Ah, the beloved 45. I absolutely adore them – I have tons and tons, and I look for them all the time. I would be hard pressed to say I prefer one kind of vinyl over all the others, but 45s are certainly up there for me in that regard. It simply doesn’t get better than having a pile of singles to spin on a decent player.

I tend to have evenings where I just go a little nuts on them – once I get started, it is very hard to stop. I am usually drinking beer, so will get loaded and just crank the volume and go to town. It is not unusual for me to go through dozens of them – I clean them as I go, and one leads me into the next as I just get lost in it all. Such as it was, on this otherwise non-momentuous night.

I started with The Swag, by Link Wray and his Ray Men. This is an instrumental, a cool little song that lopes along nicely. This 45 was clean as could be, and sounds great – I love the production of this record. It really feels vibrant and alive – the warmth of the room is fully evident on it. I especially like right before the solo takes, as there is some lovely tension in it.  

I played this song in a band, both as a rhythm guitarist and as a drummer – my buddy Joe can nail the lead part, note-for-note. We played this one a lot back when we played more often, and it always is a hit – people dig it, even on a first listen.

Speaking of songs I played in a band, I played Wings – Band On the Run too this evening on a single, because it brings back fun memories of doing it in bars. This was a weird song for a band to cover, and my band Anti-M did a fucking great job with it – it was a set closer, and it would slay them, every time. 

When I got thru spinning that side, I flipped it to hear Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five – which is a really cool song too. McCartney was definitely hitting on all fours at this point, and Wings were a great band for a really long time, to me. I am happy I grew up listening to them a lot – it was time well spent. Both sides of this single are worthwhile, and then some.

At some point in the night (a few beers deep, for sure) I saw this 45 in the stacks – Desmond Dekker and the Aces doing Israelites. God, I love this song. I have no idea how many 45s of it I have now – I usually buy it any time I find it in the wild, just by reflex. Most of them are beat to hell – people like me, played it to death no doubt. Just seeing the yellow Uni label makes me reach for this one about every time I see it – I will NEVER grow tired of it.

If you don’t have this record yet, you definitely need to have it – it is a reggae classic, and truly one of my all-time favorite songs. Just perfect!

Speaking of all-time faves, as I got more and more loaded, I was pulling out more and more of my favorite stuff – though I was keeping it all in one box this night. But I saw some Stevie Wonder singles in there, so grabbed Higher Ground, and dug on it for a minute, then did Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing, which is a sing-along, every time I hear it. Then I got out Badfinger‘s No Matter What, which was another song I played with my old band Anti-M so it was a lovely trip down memory lane. Helluva a pop tune there – just perfect.

I saw some James Brown in the box, so played Get On the Good Foot – but I couldn’t just play Part 1, I had to spin both sides of the Godfather. Then as often happens when I get into the 45s, I started to go nuts on some Lou Christie stuff.

If you don’t know who he is, Lou was a guy putting out a bunch of pop stuff in the 60s. His records are production-heavy, super-simp pop – he sings in a falsetto that is strong as hell, yet sounds so silly every time I hear it, I absolutely adore it. If I start getting drunk, you can bet I am gonna find some Lou to play – I pick up his stuff all the time, he is a true guilty pleasure for me. I have a bunch of LPs and comps, but his 45s are really what I try to find and pick up. I have no idea how many I have – they are everywhere though, so I never have to go far to find some Lou.

This evening, I spun I’m Gonna Make You Mine, which I can’t help but always play more than once – it is such a fun song. His recording of it rules – the bridge has him singing “ugh” or some such sound, and you can just picture him putting it in – gyrating those denim-clad hips seductively like an ultra-stiff white boy.  I can’t recommend Lou Christie enough – he is some silly-ass pop, but man, are his records great. Especially when you get drunk.

The rest of the evening was a pretty wide open free-for-all, as it typically becomes in the middle of the night, stoked by booze and loud music. I played The Hudson Brothers’ Rendezvous, The Drifters doing I Gotta Get Myself a Woman (this is a really cool song, especially for the Drifters, who I think are pretty pedestrian and ho-hum most of the time), Crawdad by Bo Diddley, I’m Looking for Someone to Love by Buddy Holly, All Night Worker by Rufus Thomas, Killer Queen by Queen and God knows what else. It was a great box of 45s to grab – and I only spun a handful of them, though I did see the sun rise. It was many, many hours of pure wax goodness – loud as hell, all night long.

I can’t recommend enough, a night spent drinking and spinning 45s – no matter where you end up, chances are pretty good that you will enjoy the ride a great deal. Or come on over some time – I am always glad to have a pal.