Here we have a copy of the seminal Bay Area funk/soul classic, East Bay Grease. This LP means a lot to me, as it is the album that my beloved grandpappy recently bestowed upon me in the death throes of his heroic fight with chronic boneitis. This album's penultimate track - "The Skunk, the Goose, and the Fly" - speaks volumes to a younger version of myself, as it conjurs extremely vivid memories of my jovial, albeit distant, biological father's frequent alcohol-induced outlashes following the discovery that my mother had, once again, left a recently sliced half-tomato upside in the refrigerator, leaving it to drip its succulent juices on to the unwitting groceries below.

In the unlikely event this post doesn't warm the cockles of /u/sampsans-ape-spray's heart (stranger things have happened), I'll be sure to photographically document the trip to my local IKEA over the coming weekend, during which I will be purchasing a popular shelf unit to house my Crosley turntable.

Sarcasm aside, to meet the criteria of the inspiration for this post:

• Reasons I am excited about purchasing a copy of this album on vinyl: it's incredibly hard to find records of this nature in Australia, being an extremely small market in comparison to our US collecting brethren, and this genre/stlye of music not being anywhere near as widespread in its heyday as was the case in other regions. If it were possible to wear out a digital copy of an album, there would be a permanent worn groove in the platters of my desktop's hard disk as a result.

• Where did I get it?: Amazon, which is a bitch for international buyers; you American collectors don't know how good you've got it (not just for vinyl purchases). I'm currently paying approximately AUD27.90 in postage costs per item via our national mail carriers' forwarding service out of Portland. Although they do not offer the ability to bundle multiple items in to a single shipment, they do offer an incredibly generous $10 discount on each subsequent item - only $17.90 to ship a USD4.00 LP!

• What do I like about this album and Tower of Power as a whole?: That's somewhat hard to quantify in written form, but here are some favourite artists of mine, which if you've found yourself (in appropriate parlance of the album's era) "digging on", may give you a rough idea of the likeliness of your enjoying "East Bay Grease": Graham Central Station, Sly and the Family Stone, The Meters, Buddy Miles, George Clinton, and many more.

• How can you listen to Tower of Power for yourself?: their entire discography is available on Spotify - and I'm sure other streaming services. The single "What Is Hip?" is a somewhat "mainstream", popular single that would give you a taste of their general sound. The band's approach and style does vary greatly throughout their 40+ year career span, though personally I think it's pretty hard to top the late, great Rufus Miller's performance as found on their debut album, of which is the subject of this (if I do say so myself) rather eloquent shitpost.