Records, Rain and Red Sox

Took the day off on Tuesday to go to Boston for a Red Sox / Yankees game. Fun road trip with Paul, Rob and Heidi. Whenever we are in the neighborhood of Fenway park, we have to stop in at Nuggets record store. Huge selection of used vinyl and cheap CD's. I typically browse the vinyl selection, but usually don't buy anything because I either can't find anything I want, or there is too much wear and tear for my liking. This trip I managed to make some very good finds...all were in the $5 or $6 range.

• GBH - Midnight Madness and Beyond : Decent punk record. Not my favorite by them, but I only had this on cassette and needed to get it on a better format.
• Judas Priest - Screaming For Vengeance and Defenders of the Faith : By coincidence, as I was hanging out at the house in the morning I was struck by a strong urge to listen to some early Priest, and brought out their first three albums. When I saw these two, and the great condition that they are in, I knew I had to buy them. I had Defenders of the Faith on cassette and needed to replace that with vinyl. Screaming for vengeance I own the CD, but it is such a classic I had to buy it on vinyl for the collection.
• Rainbow - Self titled first record : I had never heard this album. I really liked the other two Rainbow albums with Dio, plus the first record has Man on the Silver Mountain so how could I go wrong. Plus this thing was in great shape, gatefold cover, and a German pressing.
• Dokken - Tooth and Nail : Another coincidence. As Paul and I were driving down he made a joke about Dokken, and I joked that I never really could get into Breaking the Chains until we had seen them live. Then at Nuggets I found they had that album for sale. I like Tooth and Nail better so I bought that one instead.
• UFO - Strangers in the Night : I heard this band for the first time about a month ago. Jeff played me a song and I loved the guitar sound. Great 70's rock. I downloaded this live album and was glad to get the double album on vinyl.
  

The record that I was most excited about was the live Alice Cooper bootleg, One Halloween Night. Recorded in 1978, I was tenative to buy this...I wasn't sure how great the quality was and the price tag was $15. They had both the Killer and Constrictor album for sale as well, and I almost bought one of those instead. Then, for the Hell of it, I slide the live album out of it's sleeve and I saw the colored wax. I was sold. I listened to a few songs when I got home and the quality of the live recording is excellent. I'm glad I picked it up.


After Nuggets and dinner at Bertucci's we headed over the bridge to Fenway for the Red Sox / Yankees game. It had rained all day and we were nervous that the game was going to be called. We got inside the ballpark around 6:00, and the field was covered to keep the water off. It wasn't raining anymore, and we were hopeful that the game would go on as scheduled. The game was delayed and we sat and waited it out. It was cold so I went and bought a new winter hat. Then at 7:45 it started to rain. We got out our ponchos and sat in the rain. Soon it was announced that the game was postponed until August 18th for a 1:00 game. Hmmm, spending a Friday afternoon in August watching the Sox and Yankees go at it sounded perfect and suddenly it didn't really matter that the game was cancelled...plus it wasn't a wasted trip since I had a bunch of new records to keep me happy.