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Roomie's Record Collection
True confession: I don't own Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. The reason is pathetic: by the time I realized I needed to buy my own copy, the album was a good 10 years old, and I feared any record store clerk worth his or her salt would have scoffed at me for coming so late to the party, maybe even scribbling my name in a notebook for his or her next report to The Cool Patrol.
The reason I never got around to buying Bollocks, however, is because I lived off my oldest friend and bandmate's copy while hanging out with him in high school and, later, when we shared a house with two other bandmates. That house was great, with access to the record collections of 3 other music lovers. Circa 1985, along with his 10th grade purchase of Bollocks, Andyr, also known in the Halls of Rock as the Velvet Foghorn and our leading expert on Greatest Hits collections, had already amassed a remarkable amount of greatest hits albums, primarily those of British Invasion bands not worth spending what few dollars we had on full albums. I'd walk upstairs to Chickenfrank's room if I wanted to hear Big Dipper's Boo-Boo ep. Sethro owned the debut ep by ESG, which he bought right from 99 Records on a trip our naive proto-band took to NYC in hopes of that elusive label deal. On occasion, they visited my messy room to borrow an album they didn't own.
As you get older and no longer live in group housing, you find yourself having to buy records you used to have "borrowing rights" to spinning. It's one of the reasons we develop a strong work ethic and try to earn more money. Roomie's no longer down the hall.
So I ask you, Rock Town Hall, What's an album you dearly cherish that you long counted on being in a roommate's record collection?
13 comments
I had to go look, and I see now what you mean. I need to go buy my own damned Pixies albums. I've only got Death to the Pixies. What kind of weenie am I? Don't tell Mr. Mod, but I've only got The Velvet Underground and Nico. I should start fixing that, too.
Worst of all, for me being a Clevelander and all, I don't own any Dead Boys on cd. I've only got Night of the Living Dead Boys on vinyl, too. I do have some Pagans and Mirrors and stretching way back, that Damnation of Adam Blessing Box set. Man, that's gonna bug me now. But I'm still gonna pay top dollar for that True Believers album and one or two other weird things next. I'm actually kind of surprised at some of the things I do have that I used to listen to at friends houses.
When I was displaced and living with my buddy in Alabama, that was when I discovered the grooviness of the 5th Dimension. I passed on the original 5D albums he cherished, but I bought a very nice 2-disc best-of, which I recommend to other wannabe aquarians.
There are records owned by my parents that I miss - some of them are Xmas or classical records. One album my dad owns that I don't is Thriller. Should I own that one? I dunno...
THRILLER is one of those albums were if you were between, say, 11 and 15 in 1983, you don't really need to own it because it was so omnipresent that it's already burned deep into your memory.
Luckily I was well past that age range when that album was released. Is therapy recommended for what you describe?:) It's no wonder Neverland Ranch was surrounded by such controversy.
I met Townsman mockcarr when I went down to his dorm room because I heard he had a copy of "Quadrophenia" I might borrow. Ever the gentleman, he lent it to me readily.
after a two year lease, nobody even believed him when he would claim it was his.
i think i also horked his "New Day Rising" and his "Perfect Prescription".
That's okay, he got my "Daydream Nation" gatefold and my "HI, How Are You?" vinyl, on Homestead.
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