Free, and well worth it!

What album(s) have you gotten for free, without any expectation of greatness (or even pretty-goodness), only to end up discovering a new favorite artist?

How about concerts? Any that you've gotten into for free, or gotten a comp ticket for, basically just going along for the ride ... and ended up getting your world rocked beyond all expectations?

---

Zwirn's post on the "first purchases" thread made me think of this one.

"How about concerts? Any that you've gotten into for free, or gotten a comp ticket for, basically just going along for the ride ... and ended up getting your world rocked beyond all expectations?"

I was guest-listed for a Jethro Tull show a little over a decade ago. I was never a huge Tull fan, not even when I was a major progressive rock fiend, I went with very low expectations, more of a "why not?" than an "Oh boy!' I figured they'd just go through the motions.

They ended up rocking like crazy, Ian Anderson surprisingly engaged throughout, even with most of the material being 30 years old. They looked like they were having a blast playing (not true of a lot of veteran acts I've seen) and the audience responded in kind. It didn't make me any more of a Tull fan, but it's definitely one of the best concert experiences I've had.

And the T-shirt I bought has lasted better than any concert tee I've ever owned. It's a good 12+ years old and has barely faded at all.

The album part of the question I'll have to give some thought to. I've gotten so damn many records over the years doing the music critic thing that's it's difficult for me to remember.

> I've gotten so damn many records over the years doing the music critic thing that's it's
> difficult for me to remember.

Occupational hazard, I'm sure.

Two concerts jump out to me, both in Mobile in 1980: The Charlie Daniels Band and Kansas. I'd gotten the ticket to each show from a friend who'd planned to go to the show, but whose plans were overcome by events. (These were two different ticket-holders, BTW.) I wasn't a fan of either band, but hey, in each case, the ticket was free, so I figured, sure.

Charlie and his band were in high spirits all night, and really worked to entertain the crowd. The people around me were really nice, too.

And Kansas? We had front row, and I was astounded at the sight of Steve Walsh doing a one-handed handstand on his keyboard, and playing it with the other hand. Respect!

I don't know if this counts, but...

Around 1988 or so, I went to a record store in Houston called Infinite Records. I had a list from the most recent Trouser Press Record Guide and bought a bunch of records (most of which I can't remember now - I think the first True Believers album may have been one of them.)

Up at the front counter, I noticed a basket of cassettes for, I think, 50 cents. They were mostly promos. One of them was Iron Path, the then-latest album by Last Exit. I'd just read an article about them in Musician and was really curious. So I tossed it into my stack.

The clerk missed it as he was ringing me up. "You forgot this one," I said, pointing it out. He looked at it, considering voiding and redoing his sale (this was back before computerized registers in mom-and-pop stores) to accommodate a 50 cent tape, and said, "Eh, I'll throw it in. Don't worry about it."

So I got it for free. And it's one of only a handful of albums I've heard that genuinely changed the way I thought about music. It blew my freakin' mind.

I've since owned it on vinyl and, currently, CD. I bought the rest of the band's catalog later and became a lifelong devotee of Sonny Sharrock. All due to my curiosity and a record store clerk's laziness.

I found a cassette laying on the side of the road one day walking home from the bus stop in sixth grade. It was Van Halen I. A few months later, I traded it for an original vinyl pressing of Cheap Trick Live in Budokan.

(Disclaimer: I think I may have told this story before on this board)

There needs to be a Rock And Roll Found At The Side of the Road Hall of Fame.

My ballot would include that old Foghat Live tape that I found in Roanoke, VA back in the 80s. Its guts were all unspooled (think Mel Gibson in "Braveheart"), but I remember winding them carefully back into place and giving the thing a listen in my Walkman.

It was not to my tastes.

...

Yeah. So just a museum dedicated to rock and roll trash.

I guess that if the only requirement for membership be that the artists would have to have had a title found dumped on the side of the road, just about anyone could conceivably get in. Unless your stuff is really cherished and no one would ever throw it out the car window.

Hmm ...

One album I love (and have reviewed here) is the Caesars' Paper Tigers, which a record store owner threw in for free, with my other purchases. Not life-changing, but thoroughly enjoyable.

I was given TMBG's first album by my brother, who didn't like it and thought I would. Boy, he was right.

I saw Treat Her Right early on before I'd heard of them, and by the end of the evening owned everything at the t-shirt booth.

I always liked Bob Marley, so this wasn't a life-changing album, but I was given a free copy of Babylon By Bus more than a few years ago. How long? Well, I copied it onto a cassette. I loved (and love) that album so much I wore out that cassette. I now have the the album on CD.

One concert that I didn't go to: in college, I went to virtually every show I could. But, one night, maybe in the late '70s/early '80s I didn't go to a concert I won free tickets to because I had an exam the next day. I gave the tickets to a friend. Probably the only concert I missed in my college days. The band was U2 in a small club. She said it was the best concert of her life I don't doubt it. Oh, well.

Lamest concert I won free tickets to: Wild Cherry, the Play That Funky Music band, at the Va. Beach Dome. Tennybopper heaven. We left after one song.

Jay

I managed to secure Electr-o-Pura, Camp Yo La Tengo, and Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo for nothing from my brother. He'd snagged 'em in an epic haul of swag from a college radio station.

Up to that point, the previous reviews hadn't been enough to spur my interest, so I'd relegated Yo La Tengo to this sort of "Maybe Someday" limbo. There's no way that they would have remained there forever, but getting those CDs was quite the coup.

The earlier stuff is decent enough ... I own it all now (bought and paid for the old fashioned way, thank you), but tend to see Fakebook as the only Really Great & Indispensable Thing from before James McNew joined. Of course, they've been strictly lights out ever since May I Sing With Me?. I know that ... now.

About five or six years ago I ran into an acquaintance who's the music director from one of the local FM pop stations. He was lugging a box of random promo CDs. He asked me if I wanted any of them. There were hundreds of major label also-rans. We're talking the likes of O-Town, Aqua and Donovan Frankenreiter. Even so, I dug around for a minute or two, and picked out The Sound of White, by Missy Higgins based solely upon my hunch it just might be a country album with one or two halfway decent tunes. I inferred all this from her name, of course. The album was something else altogether:

[www.youtube.com]

[www.youtube.com]

I'm sure she's completely uncool, especially in Australia (Aitch?), but I'm a fan.

As far as free concerts, two stand out:

My then-stepbrother scored a pair of seats from some glad-handing promoter for Squeeze at the Fox in Atlanta. This would've been Dec. 1987. As his wife was about 8-1/2 months pregnant, he decided to pass the tickets to me. They were 3rd row center. I've never seen a band have as much fun as that particular iteration of Squeeze did on that night.

The one and only time I saw Dogs Die in Hot Cars was at a radio showcase in late 2004. It took place at 4:00 PM on a Thursday. There might've been 40 people there. The bar wasn't even open. I don't think I've ever seen a better sub-45 minute concert.



Post Edited (02-18-11 10:56)

Quote

...I dug around for a minute or two, and picked out The Sound of White, by Missy Higgins....

Oh my. I think I'm in love l.u.v. Thanks for mentioning her.


US version:
[www.youtube.com]

AUS version:
[www.youtube.com]

Either works for me. Proof that cute is way sexier than blonde, bikini-ed, breast-implanted bimbo-itude. And that accent!

Five absolutely priceless, phenomenal, life-changing albums that I received for free:

Talking Heads – More Songs About Buildings and Food
Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Armed Forces
Talking Heads – Remain in Light
U2 – Boy
Prince – 1999

The first two came to me from the kid across the street. In both instances, he hadn't sent back his card to the Record Club in time. He decided he hated these records, but gave them to me rather than send them back.

The next two came to me from my brother, who'd picked them up on the strength of record reviews. He just couldn't get into either one (especially Remain in Light), and gave them to me.

The last one was from a friend, who'd received two copies of that album for his birthday.

One of my earliest posts to this board was about a mix tape I found in the parking lot at my college. If I had parked just six inches to the left, I would've crushed it. Instead, it ended up staying in my Walkman for months, because it was so well-thought-out and entertaining. Side A was all pretty poppish new-wave; Side B, mostly punk and Goth. Very cool tape.

I posted about it, originally, to ask for help identifying one song on said tape whose origin had evaded me stubbornly for more than 20 years. (It turned out to be by The Humans.)

Has there been a post about songs like that, that we've loved but didn't know for years who it was? You just made me think of a rock song I'd hear on the radio about 2-3 times a year (once I moved to Austin, that is) that I really dug, but the DJs never said who it was. It took me almost 20 years to learn that it was "Anything Anything" by Dramarama, and that was only because I bought a Dramarama greatest hits collection and that was the first song. I practically broke my neck whipping it around to the stereo when that song came on.

man,
ANOTHER (i'm not SCREAMING, i jus dont know how ta iTalCize) great thread from delvin. the man could run his own tp. but for some reason he's happy enough with us.

my dad (who still works in radio; shout out st louis) dropped an akai needle in 1979 on LONDON CALLING and gave the Lp to me.

then i washed dishes for the next year for the entire family.

thanks dad!



Post Edited (02-19-11 01:39)

Having been in the music biz, this would be pointless for me to respond to . . . except for two instances:

In college at UC Berkeley I hung with some street people, one of whom stole a stack of records from me. When the head street guy heard, he sent his minions to find them at the local used record stores. I came home one day to find a stack of records . . . which weren't mine. A few neat records were in there, including an oddball UK psych-pop band called Gringo and a nifty (if long-winded) progressive/hard rock band called T2 who've become something of a cult fave.

The other thing is, when I was a kid in the mid-'60s my mom managed a dentist's office. One of the regular patients worked for a record company who over the years gave us a few promos of new releases. Most were utter geriatric schlock, but the label was Decca, and so they also included the first four US LPs by (yes) The Who.

I once found a stack of old Christian rock albums in the free bin at the local used store, including the first few Daniel Amos albums. Had anyone bothered to check on ebay they would've seen that the cheapest one of the bunch was bringing in $30 at the time and I sold a couple of them for upwards of $70 apiece. So that was cool.

Another store once had a stack of promo copies of the first Dean & Britta album on their counter for free. I grabbed copies for me & my brother and a couple of friends. A month later, the stack was still there so I just took them all and then handed them to the clerk at a hipper store to do with as he pleased. I couldn't stand to see them languish unloved and unwanted.

Free in the promo bin at a record store in Northfield MN: Richard X. Heyman's Cornerstone. Beautiful record.

jim green. now thats a name tPeers know. yet note his modesty. whenver i play a cool band fron L.A. i still think of ya jim!

btw, someone at work threw a rs in the the recycle bin yesterday. it had beiber on the cover. but upon closer observation also had a CLASH memoir. i was gonna rip the cover off the thing but alas, rs split the review up. it goes from about page sixty to seventy nine w/a shitlaod of ads inbetween. fuck it, i says to meself & bring the beiber home...



Post Edited (02-21-11 20:28)