A LONG-PLAYING LOVE AFFAIR.

Byline: Jim Feehan The Register-Guard

John Summerton says rock 'n' roll saved his mortal soul.

Summerton on Sunday proudly displayed a coin from Alcoholics Anonymous proclaiming that he's been clean and sober for 26 years. His salvation: buying and selling long-playing records.

Summerton was among hundreds of record collectors, vendors and music buffs who gathered at the 18th annual Eugene Record Convention at the Hilton Eugene.

Summerton, who lives in Nampa, Idaho, shelled out $30 each for two LPs from an obscure 1970s-era band called Love. He also paid $4 to $5 each for about a dozen albums from the Beatles and AC/DC.

"Oh, my God, I could have bought a lot of drugs for what I spent on records today," Summerton said jokingly while handing a crisp $100 bill to a record dealer for his latest rock 'n' roll fix.

Summerton and his wife, Carolyn, were visiting their daughter Amy, a student at Portland State University, and decided to take in the record convention before returning to Idaho, Carolyn Summerton said.

Since she was knee-high to a stack of Pink Floyd albums, Amy has been dragged to record stores, swap meets and collectors' shows. A love of rock music runs in the family. Amy and her dad recently attended four concerts by the band Evanescence.

John Summerton said his collection totals about 20,000 records.

Daniel Berg of Eugene was looking to add to his music collection, too. Three years ago, a burglar robbed him of his computer and $3,000 worth of CDs, he said.

"I'm trying to build it back up," said Berg of his collection.

About 110 vendors offered records, tapes, videos, books and posters at Sunday's show. Original lava lamps sold for $12, Osbourne Family bobblehead pens fetched $5 and black light bulbs sold for $1.75 each.

The convention draws a smorgasbord of differing musical tastes and styles - everything from 20-something punk rockers in black spandex and fishnet stockings to graybearded baby boomers in tie-dyed shirts.

Lyle Nance of Eugene, who said he once saw Elvis Presley in concert in Portland and Eugene, paid $27 for a 78 of Presley's "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel," still in its original RCA Victor sleeve.

"I'm happy now," said Nance as he left the show.

One of the top attractions was a copy of the Beatles' infamous "butcher album" cover. In 1966, advance promotional copies of the Beatles' `Yesterday and Today' album featured the four Brits in butcher's smocks sitting amid chunks of meat and cigarette-burned doll parts. Capitol Records quickly recalled all copies of the album before they reached retailers and pasted a more innocuous picture of the Beatles sitting around a steamer trunk over the original cover.

Randy Foss, a Portland record dealer who has been to every Eugene Record Convention show, was asking $300 for the notorious cover.

"The best thing about the Beatles was that they were English but they sang American," said Foss, referring to the band's thick Liverpudlian accent.

In the back of the hotel's banquet hall, Mary Brensdal of South Beach was selling vintage 45s (among them a 1958 Sun Records recording of Roy Orbison's "Chicken-Hearted" for $40) and eight-track tapes.

Don't have an eight-track player any longer? No worries; Brensdal had two for $30 each.

"Kids now have no idea what an eight-track is," she said.

CAPTION(S):

About 110 vendors offered records, tapes, videos, books and posters of recording artists at the 18th annual Eugene Record Convention at the Hilton Eugene on Sunday.