My Life In the Cutout Bins
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: David Johansen/In Style
1979 was a halcyon year. Things were shifting in the world of pop/rock, bringing a tsunami of bright, new stars to the charts. At the same time, a number of well established rock acts produced meaty albums that cemented their places in the rock and roll firmament. Pink Floyd unleashed
My Life in the Cutout Bins: Patti Smith Group/Radio Ethiopia
Arthur Rimbaud wrote all of his poetry by the age of twenty, at which point he went silent, moving to Abyssinia, otherwise known as Ethiopia, where he became a successful merchant, a trader and sometimes arms dealer. His somewhat mysterious life and early death at age 37 all but insured that he would become influential in the rock and roll era.
My Life In The Cutout Bins: Warren Zevon/Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon's self-titled, second-but-really-kinda-debut album is frequently touted nowadays as a bona fide masterpiece of songwriting, yet there it was one day in the cutout bins at Sound Warehouse. The album didn't sell all that well, but it put everyone in L.A. and the rest of the music biz as well on notice that Warren Zevon was a cat to be reckone…
My Life in the Cutout Bins: 1969: The Velvet Underground Live/The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground were two bands. The first was the original lineup, with John Cale (and, on the first record, Nico), in which the violinist and avant-garde student of Terry Riley made the edict, along with Lou Reed, that there would be no blues riffs whatsoever in the band. On their second album,
My Life in the Cutout Bins: Nina Simone/Emergency Ward!
"The times are desperate and America is one big emergency ward with everybody in the hospital"
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…
My Life in the Cutout Bins: John Lennon & Yoko Ono/Sometime In New York City
John Lennon's two LP release Sometime In New York City seems like it was born in the cutout bins, landing there as soon as it became apparent that the followup to Plastic Ono Band and Imagine was not at all like those records and would tank in the sales department as soon as fans caught a whiff of it.
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.
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…
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…
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,
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 .
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 …
My Life in the Cutout Bins: The Kinks/Sleepwalker
It's 1976. Ray Davies and The Kinks have spent the six years since their last American hit records, "Lola" and "Apeman," in a haze of dodgy concept albums that, while interesting in their own right, were an increasing source of alienation to the average record buyer and former Kinks fan. Not to mention the band, who insisted on a return to some semblanc…