
I set out today with the goal of hitting 3 to 5 Half Price Bookstores, looking for a few certain cds (Rush, R.E.M., Pure Joy, Death Cab For Cutie, Trouble, Idlewild, I forget what else) and some kind of undefined computer game.
First stop: I intended to head straight to Bellevue Square, but then I decided to stop at Boeing Surplus. Half the fun of hitting used stores and junk stores is that you never know what you might find. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I found it: an unused ink cartridge for my HP Laserjet 4000, for $25.00. Nice! I'd never have thought to look for that at Boeing Surplus, but there it was.
After much consideration I also picked up a $4.00 chair. It's a stationairy chair (no wheels), tubular steel frame, no arms, very comfy. Since I'd done all my printing in the bedroom seated on a folding chair that wasn't really that comfortable, I decided a nice cheap comfortable chair was in order.
Off to Bellevue Square! Here is where I made my biggest music finds of the day! The first is "Experience Music Project Presents: Wild and Wooly, The Northwest Rock Collection". This is a 2 disc set chock full of the best Northwest rock has ever put forth, from the early days (1958, even before the Wailers, Ventures, and Kingsmen, had made their splash) through the whole grunge thing and on upto 2000, when this cd was made. With very few exceptions, the cd gets everything right and picks stellar tracks throughout. What caught my eye was the inclusion of a couple of my favorite obscure early-80's Seattle tracks, "Vaporized" by X-15 and "Take Me To Your Leader" by The Pudz. I love the song Vaporized, and didn't have it on cd. Now I do!
The booklet that comes with the cd is equally well crafted and engrossing. I love reading stuff like that.
My only real quibbles are that there's no Rusty Willoughby band -- either Pure Joy or Flop would do -- and no Mother Love Bone. Of course they have Green River and Pearl Jam, but that leaves out Andy Wood, lead singer of MLB and of Malfunkshun before that. There are other local bands that are favorites of mine, but those two in particular seem like they should get some mention. (Rusty does, in fact, get a small credit in the booklet -- he's the drummer for The Fastbacks on their track Parts).
If the cd had been created just a few years later you'd almost certainly have to include something by Death Cab For Cutie or maybe The Decemberists. Also not represented: the Dharma Bums, Seaweed, Everclear, to say nothing of bands like Hole and Candlebox that I frankly wouldn't have included either. And for me personally, two bands that I'm sure don't deserve any mention, but which I'd like to have songs of theirs on cd: The Visible Targets, and Widow's song Bitch. Not shining examples of the best in Northwest music I suppose, but fun stuff anyway.
My second find was even more fun: Under The Covers vol 1 by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs. Hoffs, in case you don't remember, was the front woman for the Bangles. Both Sweet and Hoffs are big proponents of all things power pop, and in this cd they team up to cover a bunch of great songs from the 60's. How could I not pick this up? And for $5.98 no less!
The bad news: boy, do they look old. Well, they are getting older, of course, and I don't buy their cds for how they look, but Sweet in particular is looking old, fat, hairy and ugly. I think he's turning into Neil Young. (They do two Neil Young covers btw.)
Hoffs and Sweet were also members of "Ming Tea", the band featured in the Austin Powers films.
I had lunch at the Greek restaurant there in the mall.
After that I hit Redmond and then the University District and then Southcenter, picked up a few more cds (I found Test for Echo by Rush and Automatic For the People by R.E.M. -- and a lot of other cds by R.E.M. that I don't have, but I only got the one I came fore). I didn't find any computer game that compelled me to buy. Mostly I think the kind of games that wind up in Half Price Books are not the cream of the crop, anyway.
At Southcenter I hit the nearby Thai restaurant for some red curry chicken with brown rice, which I took home and devoured. Yum!