Record Sunday #1: A birthday haul for a 31-year-old
Sonic Youth, Joy Division, Wilco and more on a birthday trip to New York.
I own too many records, and I’m fine with that. The first record I bought for myself was Joy Division’s The Grey Assembly at Jackpot Records in Portland, Ore., in December 2006. The next record I bought was the Vivian Girls self-titled at Earwax Records in Brooklyn, N.Y., in August 2009. Things gradually ramped up through 2010 when I graduated high school, went to college and started to attending shows on a regular basis. I wanted something to commemorate those nights at 9:30 Club or Black Cat or wherever else.
Fast forward to January 2025 and I’m in State College, Pa., where I’ve got an eight-square Kallax that is three-quarters of the way full, plus a packed record cart shelf and a bookcase with a couple scattered sets. Do I listen to them enough? Have I listened to all of the ones that I own? That’s a different conversation for a different day. But the collection I’ve amassed is one of my most prized possessions.
This the first installment in what I hope will become a weekly featured called RECORD SUNDAY in which I explore my collection. Every Sunday, I’ll go through collection and pick out a group of records that I bought at one time (I have a spreadsheet for my collection that includes the dates and locations for almost every record I’ve acquired) and write about it. I’ll jump around to different hauls and explore different stores, bands and albums. It seems pretty, simple, right? I tried to do this on Tumblr in 2012 when my collection was a much more manageable size. I called that My Record Collection. It didn’t last long. (s/o to Anna, the OG RECORD SUNDAY participant).
For this first edition, we’ll start with a trip to some familiar haunts around New York for my 31st birthday in 2023.
MAY 12, 2023: CAPTURED TRACKS SHOP, BROOKLYN, N.Y.
RECORDS: Bad Moon Rising by Sonic Youth; Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division; More Songs About Buildings and Food by Talking Heads; Nuggets Volume Three: Pop by Various Artists.
There are going to be a series of recurring characters over the course of this series. Captured Tracks is going to be one of them. The venerable Brooklyn record label put out some formative albums of the late 2000s and early 2010s, and the record stores it was associated with were frequent haunts. I forget when the Captured Tracks Shop opened in Greenpoint and I’m pretty sure it’s moved since I went there. I haven’t kept up. But it was on my list of places to visit, and I made sure to make it worth it.
This haul set the tone for the weekend. Sonic Youth, Joy Division and Talking Heads were all ~formative~ high school bands, and on the cusp of another birthday, it felt appropriate. Bad Moon Rising featured prominently in the final U.S. Sonic Youth show in Williamsburg in 2011, so it’s always had a place in my heart. Plus, I covered “Death Valley ’69” on acoustic guitar when I was in high school. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” is an all-time song, so to get it on 12” was great. And David Byrne has the same birthday as me — and I bought More Songs About Buildings and Food on CD when I was younger — so that felt appropriate to buy, too. Every record here felt like a quality add that I would return to.
MAY 14, 2023: BROOKLYN RECORD EXCHANGE, BROOKLYN, N.Y.
RECORDS: Anxiety by Autre Ne Veut; 14 Booming Hits by Freddy Cannon; Bill Haley’s Chicks by Bill Haley & His Comets; Frat Rock by Various Artists,
SEVEN INCHES: “The Time Has Come” / “Jimmy Keeps Asking For You” by Darlene; “That’s What I Like About You” / “I’m Leaving It Up To You” by Dale & Grace; “Memory” / “Undelivered” by The Mantles; “Droplet On A Hot Stone” by Julian Lynch; “Fantasy” by Yalls; “Hamilton Road” by Ducktails.
Brooklyn Record Exchange, fka as Co-Op 87, is a building that will come up frequently here. Anna brought me a long to do a lot of damage here in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 and so on and so on. So there’s a loge of nostalgia here to indulge.
Anxiety features one of my favorite songs of the early 2010s in “Play by Play,” and we also saw Autre Ne Veut at Northside at Shea Stadium in 2011. We listened to this record a ton in college after it came out, and it goes. As an aside Mk.gee reminds of a more guitar-oriented Autre Ne Veut.
In 2013, we visited Co-Op and found a Freddy Cannon 7” with “PERFECT FUCKING SONG” written on the sleeve. I think it was “Tallahassee Lassie,” and the PFS phrase has entered my vernacular. It’s something I think about a lot. Plus, Freddy Cannon rocks, and a singles comp by someone named Cannon with “Booming” in the title? That’s perfect.
The Frat Rock comp and the Bill Haley record refreshed the oldies in my record collection. The Darlene and Dale & Grace singles also had Freddy Cannon-esque endorsements. One was a “BURNING ’64 Rock Ballad” and the other was “RARE FEM VOX COUNTRY!” I had to get those.
As for the other three 7” singles… Julian Lynch and Ducktails were part of the Underwater Peoples scene that created much of my favorite music of the early 2010s. Lynch, to me, was criminally underrated, and “Droplet On A Hot Stone” is a song that immediately makes me feel like it’s after midnight in 2011 or 2012 and I’m listening on headphones in my dorm room or on my floor at home again. “Hamilton Road” is a good song with a great music video, and we’ll leave it at that. The Mantles were contemporaries, and I like to take flyers on singles from bands that I liked but don’t necessarily know the songs.
MAY 14, 2023: EMILY, BROOKLYN, N.Y.
RECORD: No Cover: Carpark’s 21st Anniversary Covers Comp by Various Artists.
Belated thank you for the birthday present, Emily! This is a very fun comp by another record label that’s put out a lot of records that we loved in college. And of course, Cloud Nothings is on it with Sad13 covering “Hey Cool Kid.” I think my personal favorite on here is Emily Reo covering “Gila” by Beach House.
MAY 14, 2023: ACADEMY RECORDS ANNEX, BROOKLYN, N.Y.
RECORDS: Mercy by The Men; Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco; Bonny Doon by Bonny Doon; Saint Dymphna by Gang Gang Dance; Wide Awake! by Parquet Courts.
My first visit to the Academy Records Annex in Williamsburg/Greenpoint (someone can correct me on my geography) delivered with Emily and Tommy. I could have left with so many more records than this. If you’ve been reading the newsletter for a while, the Parquet Courts purchase is obvious (good record, too), while The Men are one of my favorite “rock” bands of the early 2010s, and even if I haven’t kept up with their output of late, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Mercy is pretty good.
I don’t think I ever listened to Saint Dymphna in full until I bought this record. But a couple of the first car mix CDs I ever got from Anna featured “Princes” and “House Jam.” It’s blissful to be 17 or 18 and driving around the suburbs with the windows down listening to those songs. Every once in a while, I still exclaim, “Oh shit, Gang Gang” to myself. Great record to throw on while doing some housework.
Bonny Doon was sort of tangentially on my radar up until 2021 or so. I saw them open for Snail Mail at the Parkway Theatre in Baltimore in 2018 and knew they played a prominent role in Waxahatchee’s Saint Cloud in 2020. But Longwave hit in 2021, and Bonny Doon entered heavy rotation. Emily pulled this one out of the stacks and I was like, yes, I need to buy this.
A lot of people can write a lot of things about Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, probably more elegantly than I can. I “discovered” the record in 2008 and my burned copy was a cilver CD that said “YHF!” in black Sharpie. I listened to it a lot. At an acoustic Scooter + Jinx show, we covered “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” and “Heavy Metal Drummer” and I tried so much to learn “Kamera” and couldn’t quite pin it down. It’s a great record, and I hadn’t seen it in the wild too often. It felt appropriate for a newly 31-year-old man to buy.
MAY 15, 2023: ANNA, STATE COLLEGE, Pa.
RECORD: At the Royal Albert Hall by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
I capped the weekend by getting back to State College (RIP the LGA-SCE flight) to a care package from Anna, which featured the recent Creedence Clearwater Revival live album. We were raised on a John Fogerty live album, and to get those songs straight from 1970 is a great experience. I still haven’t watched the film that goes with it yet.
Happy Sunday, and I hope you enjoy RECORD SUNDAY today and in the future.
—D.G.