Jack's Music Shoppe

Jack's Music Shoppe. If you are an idiot like me you pronounce the e on the end. Shop-ee. Jack's Music Shoppe is an awesome music store in downtown Red Bank, NJ. Ever since I purchased my record player several years ago I've been going there to sift through their thousands of old vinyls.

Quaint storefront, but turns into a music compendium inside.

I made a trip to the Shop-ee today to see what kind of records they have before making my dreaded return to Virginia. I picked up five vinyls of badassery plus a CD.

1) Made in Japan by Deep Purple. This is an awesome live album by one of the metal founding fathers. A classic, which I picked up for $2.99. The cover is in rough shape, but I'm sure the vinyl will play well, the Shop-ee has never done me dirty.

2) CSNY's Deja Vu. This is another classic album. It was released in 1970, and followed up on CSN's first release, but now included Neil Young... who is one of my favorite artists. I got it for $3.99. Not bad. The cover is in pretty good condition -- I'd say good or very good.

3) Live Rust by Neil Young. This is an epic album. Released in 1979 it includes live performances of Sugar Mountain, There Comes a Time, Hey Hey My My, After the Gold Rush, The Needle and the Damage Done, Cinnamon Girl, and Like a Hurricane. The cover is in modest condition at best, but it was well worth the $3.99. Some might say it is one of the better live rock albums of all time. I'd agree.

4) Perfect Strangers by Deep Purple. There isn't much special about this record other than having a fairly memorable cover. I got it for $1.99. This album was released in 1984 when Deep Purple reformed as version II, but they never could pull off their original epic-ness. Like I said, I do like the cover though.

5) The Magician's Birthday by Uriah Heep. This was probably the coolest album I picked up because I was not expecting to see anything by Uriah Heep. It is an original 1972 Uriah Heep album. It isn't one of their best, but it does include the songs Sunrise and Sweet Lorraine -- which are amongst their best. I picked it up for $1.99, which is a good deal. The cover is pretty beat up, but that doesn't bother me much. Based on the cover art, I'd say the album was released during a time when it was still acceptable to be a hippie.

6) CD. Obsessions by UFO. I picked up this CD while at the Shop-ee. They have more obscure bands there. It has been hard to find UFO CD's other than their "best of" compilation. UFO isn't really obscure obscure, but they surely aren't an Usher. Obsessions (1978) is one of their better albums. It doesn't have Doctor Doctor on it (which is my favorite UFO song), but it has some good jams, like Only You Can Rock Me, and Cherry.

"I wish I wasn't just passing through..."

I will definitely be playing these records on my record player when I get back to Virginia this Saturday -- you should join me. Until then I'll just have to settle for jams on the new iPod that Santa brought me.

The Arcade Fire

Simply put: The Arcade Fire. You don't need adjectives like "awesome" or "amazing" or "bonerific" to describe this band. These words, and more, are intrinsic to the name Arcade Fire. They are one of my favorite bands, and they should be one of your favorites too. (at least in your top five, like me)

This is a good playlist: We Used to Wait, 

Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains),

The Suburbs, Neon Bible, and Wake Up

Arcade Fire has released one EP and three LPs. The EP is called simply "The Arcade Fire EP" (2003). And the three LPs are Funeral (2004), Neon Bible (2007), and The Suburbs (2010). I recommend checking out these albums in their entirety, because they are all really that good. I'll provide a few details below.

Funeral (2004)

Favorite songs: Wake Up, Haiti, and Rebellion (Lies). 

If you are thinking about buying an Arcade Fire album, I'd go with this one first. I think it's a good starting place. Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album #6 on the list of greatest albums of the decade (2000s), beat out only by a bunch of garbage (i.e. Radiohead's Kid A, The Strokes' Is This It, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Jay-Z's The Blueprint, and the White Stripes' Elephant). This critic refers to those albums as garbage, garbage, garbage, garbage, and garbage, respectively.

It was also ranked #8 in a book titled The Top 200 Canadian Albums by Bob Mersereau. It ranked high in the mix, near the top with albums like Harvest (#1) and After the Goldrush (#3) by Neil Young, and Moving Pictures (#9) and 2112 (#17) by RUSH. This was quite an impressive feat considering the monster-legacy and mega-epicness of those artists.

Neon Bible (2007)

Favorite songs: Intervention, Windowsill, and Keep the Car Running. 

This was my first Arcade Fire album. I was introduced to Intervention and Keep the Car Running while laying on the floor of my dorm room during sophomore year of college. I was really drunk and watching SNL. They were the guest band and really stood out. During that time of my life they had a big impact on me. Thanks for being you Arcade Fire.

The Suburbs (2010)

I think they released the album with

multiple different covers, which is unique.

Favorite songs: The Suburbs, We Used to Wait, and Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).

This is their newest album, and I think it is my favorite album of theirs. I think I read somewhere that when they mixed the CDs, they took the sound off of records to try and give that "vinyl sound" too it. I'm not sure if that actually works, but I appreciate the effort regardless. Either way, the album sounds great. I picked up a copy on vinyl too, and that makes me feel special, so yay.

--

I was fortunate enough to see Arcade Fire this year in Madison Square Garden with my good buddy Eric Sedler. We lucked out and saw them the second night of their performance, which they were filming for the "Unstaged" series of music videos. The entire concert was filmed. It was awesome. You can find the videos on Youtube.

I can't really say enough good things about this band. I really suggest checking them out. Their only downside is that they are Canadian (just like RUSH and Neil Young). What's that all aboot? I'm just glad that they don't sell their CDs with gravy on them. Whatever, I still love them (you too RUSH and Neil Young). xoxo