Kick Out the Jams, Motherf***ers!

Alright Internet, let's do this.

You guys should know by now that Yours Truly has a soft spot for Vinyl.

I've been collecting it for over a decade now and have amassed a pretty extensive collection (much to my wife's ever-growing dismay), even despite the many purges I've done along the way (I'm at about 600 now- titles, not individual LPs - which is down from the 800 I had when we moved.)

Well, it had been a long, long time since I had the opportunity to attend a local Record Convention (I think since December of 2006, if you can believe that), and my realtor had informed me last week of one that was taking place in Bay City this weekend.

Record Conventions, for those of you unfamiliar with them, are comprised of various vinyl collectors who band together, rent out a VFW hall (or the like), and sell off their wares to nerdy record collectors for their appraised value (according to sites like Discogs, which I use religiously these days.)

I myself am just such a nerdy record collector, so I was definitely gung-ho about this happening in my relative backyard (opposed to frickin' Detroit, where I attended my last one.)

I mentioned this Record Convention business to my Dad and he expressed interest in going, so early this morning he and Cindy swung by the house so that Cindy could watch Abby for the morning/afternoon while Dad and I went shopping.  Kris was out of town at a Girl Scouts camping trip with Alayna, somewhere downstate, so Cindy offered to take Abby shopping with her at the Midland Mall, get some lunch, and otherwise keep her occupied while Dad and I were away.

Definitely appreciated.  Have you ever tried shopping with little kids?  It's horrifying.

Anyway, at the end of the day, Dad and I both walked away with some impressive hauls, and are already counting down the days until next year's convention.

Check it out. . .

Supposedly the convention started at 10am, so Dad and I made sure we made it there about 10 - 15 minutes early in order to get to the front of the line.  When we pulled into the parking lot of the venue (some Masonic Hall), there was no line, so Dad and I walked in and saw that there were already people perusing the wares.  Not a ton of people, so we were relieved (we didn't want all the good stuff picked through before we got there.)

Radio Wasteland Records, my new favorite record shop, was one of the sponsors of the convention.

Admission cost a buck apiece, and you were automatically entered into a drawing.  In a grand stroke of luck, Yours Truly actually WON the first drawing. . . probably the first time I've won any drawing ever, come to think of it.  I got to choose a gift certificate from a list of local record vendors (from Bay City, Saginaw, Midland, Flint), so I chose Radio Wasteland, seeing how it's the closest.  It only ended up being for $5, but Dad and I planned on heading there anyway once we were finished with the Convention.  To the Victor got the Spoils.

I should mention that I took none of these pictures at this convention whatsoever:  I merely lifted them from the Convention's Facebook feed.  I was too busy questing for vinyl to bother with taking pictures, so I just used someone else's instead (consider that your legal disclaimer, photographers.)  If you look closely, you can see Dad over the left shoulder of the bearded dude, shown here.

And here we have Yours Truly, perusing through a seller's inventory (if memory serves correct this lady had a pretty solid collection, in great shape, and was practically giving it away - I ended up buying about a third of my day's score from her alone.)

Dad, again, in the blue shirt, at center.

. . . and directly to the left of this dude's thumb.  Dad ended up chatting it up with his old college buddy, Brian, for the last hour or so we were there while I continued hitting up different vendors, but by about 11:30am we were done.  I had spent over my allotted budget already, and we still had one stop left. . .

As I previously discussed with you guys, this place just opened up in Midland about a month ago, and it has some pretty decent prices.  Dad wanted to check it out, and I now had a $5 gift certificate to burn, so we stopped in on our way back to the house (fortunately I avoided being in front of a TV news crew this time around.)

Our timing was great, too:  they had a 3-for-1 sale going on in the $1 Bins.  Usually garbage, but if you have the patience to leaf through them you can often find some looked-over gems hidden away in there.  I ended up dropping an additional $14 or so on records, some from the dollar bins and some from the general shelves, but I walked away with a hefty stack thanks to the sale and the gift certificate.  I love this store.

My haul from today.  Once home, Dad and I took turns listening to some of our new acquisitions; cleaning them up, entering them in on Discogs (they have a database app that helps you maintain, price, and value your collection - it's incredibly handy), and otherwise nerding out over them.  I ended up scoring 33 LPs (some of them double- or triple-LPs, but those you still count as one, folks) for a mere $102.  And some of those were mint, still sealed - not too shabby, if you ask me.

About a half an hour or so into our record listening/cleaning/databasing, Cindy and Abby returned from the Mall.  She had taken her out shopping to various stores while she clothing shopped, and was nice enough to pick her up a few things, including that white, plush tiger you see there (and as you know, our girls are obsessed with those stupid things.) 

Dad and Cindy left shortly afterwards, and Abby and I eventually went out to eat for dinner (a treat for her, seeing how Kris and Alayna were away at Girl Scout Camp.)  Before we left, Abby wanted to take a picture of her day's score next to my day's score, so here you go:  a bug-eyed, plush tiger rocking out to The Kinks. 

- Brian