My Life In the Cutout Bins

Marshall Bowden
Apr 30, 2024
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This is the home for my series My Life in the Cutout Bins, inaugurated in January 2023. It's a book project that will include two sections. The first will be an essay (or more than one) discussing the phenomenon of the cutout bins, basically bargain priced records that didn't move for the label. I'll examine what the cutout bins meant for record collectors and how they helped to expand both my record collection and my mind.

The second section will be essays on cutout records from my collection. These are collected on this page for your perusal, enjoyment, and commentary.

I'm hoping to publish My Life in the Cutout Bins towards autumn of 2025, but like everything else in the world right now, that's definitely subject to change.

My Life in the Cutout Bins: Lou Reed/Rock and Roll Heart

Marshall Bowden
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February 17, 2023
My Life in the Cutout Bins: Lou Reed/Rock and Roll Heart

Being a fan of Lou Reed was like having a special one way passport stamped for the cutout bins. A cult presence for most of his career, Reed would make a great album only to follow it up with what seemed, at the time, like a throwaway. At the very least he would change things up frequently enough to upset any group of fans who might have liked what he h…

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My Life in the Cutout Bins: The Ramones/Leave Home

Marshall Bowden
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June 3, 2023
My Life in the Cutout Bins: The Ramones/Leave Home

My Life in the Cutout Bins is a book project that I’m working on based on the cutout records in my collection. The first two installments were published to paid subscribers only. I am making this month’s installment covering The Ramones second album, Leave Home, available to all my readers. Please enjoy, and feel free to offer your comments.

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Life In the Cutout Bins: Robert Gordon

Marshall Bowden
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October 26, 2022
Life In the Cutout Bins: Robert Gordon

I first became aware of Robert Gordon during the punk rock/new wave era at the end of the seventies. Some friends and I went to see the Talking Heads on their Fear of Music tour in 1979 at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom. There were two opening acts: the instantly forgettable A's and the soon-to-be legendary Cramps. It was my first live exposure to psychobill…

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My Life In the Cutout Bins: Peter Gabriel/Peter Gabriel II (Scratch)

Marshall Bowden
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July 9, 2023
My Life In the Cutout Bins: Peter Gabriel/Peter Gabriel II (Scratch)

I was raised to believe that Genesis died with the exit of Peter Gabriel, and that's not really so far from the truth. I know that the circumstances of Genesis’ implosion were very different, but continuing under the same name in the manner they did was like Joy Division hitting the synths and drum machines and never putting out the New Order shingle. I…

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My Life In the Cutout Bins: The Rolling Stones/Emotional Rescue

Marshall Bowden
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September 11, 2023
My Life In the Cutout Bins: The Rolling Stones/Emotional Rescue

The Rolling Stones escaped almost certain doom in 1977, with Keith Richards’ future hanging on the horns of justice for a serious Canadian drug charge and a string of ramshackle, unfocused records in the rear view mirror, only to see Richards receive a suspended sentence and turn in an amazing comeback record,

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My Life in the Cutout Bins: Tom Waits/Nighthawks at the Diner

Marshall Bowden
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November 3, 2023
My Life in the Cutout Bins: Tom Waits/Nighthawks at the Diner

"I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train .

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My Life in the Cutout Bins: Suicide/Suicide: Alan Vega and Martin Rev (2nd album)

Marshall Bowden
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Feb 7
My Life in the Cutout Bins: Suicide/Suicide: Alan Vega and Martin Rev (2nd album)

The first Suicide album is downtown, all jittery speed-inflected machine rhythms and the froggy intonations of ghost of Sal Mineo contestant Alan Vega. Vega's yelps leap out of the sound field at you, as though he suddenly is much closer to you than you realized. It was an album I liked, but one I wouldn't put on in some circumstances, for example when …

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My Life in the Cutout Bins: Sun Ra/Pathways To Unknown Worlds

Marshall Bowden
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March 17, 2023
My Life in the Cutout Bins: Sun Ra/Pathways To Unknown Worlds

It's a long story, but I was a seventh grader who was interested in free jazz. And I loved the weird and the 'out there' in the form of novelty pop records and Dickie Goodman soundbite records and performers like Screamin' Jay Hawkins, or Kordit Panda. But Sun Ra was in a class by himself. His music was delivered via a big band, but it was steeped in free jazz improvisation, and he played organ and piano while leading the group, like an avant garde Duke Ellington or Count Basie. Most interesting of all, Ra claimed to have come to planet Earth from Saturn, his home planet. And this wasn't some idle publicity stunt that he merely tossed off. Sun Ra had developed an elaborate cosmology that encompassed not only his music, but his wardrobe, his language, and his very being.

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