The downside of digging

This weekend seemed so promising.

A friend emailed to say he’d be at a big indoor rummage sale on Saturday with six boxes of records, so stop by.

I’d heard of a new place — new to me, at least — about a half-hour away that had a bunch of records.

A half-hour away in a different direction, on Sunday, there was a record show.

I dutifully made the rounds, as record diggers do, but came up empty.

After the rummage sale, I stopped by Rock ‘n’ Roll Land, one of our indie record stores. Our son had mentioned he’d stopped there not too long ago and found a dollar record he wanted but had no cash. I grabbed his record — a “South Pacific” soundtrack for the musical theater major — and checked out the dollar records for myself. Again, nothing.

When I got home, I checked Facebook. My friend Emery had posted Aretha Franklin’s “Rock Steady” single. Don’t you know, I’d just seen the LP it’s on among those dollar records at RNR Land. So, on Emery’s recommendation …

I went back to RNR Land and got it later Saturday afternoon, handing Todd a dollar for the second time that day. He and I got to talking about records you wish you’d gone back for while digging.

Mine is a short list.

Earlier this year, RNR Land had an affordable copy of what’s known as “The Cardboard Album” by Soup, a much-loved blues-rock group from Wisconsin from about 1970. One side is live, one side is demos. You rarely see it, and most copies are pricey. Wish I’d grabbed that.

At our last Green Bay record show, I should have grabbed a couple of things. One was a live Ike and Tina Turner record from the mid-’60s, one I’d never seen before. But the guy selling it didn’t have prices on anything. Cute. I don’t play that game. The other was the Small Faces’ “There Are But Four Small Faces” from 1967. That seemed like a cool record, but it was gone when I circled back.

On my swing through Minnesota a couple of years ago, I came across a handful of Ides of March records at Hymie’s Vintage Records in Minneapolis. I bought one. I should have bought more, because I never see Ides of March records.

Here’s a song off the Ides record I did buy that scorching July day at Hymie’s.

“Superman,” the Ides of March, from “Common Bond,” 1971. It’s out of print but is available digitally.

This was the follow-up single to “Vehicle.” I had forgotten about it until I sat on stage with Ides lead singer Jim Peterik, guitarist Larry Millas and bass player Bob Bergland during what was billed as a songwriting workshop in February 2011. It really was a storytelling session, which was fine. Here’s a little video of that, and of them playing a snippet of “Superman.”

Please visit our companion blog, The Midnight Tracker, for more vintage vinyl, one side at a time.