by Joe Wallace

Brain fried from far too much driving. Here’s a gallery of images I’ve collected along the way, with some snarky commentary free of charge. I have gathered these images between Springfield, Illinois and San Antonio, Texas–and I’ve paid the price, let me tell you–my retinas are seared for life in some cases.

The name of this John Denver Album, in case you can’t read the type, is “I Want To Live”. Sorry matey, but you should have taken the bus.

I love this album cover. He looks like one of those plastinated dead bodies currently causing all the fuss on the museums. The bananas don’t look plastinated, though. Just very ripe.

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WHY WHY WHY do people with terminal charisma deficiencies INSIST on putting their mugs on the front cover of these records? The idea behind a good album cover is to SELL THE RECORD, not to inspire me to shovel rodent feces up with it.

This CANNOT be good for your vinyl collection, but it is still the most amusing album-related toy I’ve seen in ages. The Vinyl Killer was purchased in Japan and brought back to the USA for mayhem. You insert the batteries, put the van on a piece of vinyl on a countertop or floor (horrors!) and it drives around the grooves and plays the record. A fun toy to play with on throwaway vinyl records by AC/DC (Powerage!) and Krokus.

There are LOADS more images from this crazy trip and I still have plenty to say about Forever Young Records in Grand Prarie, Austin’s famous Waterloo Records and Antoine’s…and there are still a few more places to visit before it’s all said and done–the madness continues as I drive to Hogwild Records in San Antonio, plus I owe a visit to Recycled Records back in Springfield, Illinois–but not before I search Bloomington, Illinois for some signs of life in the vinyl department.