Uncle Martin's Vinyl

  During my normal scans of Discogs and eBay, I sometimes come across what the VC would call my personal Vinyl Grails.  These are records that may not be hard to find per se, but are too pricey just to just go out and buy.  One recent grail of mine I received was the Red Hot Chili Peppers album What Hits?!  To my knowledge, it was not released in the US on vinyl but was in a few countries in Europe and South America.  These records are not really too expensive but add $30 in shipping and the cost goes too high.  I was able to find one on eBay that was a decent price and was able to add it to my collection.  But this is not what this post is about. Another grail of mine was Ozzy's No More Tears.  Many of Ozzy's albums are out of print and can be found all over the place like eBay and Discogs but again, the are too pricey for me. I started seeing many of his records on eBay from a box set that people are buying and selling each record.  These t...

 I have seen many comments for reviews of new albums that state their records were shipped with a warp or surface scratches.  Might or might not skip.  I have been very lucky to not have this problem...... until. I am a Metallica fan and have recently ordered the Garage Inc. triple album and was super excited to listen to it.  When I received it I noticed that record 1 was slightly warped.  I do not know if it was because of the heat during shipping or what.  I did not notice a sound problem but it was annoying to see the tonearm move up and down with every revolution.  I put the 2nd record on and it wasn't warped but it skipped all over the place.  Bummer.  I finally convinced myself to go ahead and return it for refund.   I then got 2 records, AC/DC Back in Black and Ozzy's Memoirs of a Madman.  While the AC/DC record plays well, the Ozzy record has scuffs all over it and I know this was from the record plant.   I h...

 I grew up in the 80's and fell in love with music in the era with audio cassette tapes.  When I was a small child my parents would buy children's records and I remember my Disco Duck record and my favorite, John Denver and the Muppets Christmas.   While my parents had a stereo with a turntable, I didn't buy records for myself because no one wanted to listen to Rock 'n Roll in the living room.  I had to use cassettes and a Sony Walkman to enjoy the likes of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, and Ozzy Osbourne.   I did however have a neighbor who was closer to my older sister's age and she LOVED vinyl.  It was a rare treat when I would go visit her with my sister and listen to her records. When I was a teenager, She would take me up to the City (in Oklahoma it is understood that "the City" refers to Oklahoma City no matter where you live in the state) and visit Happy Days Records.  I  bought my first set of records.  I had Poison's "Lo...