There was a second-hand record shop in Cardiff near where I used to live called D'Vinyl. I have no idea if it's still there, but it was the sort of second-hand record you can't imagine is still open any more. I was mildly surprised it had made it to 2008 to be honest. Go back 20 years and I bet there were shops like that in every city, but the majority have long gone. The reason why I suspect it may have closed is that D'Vinyl wasn't very good. At all. If you wanted to spend four hours digging through piles of records on top of boxes of records in the hope of finding a half-decent record that wasn't completely knackered from years of neglect and bad care, then D'Vinyl was the place to go. Unfortunately the staff were dicks too; the last time I went in the guy behind the counter was cracking racist jokes, hence the reason I never went back. They may have had a handful of reasonable records (I'm talking easily <0.1% here) but I rather see my money going to decent people.
Anyway, this shop was very near where I lived, so we'd pop in occasionally in the hope of finding something good. I bought a grand total of five cds and records from there (and this place was piled high with records). On one trip I found this copy of We Care A Lot for £5.40 (and a copy of Gorilla Biscuit's Start Today on cd) and thought it would be worth a listen. I'd not heard any Faith No More pre-Mike Patton but was keen to see what it was like. The whole thing sounds pretty dated these days, but there are still some good songs in there (the title track and As the Worm Turns). Chuck Mosley has an interesting voice (differently interesting to Mike's) but I definitely prefer their later work. I never understood people's FNM and Red Hot Chili Peppers comparisons/comments until I heard this album, but I can see the similarities now.
The highlight of the album is We Care A Lot without a doubt, and it's no wonder FNM still play it now with Mike singing. It's a great song. A few years ago I ran the Brighton Marathon and made a huge playlist on my mp3 player of 4GB's worth of great songs to put on shuffle for the run. It was quite playlist. I remember at various parts of the run getting really excited because certain songs came up (at exactly 1 mile in I had Young Hearts by Gunrack? and around 8 miles Avail's cover of Santeria). The end of the marathon was a very exciting bit (after nearly four hours of running I couldn't wait to lie down) and, as the crowds were getting thicker, We Care A Lot came on and I sprinted to the finish line with it playing. Needless to say, my fond memories of this song are strongly tied in with giving my legs a much-needed rest. I was also pretty pleased with my achievement, which added to the positive feeling.
Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 10
Cost: £5.40 second-hand
Bought: D'Vinyl, Cardiff
When: 02/02/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
