COLLECTION SELECTION: James Deia
roud to present another primetime barkeep on the decks at Trenchermenthis Monday August 26, 2013. At Longman & Eagle, James Deiais a bev concoctor slash one of the few staff contributors to their top notch music program; plus he’s a former employee of Reckless Recordsand current employer of piping hot wax slabs for occasional DJ gigs at Rainbo Club, Big Star, and TheBurlington, qualifying him on all fronts to fit the hospitality-focused profile of our weekly listening party in the Trench Bar. In this piece we have the privilege of eternalizing some fine vinyl selections in his name via photographs taken at his apartment in Logan Square, scroll along for the skinny.
Walk-in jams were courtesy of this Kevin Ayersrecord, some beautiful raw soul rock work by the ex-Soft Machinebassist which was released by Harvest Recordsinside this linoleum-feeling plasticky purple sleeve.
One of the first things I noticed was the chair placement in his apartment, which put a fairly humorous image in my head. I imagined Deia sitting directly in front of his record player, day after day, listening to records and staring contemplatively at the stylus running along the groove, a hypnosis only broken every 25 minutes or so when the needle bumps into the center sticker.
When I started thumbing through his vinyl archive (IKEA brand, once again), I came across a bulk of Beach BoysLPs, which Deia discounted as somewhat worthless.
I tried to rush to the defense of the Beach Boys, but he was already one step ahead with this Holland LP, one of their druggy soft rock efforts from the early 70s, the exact type I would have referred to had he tried to discount their whole catalog. He threw it on and we basked in the haze of their invisible days.
One of Deia’s personal prize possessions - this original Deccapressing of the Small Faces’ s/t album, which features “You Need Lovin“ - a mind blowing (supposedly unrelated) precursor to Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” where the Faces’ Steve Marriott belts out “you need coolin, baby I’m not foolin, I’m gonna send ya, back to schoolin.” Plant, you plagiarizing bastard…
Another one of his personal favorites (and possibly mine too, after hearing for the first time here) by The Poppy Family - an R&B-ish country funk masterpiece, ripe with breaks for the plucking (apparently Dan the Automatorhas had his hands on this one). One of the biggest hits to come from Canada at the time, Which Way You Goin Billy? was produced by Terry Jacks, who when all was said in done was far more famous for his AM pop hit “Seasons in the Sun.”
This OblivionLP was the first piece of vinyl Deia voluntarily purchased. The acquisition took place at the Johann’s Facemerch table at Fireside Bowl back in the days when that sort of thing happened.
Another piece from his Johann’s Face collection, a split 7” featuring Scared of Chaka, an old Albuquerque NM garage punk outfit whose bass player David Yanul Hernandez went on to join The Shins.
Deia’s got a group of his own called Blasted Diplomats. Their last album was released by Chicago label Plus Tapes. They’ve got another one in the works, set to be released by another Chicago label, Blvd Records.
Deia had one of Blvd’s other releases on his shelf, this LP by Fake Limbs that dons the unmistakeable font styling of Chicago artist Ryan Duggan.
Why not one more Chicago-centric bit? Deia does occasional Bob DylanDJ sets, the flyers for which are drawn by his good friend, a legendary dude on the scene (which I admittedly assume, entirely because of his name) Psychedelic Steve.