Introduction/The Sweet Collection/The Best Show

I want to welcome everyone to the first post of A Record Blog. This is a recurring blog feature that will cover all things records and mostly will highlight the vinyl we carry in our showroom. Some of you may not know this, but, alongside our vintage furniture stock,  we carry an affordable vinyl record selection. Our collection spans most genres of music covering rock, r&b, jazz, soul, country, disco and rap. All records are reasonably priced with a $1 section to boot! Make sure to stay tuned for the occasional record sale here and there. If you are interested in inventory updates and sales please email us c/o (Tim Vinyl) in the email subject to furnishgreen@gmail.com. Happy digging!

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The Band: The Sweet

The Sweet is a pretty amazing glam rock band from the UK that formed in the early 1970s. They sound like Queen and T. Rex dry humping. I really didn’t know much about this band growing up aside from them being “that band whose song was featured in Wayne’s World” where Tia Carrere and her band Crucial Taunt played it throughout the whole movie. The song was “Ballroom Blitz” and it is quite an epic and incredible tune! Perfect for nostalgic roller/ice skating parties or crashing your car into a brick wall at a high velocity of speed on speed.

I was told by a friend of mine to give The Sweet a chance while record shopping in Pittsburgh back in the day. The idea was intriguing but the band still didn’t appeal to me. At this point I had discovered a few more of their hits (“Love Is Like Oxygen” and “Little Willy”). It was not until hearing the heavy rotation of The Sweet on one of my favorite radio shows turned live/archived podcast, which I will dive into after I tell you why you need this record. The lp we have for sale is a collection of some of The Sweet’s finest songs. The pressing is from 1973 from the Bell record label. Bell Records released a lot of popular rock and roll and R&B music with acts such as Gary Glitter and the Bay City Rollers, but I am most familiar with The Delfonics releases coming out through Bell. This collection comes equipped with “Little Willy,” “Wig-Wam Bam” and “Blockbuster”! This comp is a great window into the discography of The Sweet, and the vinyl and sleeve are both in excellent condition! We have it priced at $15 and it’s ready to move onto someone’s home platter.

The Sweet pops back into my life:

The first time I heard The Sweet’s “Blockbuster” was on a radio broadcast of The Best Show on WFMU! The sirens went off and I was hooked. Aside from “Action”, this single went on to become one of the staple anthems of The Best Show. This 3 hour comedy/call in show out of New Jersey has gained worldwide popularity with fans calling in from all over the globe. You can tune in for the live broadcast every Tuesday from 9pm-Midnight or download the podcast from iTunes after each episode airs.

More about The Best Show:

The Best Show was created by writer/comedian/music video director/lender of voice, Tom Scharpling, and his comedic partner/all star drummer Jon Wurster (Superchunk/Bob Mould/Mountain Goats). It’s hard to really explain this show, but, essentially, it provides its listeners with a sense of escape and community in the three hours of music, comedy and general topic discussion. The show features steady appearances from characters like the brash furry comedian Gary the Squirrel to the eclectic motley crew of Wurster’s characters and regular callers . I highly recommend checking out this show as it just might be the keystone missing in your life.

Aside from the weekly aired The Best Show, Scharpling and Wurster currently have an amazing box set out on the Numero Group label that documents over 20 hours of comedy. The box set features Wurster’s innumerable call-ins to The Best Show under the guise of hundreds of fictional characters from the imaginary town of Newbridge, NJ. The amount of care and precision that went into this thing is amazing.

*You can learn more about this box set here and  Tom Scharpling’s The Best Show here.

Stay tuned for further posts from A Record Blog!