In this episode, take a trip down memory lane with the timeless theme of “Oldies But Goodies.” The Now Spinning Crew share their oldest records and first purchases, sparking warm stories about music and memory. They reflect on artists like Woody Guthrie and The Beatles, and songs tied to favorites like Fallout 3 and Stand by Me. It’s a fun look at how music connects us to the past and still resonates today.

_____________________

Website: LCC Vinyl Record Club

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Now Spinning, the official podcast of the Lansing Community College Vinyl Record Club. We meet twice a month to listen to vinyl and talk about music. Stay tuned to learn about how you can get in touch with us and attend our meetings.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Now Spinning. So good to see you all. Sorry it's been a minute since I've been on. I hope you can forgive me with me today.

I have Andy and Tyler and I am still Simon Medina, as far as you need to know.

You're back.

I'm back.

I told you he'd be back.

And here I am. As was promised. We've got quite a fun one today. Today's meeting theme was Oldies But Goodies. And this was kind of a double sided theme.

On one half, the challenge was bring in the oldest record you own, like oldest released record you own by release date, you know, and people delivered on that front most definitely. And the second theme was bring in the first records you ever owned or the oldest, like the first records you can remember buying yourself.

And we got quite a few of those as well. So without further ado, let's jump right into it. The first song that got played was a real oldie. This is like a 40s song, I believe.

30S dust bowl ballads. Dusty Old Dust by Woody Guthrie. And this was off Dust Bowl Ballads. Dust Bowl Ballads.

Dust Bowl Ballads.

And this was like. I think this is remembered as like the first ever concept album in a way.

I mean, I don't know if it's much of a concept album as it's just a bunch of songs about the.

Yeah, not a great time to be around, but we got some music out of it. And this one, it's very interesting. Like Woody Guthrie, I mean, he's like the folk singer for a lot of people.

Inspired a whole generation of people, you know, Bob Dylan, all that crowd.

Yeah.

But it's not often that I've actually like listened to his music, if that makes sense. I listen to a lot of people that he inspired. But it's very interesting. He's got a very straightforward storytelling style.

I really like that he just says it up front. There's not like a lot of imagery. It's just. It's really terrible to be around in the Dust Bowl.

Well, I mean, despair and depression really makes good music.

Speak it can.

It makes the best music. You'd be surprised.

I can't argue with that. I don't think.

Yeah, speaking of despair, and depression. We have a slew of songs that are recognizable from Fallout 3.

From Galaxy News Radio Oldies Day, Easy Living by Billie Holiday, Way Back Home and Happy Times by Bob Crosby, let's Go Sunnin and Into each Life Some Rain Must Fall by the Ink Spots. All great tracks. All at least I've heard from Fallout 3. I don't think I've heard them anywhere else.

Gates are the rustiest, cars are the, you know, blah blah, blah. The rhymings and all that stuff. Pies crustiest gates, rustiest stars of the shootiest. Stuff like that. It's kind of good.

Back in the fallout shelter. Like set in a post apocalyptic when all the nukes blew up.

Yeah, that's the series of games. Yeah.

Yeah, that definitely fits the theme of the.

No, definitely.

Yeah.

But yeah, the music. Definitely. I was expecting Oldies Day. I knew that we were gonna at least one Fallout song in here, but we've got quite a few.

I was, I was happy to see that.

Yes.

I think that's. Honestly that's probably one of the best parts of those games is that really adds to the whole, to the atmosphere.

Like I like the contrast with like the happy go lucky, like 40s 50s music and like not all happy go Lucky, but it's just about like, you know, some of them are sad, but it's not like.

It's not like sad sad where it's like oh man, I'm about to cry. It's like kind of makes you think a little bit.

No, definitely fun stuff. Yeah, we had a song from a little bit more recent. This one's sort of a newer song Moving out by Billy Joel.

Wait, no, moving out Parentheses Anthony song. Can't forget the subtitle.

Yeah. So this, this was actually my first album that I ever bought.

The specific record that I brought in was a newer playable version because the record, original record that I bought was from the upstairs shelf of my library that had no cover, no sleeve. And it was really before I actually knew that those things were there for a reason.

And so there's like a massive skip in the middle of one of the best songs. I mean Pick youk Drawers. I actually forgot what song it is, but yeah, it just kind of like skips the entire song. Really.

Yeah, I like moving out.

Recently I moved out of home and the first song that I played when I was heading down to my new place was Moving Out Parenthesis Anthony's Song by Billy Joel.

I can't think of a better song for that. It's one of my very favorite Billy Joel songs. This whole album, definitely my favorite Billy Joel album. No skips all the way through.

I mean, I heard the other day, or read the other day that this was Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon Garfunkel was Columbia Records number one selling album. And then the Stranger, you know, Billy Joel got released and that outsold it and became Columbia's number one selling record.

Which is pretty cool, I think.

Oh yeah, I watched a. Like I was dog sitting at my parents house like a couple weekends ago and on, I believe it was Amazon prime.

There's this whole like 8 hour in total Billy Joel documentary series. And I was decided, well, I don't have anything better to do. I don't really. I guess I could look at this and I've. He's a very interesting character.

The more I read about him, the more I want to, you know, know more. It's really encouraged me to dive into his discography and I kind of, I'll admit before that I kind of wrote him off because I.

He's like a singles artist. He's got some good songs but like.

He's very good songs.

That's, that's what I figured out. I listened, I watched that documentary and it, you know, it exposed a lot more stuff about Billy Joel that I really didn't really expect out of him.

Like a lot of his early stuff, I wasn't expecting that. He's very singer songwriter y at the beginning but then he gets more and more like rock as it goes on.

But anyway, my favorite is even some of his lesser known songs are still pretty big bangers.

Yeah.

Oh, definitely.

Yeah.

Great piano player.

Yes, very much so.

Speaking of, speaking of great piano players, actually have a couple more coming up after this. We can wrap back around. Before that though, we had Gas Money by Jan and Arnie.

Hang on, we got a little more before we get to that, but that will pay off in just a minute.

Okay, what song are we going to next?

The one right after it. Do you have anything?

Okay. Gas money. Okay. I wasn't sure. We were like spinning our wheels around. Nice. Anyway, okay, so Jan and Arnie, who's Jan and Arnie.

Well, Jan and Arnie is the precursor to Jan and Dean.

Oh, no.

It was originally Jan Barry, Arne Ginsburg and Dean Torrance. But Dean was away in the Army Reserves. So Jan and Arnie, like went and made some.

I think Arnie didn't really like the show business life too much and he went and left that and Dean came back and then, boom. Jan and Dean magical.

And the world knew a new evil. But that's okay. We love Jan and Dean in this house.

Jan and Dean deep dive soon.

Absolutely not. Next time I'm out, you can do the Jan and Dean deep dive.

I mean, I don't know how much I'm talking about all this time. You could take the episodes and just string them together.

Yeah, make a Jan and Dean super cut of every time Tyler talks about Jan and Dean.

Okay, next up, we got more kind of car songs, I guess, considering Not Fade Away. Buddy Holly. Great track. Is featured in the movie Christine. Have you two seen Christine?

No, I have not.

Oh, it's Stephen King book.

Originally, of course, it's Stephen King.

And, you know, it kind of like corrupts him because the previous owner was like such a bad guy and all this stuff. And, you know, the car is like, evil and stuff. Watch Christine. It's a good little horror movie you can watch around Halloween.

And speaking of good movies and stuff, we have more movie stuff. We got a song featured in Stand By Me, Come Softly to Me by the Fleetwoods.

Oh, this is a Stand By Me.

And if you Stand by Me.

Yeah.

Version. Are you talking about the movie, not the song? Yeah.

Gerry o' Connell and Corey Feldman and Will Wheaton are doing a tour right now.

Oh, boy. About.

Because it's the movie's 40th anniversary. Kylie brought this in.

Actually, I might have seen that a while ago.

It's a great movie. Stephen King called it. It's based on a Stephen King book.

And Stephen King told Rob Reiner that it was like the best adaptation of his work that he's ever seen, you know, which is like, that's my friend. Yes, very much so. I like the movie. I recommend you see it when they're all by the Campfire.

Talking about what Goofy is and what food you'd eat for the rest of your life comes softly to me as playing. And that kind of fits with the Fleetwoods kind of being a kind of nighttime group for me.

I agree.

I've been really digging them. Last month, back in March. I guess I'll just do more movie things because we already talked about the ink spots.

Might as well keep it going.

Mr. Sandman. Anybody know what movie or. By the Four Aces. Anybody know what movie this is from?

I don't know.

1985 Movie blockbuster.

I'm not familiar with Fox. Chris. Okay.

Christopher Lloyd, Back to the Future.

Oh, Back to the. Yeah, that's Back to the Future.

I did not know you alluding to that.

I'm only familiar with, like, the. Like. Was that the Cordette's version? That's like the original one. That's the one that popped up when I added it to the playlist. That's my bad.

But no, it's. It's all fine.

Was it.

I mean, it's a fun little song, though.

The prom band.

No, it was. That was Marvin Barry and the Starlighters. It was. It was just like song tacked over the thing.

Oh, Mr. Sandman.

Yeah, that one.

Ah, I get it. Yes, that one.

And another 80s movie is the Mess around with Ray Charles. I know you haven't seen Plane Streets in Automobiles.

Yeah, I was gonna mention that's what I was alluding to when I said there's more great piano players coming up. But Ray Charles, incredible song. I mean, I am admittedly not as well versed in his music as I would like to be, but I know this one.

I feel like everybody should know this one. It's just a good time, fun song.

Geez. Yeah, that's an old one. Yeah.

But, you know. Okay, so might as well talk about the famous scene that this song's in.

So Del and Neil, John Candy and Steve Martin are driving down the road and the radio plays Mess around and. And John Candy's, like, doing the fake piano and the saxophone and stuff like that. It's a best Thanksgiving movie ever. I've said it before.

I'll say it again. I'm sure lots of people would probably agree with me. Funny movie, too.

We ought to do just an episode where we talk about movies instead of Music that'd be a fun thing.

That would be interesting.

I feel like there's already a club for that, though. There's definitely already a club for that. Rolling along this list here, though, we have the second song today from the 70s. This.

It's like a hard rock thing from the early 70s, kind of Prague almost.

It sounds like the beginnings of Waterloo and Call Me this beginning sounds just like that.

Wait, Waterloo by Abba? I am.

Why?

No, I can like. No, no, hold on. I hear it. I can hear it now that you say that. I don't know how that makes me feel, but that's a fun band. They're like almost Prague.

They're like on the borderline of it. They're all their album covers though.

Speaking borderline.

Definitely, very definitely. Very like Prague influenced this. This album in particular. This isn't my favorite song on it. This is like my second favorite song.

My favorite one is one called. Just called the Wizard. Not to be confused with the Black Sabbath song the Wizard.

I think any like 70s album, 70s Prague album that has like a Lord of the Rings related song on it. I don't know why. There's a lot of them. Like you can make a whole playlist out of those, but this is definitely one of the better ones.

There's like one on Led Zeppelin 4 as well, but that's not really Prague. Still though, any 70s hard rock song that has a Lord of the Rings reference to it, I'd give that a 10 out of 10 automatically.

But you want to talk about Chicago.

Yeah, but we kind of skipped over a pretty significant artist, Scott Joplin.

Oh my goodness. Yeah, piano players. My bad.

So this, this is. If you don't know, this is the King of Rag. He's the Maple Street Rag. He is like the King, if you want to know Old Timey Rag.

Most of his stuff is usually like when you're doing a comedy bit, like you're doing a silent film bit.

I know what you're talking about.

Yeah, that's usually you think of Scott Joplin, but that's usually the context of rag.

Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton movies, stuff like that.

Yeah.

When you parodying that in the modern day, you usually put Scott Joplin behind that. Anyway, if you don't know Scott Joplin, check out Scott Joplin.

Yeah, yeah, I'm starting to Realize a pattern here. I'm thinking that a lot of these older songs, the reason that people know about them is because they're in all these movies.

I think that's kind of what's preserving a lot of these songs. Because I've spent so much time talking about movies today.

If you actually Looney Tunes, you would be surprised by how many recognizable songs come out of Looney Tunes.

No, I can definitely. I can definitely think of a few. But we'll do it. Honestly, one of these days. We'll probably do another movie episode. Another movie meeting.

We did one like many, many years ago. But I think it'd be a good. This was kind of a movie meeting already.

But I mean, I have a couple things to talk about many, many years ago. But we'll push that towards the end because those songs are kind of towards the end.

So next we got Chicago. Hard to say. I'm sorry. One of Chicago songs. I'm not saying something. Cause they got pretty good songs when you actually know about them.

But yeah, it's hard to say I'm sorry. There was a bit where I thought we were transitioning to the next song. It starts off like a very lovely lullaby. Like you slow dance to it.

And then it just said it was kind of sappy.

Yeah. But it just kind of fades away and then it just boom. Brass drop. And it goes really hard from that point on. And it's like this particular album has.

Oh, God. What was the second one on that album?

I'm not too familiar with this one.

I don't know if you say.

I'm sorry. Heart. No, I'm sorry, we're talking about that. But there was another famous song on here that's actually at the bottom of their sides.

And actually listening to these on their own, you wouldn't believe that they're on their sides. But these actually sound like grand finales, both with hard bass brass endings to it as well.

Definitely.

I feel like Chicago, their discography is probably nay, imposs to get. It kind of will not get into.

But like, if you want to like sit and listen through all of it, it's like you've got what, 50 plus albums or so they have like.

They're all named Chicago.

Yeah, they're all like. They have 20 plus albums of Chicago then. Insert number here.

I actually have one of their albums. That's not a numbers. Hot Streets.

I have Chicago number five, the one with Saturday in the Park.

I. Yeah, I don't know if I have any of that. I'd have to Check. But yeah, I mean that's a fun song. I definitely gets into the arena rock thing though. That's very 80s.

Love me tomorrow.

Love Me Tomorrow I'm not familiar with.

That's the ending to side one and then. No, ending to side one is Hard to Sam's Daughter and then side two is Love Me Tomorrow.

Yeah, yeah. I mean that's a definitely. That's a nostalgic record. I mean like if that's one of the ones you first got, but.

Oh yes, part of my original collection.

That's very awesome.

That's cool.

I think it reminds me of the one that comes up right after this, which was actually off the first album I ever bought with my own money. Or ever for that matter. Rubber Soul by the Beatles. It's a little niche thing. I don't know if anybody's heard of him before, but I played the song.

Yeah, exactly if I needed someone. Which is great tracking up.

I think it's more underrated on Rubber Soul, if I'm being honest.

As underrated as a Beatles song can be. I think this is one of my very favorite Beatles songs by. Definitely one of my favorite George Harrison songs. It's very.

It's got a really great like jangly guitar thing going, which kind of inspired the Birds a little bit. Which also went on to inspire a whole lot of other like rock bands throughout like the 80s 90s, even into like past that.

Especially with the whole 80s jangle pop thing. This is kind of almost ground zero for that entire movement. I think that's a really. It's just a really great song, really solid.

This also a little bit of lore about this album. This was the first one. This specific record is the first one I've actually ever brought to a record club meeting many moons ago. And this is.

I brought. I also bought Revolver that same day. I did not play that one today. I have ended up giving that to the club because I found a better copy of it.

But this one, I'm never giving it away, I don't think. Cuz since, you know, first ever album I bought.

Even if it's a reprint, even if it's not an original, it's got a lot of set amount of value like that, you know.

Yeah.

Great album. Rubber Soul. I don't know if you've ever heard of it before, it's pretty good. Check it out.

I mean if we're going to keep talking about like old stuff way in the yonder days, old movie nights and like old albums that you brought to the first Meeting of the club you ever been in. There were two songs played that I'll just mention we can.

I mean, you can talk about them because I know you want to talk about the Paul McCartney song, but over the Garden Wall by the Carter Family and Monkberry Moon Delight.

Yeah, back in those days.

Back in the good old days of yore and stuff like that. Beginnings Record Club.

Yeah, I might have talked about it when we did that. What, the first ever playlist episode a couple months, like last year.

You used to like, put them on and like, send it through an email.

Yeah. Now we have discord, we have technology.

Yeah.

The future is now.

Spotify.

Yeah.

Yep.

And Apple Music, too.

I still have a spreadsheet, though. I keep the spreadsheet.

Yeah, I like the spreadsheets. I remember the first time you had me be temporary secretary.

Like the song.

I would just do the spreadsheets and stuff like that. But I don't know. Then I was just like, oh, this is getting annoying. I'm just gonna write them down, you know?

Yeah, fair enough.

I don't know. I guess on the topic of Paul McCartney, would you like to talk about Paul McCartney?

Oh, well, you know, I never pass up an opportunity to talk about this dude.

He.

Yeah, I mean, I played the song Monkberry Moon Delight because this was again, one of the first songs I ever played in a meeting. Fun little song, this one.

Yes.

I think he's just kinda talking nonsense throughout the whole thing. It's inspired by. According to Paul McCartney, it was inspired by stuff that his little children would say to him.

I was reading about this. Cause I got a job and the first song that played after I got accepted the job was Moon Delight.

So I felt on top of the world and said, oh, I'm gonna research this. And they. They pronounced his kids pronounced milk monk.

Yeah. No, all the lyrics. No, it's a fun. I mean, it's a fun time. Like, it's very representative of that whole album Ram.

It's about how happy Paul is with his family away from the spotlight. This whole song is just basically just random Crap that his kids would say to him. And I think he'll also write a.

Song on this album that is a complete jab too.

Oh, well, no, it's not All Happiness. Yeah. The first song in the album is him just calling John Lennon out for being like, I don't know, just being John Lennon.

And he did not like that one. And he wrote a song back and then Paul wrote a song back saying he was sorry and everything was right in the world.

Yeah.

Feuding through songwriting. That's how you feud with people.

Yeah. Moving on. And next up, we've got a bell.

Canon, also known as Cannon and D. And there's a little known joke in the string world. The cello part is super boring. It's just four whole notes the entire way through. Same phrasing. It just like.

Meanwhile, you got the drum that's going and the cello is still stuck on. Yeah, just four notes the entire way through. It's really funny when you think about it, but Vacaval Cannon, classic. Yeah.

This one, I actually have an ancient memory that just resurfaced, now that you mention it. Back when I was like a child. I remember I had like this game on the Wii that was like, you could like own an aquarium.

And it was like one of two songs that would play was like canon and D. So every time I hear that song, I imagine like an aquarium with a bunch of fish in it for some reason. And like, it's just. I just hit me really hard all of a sudden. I don't know why.

If someone could find out what game that was and let me know what it was so I can track it down, please let me know. Because I had a lot of. I spent a lot of time putting fish in an aquarium back in. When I was like 6 years old or 7. Something like that.

Speaking of hitting hard, I played two little babes in the Wood cover of a Cole Porter song by Harper's Bazaar. And it's really good and stuff. And there's like a kind of like a tempo change where it goes da da. And then da da da.

And Steve, who was at the meeting, he cranked the volume up. And I was. First thing I thought was like, I didn't realize this was like a song you like that was worthy of cranking.

That's a banger right there.

It was kind of loud, but that's all good and cool. It's a great song, you know, if you listen to Cole Porter. I. I recommend Harper's Bazaar too. I've got.

Got their first album I'll be playing that sometime in the future, probably over the summertime.

Oh boy.

Yeah, we'll talk about it here. Alrighty. Should we talk about more influential people?

Sure. But yeah, why not?

Okay, we're gonna knock em out here. Gene Kupra, influential drummer, influenced like Keith Moon and all this stuff.

He's the one that came up with the famous sing, sing, sing drum line that opens up the song.

Yeah, yeah.

He also was the main drummer behind Benny Goodman.

Yes.

So yeah, like till he went solo. Yeah, yeah.

And where is it? Les Paul.

Oh, yep.

Big guy around guitars and is like the pioneer of multi tracking. If it wasn't for him, like music wouldn't be really recorded the same and just stuff in general wouldn't be recorded the same.

Definitely.

Well, for on the way out we have one last song at the very end of the meeting. I feel like this is a fitting closer.

So this is Sing in the Rain, very famous movie. If you ever seen that guy hanging from the old school lamppost in the rain. That's, that's, that's singing in the rain during this song.

And it's Gene Kelly as a movie. Old movie film geek. I absolutely love Gene Kelly. Fun Fact, he actually did a couple movies with none other than Frank Sinatra.

Yeah, there was also. I had an actual album of 10 inch records from like the 50s. And that's, you know, you played that off my thing.

Yeah.

Which I thought that was just kind of cool. Oh, old Meeting. Let's bring in an album full of old albums and stuff like that.

That was definitely. That was a highlight.

This movie also Fun Fact, stars Debbie Reynolds, the mother of none other than Carrie Fisher.

That's very cool. Yeah, Fun meeting today. Lots of oldies. I didn't realize this was going to be like a stealth sequel to the movie Meeting episode we did a while ago.

But I am not opposed to that. But yeah, good times all around. Fun stuff.

If you're interested in hearing any of these songs, you can check out our playlist which will be linked with the show. You can check also be linked on our website. Thank you all for tuning in. We hope to see you next time. Bye bye. Goodbye.