HUMAN WRECKAGE

The Second Disc Defense

A snippet of Crooked 9 domestic dialogue from November, 2025:

“Do you mind if we swing by Blackbyrd while we’re out doing errands today? You can wait in the car or circle the block. I’ll just run in.”

“What did you order?”

“Black and Blue; Stones album from ’76; I was still in high school, grade 10. A Stones release was big news then, big, important stuff.”

“Don’t we have it already?”

Oh, Ann. Oh, poor, poor Ann. Of course we do. We have the original vinyl pressing from 1976. And we have a digitized edition from the early 90s when Rolling Stones Records released the group’s entire post-London/Decca catalogue on CD under a new distribution deal with CBS. To my credit, I did not buy the Japanese SACD version I found at Velvet Records, a funky shop in Amsterdam, in the summer of ’24. Furthermore, time, the great revisionist (and Dirty Work 10 years later), has been kind to Black and Blue.

I said, “Yes.” And because there’s always a “but” I added: “It’s the second disc that interests me. There’s a couple of outtakes, cuts that didn’t make the album. They were auditioning guitarists at the time because Mick Taylor had just quit and so there’s a few studio jams with Jeff Beck and whoever.”

Blackbyrd Myoozik (the spelling of which irks me no end) is on Edmonton’s south side, convenient to us. There are other shops in town, but not many and not walkable except for Curmudgeon Records and Posters, farther up Whyte Avenue across the CPR railroad tracks, just past the A&W beside the European appliance store. When I’m in Blackbyrd I feel as if I’m in a community outreach centre, not a commercial establishment. I know two of its clerks, Mustafa and Nolan, well enough to pass the time of day with without out them squinting at their watches with gritty, heavy eyelids.

March, 2025: I wandered into Blackbyrd. Nolan asked me how I was enjoying the Nils Lofgren album. I said, “How did you know?” I hadn’t bought it. “Your neighbour (Ted, the American refugee) was in looking for a birthday present for you.” Nolan went on, “My recommendation; I thought you’d like it.”

Well, “Gee!” on so many levels. And Blackbyrd stocks Muster Point Project vinyl too.

The last week of January, 2026: Ann wondered over The Globe and Mail and between sips of coffee if I’d like to go to Blackbyrd later on, before noon. I said, “Hell, yes! Get out of my head.” Ann lives up there, but never trashes the place. And I understood her motivation for departing Crooked 9 property. Even as the sky blues and the days lengthen, January in Edmonton is an oppressive, cabin feverish commencement of a new year. Our weather apps suggested a sunny, decent day. There’s a Winners outlet in the old Chapters bookstore space, a half block from Blackbyrd. And we have a third grandchild on the way. We would split up on Whyte; divide and conquer – we’d both have at least an hour in our preferred stores.

The last time I was free to roam the racks of Blackbyrd I spent a couple of hundred dollars on music ranging from a Mose Allison compilation to a Sex Pistols live album – three complete poorly recorded shows from their disastrous and ultimately fatal American tour. I bought new pressings of Coney Island Baby and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. My brother-in-law Al haunts me in Blackbyrd. He gave me his double of Pat Garret and Billy the Kid a few years ago: “It was on sale and I forgot I had it.” I was grateful; about the only Dylan album we didn’t have. When I saw him again a year later (we live in different provinces), he handed me another sealed copy. I said, “Don’t tell me you bought it a third time?” He answered my question with a panicky 1000-yard stare.

Music is a passion project; the artists who set me aflame in my late teens and twenties continue to reverberate. I’m self-aware of petrification; I am a fossil. But, man, the good old stuff still matters to me. It has never gone the way of childish things. And what I cannot discard in its various formats chews up valuable interior real estate. Accessible storage required provided it's relatively attractive. And I know my runway’s shrinking and after my dark crash, my survivors will likely view the record collection as debris for disposal. Fair enough.

Tuesday night I handed Ted a CD of Who Are You. “Double?” 

I said, “Sort of.” More like a triple. I continued, “If, God forbid, I end up living alone in a seniors’ assisted residence, I’ll have to cull the herd. There’ll be no space for everything. On the other hand, I’ll be able to play anything I like as loud as I like; everybody else will be deaf.”

Ted said, “I’m not sure, Geoff. Hearing aids have come a long way.”

Eh? Well. Gee. I suppose they have.

On this particular day in Blackbyrd, Nolan and I chatted about Springsteen’s folky “Streets of Minneapolis”, Cheap Trick, the Guess Who and the Doobie Brothers. I browsed the jazz, blues, Americana, punk and reggae sections, both vinyl and CD. The new Lucinda Williams album wasn’t in yet. I contemplated the box sets. A Kinks album I don’t have briefly intrigued me. I fondled a Joy Division CD, but felt no nostalgia toward the suicidal tendencies of my university days. Nothing sang to me even just to have for the sake of having it forever in its cellophane for indifferent future generations.

Blackbyrd is like Audreys Books, a local and specialized retail business that deserves to thrive in these times of Amazon Prime. My hour was winding down. Time was getting tight; I had to buy something, but not anything. Just when the rock racks’ alphabet was about to dumb down into emojis I stumbled across last year’s remastered reissue of Who Are You; the quartet’s final album with doomed drummer Keith Moon and the Who as a complete, fractious band and not a survivors’ brand. I was 18 when it was originally released (1978) and although I prefer its predecessor Who by Numbers (1975), my brand-new red vinyl copy was something of a landmark because rock’s jaded aristocracy wasn’t overly prolific back then; years between albums and subsequent supporting tours.

This 2025 Who Are You was no DELUXE EDITION like my Live at Leeds, but enhanced nonetheless. The bonus disc contained demos, outtakes and live rehearsals for a tour that never happened. Could be dross, could be gold for the aficionado and, boy, the expanded packaging sure looked fine.

I met up with Ann in Winners. She’d done very well on behalf of our grandchildren, energetically alive in the moment or en route. We stowed her packages in the back of the Honda. We smoked cigarettes by the car and proximate to a trash bin. Ann asked me, “Any luck? What did you get?” I told her. Ann said, “Hmm!”

This “Hmm!” is not the pensive “Hmm...” of thoughtful consideration. This “Hmm!” is criticism, condemnation delivered. Ann and I learned this haughty snort from my mother. We ape her. Mom was not a happy soul the last few years of her life. Sometimes mom’s “Hmm!” would be followed by an inarguable and emphatic “Bullshit!” Sometimes Ann and I spit that each other too. And then we laugh. It’s impossible to frown when we think about my mother.

We got into our car. Ann stared straight ahead over the top of the steering wheel. “Don’t we have that one already?”

I glanced out the passenger window and then glanced at her profile. Poor Ann. “But not with a second disc.”

Ann said, “Hmm...”

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential is still out there languishing in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still print. Collect the set! Collect multiple editions!