Day 19

The Wherehouse located on Speedway was where the cool kids went on Friday and Saturday nights to get the tapes to soundtrack their weekends.  I saw people buy a dozen or more pre-recorded cassettes while I was standing in line to check out - the store was that busy. Speedway was the main cruising street back then before the practice of cruising acquired a legal definition and was prohibited.  Any vacant lot or parking lot along Speedway Boulevard on a Friday or Saturday night was soon filled by teens, young adults and their cruising vessels. Good times.  After Wherehouse shut down all of its stores, the prime location was vacant for just about a minute and has been a salon ever since:

Like many others, my introduction to New Order came via their monster single "Blue Monday" which was released a couple months ahead of - and not included on - this album until later, when it was issued on CD.  There is no way of telling Power, Corruption and Lies was a New Order album by looking at the cover nor can you tell what the title even is.  (Little did I know that Quincy Jones' label Qwest would cut a deal with the band to reissue their older albums along with their newest album in just a few short months. You know I bought all of those, too.)  This purchase was an original import that had been marked down in the Import bin.  After getting it home, I realized it was my first Italian import.  My buddy Doug's first Italian import was a red Fiat X1/9 like this one:

Like the New Order album, neither the band's name nor the album's title appeared on The Blasters' Hard Line.  The album had just been released a week or so earlier and I bought it without hearing a single track.  The Blasters had earned my blind fandom from the very first time I heard them on a local cable access video show in late 1981 or early 1982.  I bought their self-titled major label debut soon thereafter and then they appeared on a February 1982 episode of Fridays and an episode of American Bandstand where Dick Clark asked the drummer about his relationship with Go-Go Belinda Carlisle.  The band then appeared on-screen and on the soundtrack - TWICE - of the 1983 film Streets Of Fire and released the album Non-Fiction before putting out Hard Line in early 1985.

Power, Corruption & Lies - New Order (1983)
Hard Line - The Blasters (1985)

While I no longer have The Blasters on vinyl, I know exactly where my copy of Hard Line and the other Blasters albums now reside - at my brother-in-law Larry's house - which used to be my house.  I have both that Italian import and Qwest domestic release of FAC SEVENTY FIVE which is the Factory Records catalog number of Power, Corruption and Lies.  In addition to the regular CD release from 1987, the double disc 2008 Rhino Collector's Edition also has a home here at The Hideaway.

The TOTAL TALLY:

records bought: 83

    money spent: $475.98