In honor of the first WXNA Record Fair today, Sunday, March 23, noon to 6 p.m. at Eastside Bowl, March 17-23, 2025 has been Crate Digger’s Week on WXNA! Today we close out the week with a story about discovering music from just slightly before your time, discovering music from a distant lands,  and a tale of an epic quest from WXNA’s Unofficial Crate Digger King!

The Velvet Underground – The Quine Tapes V.1-3
Drew Wilson (& DJ Duck)

Growing up in the sweaty mosh pits and tiny back bar shows of New York in the last days of CBGBs, legends of the early days of punk were always around but so far away.

It was one thing knowing of the Velvet Underground, but another thing completely hearing an actual high quality recording of the Velvets live in their prime! And that was The Quine Tapes. Finding Vol.2 in a record bin and hearing what we will swear is the greatest version of Heroin anywhere (so far?) was an earth shaking experience. And sent us on a years long hunt through the crates to add Vol.1 & 3. Those records (and the also fantastic Matrix Tapes) felt like a connection to a music scene that will always be talked about, but we didn’t get to experience.

When we moved to Nashville and wanted to share the love of punk rock over the airwaves, we immediately fell into a music scene here that was so good and had that feeling of something special. Immortalized by so many great records, especially the Live at Glenn Danzig’s House 7”, the most meaningful record we have in a massive collection of punk and garage that we are thrilled to spin weekly on WXNA, on the show @LoudLoveShow.

The popular quote is that The Velvet Underground didn’t sell that many records, but everyone that bought one started a band.

Well, this one started a radio show.

Various Artists – Love, Peace & Poetry – Asian Psychedelic Music
Michael Buhl – The Scatter Shot & The Squirrelly Compass

Around 25 years ago I bought this collection of Asian psychedelic rock music at Matt McKeever’s record store, which was called Off 12th Records. I bought it because of my interest in ’60s garage and psychedelic rock, and most of the music on this record was in that vein. However, the Turkish music was different. It was a fascinating blend of Eastern and Western music. It started an obsession with Turkish psychedelic music that’s lasted over two decades. In fact, one of the things that led me to visit Istanbul in 2002 was a desire to look for more of this kind of music. All of that was inspired by an impulse record purchase driven mostly by whimsy.

The Stooges – The Stooges (and more!)
Paul Glavin – Eargasm

There was time when once a record was out of print, it disappeared and was gone. Unlike the age of the Internet where even the most obscure records can be seen and heard at the press of a finger. These items ceased to exist in retail stores which meant you had to know someone who owned it or go out and find a physical copy if you wanted to hear it.

I was 14 in 1974 when Creem magazine published an article covering The Stooges and referencing another band I’d never heard of called the MC5. The photo of the first Stooges album released in 1969 showed four faces looking completely detached from the 1960’s Love Generation with glaring stares leaving no doubt this record was for real. Finally, a record with no trace of the suburbs or coffeehouse and a band looking like me and my friends, seething with the aggression and hostility of my neighborhood.

I special ordered Raw Power because the local record store didn’t carry it and their first two albums (The Stooges and Funhouse) were unavailable because they were ‘out of print’ as were all three MC5 albums. I was told to look for them in a used record store but what the hell was a ‘used’ records store? It never occurred to me people wouldn’t want their records anymore and could be resold. The concept was new to me, but I followed their advice and upon further investigation located a local head shop with a used record section and prices less than half that of new records which fit my teen budget just fine. I discovered Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, Love, Blue Cheer, Ultimate Spinach and many others here, but no Stooges or MC5 albums!

I realized I had to take my digging on the road, so in the winter or spring of 1975 off to Boston and Cambridge I headed. This involved considerable amounts of time because I wasn’t old enough to drive yet. I relied upon buses, subway trains and lots of walking to get me there from my hometown of Lynn. Harvard Square was a record diggers paradise with used record stores galore. I quickly found the first Stooges album, The Velvet Underground and Nico, and VU’s White Light/White Heat but Funhouse remained elusive until a couple years later when a copy turned up in my all-time favorite used record shop, Déjà Vu Records. I still own it to this day with the big store sticker deeming it ‘out of print’ plastered on it to remind me of the hunt for it!

Although I was now clued into used record shops, a happenchance occurrence made true crate digging the obsession I feed to this day. I happened to be in town when a musical instrument business was dissolving their unsold record stock at a sidewalk sale. They once were a retail store but kept these records well-hidden and out of sight until this day. I found sealed copies of MC5’s Kick Out The Jams (unedited) and Back in The USA, among other gems and one album I’d never seen called Nuggets. I recognized a few songs on the album and it was on Elektra, so why not? That’s when things got real.

The Chocolate Watch Band and Thirteenth Floor Elevators completely blew me away with Lenny Kaye’s liner notes basically challenging me to find a copy of the Elevators first album. What about this Boston band I never heard of called The Remains? I needed these records and realized I was searching for singles more than I was for albums! It didn’t take long to own every record listed on Nuggets and in the process find many similar sounding ones not included on it.

By 1979 the term garage rock was being used and compilations such as Pebbles were exposing the true depth of these unknown bands and singles. When the first of three New England Teen Scene comps was released in 1980, I realized for the first time how vital and active my own backyard was with these teen sounds and vowed to own every original record released from my area.

Flea markets, antique shops, barns, and even the local phenomenon of barber shops selling records were on my travel itinerary for digging up records released locally in small quantities. The migration of records found geographically hundreds or thousands of miles from where they were pressed still fascinates me to this day when I dig them out. Tracking down band members with information found on the label and the phone book was time consuming but sometimes yielded results of records and information that could be used for further digging!

I began this journey of hunting and gathering over 50 years ago but there are still gems left to mine, so get out there, hit those crates, and dig!

See you at the WXNA Record Fair, today, noon to 6 p.m. at Eastside Bowl!