Buried Treasure: Hurricane Irene and the Red Lion Haul
Posted in Buried Treasure on August 30th, 2011 by H.P. Taskmaster
Every now and then, I do a Craigslist search for the word “stoner,” just to see what comes up. Early this past week was one such occasion, and what I found was a listing from a guy outside of York, Pennsylvania, who was selling off what he touted as a massive CD collection, with lots of varied kinds of metal, stoner/desert rock and ’70s heavy bands. Needless to say, my interest was piqued.
York is more than three hours from where I live in New Jersey, so going during the week was out because of work. And I wouldn’t want to go on Sunday, because six hours in a car is no way to lead into a Monday morning, so I called the guy and said I was interested in taking a look at what he had for sale and asked him if Saturday was cool. He said it was.
Only hitch in that plan was that Hurricane Irene was expected to rail the Northeast on Sa
turday, making its way up the coast, bringing floods, high winds, downed trees, lightning and other things not conducive to driving at all, let alone 170 miles. You know, now that I put the number to it, the whole proposition seems unreasonable.
Not unreasonable enough, it turns out. Relatively early Saturday morning, The Patient Mrs. and I loaded into the car and made our way south and west to Red Lion, a small-ish town outside of York. I had heard and read and looked at all the maps and the progression of the storm and everything seemed to point to our being able to get to Pennsylvania and back before the worst hit. I’ve already driven in some pretty atrocious weather this year. What was the worst this hurricane could do?
It was raining when I got out there, and hard. The picture above of dark clouds and rolling hillsides I took after dropping The Patient Mrs. at a local Panera so she could continue the work on her laptop she’d been doing the whole drive and headed to the guy’s apartment to spend some time perusing his collection. Not too much time, though, because the wind was picking up.
When he met me outside, Frank, the man in his late-50s/early-60s whose collection I was there to see, asked if I had any weapons on me. I did not, and I judged by the awesomeness of his moustache that he didn’t either, so we made our way inside so I could see his wares. His chihuahua
growling at me the entire time, I made my way slowly and, at first, haphazardly through the rows and stacks of alphabetized discs, periodically looking outside to check the conditions, which seemed to ebb and flow as different arms of the storm passed through.
The collection itself was as advertised in both quality and quantity. There had to be 5,000-plus discs spread across the racks. They were stacked two rows deep on bookshelves and piled — organized; nothing was without purpose — in corners. I’d been hoping to find a copy of Keg Full of Dynamite by Pentagram, or some old Sabbath bootlegs, but no such luck. Nonetheless, our man Frank was clearly someone who had just been collecting CDs since the inception of the format, and I was able to find (literally) a stack of releases that saved me months of eBaying.
He charged $10 a piece for each of the three Pagan Altar full-lengths, for Speed, Glue & Shinki‘s 1971 outing, Eve, for the long out of print first edition of Spiritual Beggars‘ debut, for records by Dust, Abramis Brama, Elonkorjuu, Terra Firma, Desert Saints, Privilege, Generous Maria, Toad and Riff Cannon, for the first issue of Josiah‘s self-titled, and, in a departure from the others that even Frank noted, The Arcanum by German folk metallers Suidakra.
A word about that record: I first heard it via downloaded mp3s in 2000, when it was released. The whole folk metal thing was still at least half a decade off, and I was into it because it was a more extreme version of melodeath. But I had little interest in owning physical media at the time (I burned discs and kept them in a binder), and it later turned out that the label screwed over the band, kept the rights, and the album went out of print. It’s something I’ll probably listen to once — haven’t yet — and stick on my shelf to gather dust, because it’s just not where my tastes lie at this point, but it’s something 
I genuinely never thought I’d find. I never thought I’d find that record. And then, $10 to Frank and it was mine.
The only thing he didn’t charge me $10 for, in fact, was the digipak special edition of Hammer of the North, by Grand Magus. It was $20, but the album has yet to have a CD release in the US, and I figured he had probably paid even more for the import than I was, so it was worth the price nonetheless.
As he totaled up my selections from the sundry shelves and stacks of his library, I began to put myself in his place, and wonder what it would take for me to allow someone into my home to peruse, pick out, scrutinize and ultimately walk away with pieces of my collection. I had more selections than I took home with me. Albums by Fuzzy Duck, Bloodrock (it was Bloodrock 2), Lucifer’s Friend and the recently-burned-for-me Tin House he said I simply couldn’t have, as they were too dear to him to part with. He explained that all the metal stuff, all the more modern rock stuff, that could all go, but the ’70s heavy bands were what he grew up with, and he was sorry.
His failing health turned out to be the reason he was selling. He needed the money more than he needed the discs, so out they were going. I expressed my sympathies, forked over $190 of the total $200 I’d brought with me, and left knowing I could have spent hours more finding treasure among those racks, of which I’ve dreamed of not once, but twice in the now-four nights since.
Using my manliest navigational sensibilities, I suggested cutting north early before heading east to get ahead of the storm, and The Patient Mrs., now retrieved from the aforementioned Panera, wa
s in agreement. It rained most of our way back, heavy at times, but we still got in well under the wire for the most damaging winds, floods, etc. Still funny to see how few people were on the road by the time we landed back in Jersey, though. Cracked open a couple beers, admired the stack of recent acquisitions (at least I did), and waited for the world to end — which, despite the local highway collapse, flooding, downed power lines and the rest, it did not do.
I’ll admit it wasn’t the safest idea I’ve ever had to drive for such a long time with the threat of a hurricane looming. All the same, I regret nothing for what I was able to pick up in Red Lion, and I know I’ll always look at those albums in the picture above and remember the day I went and found them with the wind howling outside and the torrents of rain blocking visibility on the ride home. It was stupid, yeah, but it was also precisely my favorite kind of adventure.
Released at the end of August via InsideOut Music (Trooper Entertainment in Japan), Return to Zero is the first Spiritual Beggars record in five years, and the first to be released since the departure of vocalist JB Christoffersson, who split with the long-running and influential Swedish rockers to focus his attention on his main outfit, the always-epic Grand Magus.
Bottom, Made in Voyage
so that was a given. The Natas record I thought might have been a different catalog number than mine, but no, it’s a genuine double. I was bummed out on that until the other night when I thought to myself, “Gee, I sure would like to listen to the first Natas album,” and I actually had a copy on me because I was holding onto it to write about today. Maybe one just wasn’t enough.
different. Apparently that’s enough for me these days.
It wouldn’t be accurate to think of Spiritual Beggars as the first Swedish heavy rock band, because Sweden has been turned on and tuned in since the beginning, but what guitarist Michael Amott’s post-Carcass outfit did was embrace a more modern stoner sound and help found the scene that would later grow into one of the world’s most vibrant and prolific. And what’s more, they rocked. There’s no discounting the earliest work of Spiritual Beggars in the ‘90s. In both quality and influence, 1994’s Spiritual Beggars, 1996’s Another Way to Shine and 1998’s Mantra III are essential documents for anyone looking to understand the growth of European stoner rock.
Sweden’s Spiritual Beggars finally return to the spotlight with their first new studio album in five years, Return to Zero. Once again, the Beggars effortlessly manage to confirm they are a band that continues to defy musical boundaries and that delivers classic heavy rock at its very best! The much anticipated disc is set for an Oct. 12th North American release via InsideOut Music.
offering with Apollo Papathanasio on vocals.
Michael Amott comments: “This will be a surprise to most of you, but it’s been mutually decided for some time now that JB would step down from his role as the singer in Spiritual Beggars to focus on his own band. We had a fantastic time working with JB. We remain great friends and we wish him the best of luck!
