Birthdays are awesome! Or at least, my birthday is pretty awesome. There is people you love and food and if you’re lucky, cool presents too. Sometimes the gifts can even surprise you. For instance, one of my most awesome sisters gave me the gift of records – which I love, AND, it was one I didn’t even know existed – even cooler!

Which brings me to this edition of Cool Places to Buy Sh… Stuff…

The gift I got was the Ramones The Cretin Hop manufactured by the good people at Let Them Eat Vinyl. The Cretin Hop itself is a bootleg taken from a 1979 radio broadcast with a couple tunes added on from appearances on Letterman and the Tonight Show. This printing is a 180 gram yellow translucent double album housed in a pretty cool gatefold sleeve and limited to 1000 copies with further albums to be made in black vinyl thereafter. The quality of sound is exactly what one should expect from a live show. It is rough around the edges, but sounds exactly like a Ramones concert should be without the frills and clutter of overdubs and tinkering sounds that plague most major artists live albums. (Honestly, if you flub a part, leave it or pick a different night.)

It also seems to be part of a loosely based series of albums taken from various radio broadcasts of different acts in their prime. Along with the Ramones you’ll find Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Flying Burrito Brothers, Pixies, Patti Smith, Lemonheads and many others all in similar black and white gatefold sleeve covers. In addition to the Ramones I also have Joe Walsh’s All Night Long which is on 140 gram vinyl and limited to 500 copies. The sound on this one is great, and seems to be a pretty perfect example of Walsh live. (Oddly, whoever wrote the liner notes for the Walsh album needs to Google a little more often as they mix song appearances from the movie soundtrack of The Warriors.)

The story doesn’t end there. Besides putting out some quality bootlegs, Let Them Eat Vinyl has been responsible for putting the Ramones re-issues out on vinyl for a few years now. It looks like their first wave was all 180 gram limited edition coloured vinyl while the further editions were released on the more standard 180 gram black vinyl.

If you are looking for some quality bootlegs from an assortment of great artists, you should check out the Let Them Eat Vinyl catalogue. You might find something you like. (Can’t wait for my birthday this year.)

http://www.letthemeatvinyl.com/catalogue.htm