Mining for the Coptic Mother Lode

Once upon a time op shops provided a reasonable return for the intrepid record collector. In recent years, this return has turned from stream to trickle to drip: Acker Bilk, Mrs Mills, and James Last clog up dusty crates, anything worthwhile shopped out by hipsters (not I, surely!) and curious teens.

Sure there are plenty of classical records in among the Klaus Wunderlich and James Galway but I haven't totally embraced the classics quite yet. So I had pretty much given up on op shops as a source of music nourishment.

I wasn't even going to bother checking. My friend George and I took a day trip to Pakenham, an outer suburb/country town, 60km or so south-east of Melbourne. After stopping for deep-fried, sugar coated jam donuts at a roadside donut van, we came across the first op shop. My donut sugar hit encouraged me to peruse the records. Andre Kostelanetz, 20 Piano Honky Tonk Classics, Richard Clayderman, my fingers automatically flicked quicker and quicker.

Hang on, Labelle 'Nightbirds' - an early disco-soul classic produced by Allen Toussaint - for a $1, in perfectly good condition. Not incredibly rare but something I've wanted to hear since reading Peter Shapiro's 'Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco' - and for $1.

Flick, Bert Kampfaert, flick, stop. Glenn Gould 'The Little Bach Book', still in plastic wrap. Gould is a renowned pianist and Bach interpreter. And Brian Wilson loves Bach. Brian Wilson is God (you've been warned). And Gould looks a little demented on the back cover - for a $1. I was regaining the old excitement. Maybe someone in Pakenham or Nar Nar Goon with a cool record collection had died! I couldn't believe my luck!

My fingers tingled, my flicking once again had purpose.

Winifred Atwell was surely a man in a wig. Flick. When will the pan pipes make a comeback? Flick. Engelbert Humperdinck, what a hunk of a man. Flick. Tom Jones, I've got this one. Flick.

Then, in big weird font across a black outer space background 'MOOG' and just beneath, in orange 70s digital style font 'The Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman'. On the cover Dick Hyman and photo negative clones of Dick float eerily on the moon's surface. Dick and his clones have just exited their explorer mooncraft. It's a disconcerting cover that reminds me of pre-perspective painting.

The liner notes on the back start with: "The Startling Sounds of the Brave New Music World! . . . singular, synthesized composition that heralds the future art of Sound-Expansion!"

I know the name Dick Hyman. He's one of those space-age bachelor pad guys. Hang on, doesn't he have something to do with Woody Allen? Is it the same guy? George thinks this particular record might even fetch a few bucks on Ebay. Whatever the case, this also looks too good to pass up at $1.

I paid my $3 for three records with the wonderfully awful feeling of ripping off a charity organisation.

We reached Main St and immediately spotted two more op shops. By now I was quietly optimistic - not expecting a rare batch of 70s psych records from Uzbekistan but hopeful of something better than Don Lane records. We moved boxes of disjointed dolls, haggard teddy bears and forgotten board games and started excavating.

Boz Scaggs 'Silk Degrees' - this is a party record. Always scuffed and scratched, you can smell Bundy & Coke in its grooves. Go ahead, smell it. Why would you not blast 'Lido Shuffle' at 2am to annoy neighbours who have just called the cops? I've held off buying this on CD because I remain eternally convinced I will find a decent op shop copy for a $1 one day. Today's not that day.

Slim pickings here. Though I do pick up a Big Sound compilation of late 70s American power-pop featuring Memphis' truly forgotten power pop idol, Van Duren. This guy came along after Big Star and released two (I think) albums of anthemic, nerdy, guitar rock in the late 70s. Excellent find for 50 cents and Marc Bell (Marky Ramone) plays on one track.

Next place we walked into didn't look promising. The records are sprawled near the front door. They look tatty and diseased. They're selling nice looking lemons for $1 per bag though. I'm here, so I may as well look.

I flick rapidly to the very last records. What's this? Plain sleeves and the writing on the labels is in Arabic except for some small print about the Institute for Coptic Studies. There's about 10 of these records. I have no idea what Coptic music sounds like. I know the Copts are based in Egypt and are one of the oldest Christian communities in existence. Plus there's a few of what look like Egyptian and Lebanese pop records from the 60s.

Armful of Coptic relics and middle-eastern pop oddities, I compose myself and approach the counter. I can't let this 10-year-old counter-girl know how potentially great these records might be: act nonchalant, like buying Coptic liturgy records is something people do everyday. Bread, milk, paper and a Coptic liturgy record, please.

"I'll get my Mum."

Oh shit. Mum would have to know how cool Coptic records are, at the very least she's going to look at my Western shirt and think "city hipster" and charge Ebay rates.

Play it cool, man.

"The records are 50 cents."

$6.50 later plus $2 for my two bags of lemons and we're outta there. We listen to the radio on the trip home, but all George and I can think about is the tantalising prospect of listening to the mysterious sounds of Coptic liturgy records.