A few weeks back, on Record Store Day (April 16, 2011), my home in Tallahassee was wracked with violent overnight thunderstorms. I have two dogs: Gus, a sweet-as-can-be mutt, and Spike, a holy terror of a Dachshund/Jack Russell mix. Some dogs are afraid of thunder, but Spike hates it with a fervent animosity. He wants to bite it, attack it, anything to get it to stop.
Not having a viable option for a Record Store in my home town, I decided to call RSD 2011 a wash, because I was too busy with school projects to travel for the occasion (had I been able to, though, I would’ve headed to Central Square Records in Santa Rosa Beach). On Record Store Day, bands rally to save independent record stores by releasing one-day, in-store-only music – usually seven-inch singles. I co-wrote a piece about it at musicOMH, which is accessible here. The one release I was really sad to miss out on this year, though, was The Flaming Lips box set, Heady Nuggs, which assembles their first five Warner Bros. releases for the first time on vinyl in over a decade.
Back to Spike: I knew that the Lips would be selling 1,000 copies of the set on their website (and in online-only multicolored vinyl, no less) but I had no designs on getting the chance to order a copy for myself. Anyway, the thunder shook the house in the predawn hours and Spike, zealous as he is, woke me up with his barking anger just after 6 a.m. I shook the sleep from my eyes and pulled up the Flaming Lips website on my iPhone, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, they still had copies of the online box set (which I can only imagine went on sale a scant few hours or even minutes before I got to it).
After a long wait, it finally arrived via UPS yesterday. So far, I’ve only had a chance to spin the first side of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, but I can say that the difference between this and the 128 kbps mp3 version that I’m used to is stunning. The announcement that opens the album (“The test will begin… NOW!!!”) booms from my speakers and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1″ sounds crisper and cleaner than I could have counted on.
Beautiful packaging, excellent attention to detail. My only complaint (and it’s a minor one) is that these are pressed on standard-weight vinyl instead of 180-gram. I can only guess that this is an attempt to keep the cost down (the set retails at $124.98), and I certainly appreciate that. An invaluable addition to my collection.
Heady Nuggs includes these albums:
- Hit to Death in the Future Head (1992, light pink vinyl)
- Transmissions From the Satellite Heart (1993, white vinyl)
- Clouds Taste Metallic (1995, tangerine vinyl)
- The Soft Bulletin (1999, double LP, aqua marine and blue vinyl)
- Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002, pink vinyl)
Note: I’ve since discovered that people are selling this and other Record Store Day titles for exorbitant prices on eBay, which defeats the whole purpose of the day. I haven’t quite processed my thoughts on such price-hiking, but I know I’m against it.
