I’m a runner.  One of those obsessive runners that run marathons.  I’m up to seven now, the most recent being the Dublin (Ireland, not Ohio) Marathon in October.  We spent a couple of days in Dublin adjusting to the time difference, ran the race on the Sunday Bank Holiday, and spent the rest of the week in and around Galway.  Good food, great beer, and: ohmygodsomanyplacestofindvinyl!

Dublin in particular has a lot to sift through – lots of small independent shops like the one across the street from our flat in the Liberties, and (surprisingly!) the many charitable thrift shops, which are actually well-curated to be more of a place to find classy, vintage stuff as opposed to, say, the Salvation Army, where they pretty much dump everything out on the floor indiscriminately.  Anyway.  The key here is to really drill down and find interesting stuff that’s either hard to find or non-existent here, or something weird that you just take a flyer on.

So, my fortuitously-located shop across the street from our flat, Blind Dog Vinyl, had just opened a month or two before.  It was well-stocked with great British, Irish, reggae and indie music.  I scored three great records: Cocaine, by Dillinger, and Kid Creole and the Coconuts’ Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places and Doppleganger.  (Blind Dog Vinyl also has the distinct benefit of being located right next to the best coffee shop in the city, Two Pups Coffee, which I managed to visit a couple of times each day.  But, I digress.)

Now, all I remember Dillinger for is Cocaine In My Brain, a pretty bonkers mid-70’s reggae hit that I remember hearing on WBCN (“Jeem!  Jeeeem!”) so this disc, with at least a version of C.I.M.B. seemed like a keeper.  The cover was far from perfect, but: a flyer.



Over the years, I’ve become more impressed with the genius of August Darnell, the mastermind of Kid Creole.  They placed one song on the Against All Odds soundtrack that made that entire disc worth buying, My Male Curiosity.  It’s a witty and catchy song that harkened back to dance hall music, but it was never, never derivative.  My Male Curiosity has never left my iPod.  So, I started scratching the Kid Creole itch recently.  Stateside, I found a copy of Wise Guy, which features “Stool Pigeon” (famously sampled by The Avalanches in Close To You) and is uniformly great.  The band was way more popular in the UK than the US (stupid us), so it didn’t surprise me to find a good copy of Fresh Fruit and Doppleganger here.

Later on in the week, we found ourselves in Cork.  My kind of town: arty, hipstery, great food and great shops.  We only had a few hours to spend there, but I quickly found an amazing second hand store called The Village Hall.  Nicely curated, with a coffee bar inside, and a pretty respectable selection of vinyl.  I quickly zeroed in on a copy of Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother shown at the top of this blog post – an original German pressing and and AMAZING cover.  Now, my Floyd love doesn’t go farther back than Meddle.  I just don’t have the time or patience for Syd Barrett-era Floyd.  But I’m a sucker for a Hipgnosis cover, and this one just called out to me.  No text, nothing.  Just that damn Holstein staring the viewer down.  Music?  We’ll find out.  Artwork?  Take my money, please!

Finally, on our last day in Galway, I hit up the thrift shops in the Latin Quarter and found Sing While You’re Winning by Robbie Williams (a MONSTER star in the UK, a footnote here (sadly), and Athlete’s Vehicles and Animals on CD. €1 each! The jewel cases were super beat up, and I had absolutely no idea how good (or bad) the music was, but did I mention they were only €1 each? Spoiler alert: the Robbie Williams disc is pretty great pop, and I’m warming to Athlete.

Not a bad haul, and I found just enough vinyl that it didn’t overload my carry-on on the trip back.  So, when you’re planning your next trip, be it across the state, across the country, or another country entirely, check out the local record scene before you go.  You’re probably not going to get one of those super-rare records you can retire off of, but I’ll bet you’ll find something that will expand your musical horizons.