unboxing vinyl

The Time's '81 debut LP!!!  Seems this is a tough one to find still sealed- it's come up 3 times in my eBay auto-searches since '08: one with a 'Contains the hit: Get It Up' sticker (like my original) sold for around $15 a couple years ago, another with no sticker has been sitting at $125 sometimes reduced to $100 for over a year. I've made very nice offers a couple of times but received no replies. This one was the 3rd I've seen come up sealed, issued in WEA's $5.98 Super Saver Series. I was the only bidder: $12.99 (+$4 ship).
My original is too beat up to even put a decent stylus on it.

Even an excellent condition copy seems hard to find.  I saw an OK copy in a local shop 2 summers ago, priced at $14!! ...with my eyes bugged out like Morris Day, I said  "WHAT??"

I was pretty late buying this album at the end of summer 1982, originally. I had already bought 45s of Get It Up and Cool from a local sundry store that carried a billion 45's (but only the most popular rock albums), and had been hugely disappointed with the shortened versions when I was hearing 10 minute versions on WVKO.  Editing Get It Up to 3 minutes is just plain blasphemous! At least the Cool single had more of the song as the b-side. The same with Prince's Controversy- terribly disappointing sliced & diced down to 3:39! No 'Lord's Prayer', no 'people call me rude, I wish we all were nude..' chant.. what's the point?? Soon after I got them, my girlfriend swiped the Controversy and Let's Work singles anyway. Circleville OH was seriously UNfunky, so I jumped at any chance I could to get to a real record store in Columbus.  So with some allowance and car-washing money I hadn't blown yet, I was dropped off at Buzzard's Nest Records for a couple of hours while my step-dad did other shopping in the city. When he picked me up, I had The Time, Controversy, and Cameo's Alligator Woman in hand as my final decisions.  I left behind a sole copy of the import 12" Let's Work, and have always regretted it.

COINCIDENTALLY, listening to WVKO on the way home that day, was when I first heard The Time's NEW song 777-9311.  Soon as I got home, I ran over to my girlfriend's house with my new albums, and told her about the NEW song I heard as well.  It was the coolest song I ever heard!!  When we played my new records, her and her entire family tried to convince me that it was not only the same person singing and playing guitar on both albums, but that Prince and Morris were the same person on the album COVERS.  I remember thinking how DUMB they all were, that the 2 albums had NOTHING to do with each other.

I dug out my old Time poster for this post (right). It's kinda beat up, but still c-o-o-l...

My next trip to Buzzard's Nest was for What Time Is It? and the Vanity 6 album. That's when I saw that it was [supposedly] The Time playing on Vanity 6 (noted on the back cover).  It wasn't until November when I bought 1999 that I realized they were all such closely related albums. 

I played those records to death on a 70's Zenith Allegro console with pennies and nickels stacked & taped on the tonearm.  Hey, I was 15 years old, what did I know? That thing pumped bass through the floors and walls like nothing I've heard since.

Just three months ago I was also lucky to catch a sealed copy of The Time's What Time Is It?  It also rarely comes up still sealed. I was the only bidder at $7.95 (+$4 ship).  I also plan to get sealed copies of Ice Cream Castles and Pandemonium. There's usually multiple sealed copies listed cheap on eBay.  I won't be opening these two until I have all 4 albums, and then I'll wait for an appropriate day, like New Year's Eve.



The Time, renamed The Original 7ven, reunited in 2011 for Condensate (not available on vinyl). Just months after the release, Jesse Johnson has departed and 'the original 6ix' will now be accompanied by Tori Ruffin on guitar.  Tori has toured extensively with the band the past couple of decades. 

The Original 7ven online.
On facebook.
On ReverbNation.