look inside

the stunt man and i had the privilege of looking through 20,000 LPs the other day. while they'd already been combed through by local stores, collectors, and dealers, i knew i'd be able to find a gem or two in the mix. ya know, one person's treasure... everyone likes/knows different stuff, right??? any which way, the price was .50 a record, so nothing but time to loose. after a full 8-hour day digging through almost every portion of the crumbling collection (yes, there were some shots in there), i came away w/ 101 discs. they ranged from greek soundtracks to local country and western. while the next day was spent at suite sound labs doing the final analogue-digital transfer for native north america, TSM and i decided to chill w/ a few beers afterwards and finally go through some of the wax we'd uncovered. linda lewis' lark was sounding pretty dope to my tired ears, an early 70s british LP i'd heard about, but never listened to. next came a few private press canadian titles. as w/ all of the records we'd listened to, i opened each sleeve and peeped inside, looking for bugs, dirt (bad) or even a little treasure like a note, picture, or random memento (well, good). buried in a hand painted jacket i noticed some folded paper. my heart fluttered for a second when i realized what it was. i widened the sleeve's opening as wide as it would go and shook the pieces out... on the floor lay two late 60s-era canadian notes (damn, the queen is looking young, eh!@#$%!!!). did someone leave $25 in an album for such a fortuitous surprise??? perhaps stashing it for a rainy day that never came??? a simple mistake??? in my many years of collecting vinyl, i've never found cash inside a record, so for the time being i've kept it right where it belongs... here's to more mystery and magic ahead. don't forget to look inside!!! you never know what you may find!@#$%!!!