The bargain crate at Rockin’ Ruby’s is not far from the entrance, down below the majority of the vinyl, just past some great speakers and turntables and PeeWee Herman merch and a rack containing fresh copies of this here monthly roundup of “Stuff That’s Happening in Your Town.”
“There’s a lot of good stuff down there,” said the kind, helpful, and accurate lady (Ruby?) behind the counter when she saw me hunched below, scanning the plethora of $5 or so treasures. A surprising lot of those were island music – Pacific and Caribbean, Harry Belafonte, 60’s and 70’s lounge Hawaiian – which would’ve sounded nice on that particular sunny, early fall day, nearly in the shadow of that ominous, inaccurate viking statue greeting(?) visitors. But, I was familiar enough with those folks. This little masterpiece, however, actually came with a very short review and recommendation that some helpful person – maybe from way back in 1976, the album’s release year – had left for us to find, like an Ozymandias bust, buried in the figurative sands, half a century later.
“Great guitar licks. The whole thing’s damn good,” reads the cover scrawl. As if a band named Be-Bop Deluxe, and an album named “Sunburst Finish,” featuring a naked woman holding a burning guitar up to the heavens wasn’t enough to inspire me to take it home for a listen.
This Ain’t No Disco, and it definitely ain’t no be-bop. It does have great guitar licks, and after just one listen I concur with the anonymous reviewer (maybe a radio station deejay, based on what are possibly call letters also written badly on its cover?) that the whole thing’s damn good. It’s a little Prog Rock, a little Glam Rock, definitely Queen-esque, and several songs could’ve been B-sides to some of the Rocky Horror Picture Show’s better singles. The song titles are vague, Glam-type names – Crystal Gazing, Crying to the Sky, Blazing Apostles, and Beauty Secrets, for example – but each was different enough for individual listening. Like the pen-wielding reviewer wrote, in bad but better than my handwriting – “The whole album’s damn good.”
I’ve flipped back to side one again, beginning listen number two, as I write this. I already think that my Bicentennial-era but new-to-me copy of “Sunburst Finish” – for the music, and the cover – are going to be permanent additions to the good stuff on my home mostly-bargain crate of vinyl, and not re-enter the circular economy of Kitsap used records.
But fear not. As she said, there’s plenty more good stuff in the bargain crate – and elsewhere – at Ruby’s. Same applies in the other bargain crates in our Peninsula’s fine records stores. Maybe you won’t find a whole album that you’d call damn good, but surely with some diligence you can find at least one with some great guitar licks, or barring that, a cover featuring someone in high heels holding a flaming instrument.
That’s definitely worth your $5. // J. OVERTON
