As noted in last Sunday’s post by MBIP pal and Contributing Writer, Craig Moore, last Sunday was the 30th anniversary of the Collectible Music Show. This record/music convention takes place in Springfield one day and Peoria the next. I haven’t been to one of these in over 20 years and thought I’d go check out the Peoria portion last Sunday. If you missed the show, you can come along on a virtual visit right now, so forget about those MP3's and digital music for awhile and let's go look at some real records!

As you can see by the sign, we're here at The Record Show at The Travel Lodge, which used to be the Grand Hotel.

Spell check alert!

Welcome!

As you can see, they've spared no expense on the exclusive signage for the show!

Looks like it's right over here...

Thar she blows!

It's in a really nice ballroom and there's a decent crowd here, nice to see that!

And here's the ringmaster and host for this show, Craig Moore, local musician, producer, entrepreneur and owner of Younger Than Yesterday Records. Always great to see Craig!

Craig introduced me to Shirley and Michelle, a mother and daughter who each had their homes destroyed almost a year ago when tornadoes ravaged Washington, Illinois.

Michelle showed me a photo of Shirley's house which was reduced to rubble. Luckily both women and their families survived and Michelle has rebuilt and Shirley is in the process of rebuilding, best of luck to both of them!

Here's Craig's area for the show, let's go check out his wall of sound!

Craig has multiple copies of the ultra-rare Beatles, "Butcher Block Album," Yesterday And Today, for sale, in all stages, both peeled and unpeeled.

There's something about this album, "Sorry, (I Ran All The Way Home)," that cracks me up. I don't know why, maybe it's the weird use of parantheses or the tie and sweater combo on the fellows, but I got a good chuckle out of this!

Here's another album rarity that Craig has for sale, "The Beatles Vs. The Four Seasons" on VJ records.

And while we're talking about super-rare and collectible records, here's Craig clutching a pile of those hard to find 48 records that were mentioned in the great article that Thomas Bruch wrote about Craig and the show in the PJ Star last week.

Here's Craig with Kazuki Fujimura, who came all the way from Tokyo for the show! Kazuki is part of Disk Union. Great to meet him and to have an international guest at the show!

There's lots of album flipping going on in the bins in here, something you can't do with digital music!

In addition to albums and 48's, there's also bins of 45 RPM records for sale in here.

Here's another wall lined with colorful album cover art.

There's also rows and stacks of compact discs to dig through in here as well.

Bob's a dealer at the show and he's holding up another rare Beatles album on the VJ label that's selling for over 200 bucks. I had this record as a kid and I think I traded it for a bag of pot in high school. Insert Homer Simpson sound here.

"Thick As A Brick" box set alert! This thing was dangerous as an album, it's downright criminal as a box set!

This is one of my favorite album covers of all time. There's two reasons for this...

But I'll never tell.

File this under, "great minds think alike." PJ Star photographer Austin Humphreys took some photos at the show and posted a gallery last Sunday. We both happened to take a shot of this same section of albums from the show. Check out the fourth photo in his gallery. Hey, maybe I could get a job taking photos for the Peoria Journal Star...oh, wait a second, you don't just walk in off the street and take photos for the Peoria Journal Star! What was I thinking?

In addition to records and CD's there was also non-listening items for sale such as these rock and roll t-shirts...

And these WLS radio surveys, wow do those bring back memories!

Here's something you don't see everyday, Lita Ford and Paul Anka next to each other.

Here's a shot from the back of the ballroom...hey is that kid brushing his teeth? I hope he's not near the punk rock section!

Uh, oh...check out the album that's right next to Blondie...

It's the Luther Allison album, "Gonna Be A Live One in Here Tonight!" that Craig produced and wrote about in last Sunday's post. Looks like we've come full circle and that's a perfect way to end this record convention post. We'll see you all tomorrow!

I need that record,
I need it now, now, now!

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!

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Record Art by Jaws The Cabbie

Jaws the Cabbie sent in a piece of record art to go along with this post and it turned out great! Wonderful work, Jaws, thanks!

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Today’s post was brought to you by New Amsterdam. Check them and all the other fine businesses helping to support this blog over at the MBIP Bucket List Page. Your Daily Random Linkage awaits you at the bottom of the that page as well!

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