The joy of......vinyl.

I could wax lyrical (no pun intended) about vinyl and have done in other blog things but today is different.
We had the boiler engineer call on Friday. The boiler is in the loft. So is my vinyl. Need I say more? Well, probably yes, I do need to say more.
As I've mentioned before I have intended to find my vinyl and maybe even play the odd album but as usual just thought about it and did nothing. With the bit between my teeth so to speak, with the loft hatch open & me needing to go up there to make some space for the boiler engineer. 'Seek & yea shall find' as the supreme being says, so I did and found all 6 album boxes. In total around 120 LP's I think.
I have replaced alot of these with CD's, but not all & what memories these albums brought back! Not even listening to them, just seeing them again.
One album, Rainbows 'Long Live Rock n Roll' I bought at the gig when I saw Rainbow in 1978, I have already mentioned the gig in a previous blog but what I'd forgotten was on the album inner sleeve (it was a plain one) I had written an account of the gig. Some of it was plain laughable but some things I could have been written yesterday! I still appear to write in the same style ( though I use the term loosely!) One day, when I'm feeling brave I'll put the verbatim account on the blog.
I'd forgotten I'd got six Abba albums, blimey that's not doing my rock credentials any good is it! I've also got an REO Speedwagon album that I'd forgotten about, I knew I had some thing somewhere but wasn't sure whether it was  album or tape!
Even got a couple of more collectable items I think. A couple of ELO albums on coloured vinyl & afew albums with posters & one Rory Gallagher with a limited addition single on clear vinyl in with the album. Most of these records would have been bought on excursions into London with my old buddies Alan & Mark. We would usually, but not always, get to Bond Street station & go in the HMV store there, though at that time  they seemed abit dearer than other places. Next stop the brilliant Virgin Megastore at the bottom of Oxford Street. At the time the biggest record shop in the UK, across the road from the Megastore in a basement was a store called Simons, if my memory serves. This place was great because it was cheaper than most, mainly because alot of what they had were imports, some had a little nick in the corner, not the record itself but the cover. For the amount we saved this was of little consequence. Mark introduced us to a little record shop in Soho that sold all sorts of bootleg albums and some more rarities, I seldom brought from here though, I was always a cheap date!
On the rare occasion we'd have a beer somewhere though not often (how times change!) and from there we'd be back on the tube heading home, talking of course music. There was a real excitement about our purchases & more often than not we'd probably meet up at one or other of our houses later to play the albums, though I remember Alan was always slow to play them, he'd have quite a backlog waiting to be heard!   Buying the latest album from a particular band was always an extra thrill. I well remember getting hold of the first new album Quo had brought out since I'd become a fan. It was 'Whatever you want' & is still a fave of mine & I have to say I still  to this very day, I get that frisson of excitement when getting a bands album 'hot off the press.'
Oh, the boiler engineer? Oh yes, the boiler is fine but we have a leak somewhere in the system. Bugger, lets put another record on!