Just came off a road trip- last of the summer- with the family to New Mexico. Forgive the 'vacation slides' vibe of this finds post...
First stop was Lubbock, Texas and the Buddy Holly Center for a viewing of the Texas 78s exhibit that's currently in the gallery. We also visited the Buddy Holly exhibit... too be in the same room with some of Buddy's stuff was a bit unnerving... especially the "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" guitar. And the scuffed and scarred glasses retrieved from the Iowa evidence room. That gave me chills.
The 78 exhibit was cool. I had been asked to contribute some West Texas labels and spent a bit of time working on those. Out of the dozens I sent in, only two were used which was a bit of a downer. A bigger downer was to look in the nice booklet that accompanied the exhibit and see that I was not even credited.
This put me in a foul mood. Until we hit Littlefield, Texas...
Littlefield was home to Waylon Jennings. His brother runs a liquor store/museum there called Waymore's. It was neat to shop for whiskey and wine while looking at Waylon's early Trend 45s, one of Johnny Cash's jackets, and other assorted items related to Waylon. Bought a t-shirt and some libations and then headed up the road to my growing-up-spot: Clovis, New Mexico. We didn't tarry long as we were trying to get to Moriarty, New Mexico before dinner.
My mother-in-law's family has a long history in Moriarty, New Mexico. Two of the most famous businesses in town on old Route '66 are actually tied to her family... El Comedor and Mike's Friendly store. After quickly dropping off our stuff at Uncle Ralph's we headed for El Comedor and dinner.
I love the Navajo Taco. Chicken, green chile, queso, and other fixin's floating on a piece of fried bread as big as your face. Mmmmm....
Besides the food we also love the laid back vibe of Moriarty. Lots of downtime in Ralph's yard doing nothing and drinking beer. Playing Mexican Train (dominoes) while drinking beer. Listening to stories of old Moriarty and drinking beer.
I also get a kick out of Ralph's old 45 collection... tons of local tejano 45s from the 60s on Hurricane. LOTS of Tiny Morrie 45s. Link Wray, Roy Orbison on Sun, Jack Scott. He's got cool records and it's a neat view into his late teen years when he was hitting the teen clubs and activity halls for dances.
I usually find at least one decent record in Moriarty at either the flea market or one of the handful of second hand shops in town. Bobby Fuller was the big find this time around. 25 cents in a thrift and a huge surprise. It was a big want and easily my favorite find of the trip.
From the same spot as Fuller were these two lps. They were part of the same collection as the same names are scribbled on all three records. Not in the best of shape, but the Deuce Coupes was actually an upgrade all the way around and I didn't have this Astronauts. Cover's shot, but the vinyl isn't too bad. Not too terrible a summer for surf and hot rod related lps.
One of my wife's aunts mentioned that when they had run the restaurant in the 50s and 60s she had always taken the 45s off the jukebox and had kept them all in her basement for years. Then a few years back she gave them all to her daughter who lived a few states over. Probably a lot of junk, but also probably a ton of stuff on local labels out of Albuquerque. Arrgh!
We hit Albuquerque on Sunday afternoon and on Monday I was hitting the thrifts and record shops. I've never had great luck in Albuquerque so I wasn't expecting to find Freddie Chavez or the Fe-Fi-Four or Plague or anything.
LPs are everywhere in the city. And pretty burned out for the most part. Charlie's 33s is widely lauded and best avoided. They've got a bunch of 45s, but it's a pretty dire assortment. The lp section is large, but they shrink-wrap almost everything and put a sticker on the cover with a grade... of which I saw nothing above a VG. Evidently this a prevalent practice in Albuquerque.
We Buy Music was the only place I wound up buying anything not related to hiking/camping.
The owner was a super nice fellow and the prices on 45s were more than fair. I didn't see any Duke City heavy hitters in the 7" racks, but I'm sure they're there... buried in one of the multitude of boxes seen in the We Buy Music compound (vinyl boneyard/sale room pictured above).
I spent $20 on a handful of 45s and lp outer sleeves. (putting lps in poly sleeves is like a form of zen)
Tons of local and central Texas tejano 45s. I grabbed the record on Wildcat because I had never seen it, it was clean, and was a cha-cha. Fun 45. The records on El Rey and Gue-Cha were grabbed because they're from El Paso. Los Vets is a cool local bilingual slowie.
There were a ton of interesting country 45s in the racks. Included in my pile were the Gary Paxton produced record on the lower left and a cool primitive country honky tonker on the lower right.
Seeing Chelo Vasquez in the small $5 box was a surprise, but was bit let down to see it covered with vinyl blisters on both sides... they didn't seem to affect the sound when I played it on We Buy Music's in-store set up. It's a cool funky chicano instrumental for those that ain't heard. An even bigger surprise was seeing the Albatross 45 by sometime El Pasoan and recently deceased Lou Pride in the 50 cent racks of the vinyl boneyard. It ain't "I'm Com'un Home" or any of the other Suemi records, but it's still a nice 45, if a bit sweet and produced.
Been meaning to pick this local-related 45... already had the lp. $1 and unplayed is the way to go.
The homeward travel was long but uneventful, with the "highlights" being a gallon of Carrizoso cherry cider and a last second stop at the UFO museum in Roswell...
And with that it looks like another summer 'record season' is coming to close... back to work in two weeks.
