Elektra, 1967
Acquired: Euclid Records booth (SXSW), Austin, TX, Used, 2009
Price: $40
Maybe I paid too much for this, I don't know. I just know that this was exactly the kind of copy of this record I wanted to find. Like it's been sitting in someone's den for 30 years and now that they're dead, it has shown up in their estate sale. Anyway, this is one of the best records of all time and I saw it and I bought it because I still had student loans back then. Albums really don't get much better than this. It's 1967 and they've already made the first punk song with “7 and 7 Is.” What next but to create the greatest psych-rock album of all time? One that perfectly captures what it feels like to be stuck in Los Angeles during the summer. And stuck they would be forever, as they broke up after this record was released. That is, Arthur Lee fired everyone in the band and continued to record under the Love moniker, but it just wasn't the same. All you have to do is listen to the first three songs, “Alone Again Or,” “A House is Not a Motel,” and “Andmoreagain,” and if you're not digging on this, turn it the fuck off. Honestly, despite the three monster jams being on the A-Side, the B-Side is more consistent. It's moodier and hazy, culminating in the excellent near 7-minute “You Set the Scene” (“I wanna love you but, oh whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa,” forgot how good this tune is). This seems to be a prediction of the downfall of the love generation, a cautionary tale, perhaps, for a culture on the rocks. And they died with it. So, doing some research I noticed that there's a copy of this going for $70 bucks on ebay. AND it's in shitty condition (this one's at least a VG, most likely a VG+). The Mono version is worth WAY more, but I care not about such things (although it would have been spectacular to pick up a mono version of this record and turn it around for $500, but I feel the dudes who run Euclid records (located in St. Louis) are smarter than that. Jeff Tweedy used to work there for godssake!). Copies of this one though have gone for as much as $175 though! Regardless of money though, this is a gem of my collection, and at $40 it's the most I've ever spent on a record and the most I ever plan to spend. I mean, I guess it's not that much. Brian Sears used to regale me with tales of spending a couple hundred bucks on a rare soul 7-inch, and I know the most I could ever spend on a record would be MAYBE $100, and that's for an original pressing of Bee Thousand, and I don't even know if they cost that much. OK, now I don't feel so bad about paying $40 bucks for this.
MP3>>>Love - "A House is Not a Motel"
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