So here is the Vinyl Connection New Year’s Resolution: To post a weekly diary of all – I mean all – new music arrivals at Base Camp Connection. The good, the bad (as in “that’s really, bad, man”) and the ugly. It’s been tried before and lasted two posts, there has been a holiday edition, even an interstate adventure, but never a commitment to regular ‘in-coming’ updates.

Where time and reason allow, perhaps a brief comment will be added illuminating (or not) the whys and wherefores of individual purchases.

Ladbrokes have opened a book on how long this risky plan of self-disclosure will last. Possible deal-breakers include:

• Buying something just too embarrassing to post;
• A threat of legal action (for unreasonable cruelty) from Ms Connection;
• The sound of those nice young men in their clean white coats come to take me away.

Hm. Upon reflection, this is possibly the most ridiculous resolution ever committed to paper (well, virtual paper). But as I’ve taken the photos for the 2015 acquisitions already, we may as well get started.

Though I quite like Van’s first dozen or so albums, I’ve never been a true believer in Astral Weeks. Sure, it’s nice and has some gorgeous acoustic bass playing, but does it deserve the breathless worship so often associated with it? Anyway, this is a deleted copy (see the hole top right) of an 80s re-issue. Given that the CD does not get many spins, this’ll do.

The UK folk-rock pioneers second album from 1971. An addition to the CD, this pressing on an obscure US label. Vinyl looks unplayed, but shows some manufacturing pock-marks that may mean unwanted percussion elements. I have to be in the mood for folk, and that hasn’t been happening a lot lately so this will sit on the ‘unplayed’ shelf with quite a few roots-music colleagues.

It’s fair to say that Ms Connection is more of a Pretenders fan than me. So I pretend that I bought this with her in mind, despite the fact that she doesn’t play records. (There’s a story there, but I’m not sure I want to tell it. It would advance the white-coated orderlies to within tackling distance).

Plugging a vinyl gap with something of a guilty pleasure.

Went to the Camberwell Market last Sunday. It’s huge and there are at least eight stall selling records, mostly at ridiculous prices only and idiot would pay. Think I’m kidding? Try The Wall for $68 in average condition. Or $50 for a beaten up copy of Led Zeppelin IV. This – the last Split Enz album from 1984 – was a bargain at $5.

Despite having this on CD and purchasing a nice re-issue from Quality Records sometime last year (it featured, coyly, in the ‘It’s in the bag’ quiz), when I was in that same emporium on Sunday I sprang for this slightly discoloured non-gatefold Australian pressing. Why? No idea. But at least I like the album…

Peddling rocked-up versions of ‘classic’ compositions, Dutch band Ekseption were treading similar turf to The Nice, only without the energy and invention. I recall buying a CD collection of the band some years ago and finding it so tedious it ended up in the Record Fair boxes. So why did I buy this vinyl ‘best of’? No idea, but the answer probably leads us towards the reason for this being the only edition of the purchase diary.

Oh, before I go. I do occasionally acquire CDs too. And sometimes music that isn’t rock, alt rock, progressive, jazz, fusion or electronic. I like the idea of actively expanding my musical vocabulary (or perhaps that should be literacy) and have recently been enjoying some 20th century western art music. This example was two bucks in an Op Shop. Bargain culture!