I told this story to someone else recently so it's still
fairly fresh in my mind; it was 1983 and I was still pretty wet behind the ears
as far as music was concerned, what was out there, what to buy…that kind of
stuff. A friend and I had decided to buy
a new record, back then you would pool your money with someone else to buy some
tunes, and if you were the one that had the turntable or tape deck it was yours…so
we buy a copy of Duran Duran's "Is There Something I Should Know" and
in brackets it said (Monster Mix)….did
not clue in to what that was about or that it only had 2 songs on it, one on
each side, so be it, we took it home to spin. We were already familiar with the
sounds of DD so when the needle dropped on the vinyl for the first time and it
was this very slow, noisy, almost scary sounding song, not what we had
expected, but since it did say (Monster
Mix) we took it to be a "Scary" version of the song…..yes we were
playing that 12" single not on the speed it was meant to be played (45
RPM) but on 33…we played it like that for about a week until one day one of us
put it on after playing a 45 (7" to the kids out there) and it sounded
like it should sound…..that was my introduction into the world of the 12"
single.
What got me thinking
about 12" singles again was the nice variety of them that Alleycats Music & Art here in Orillia had in stock when I visited last week. They had everything
from Blue Peter's "Don't Walk Past" to Laurie Anderson's "O
Superman", even some Howard Jones and some Heaven 17….all of which back in
tha day would have been spinning on my turntable, who am I kidding if they were
at my place I'd spin them today.
The attraction for
me to the 12" or EP was there was always something new or different on it,
the record that the original song had come off of had probably already been out
for a bit and if you were a fan of the band you were chomping at the bit for
more from them, so when you got a new EP there was always the "Extended
Dance mix" or the "Monster Mix" , or you might have tracks that
were only exclusive to the 12" single…and sometimes those were the ones
that I'd play the crap out of.
My find for this
week was the Depeche Mode 12" for "Enjoy The Silence (The Quad: Final
Mix)", that came out in 1990 and what makes this one so special is its Single
Sided, the one side has the song and the other side has a huge DM with a rose etched
into the vinyl…look at the pictures I have provided. Not only does it look very
cool (always a selling point) but the 15 minute remix of "Enjoy The
Silence" is killer…..I played it about 4 times in a row this morning and
could not get sick of it, always a sign of a good find.
So get yourself down
to Alleycats this week here in Orillia and dig yourself up some killer tunes
for yourself.
See you next Wednesday in the Vinyl Bins
Joe Cornelisse-SMM
You can also find Alleycats Music & Art on Facebook
95 Mississauga St. E, Orillia, Ontario
Hours
Tue - Sat: 11:00 - 5:00 PM
Sun: 12:00 - 4:00 PM
