Sorry, my name sucks! Yeah, I probably shoulda figured that dirtygrooves would not be a good name for the blog. As you can imagine, it's already used all over the internet by people like this guy and other techno dj losers... Whatever, I was just thinking about old beat up records from the flea market when I came up with it.

Speaking (writing?) of the flea market, my wife and I are selling junk (including crates and crates of records) at the Flat Rock Speedway Flea Market on Sunday. It's south of Detroit on Telegraph Rd. and worth checking out if you're within driving distance. Hopefully, I will find some nice records that I can post up here next week.

Who said there's nothin' to do in Detroit anymore?  ¶ 9/29/2006 2 comments

  Lorrie Collins - Another Man Done Gone Here's a real nice one by Lorrie, who was half of the rockabilly duo The Collins Kids.

This song is an old folk song, but the lyrics got a serious overhaul for Lorrie's version. I see that Johnny Cash took a writer's credit for this, so I guess he did the rewrite.

Very weird arrangement, what with the harp (and I ain't talking mouth harp here) reverb fest, gutter blues guitar leads all thrown together. That odd effect at the beginning sounds like someone quickly scraping a guitar pick along a harp string. The whole thing has a downer / qualude feel that is strange and very cool.

Her singing is great, very sultry. I really dig how she whispers the last few words of certain phrases, like when she sings "I don't recall his name, but I was glad he came." That has got to be one of the sickest lines ever recorded!

Lorrie was quite a looker too, I think she dated Ricky Nelson for awhile.

Lorrie Collins - Another Man Done Gone.mp3

The only place I know to pick this up on CD is the Collins Kids box set on Bear Family.  ¶ 9/25/2006 3 comments

  Red Shadow - Live at the Panacea Hilton Physical Records, 1975.

I found this at Goodwill awhile back. From what I can tell these folks were a bunch of economics grad students and coffeehouse commies.

There is one funny ha ha tune on here called Understanding Marx (you can hear it here - it's the January 6 entry). It sounds like Up With People but the words are good.

There are also some bad parodies of oldies tunes. Their version of the Beach Boys' Fun Fun Fun (Gone Gone Gone) goes like this:

"And they'll be gone, gone, gone, when the people take their power away."

So I was surprised to hear a song that actually rocks on here, but Stagflation sounds like some Gizmos / Penetrators proto-punk action with a dose of Flamin' Groovies. Pretty cool. There's even a nod to Lou Reed when the dude says "and the white girls say."

Red Shadow - Stagflation.mp3

You can get this LP plus their 2nd on one CD here.  ¶ 9/24/2006 1 comments

  Jay Chevalier - Castro Rock I was just reading in the paper about Fidel's health problems and I remembered this record, so I decided to make it my first post.

It's prime cold war rockin' from South Louisiana. I can't tell if those are bongos or someone bangin' on a wooden box?

Jay Chevalier - Castro Rock.mp3

Get this on CD at Amazon.  ¶ 9/23/2006 0 comments

  Howdy Yeah, yeah, it's another audio blog with a bunch of weird records found in a pile of crap somewhere. If you like that kinda stuff then you might like this one, who knows? I plan on keeping it short on info, mainly because I don't know anything about anything. I think I'll stick to what it is, where I found it and why I like it (or don't).

Audiophiles take note:
A lot of my records are pretty beat, so expect sound quality to suck, pretty much. I'll encode at 160 in mono unless its a stereo record and I'll definitely chop off some high-end if a record is really noisy.

I'm shooting for one post / week.  ¶ 9/22/2006 1 comments