Crate Diving in Modern America

The Circle is Unbroken

And crate diving extends everything

Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash

An old Looney Tunes cartoon from my childhood has a dog whose name I no longer know singing as he journeys along a dusty road,

“Oh, you never know where you’re going till you get there!”

I take that as my mantra, especially when I go diving into crates in random junk shops or vintage record store. And damn me, but I almost always forget to clean my hands after, and so yet again I have a cold that I’m sure I got from holding that copy of Bloodrock II that I decided not to buy because who really wants to hear “D.O.A.” one more time?

If you’re careful and lucky, for under $5 you can score pretty big on those albums you didn’t know you were looking for until you found them.

I thought, for instance, that I had enough Kitty Wells in my collection, but when I saw Kitty Wells Showcase (Decca DL-74961) featuring “My Big Truck Drivin’ Man,” I had to get it. An original pressing from 1968, it needed a home in my stack of older female country artists. And for $5, what kind of fool would i be if I left it sitting all by its lonesome?

Then for $4, I found The Carter Family: I Walk the Line ( Harmony HS-11392), with a lovely photo of June, her sisters and…