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What’s up Sorry State readers? I hope everyone is having a nice week. While organizing some of my records, it really struck me how much stuff I get from the bargain bins. It’s hard not to when working with a walking musical encyclopedia like Dominic. He’ll pull out some random $4 record and be like “have you heard this? You should get this,” and he’s always right. So many of my favorite records have come from the bins. You start to get excited about random shit in bargain bins. Dom and I were excited last week cause we found a record consisting of just train sounds and noises. It wouldn’t be the same if this record costed $30 instead of $3. It always confuses me when people ONLY buy brand new sealed records. We could have a record someone is looking for and you’ll pull out a copy and they’ll say “oh it’s used? I only want a new copy.” To each their own, but I think it’s funny when someone will pass over a $15 copy of a record they want, but would happily pay $50 for a brand new RSD release of the exact same record. Not for nothing either, but I’ve had worse luck recently buying brand new sealed copies of records that are warped, scratched up, scuffy, etc., whereas with a used record I know what I’m getting into. I digress, but I had to get on my soapbox for a minute about the often overlooked bargain bin, which leads me to the record I’m writing about today, The Sons of the Pioneers - Cool Water, a collection of classic western favorites. Dom and I found this gem the other day and decided to give it a spin. What first caught my attention was the title track. I’m familiar with the Marty Robbins version, which is one of my favorites of his, so I figured I’d give this one a chance. Plus, who doesn’t love cowboy songs? Listening to this makes it feel like you’ve been sittin in the saddle riding along the trail all day. My favorite track on here would probably be Blue Shadows on the Trails, a song I wasn’t familiar with before but instantly became hooked on. It’s a slower, smoother ballad, but it has this really cool vocal harmony in the background that goes on throughout the song that sounds like a steam engine whistle or something. It has an almost dreamy sound to it. Anyways, my main take away from listening to this record is that cowboys really like to sing about little doggies gettin along.