I spent the better part of the day going to my favorite record searching spots. I turned up a big fat nothing. I had a chance to drive all over both the South Side and the North Side of Chicago.
Instead enjoy some shots of Chicago in spring.
Here are some "action" shots. To the left you can see part of the bike path near Highwood IL.
Wow, I just took the longest bike ride of the year so far. Well, it is the midwest. I took last year's best garage sale find- pictured to the right on a 20 mile excursion.
It is a 1982? Schwinn Paramount with a full Campagnolo gruppo. I found it in a garage at a very reasonable price. I had it tuned up and I spent US$50 on some new kevlar tires and tubes from a place on the internet that had them on sale.
My knees and legs are very tired- hey it is my birthday after all. I guess I should be feeling some aches and pains.
After a weekend of garage sale searching, I came across some pretty good scores at a loser's house who went by the name of Steve.
Frank Zappa "Joe's Garage"
Buzzcocks "Love Bites"
Jeff Beck "Blow By Blow"
David Bowie "Ziggy Stardust"
The price? $2.00. The condition? Mint for all 4 lps. Not bad at $.50 each...
I was truly suprised as the house itself was one of the biggest pig stys that I have seen in a long time.
Here it is- a '53 F100 flip nose. As previously stated, not enough traditional look for me, but still cool. The frame and motor have lots of detail and the nose is extremely low...
I will keep it. I have a major soft spot for 53-56 F100s. Must be the Sanford and Son in me.
How low can you go? This is more street rod than I like, but it is certainly low. There will be no bumper on this F100. It is way too much of a nose dragger...
I am addicted to the new to me online zine, MAKE. What I like most about this site is that it fosters creativity instead of consumption. Using existing stuff or junk to make some useful, cool or both.
This methodology is right along the cratedigger way of thinking, check out my earlier post about the lard can.
I especially like the Instructables, where step by step instructions for projects are illustrated. It is sort of like flickr as there are comments on the projects and on the project steps.
I was especially into to the pinball machine coffee table and the laptop stencils.
One of my favorite blogs "Sonic Pollutions" posted a video of Eddie Phillips et al performing Painter Man.
Check it out.
I found the lovely Rath's Lard bucket pictured above at a house sale for the cost effective price of US$1 yesterday. I did not know why I was buying it at the time.
The previous owners used it for storing hats. Judging on the style and the construction of this tin bucket, I think that it is from the 1940s...
The bucket was in pretty sorry shape when I initially got it home. I had to use carberator cleaner to remove the tape residue and some writing on the lid. I also took a hammer to some dents. The "project" turned out well.
In the picture above, you can see it being used in the Cratedigger Listening Room as a stand for all of my recent Garagepunk.com forum cd comps. Now I need to find a small shelf for the cdrs.
Last weekend, I went early to a house sale and scored some killer 45s for a great price of US$.20 each! While not nearly all US garage, there were some cool finds from the wayback machine.
I will leave off the filler and list only the killer:
James Brown and The Fabulous Flames "Good Rockin' Tonight" KING 6100
James Brown and The Fabulous Flames "Cold Sweat Pt 1 and 2" KING 6110 JB- always need more JB. "Good Rockin' Tonight" is in almost a rockabilly style, I would guess this to be quite early in his career. "Cold Sweat Pt 1 and 2" is in the more familiar hard soul style.
The Fantastic Johnny C "Boogaloo Down Broadway" Phil LA of Soul 305 This disc is some unknown (to me) guy doing a lite funk track. It hits me as a direct rip on "clown on Funky Broadway" track on The Sound of Funk V1. The flip contains identical music with a different vocal. Was this a vanity record? Like to see the other records in the jukebox where this one lived way back when...
Little Milton "Sweet Sixteen Pt 1 &2" Checker 1484
Sam & Dave "I Thank You" Stax 242 (With Juke Box tag)
Ohio Express "Soul Struttin" b/w "Try It" Cameo 2001 "Try it" is an excellent fuzz ridden version of the song that I know from the Standells version as well as a freakbeat version from the Rubble series, by a group that I can't remember. "Soul Struttin" is the typical forgettable OE number, this time penned by Tony Orlando- yes that Tony. Look for "Try it" to appear on a Cratedigger comp at some point in the future.
There were other 45s but the ones listed above were the only ones that moved the walls of the Cratedigger Listening Room.
This 45 was described as "local garage." Methinks they were actually from northern WI, but Tobacco Road has a preponderance of the fuzz.
Some of the record geeks seemed to remember Love Society from the old days...
More Milwaukee crate digging provided this record, description was "Chicago Garage."
The Shag-Baby. Finds like this in Milwaukee, make a digger o crates, want to install a turntable in the car.
Major label fuzz from Milwaukee, but still good. For once, "an excellent Milwaukee Fuzz garage" description was apt.
Don't even think of flipping this over, though. "Melissa" could be the worst thing that I have heard in months...
Here is a bottom shot. Look at the detail on the front end. I think both the front and rear leaf springs look pretty realistic.
I hate those street rod tires and wheels. This ride would look so much better with some FOMOCO steelies and more normal sized tires.
Here is the motivation for the latest "build." Obviously, I painted it Ford blue, the mill has a dual quad intake with a huge blower. The headers, I believe will wind up being fender well headers as I don't like the side pipes that came with the kit.
