Buys & Receipt — Double Decker Edition 1: feedtime & dos (my lower-case letters picks)

Double Decker Records, located in Allentown about 40-45 minutes from my place of residence, is a store I normally go to when in pilgrimage mode, which is to say any visit is going to be an expensive, albeit fruitful, one. I met up with a good friend and proceeded to comb through the stacks for a couple of hours, leaving the store with an uncomfortable and somewhat heavy 12" x 12" brick nestled beneath my arm.

I'm slowly working my way through these. Here are the first two: 

feedtime

Cooper-S

Released: 1988

Rough Trade

Partially integral to the development of sounds specific to the pacific northwest, or just Mudhoney's sound in general, feedtime of Syndney, Australia is muck-borne blues punk. Hyper slop'd and urgent, Cooper-S, which was originally released in 1988 via the now-defunct Australian label Aberrant Records, is a covers album that boasts some gravelly interpretations of "Fun Fun Fun" by The Beach Boys, three Rolling Stones tracks (my favorite being a rough-n-tumble version of "The Last Time"), "Loudmouth" by The Ramones, and "Ann" by The Stooges" among others. The version of the LP that I picked up was released for the U.S. by Rough Trade. This album has not been officially reissued, though the material from Cooper-S was included in a compilation box set titled the Aberrant Years, released by Sub Pop in 2012. 

I found this copy used and priced at $10. 

 

dos

s/t

Released: 1986

New Alliance Records

I was very excited to find a New Alliance Records copy of the first dos LP, which is the dual (and dueling) bass project from Mike Watt (Minutemen) and Kira Roessler (Black Flag). I gave this a couple of spins today, realizing that the first time I heard the track "Forever" was via Watt's 1995 album, Ball-Hog or Tugboat?, its rendition coupled with Minutemen's "One Reporter's Opinion." 

As a collector's note, there are two versions of this LP, one with a non-inverted image of the two basses on the cover. The version I found has the inverted image. I'm unsure if this has any impact on the album's value. I thought $30 was reasonable. 

An added bonus was the New Alliance order form tucked into the jacket, revealing what were then-low prices for what are now considered collector's items. One example is an out-of-print copy of the Fat 7" EP by Descendents selling for a measly $3.50. On Discogs, there's a copy that's currently priced at almost $450, the album itself graded NM/M- with a VG sleeve. I posted some images of the order form on my Instagram. 

Justamente Tres, technically the band's second LP, (albeit third release following the EP, Numero Dos), was released by Kill Rock Stars in 1996 and reissued as a Record Store Day exclusive in 2021. 

I reviewed dos y dos, the band's third full-length LP, when it came out in July of 2011. 

 

Sincerely,

Letters From A Tapehead