Earlier this week I retweeted a link to a Bandcamp article discussing the early career of Sonny Rollins saying that his album Saxophone Colossus was the key that unlocked Jazz for me. I’ll stand by that claim. It really clicked when I spun a few Rollins records for the first time. However, I had snuck over the gate 6 years ago to marvel at something I still don’t fully understand. That foray into the unknown was prompted by the news of Ornette Coleman’s passing which passed across the break room TV screen while I listened to The Ventures Live In Japan ’65 of all things. With some minor ceremony I returned to my desk for a Thursday afternoon slog and cued up the ’59 landmark The Shape of Jazz to Come. In remembrance of Ornette’s passing and that subtly pivotal moment for me as a capital letters music guy I spent the last few days listening to a few records from the avant-garde upstart that I had not heard yet.

By no means is this meant to be a guide through the Saxophonist’s career. These records aren’t cornerstones of Jazz or artistic reinventions for Coleman. They are however, very good.

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“Oh, it’s that record club. The first nine were only a penny. Then they jacked up the price! [breaks down crying] It’s not fair! It’s not fair, I tells ya!” Record Club will be a recurring feature on not just records I love but a love letter to the physical format. Collecting runs deep in my family, so expect to see lots of cool finds here. “I joined a record club. They hounded me for years.”

For my inaugural “Record Club” post it is only fitting that we take a look at the recently reissued And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea from DC’s seminal Spazzcore/Mech-Core outfit Frodus. It’s my favorite record of all time, for reasons we will get into later in this post, so you can imagine my excitement opening my door to find this package waiting for me. Ironically, the “certified frustration-free packaging” proved harder to open than a typical LP mailer. Go figure.

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