I’ve had a bad habit of neglecting the Plainfield Goodwill while I have showered the Avon Goodwill with attention during my numerous visits over the past couple years. It wasn’t intentional – the Avon store is right next to my hotel and I honestly forgot there was another one just a couple miles away. I’d say that often times I was tired after working and didn’t feel like driving over there but there were definitely some times the work was light and I had time. But again, it just didn’t dawn on me.
Well it did on this trip. I found a junk heap of records stuffed into their bins and I dug them all, and even pulled a couple out. And of course had to artfully line up all the Enge records I found.
When you have dug thousands and thousands of junk records you start to develop a skill to recognize the same junk you see again and again. This is what allows you to move through 100s of records quickly. Because I am not looking for the good records, I’m looking for the bad records, and ignoring them. So things stand out easily, there is a huge contrast when you see something that doesn’t belong with the same old thrift store junk. When I found this Brazilian record, it stood out for many reasons besides the artist name and cover art. For starters, the record label logo was unfamiliar. Once I removed it I noticed instantly the quality of the jacket stock and then the strange way it opened like a gatefold, but not to reveal anything but the record inside – only the spine held the jacket front/back together! This seems like a great example of people trying to seize upon the Bossa Nova trend (it is dated 1969). I say that because the musicianship isn’t very good, and I qualify that opinion with the multitude of bossa nova albums I already have in my collection. But it is almost in an endearing way and regardless I’m glad to have such an odd import in my collection. I did some research on the group and can find almost no information about them, though I did locate a number of other releases which I also added to the db.
I also grabbed another Foursider, I have the Sergio Mendes edition which I picked up long ago and I realize now I have to keep my eye out for the Baja Marimba band release. I already have just about every A&M release for each of these three artists and I’m surprised I never came across this one before. Glad I was able to scoop it up.
