Stereo – green label – WS 1689

$35.00

The Grateful Dead’s first album is an eclectic mixture of cover songs and two originals.  Much of the material  were staples of the band throughout their 30 year career such as, “Beat It On Down The Line,” “Cold Rain and Snow,” “Minglewood Blues,” and the epic “Morning Dew.”  Most of the songs were reworked into better renditions later in their career. Easily the best song from the Grateful Dead’s self titled album is the cover version of Lewis’ “Viola Lee Blues.”

Parlophone pressing – gatefold

$12.00

Banged out in a hurry for the 1964 Christmas market, Beatles for Sale sometimes sounds it, loaded with ill-conceived covers and some of John Lennon’s most self-loathing lyrics. On the other hand, the people doing the banging-out were the Beatles, whose instincts for what worked musically were so strong that they could basically do no wrong–any record that has “Baby’s in Black,” “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” and the delectable “Eight Days a Week” on it is only “minor” in the most relative sense. And, though their voices had been frazzled a bit by constant touring, they revved them up for some joyous shouting, and indulged their fondness for American country in subtle, playful ways. –Douglas Wolk

Mono – LN 24093

$25.00

The Dave Clark Five’s first album might seem a bit on the meager side outside of the context of the first flush of the British Invasion. At the time, though, it was a pretty exuberant slab o’ vinyl that rocked pretty hard for the most part, paced by the three Top 10 singles “Glad All Over,” “Do You Love Me,” and “Bits and Pieces.” It was a huge seller as well, peaking at number three and remaining in the charts almost as long as the albums by their chief competitors of the era, the Beatles. And it does have a few decent, though not great, original songs that don’t show up on greatest hits compilations: the solid pop/rocker “I Know You,” the raucous “Twist and Shout” rip-off “No Time to Lose,” and the surprisingly savage instrumental “Chaquita,” an inversion of “Tequila” with its snaky, growling guitar riffs and dirty sax. There’s also some pure filler, like the jazzy instrumental “Time” and the infantile “Doo Dah.”

Half Speed Mastered – HC 43235

$75.00

Inevitably, when critics praise a new Dylan album, they label it the “best since Blood on the Tracks,” and with good reason. Inspired by a crumbled marriage, and recorded after a tour with the Band had apparently re-ignited his creativity, Blood is among Dylan’s masterpieces. The album’s epic songs are well known, but its real high points are the shorter numbers–”You’re a Big Girl Now,” the flawless blues “Meet Me in the Morning,” and the sweetly devastating “Buckets of Rain.” These are songs of “images and distorted facts,” each expressed through tangled points of view, and all of them blue. –David Cantwell

10 LP set – Live colored vinyl

$350.00

This is Pink Floyd’s – In Memoriam 1967 – 1981 R.I.P., an impressive 10 record box set pressed on color vinyl from original RSR plates. Discs are packaged in two black boxes inside of a larger white box with a color picture on the front and black and white picture on back. The custom labels are clean with no visible spindle marks. The two black boxes look perfect,  A very nice copy of this rare release.

1st pressing – stereo ST-2442

$60.00

Rank ‘em how you like, Rubber Soul is an undeniable pivot point in the Fab Four’s varied discography no matter where, or how, you first heard it. The album was softened up in its original 12-song American edition to jibe with the Dylan/Byrds folk-rock sound, as well as squeeze money from the Parlophone catalog. The 14-song U.K. edition–the version now available on compact disc–is a different, more dynamic, and ultimately more accomplished achievement. So many classics: “Drive My Car” and “Nowhere Man” (both omitted from the U.S. edition) merge the early combustible Beatifics to a burgeoning studio consciousness; “The Word” can be read as a pre-psych warning shot; the sitar-laden “Norwegian Wood” and the evocative “Girl” (the latter written on the last night of the sessions) stand as turning points in John Lennon’s oeuvre. George finally emerges too, with the McGuinn-ish “If I Needed Someone.” –Don Harrison