The Utopian Concept – Days May Come, Days May Go
This weekend, August 10th and 11th, DJ Shadow is back in LA for the 4th annual “storage” sale at Highland Park’s Rappcats (click here for more info). I’ve been lucky enough to attend each the previous three and I’m consistently amazed by the depth and breadth of Shadow’s collection, even though technically, these aren’t even records from his “real” collection, but are the doubles (or in some cases quintuples) of records that remain in his main collection. Aside from the experience of being able to go through the records of one of the world’s most respected crate diggers, Shadow himself is often there, happy to take selfies or sign autographs while the crowd remains and to chat about records when things are more quiet. It’s an experience that every record head/nerd should have at some point, and didn’t want this fourth one to slip by with out saying something about it, before the fact.
This 45 is one of many that I got last year from Shadow, a slinky organ led instrumental from out of the Baltimore area (the A-side is the vocal, which has a really different feel, even though it’s the same song). I’m always looking for instrumentals with wistful titles just like “Days May Come, Days May Go,” so that likely would have been enough for me to put it into my play pile. But the kicker was what appears to be a personal note, sounding almost like poetry, or a pick-up line (or pick-up line poetry?) written on the label from the songwriter, Doris Bright, to the original owner.
“Marsha,
So full of life,
From a distance I admired your spirit.
Doris Bright”
Reading that, being the sensitive, emo dude that I am, made me feel a certain way and when I dropped the needle on the instrumental side, the music fit perfectly into everything I was feeling, imagining Doris and Marsha locking eyes at a smoky B-more club in 1971, Doris writing her note and casually handing the record off to Marsha before disappearing into the night…You never know what surprises and mysteries are in store when DJ Shadow comes to town…you have been warned, do not sleep on this opportunity.
