Turn On The Turntable And-A Turn Me Loose

Recently I decided that I needed something better to listen to my records on than the simple mono portable player I received as a Christmas present when I was in my teens. So I did a little bit of looking around and decided on this Pyle turntable, recommended by the Turntable Doctor at Jerry's Records in Squirrel Hill. When I finally got a chance to check it out, the first record I played was the Pale Bride picture sleeve 7" by the Von Bondies, shown below.

This photo is a reenactment. 

As an aside, I had never before heard the song that makes up the B-side, 'Falling In Love'. It's just as good, and I don't entirely see why it wasn't on the VBs' last album along with the A-side. 

I'm not much into collecting singles, unless I get a good deal or find something that was lost to me a long time ago (or more likely, both at the same time). But I have to say I've made a nice beginner's collection of picture sleeves so far. I've got the aforementioned Von Bondies 7", a sleeve but no disc for 'Hey Hey My My' by Neil Young, The Cars' 'You Are The Girl' (I had the single, and my friend Jeremy later stumbled on the matching sleeve as we were looking for the Neil sleeve), 'Every Breath You Take' from The Police (and the B-side, 'Murder By Numbers' is brilliant), and I'm on the lookout for XTC's 'Making Plans For Nigel' and need to go back to Jerry's to pick up the Weird Al Yankovic 'Like A Surgeon' sleeve I found, but couldn't take home with me. 

I had also started to convert my grandfather's old country records to digital, to make CD's for him, but after a few tests it seems that I could really use a pre-amp. The blasted thing is supposed to have one built in, but it only seems to work on the USB output. I'm not using the USB output because the computer I'm plugging it into has a multitude of issues, and USB connectivity may be one of them. I'll probably still need a pre-amp for setting it up with speakers.