Wally's Old Record Collection Part 5

Wally's Old Record Collection Part 5

Here it is: the final installment of my look back at my record collection circa 1986.
We'll make a journey from Rain Parade to Woodstock with some punk rock, metal,
and crap in between.

133. Rain Parade - Emergency Third Rail Power Trip
134. Raunch Hands - Rauncho El Grande
135. Raunch Hands - Learn To Whap A Dang
136. Lou Reed - Transformer
137. REM - Murmur
138. REM - Reckoning
139. REM - Fables Of The Reconstruction
140. REM - Life's Rich Pageant
141. The Replacements - Let It Be
142. The Replacements - Tim
143. Repo Man Soundtrack
144. Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack
145. Screaming Blue Messiahs - Gun Shy
146. Secrets - Success Without College
147. Shadow 15 - Far Away
148. Shockabilly - Vietnam
149. Simple Minds - New Gold Dream
150. Sixteen Candles Soundtrack
151. Billy Squier - Don't Say No
152. Billy Squier - Emotions In Motion
153. Billy Squier - Signs Of Life
154. St. Elmo's Fire Soundtrack
155. Iggy & The Stooges - Raw Power
156. Styx - Paradise Theater
157. Sweet - Desolation Boulevard
158. Television's Greatest Hits (TV Themes)
159. Billy Thorpe - Children Of The Sun
160. The Times - Hip Isn't It
161. Peter Tosh - Legalize It
162. U2 - Under A Blood Red Sky
163. Ugly Americans - Who's Been Sleeping In My Bed
164. Van Halen - Women And Children First
165. Van Halen - Diver Down
166. Suzanne Vega
167. Velvet Underground & Nico
168. Velvet Underground - White Light / White Heat
169. Velvet Underground
170. Velvet Underground - Loaded
171. Violent Femmes
172. Roger Waters - The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking
173. Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
174. White Animals - Lost Weekend
175. Who - Live At Leeds
176. Who - Quadrophenia
177. Who - Who Are You?
178. Woodstock Soundtrack

Instead of writing about a few of these records - how about a few words on all of them? Rain Parade is a good artifact from the Paisley Underground that has stood the test of time. I bought both Raunch Hands records after reading a glowing article about them in Spin magazine. I was duped. I was a huge Velvet Underground fan so the purchase of the mid-line Transformer by Lou Reed was a given. REM? I was once one of their biggest fans defending your music to my punk rock friends. My punk rock friends turned out to be right. Stipe's voice is nails on a chalkboard to me now. The Replacements albums have only gotten better, especially Let It Be which I bought on the recommendation of future Nashville Scene movie critic Jim Ridley. I went to Mississippi during the summer
of 1985 just like always to visit my grandmother. Halfway through the trip my mother
decided to visit her sister who was living just north of Memphis in a tiny town called Mumford. There wasn't much to do in Mumford so my cousin Lisa suggested we rent some movies. The very tiny store had Repo Man on the shelves and I watched it several times before we returned it. Rocky Horror was really big with my crowd for a few years. I don't know why I bought the Screaming Blue Messiahs album. The Secrets record was something I bought from the bargain bins. It would have been better left there. Shadow 15 were an incredible Nashville band with a dark punk rock sound. I wish they hadn't been so short-lived. Shockabilly was something I bought after reading an article somewhere. The album wasn't all that good, but I liked to subject my friends and enemies to its weirdness. The Simple Minds record was another bargain bin find that I should not have wasted my money on. The Sixteen Candles Soundtrack had a Patti Smith song on it, but I really bought it because I was infatuated with Molly Ringwald. Now for Billy Squier:
I truly liked Don't Say No and I still do. I think it's a good slab of heavy duty power pop. Emotions In Motion was pretty much junk and Signs Of Life was a gift of crap. I hate to admit all of my "Brat Pack" purchases but here's the St. Elmo's Fire Soundtrack staring me in the face. Man what dreck it includes; one mention of John Parr and David Foster is enough. I must have been drunk when I bought it. With the bad there is good: Iggy & The Stooges Raw Power is as close to transcendance as rock and roll gets. Play it loud, indeed! I bought Styx's Paradise Theater back in 8th grade after I found $40 just laying on the ground at a local shopping center. I used the money for that record, which was huge at the time, a new pair of tennis shoes (Pony's), plus a trip to a carnival. Strangely enough; years later I would lose $40 at a gas station. Sweet were and are awesome. Everybody should have a record by them in their collection. I was a huge television watcher so it made sense to buy a TV theme song album. Plus, being nicknamed Wally, I had to have the "Leave It To Beaver" theme. Billy Thorpe's "Children Of The Sun" tune was a staple of rock radio in the 80's. The Times were a decent alternative band from Louisiana. I liked to pretend I was a dope fiend back then so I bought Legalize It by Tosh to protect my false reputation. U2 were already the biggest band on the planet in the college rock
scene and Under A Blood Red Sky was dirt cheap. The Ugly Americans album was horribly bad punk rock. Van Halen might not have been punk rock, but they were still my favorite group. I only had two records by them, but I had everything else on tape. I got the Suzanne Vega record at the Port O'Call record store in the 'boro. I still listento it every now and then, plus Suzanne is a cool lady. At the start of my senior year of high school I met this guy who found out I liked The Doors. He told me that Morrison was a lightweight compared to Lou Reed and that I should find "Venus In Furs" and listen to it. The VU albums were all being reissued in 1985 and I was soon hooked on the Underground. The Violent Femmes first record is truly one of a kind. I got the Roger Waters album just because I thought it was collectible. My first and only foray into collector scum land. The gravel in Tom Waits's voice was scary at first, but I got used to it quick. The White Animals
were already Nashville legends by the mid-80's and Lost Weekend is one of their best albums. When I was working at Phonluxe Mike Gray told a story about a girl he once knew who sold all of her record collection off except for her Who records. That's pretty cool. Finally, we get to the end of my list and what do we find but the soundtrack to the biggest hippie fest
of all time; Woodstock. I got it for the Sly and Family Stone and Who songs. I'm sure we've reached an understanding there.

I hope you've enjoyed this blast from my past done to honor the memory of my high school graduation twenty years ago. It's fun to visit the past for an hour or so, but the present is still where the best things are always happening.