hear is the title track "Ladies of the Canyon". If its lush harmonies and beautiful imagery don't make you smile and remind you of glorious summer day then i suppose nothing will. Wrap up warm!

Joni Mitchell - Ladies of the Canyon