I let my Wire obsession get the better of me last Friday. In addition to buying the double LP of their rarities compilation Turns and Strokes (which has excellent Wire versions of the later Colin Newman tracks “Safe,” “Lorries,” and a few others) and the Kidney Bongos LP, I found something that was filed next to a copy of Colin Newman’s Not To LP called C. Newman and Janet Smith. I’d never heard of it before, but the timeframe seemed right; Colin Newman was in Germany in the mid-1980s recording with his future wife’s band. C. Newman is credited with vocals and arrangement, which seems about right. So instead of thinking critically about the situation—“Sebastian, you have a limited record buying budget right now. Why take a chance on this when you could buy a Roxy Music LP and an XTC LP for the same price? Those are known quantities.”—I plopped it down with my other Wire-related pick-ups and an LP of Charles Mingus’s Mingus Ah Um. On the drive back from RRRecords in Lowell I started getting the sinking suspicion that this C. Newman was not in fact Colin, and when I got home I let a Google search inform me of my mistake.

Initially I wasn’t going to listen to the record out of spite, but when I saw this listing describe it as art-rock/jazz, I figured I’d give it a shot. Additionally, Janet Smith turned out to be Robert Smith’s sister. (Requisite Achewood quote: “It is silly to like The Cure!”) Halfway through the first song, I’ve learned that Chris Newman has an obnoxious baritone and worse lyrics, although those may very well be taking the piss. I wanted to listen to the whole thing, but could only make it through two-and-a-half songs. I may suffer through iPod Chicanery (some of the time), but this record was torture, especially since I paid full price for it. If you are a Cure super-completist, check eBay in the next few weeks.

With regard to my history of record-buying mistakes, I remember being completely ashamed when I purchased a second copy of Idlewild’s Hope Is Important from Reckless in Chicago under the false impression that I didn’t own it. For me, record buying mistakes are an issue of memory, not taste. Finding out that a new record doesn’t meet my expectations has largely disappeared in the age of file-sharing, but even before that era I viewed that experience as a learning process. My biggest concern is my capacity to bring whatever knowledge I have from reading reviews, listening to records, getting recommendations, etc. into the record store. As my record collection has ballooned to almost 1700 items, my ability to remember which Elvis Costello LPs I already own has diminished. Given that I’ve been reading a biography of Wire, I probably should have thought a bit more critically about the suspect origins of this LP. If nothing else, I should be proud of the fact that I can only think of a couple of similar errors in my history of record buying.