What a wonderful day yesterday... Finished up at work at lunchtime, then off to the CD and Record Fair in Coleraine Town Hall, where I picked up a bundle of goodies for £30 (see below).

One of the stalls was offering a real collector's item - an original Clive Culbertson single 'Time to Kill/Busy Signal'. With the powerpop and punk explosion in the Far East, copies of this are changing hands for over £200 on eBay these days. I took a sneaky picture, but I didn't want to ask how much they wanted for it...

Then coffee and a muffin, and a drive over to Omagh for a gig with the Ronnie Greer Blues Band at the Strule Arts Centre - great vibes. Then a leisurely drive home listening to gems from the various new albums.

I love record fairs - I love the Hawkwind-next-to-Sinatra feel of them, the occasional gem buried among the Five Star and Herman's Hermits' Greatest Hits. Interesting to see a lot more vinyl on offer than last time. If we're lucky enough to move to a bigger house later this year, I really want to dust off my turntable and put it back to work. Which I know will drive Andrea up the walls. I sense a Pink Floyd marathon coming on...

Anyway, purely for fun, here are the items I picked up yesterday:

Town Hall Concert - a live jazz album with Joe Henderson and Herbie Hancock. Not sure about this one yet...
Neil Young - Neil Young. Because it's worth £3 just for 'Last Trip to Tulsa' and 'The Old Laughing Lady' alone.
Loudon Wainwright - Strange Weirdos. Again, worth it just for 'Daughter'. Some great instrumentals, too.
A Great Day in Harlem - compilation tie-in with the movie. Adorable rag-bag of different jazz styles.
Eels - Beautiful Freak. I used to have this on tape, and loved it. Again, anything that has 'Susan's House' is worth three quid.
Prince - Very Best. I used to have a Greatest Hits tape that I stretched - I played it so often in the car. Can't wait to be on an open road with 'Alphabet Street' turned up loud.
Keith Jarrett - La Scala. Again, three quid... I'm on a Jarrett trip at the minute, listening to The Koln Concert and The Melody at Night With You, so this jumped out of the rack and into my hand when I saw it.
Jesse Malin - The Fine Art of Self-Destruction. Produced by Ryan Adams, and I heard great things about this when it first came out, so I thought: I'll give it a spin.