It's so very hard to concentrate. After the rush of the build up to the year end last year, a lot of other things went on hold while I shopped frantically to get my wantlist down below 900 items. Since the new year my concentration has gone back to the neglected stuff, which included my best mate Andy and I creating some music again under our old band name Personality Crisis.
While that has been great, the 4AD music collection has suffered in the meantime. Pickings at the moment seem quite thin on the ground. There seems to be little to nothing coming from record fairs, but that seems to be nothing new. Ebay has become swamped in the last year or so with newspaper clippings, full page magazine spreads and promo photo's being sold, that it takes so much longer to sift through the listings.
5 years ago, an international search on ebay for the word 4AD would bring back around three to four hundred items. Today, searching for 4AD on ebay worldwide, 8,279 items are listed. This has doubled in the last year alone. While there are a few non 4AD items in there, such as vehicle parts and old coins, the vast majority is the 4AD label. On a search you can filter this down, but I have found that sometimes the best bargains are to be found where items have been either wrongly listed, or listed with little detail that the filters could easily take out.
Occasionally, confronted with these huge and growing numbers, I change my default sorting and have a quick look to see what is at the top of the price list. This weeks shock is a seller asking £879.88 ($1298) for a Pixies DVD. How much??? There's nothing special about it, the same one can be found for £1.56 with free postage. I can only assume that the seller has put the decimal in the wrong place, although even at $12.98 it's still overpriced.
Of course, a larger number of listings, means more choice and greater availability, which is a good thing. It just means that more time is needed to get around the newspaper clippings, the bad rated sellers, the sellers that charge a fortune for delivery etc etc. I try and not to go above the ten pounds mark, as there are a lot of overpriced stuff that starts to fill out the listings above ten pounds. Still, there are some lovely gems to be found even now.
On another note, I have noticed that I'm getting quite the collection of secondary items again. These are items I have bought and haven't been as stated by the seller and I end up keeping them even though I already have a copy because the seller just writes them off instead of paying for the return postage. I also have some duplicates because of my own arse ups, buying something and not thoroughly checking that I already have it. I think I will have to kick myself into gear and get these given away to some wanting reader for free. How about it, anyone intersted?
I have also been meaning to compile a list of some interesting 4AD uk release tell tale signs on here, which I must do very soon. Signs such as the introduction of barcodes, see through cassettes, re-release on CD etc. There are some interesting changes on the uk 4AD releases which can be helpful to define an original from a re-release. That would also mean that I need to kick myself up the bottom to rummage through my collection to find and accurately publish my findings to you all. I shall get onto it
Signing out for now, please check out my music page on Facebook and post an opinion on there if you wish.....
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Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Wednesday, 18 March 2015
Wednesday, 18 February 2015
I'm going to stop sleeping, I need more time
I've lost a little momentum over the last couple of weeks. I managed to get the wantlist down below 900, even though I missed my own deadline for the end of the 2014 year.
My concentration has been diverted into the excitement of creating some new music for the first time in over ten years and the work is coming along nicely.
On Saturday I visited the nearby city of Derby to go to a record fair being held in the city centre. The fair was organised by VIP record fairs who hold some larger fairs down in London on occasion, so it was a good chance to see if the traders who work with VIP are any good and may give me incentive to check out one of the larger London fairs one day.
The record fair was quite small, held in a church and had around 20 traders. I just happened to start immediately on a stall that specialised in newer music... punk, new wave, indie and alternative. He had loads of stock, lots of really interesting stuff. It took me about an hour and a half to go through his entire stock. About half way through my search, the vendor started to chat with me and I told him what mostly my 900 item list consisted of which is mainly non-uk 4AD releases, to which he replied "goodness me, the standard UK 4AD issues are difficult enough to come by of late, you won't have much luck with the foreign releases". My heart slumped as I finished off looking through his stock. He was right. There wasn't a single thing at the whole fair. I would have come away empty handed if it wasn't for finding a sealed re-release of The Cure's album Disintegration that I needed to buy as the picture disc I have sounds awful under the needle.
Once again I was walking away disappointed, except for the fact that a couple of the traders actually did have some interesting stock (for a change). I had also planned to check out the local 2nd hand record shop in Derby, but was disappointed to find that the stock there was very typical, badly stored and overly priced. I always find it soul destroying when perusing through stacks of easy listening, soft rock and mass produced pop albums, knowing that which each finger movement the reality of finding anything remotely alternative is extremely slim. I was about to give up when I noticed a small stack of tape cassettes and among them the album Pod by the Breeders. I knew I had it already, but I thought "What the heck" and decided just to have a quick look as you never know.
To my surprise it was the Spanish release! What the bright blue hectum's rectum is a Spanish Breeders cassette tape doing in among the dreary selection of Derby's yesterdays? I've no idea, but I snapped it up. At least I wasn't going home totally empty handed.
Moving on, in the last couple of weeks I've been having second thoughts about using Discogs. Many of the people I know either steer clear of Discogs because of it's reputation, or did use it and got put off and now stay away from it. Discogs is a great online tool, a tool I would love to use more but struggle to use to it's full at the moment because of time constraints. As you know, I'm spreading myself thin, between the book I'm attempting to write, this 4AD project, my Tuesday night album listening, being a husband (I would be an idiot to live in a bubble), trying to lose weight and now the resurrection of writing music again with Personality Crisis. I also feel the need to fit in my love of movies and Formula 1 racing when I get the chance. There's no complaining here, if I didn't enjoy these things, I would be stupid to spend time on them.
What I'm trying to say is that while some Discogs users would happily spend many hours a week on the site, I have my limits. So getting hassled to keep going back on and add or finely correct a submission starts to get quite annoying. I try and put in the bares bones of a submission if it doesn't exist, I think it's important that if a release is missing from Discogs and I have it, I have a responsibility to add it to Discogs. The problem is, is that there are too many superior users that think only a 100 percent, fully submitted and entirely correct submission should be allowed, all or nothing. As well as that, a user should submit a full submission with the full understanding of every rule and a full knowledge of every Label, Company, Artist and technical knowledge of how the industry has worked for the past 100 years and that the responsibility of a submission is solely down the to original submitter.
Needless to say, my judgment doesn't seem to be good enough and bowing to someone else's judgement isn't good enough either on Discogs. So I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place and getting to a point where I just feel like using Discogs for what I can selfishly get out of it, which goes against my nature in an environment that supposed to be for sharing and for the greater good. Oh well
This last week has seen my best friend Andy and I putting the last few touches on our new song under the old band name Personality Crisis. This has meant that I have also been working frantically to get a Facebook page up and running and some of the old songs onto Bandcamp for folk to download. That also means designing a cover for the new song and some extra little titbits like banners etc. As I've said before, this takes time away from other things, so my 4AD shopping has suffered lately. It has been many years since I last tried to promote the band online, probably ten years ago, and so much has changed. The market is saturated and I wonder how a young new band can get themselves heard nowadays. And of course, there's so much time needed to devote to it properly, I don't think I can give our music the attention it deserves, which is such a shame, as what we do is so good. Oh oh, the modesty alarm is going off......
My concentration has been diverted into the excitement of creating some new music for the first time in over ten years and the work is coming along nicely.
On Saturday I visited the nearby city of Derby to go to a record fair being held in the city centre. The fair was organised by VIP record fairs who hold some larger fairs down in London on occasion, so it was a good chance to see if the traders who work with VIP are any good and may give me incentive to check out one of the larger London fairs one day.
The record fair was quite small, held in a church and had around 20 traders. I just happened to start immediately on a stall that specialised in newer music... punk, new wave, indie and alternative. He had loads of stock, lots of really interesting stuff. It took me about an hour and a half to go through his entire stock. About half way through my search, the vendor started to chat with me and I told him what mostly my 900 item list consisted of which is mainly non-uk 4AD releases, to which he replied "goodness me, the standard UK 4AD issues are difficult enough to come by of late, you won't have much luck with the foreign releases". My heart slumped as I finished off looking through his stock. He was right. There wasn't a single thing at the whole fair. I would have come away empty handed if it wasn't for finding a sealed re-release of The Cure's album Disintegration that I needed to buy as the picture disc I have sounds awful under the needle.
Once again I was walking away disappointed, except for the fact that a couple of the traders actually did have some interesting stock (for a change). I had also planned to check out the local 2nd hand record shop in Derby, but was disappointed to find that the stock there was very typical, badly stored and overly priced. I always find it soul destroying when perusing through stacks of easy listening, soft rock and mass produced pop albums, knowing that which each finger movement the reality of finding anything remotely alternative is extremely slim. I was about to give up when I noticed a small stack of tape cassettes and among them the album Pod by the Breeders. I knew I had it already, but I thought "What the heck" and decided just to have a quick look as you never know.
To my surprise it was the Spanish release! What the bright blue hectum's rectum is a Spanish Breeders cassette tape doing in among the dreary selection of Derby's yesterdays? I've no idea, but I snapped it up. At least I wasn't going home totally empty handed.
Moving on, in the last couple of weeks I've been having second thoughts about using Discogs. Many of the people I know either steer clear of Discogs because of it's reputation, or did use it and got put off and now stay away from it. Discogs is a great online tool, a tool I would love to use more but struggle to use to it's full at the moment because of time constraints. As you know, I'm spreading myself thin, between the book I'm attempting to write, this 4AD project, my Tuesday night album listening, being a husband (I would be an idiot to live in a bubble), trying to lose weight and now the resurrection of writing music again with Personality Crisis. I also feel the need to fit in my love of movies and Formula 1 racing when I get the chance. There's no complaining here, if I didn't enjoy these things, I would be stupid to spend time on them.
What I'm trying to say is that while some Discogs users would happily spend many hours a week on the site, I have my limits. So getting hassled to keep going back on and add or finely correct a submission starts to get quite annoying. I try and put in the bares bones of a submission if it doesn't exist, I think it's important that if a release is missing from Discogs and I have it, I have a responsibility to add it to Discogs. The problem is, is that there are too many superior users that think only a 100 percent, fully submitted and entirely correct submission should be allowed, all or nothing. As well as that, a user should submit a full submission with the full understanding of every rule and a full knowledge of every Label, Company, Artist and technical knowledge of how the industry has worked for the past 100 years and that the responsibility of a submission is solely down the to original submitter.
Needless to say, my judgment doesn't seem to be good enough and bowing to someone else's judgement isn't good enough either on Discogs. So I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place and getting to a point where I just feel like using Discogs for what I can selfishly get out of it, which goes against my nature in an environment that supposed to be for sharing and for the greater good. Oh well
This last week has seen my best friend Andy and I putting the last few touches on our new song under the old band name Personality Crisis. This has meant that I have also been working frantically to get a Facebook page up and running and some of the old songs onto Bandcamp for folk to download. That also means designing a cover for the new song and some extra little titbits like banners etc. As I've said before, this takes time away from other things, so my 4AD shopping has suffered lately. It has been many years since I last tried to promote the band online, probably ten years ago, and so much has changed. The market is saturated and I wonder how a young new band can get themselves heard nowadays. And of course, there's so much time needed to devote to it properly, I don't think I can give our music the attention it deserves, which is such a shame, as what we do is so good. Oh oh, the modesty alarm is going off......
Thursday, 13 November 2014
No Bloggin makes Jonny a very dull boy
I can't believe that I have left it this long to post, I'm so sorry everyone. I'm still here and still plowing through what seems like such an impossible mission. The last few months have been depressing in terms of progress. While I have been acquiring lots of items and some really cool stuff, I have also been discovering lots of releases I didn't even have in my list of items to acquire. This is a monumental project, which as is usual, not helped at all by the traders and shops in this country.
During my absence and in line with a previous blog entry, I had a brief look into any record listening evenings that someone may be running locally. These are similar to book clubs where people from the group nominate an album and everyone switches off phones and distractions and just listens to the music together. I love that idea, but couldn't find anything like it around. I asked one of the local record shop owners if they had thought of doing something along those lines in their shop one evening and they had tried it, but because of the minimal floor space and no comfortable seating, a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere just couldn't be correctly attained and so after just two attempts it stopped.
For the concept to work, a club or pub would be needed, preferably with good vinyl audio equipment, with sofa's and relaxing atmosphere and somewhere away from the noise and hustle of the town centre. Instead of aggressively pursuing anywhere, I just put aside one evening a week to switch off the TV, get the vinyl out, switch off the phone, laptop etc and just devote myself to listening to two albums in the comfort of my living room. At first it was difficult to make myself do it each week, on my own for the evening and the TV being the easier option, but I've persisted. Over the last couple of months a couple of times, a friend has dropped in and brought an album with them. My friend Andy brought a Pete Bardens album one evening and another friend Daniel brought in Alison Moyet's recent album, on red vinyl! The atmosphere is perfect at home and the music has been diverse, but mostly it's been a singular affair. So if anyone ever fancies joining me and bringing along an album, then get in touch on Facebook, it's becoming an open house if anyone is interested.
Listening to music in this room is just awesome
Over the past few months I have been reading a book called Last Shop Standing about the success and fall of independent record shops here in the UK. While it has been a fascinating and humorous read and I can mostly agree that the major record companies have been their own worst enemies, I have found it funny from the book that the writer seems to believe that record companies have some sort of obligation to keep independent record shops in business. This year has shown to me how much independent music traders in this country are their own worst enemy.
In September, my wife and I were visiting friends in Bracknell for the weekend. Bracknell is only about ten miles away from the city of Reading and on the very same weekend, boldly advertised in my monthly Record Collector, was an international mammoth record fair, boasting 120 plus stalls. It was an opportunity not to miss, surely from 120 plus stalls and not forgetting the words "International" and "Mammoth", I would have every hope of snatching a good few items from my list of near 950 releases that I still needed to acquire. On the Sunday, I cheekily made my apologies to my hosts and drove off to get there at doors opening at 9am. I was surprised that there was practically no-one outside the venue which was a sports leisure centre, except for a couple of people going to use the sports facilities.
The record fair was in one of the indoor courts, which on approach looked a lot smaller than I expected. I was the only person at the entrance point and paid my entrance fee to find at the very most there was only about 30 traders in the hall. Some had a single table, some had a couple of tables and the odd few had three tables. Even counting up the tables I couldn't get anywhere near 120 plus, just in case "stalls" meant something other than the number of traders I was expecting. I was there, so I thought I would make the most of it and spent 2 hours rummaging around the stock......NOTHING, Nada, Zip....Bugger all. How, out of a list of 950 releases, I couldn't find a single thing, baffled me. Although if I collected standard rock albums, sixties crooner albums or chart hitting punk singles I would have been in my element as I hardly saw anything I've not seen a million times before.
To say I was disillusioned would be an understatement. Non of the traders sounded foreign at all, they all had quite strong English accents and I didn't see a single mammoth! The large fair was my last hope of being able to find records the old fashioned way with some human interaction, but it seems more and more unlikely. I sent an email to the organisers of the record fair asking them why they advertised having so many stalls when there was nowhere near the number and the fact that I travelled half way across the country for it (kind of). I haven't had any reply, unsurprisingly.
Last week I had a holiday in Scotland. Whenever I go anywhere, I always make a list of any records shops in the area that I might take time to visit. There is a record shop of 35 years trading that sits in the heart of Dundee called Grouchos that I noticed and had to give a try whilst out that way. I was shocked to see record sleeves in racks, without any cover protection, with price stickers stuck on the sleeves. They were all battered and tattered and I hate to think what damage would be done when trying to take those price stickers off. Some more collectable items were in plastic sleeves on high shelves, one of which was a Prince Purple Rain album on purple vinyl which I just had to have. But apart from this one album, that wasn't even on my list of wanted releases, none of the 950 releases I was looking for was in store. It's no wonder record shops have nearly disappeared over the last 20 years.
In my usual attempt to constantly revive my interest and motivation and keep my fervour alive, a couple of months ago I wondered if I could get my list of wanted releases below 900 by the end of the year. As a simple idea it seemed like an easy target, but it quickly seemed more of a challenge than I initially thought. I'm constantly finding more stuff to acquire and this year for the first time, the number of purchases outweighed the number of discoveries. I've shown this before, but it will be critical over the next few weeks. This shows the number of releases I have found I still need to acquire, recorded as often as possible in a spreadsheet a few times a week
Over the last couple of months, I managed to get closer and closer to that 900 mark well ahead of time to hit my target. But over the last couple of weeks there seems to have been a rush of releases I have discovered that I didn't know about before that I have had to add to my list of wanted releases. The target has started to look difficult to accomplish. I'm now at 928 releases. If I had an endless supply of cash, I suppose the 900 target would be a joke, but I have to keep a level head and buy only at the most reasonable price I can.
So, up to the end of the year, I'm going to do a running blog entry. Starting at the next release I acquire, I will start a new blog entry and add to it most days as I get another release (or perhaps even when I don't) on the run up to the end of the year. Ok, it's a poor attempt to make up to you all for not posting for such a long time, make up for it by going over the top. Hopefully it will give an insight into the day to day struggle of finding what sometimes seams like the impossible. Watch this space.....well not this literal space, the space above the next blog entry!
During my absence and in line with a previous blog entry, I had a brief look into any record listening evenings that someone may be running locally. These are similar to book clubs where people from the group nominate an album and everyone switches off phones and distractions and just listens to the music together. I love that idea, but couldn't find anything like it around. I asked one of the local record shop owners if they had thought of doing something along those lines in their shop one evening and they had tried it, but because of the minimal floor space and no comfortable seating, a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere just couldn't be correctly attained and so after just two attempts it stopped.
For the concept to work, a club or pub would be needed, preferably with good vinyl audio equipment, with sofa's and relaxing atmosphere and somewhere away from the noise and hustle of the town centre. Instead of aggressively pursuing anywhere, I just put aside one evening a week to switch off the TV, get the vinyl out, switch off the phone, laptop etc and just devote myself to listening to two albums in the comfort of my living room. At first it was difficult to make myself do it each week, on my own for the evening and the TV being the easier option, but I've persisted. Over the last couple of months a couple of times, a friend has dropped in and brought an album with them. My friend Andy brought a Pete Bardens album one evening and another friend Daniel brought in Alison Moyet's recent album, on red vinyl! The atmosphere is perfect at home and the music has been diverse, but mostly it's been a singular affair. So if anyone ever fancies joining me and bringing along an album, then get in touch on Facebook, it's becoming an open house if anyone is interested.
Listening to music in this room is just awesome
Over the past few months I have been reading a book called Last Shop Standing about the success and fall of independent record shops here in the UK. While it has been a fascinating and humorous read and I can mostly agree that the major record companies have been their own worst enemies, I have found it funny from the book that the writer seems to believe that record companies have some sort of obligation to keep independent record shops in business. This year has shown to me how much independent music traders in this country are their own worst enemy.
In September, my wife and I were visiting friends in Bracknell for the weekend. Bracknell is only about ten miles away from the city of Reading and on the very same weekend, boldly advertised in my monthly Record Collector, was an international mammoth record fair, boasting 120 plus stalls. It was an opportunity not to miss, surely from 120 plus stalls and not forgetting the words "International" and "Mammoth", I would have every hope of snatching a good few items from my list of near 950 releases that I still needed to acquire. On the Sunday, I cheekily made my apologies to my hosts and drove off to get there at doors opening at 9am. I was surprised that there was practically no-one outside the venue which was a sports leisure centre, except for a couple of people going to use the sports facilities.
The record fair was in one of the indoor courts, which on approach looked a lot smaller than I expected. I was the only person at the entrance point and paid my entrance fee to find at the very most there was only about 30 traders in the hall. Some had a single table, some had a couple of tables and the odd few had three tables. Even counting up the tables I couldn't get anywhere near 120 plus, just in case "stalls" meant something other than the number of traders I was expecting. I was there, so I thought I would make the most of it and spent 2 hours rummaging around the stock......NOTHING, Nada, Zip....Bugger all. How, out of a list of 950 releases, I couldn't find a single thing, baffled me. Although if I collected standard rock albums, sixties crooner albums or chart hitting punk singles I would have been in my element as I hardly saw anything I've not seen a million times before.
To say I was disillusioned would be an understatement. Non of the traders sounded foreign at all, they all had quite strong English accents and I didn't see a single mammoth! The large fair was my last hope of being able to find records the old fashioned way with some human interaction, but it seems more and more unlikely. I sent an email to the organisers of the record fair asking them why they advertised having so many stalls when there was nowhere near the number and the fact that I travelled half way across the country for it (kind of). I haven't had any reply, unsurprisingly.
Last week I had a holiday in Scotland. Whenever I go anywhere, I always make a list of any records shops in the area that I might take time to visit. There is a record shop of 35 years trading that sits in the heart of Dundee called Grouchos that I noticed and had to give a try whilst out that way. I was shocked to see record sleeves in racks, without any cover protection, with price stickers stuck on the sleeves. They were all battered and tattered and I hate to think what damage would be done when trying to take those price stickers off. Some more collectable items were in plastic sleeves on high shelves, one of which was a Prince Purple Rain album on purple vinyl which I just had to have. But apart from this one album, that wasn't even on my list of wanted releases, none of the 950 releases I was looking for was in store. It's no wonder record shops have nearly disappeared over the last 20 years.
In my usual attempt to constantly revive my interest and motivation and keep my fervour alive, a couple of months ago I wondered if I could get my list of wanted releases below 900 by the end of the year. As a simple idea it seemed like an easy target, but it quickly seemed more of a challenge than I initially thought. I'm constantly finding more stuff to acquire and this year for the first time, the number of purchases outweighed the number of discoveries. I've shown this before, but it will be critical over the next few weeks. This shows the number of releases I have found I still need to acquire, recorded as often as possible in a spreadsheet a few times a week
Over the last couple of months, I managed to get closer and closer to that 900 mark well ahead of time to hit my target. But over the last couple of weeks there seems to have been a rush of releases I have discovered that I didn't know about before that I have had to add to my list of wanted releases. The target has started to look difficult to accomplish. I'm now at 928 releases. If I had an endless supply of cash, I suppose the 900 target would be a joke, but I have to keep a level head and buy only at the most reasonable price I can.
So, up to the end of the year, I'm going to do a running blog entry. Starting at the next release I acquire, I will start a new blog entry and add to it most days as I get another release (or perhaps even when I don't) on the run up to the end of the year. Ok, it's a poor attempt to make up to you all for not posting for such a long time, make up for it by going over the top. Hopefully it will give an insight into the day to day struggle of finding what sometimes seams like the impossible. Watch this space.....well not this literal space, the space above the next blog entry!
Thursday, 1 August 2013
What colour is a lazy streak?
So what is happening of late. Well I went through a spate for a short time of finding lots of collection pieces on Ebay for a very reasonable price. For two weeks I was struggling to keep up with the flow of reasonable priced items on offer, and then with a bump just stopped. This wasn't from a single source but from all over the place, from the UK, from Europe and even from the US with a decent postage amount. Why the sudden peak of items and then hardly anything again, I have no idea.
Needless to say that my usual roller-coaster ride of interest and then general annoyance with myself and this stupid idea of doing this collection has made it's usual route of peaks and troughs. At the moment I'm in-between moods. Trying to persuade myself what a wonderful thing it is to collect such wonderful music and respect such great artists and then thinking that perhaps I should be slapping myself around the back of the head with a very large wet haddock for taking such a journey on in the first place.
I'm generally a lazy person. Being lazy and sitting on my fat arse is the major default setting for me. After being at work all day, the ONLY thing I want to do when I get home is sit in a nice comfy chair. Perhaps I may be persuaded to switch the TV on, maybe I will browse the interweb, but mostly it's pastimes that involve sitting. I reckon my brain also has the same desire. My brain also goes to work all day and wants to just go home and relax in a bowl of comfy warm mush. Even while writing this, my brain has had enough of working for the day and wants to just do as little as possible. That's not actually easy for me, I have a brain that never shuts up or winds down, I'm mentally on the go all the time, so my brain also nags me to just slow down a little by doing as little as possible. This of course includes doing this blog, or updating facebook, or joining in on a forum I'm a member of and, of course, all the other things I want to do generally in my life, such as sending an email to a friend and just staying in touch.
So now that I've put myself through a bought of flagellation and got my brain in gear (but still with fat arse firmly planted on sofa leather), what have I accomplished or found out since I last posted so very long ago. Well in the news......is the soon to be released 4AD book by journalist Martin Aston. Called "Facing the Other Way, the Story of 4AD". Set to be released on September 26th 2013, it will be the first official account of the label we love. Focusing on mostly the first 20 years of 4AD's history, it has the prestigious boast of having the cover designed by Vaughan Oliver and will also be available as a limited edition with 2 CD's of some of the labels musical history. Info here :
As a warning to all those looking to try and pre-order the the book, be aware that Amazon do not have copies of the limited edition on order to sell to pre-orders made on Amazon. Amazon may get some copies if the publishers don't sell all the limited editions and have some left to pass on. I fell into this trap with Amazon before when they list something they may likely never get their hands on......so buyers beware.
On a slightly different note, I've started to notice a pattern of reprints of cassettes. I say reprints because they are not official re-releases, but an obvious sign that the originally made stock has run out and new batches of cassettes manufactured. Cassettes are really easy to spot because of the change in cassette design during the eighties. In the early eighties, cassettes were solid colour plastic, usually white or black, occasionally other funky colours to match the general colour of the album design but the coloured ones are much more rare. By the mid eighties though, a new fashion for seeing the workings of a mechanical object became desirable, the watch makers Swatch being one of the trendier items that everyone wanted which showed the gears and workings of the watch behind garish cheap clear plastic.
Cassette manufacturers such as TDK followed this fashion through, showing the tape wound up on the spools through clear plastic. Pretty soon, you couldn't get a cassette tape that wasn't trendy and see through and I suspect that 4AD had the same issue when ordering new stock. So there are distinct and obvious signs of a reprint of early eighties releases on cassette. This Mortal coil and Cocteau Twins albums are the first that I've noticed and I'm sure there will be more to be found.
So if you are interested in getting original cassettes for early eighties albums, stick to the solid colour plastics and not the clear.
Needless to say that my usual roller-coaster ride of interest and then general annoyance with myself and this stupid idea of doing this collection has made it's usual route of peaks and troughs. At the moment I'm in-between moods. Trying to persuade myself what a wonderful thing it is to collect such wonderful music and respect such great artists and then thinking that perhaps I should be slapping myself around the back of the head with a very large wet haddock for taking such a journey on in the first place.
I'm generally a lazy person. Being lazy and sitting on my fat arse is the major default setting for me. After being at work all day, the ONLY thing I want to do when I get home is sit in a nice comfy chair. Perhaps I may be persuaded to switch the TV on, maybe I will browse the interweb, but mostly it's pastimes that involve sitting. I reckon my brain also has the same desire. My brain also goes to work all day and wants to just go home and relax in a bowl of comfy warm mush. Even while writing this, my brain has had enough of working for the day and wants to just do as little as possible. That's not actually easy for me, I have a brain that never shuts up or winds down, I'm mentally on the go all the time, so my brain also nags me to just slow down a little by doing as little as possible. This of course includes doing this blog, or updating facebook, or joining in on a forum I'm a member of and, of course, all the other things I want to do generally in my life, such as sending an email to a friend and just staying in touch.
So now that I've put myself through a bought of flagellation and got my brain in gear (but still with fat arse firmly planted on sofa leather), what have I accomplished or found out since I last posted so very long ago. Well in the news......is the soon to be released 4AD book by journalist Martin Aston. Called "Facing the Other Way, the Story of 4AD". Set to be released on September 26th 2013, it will be the first official account of the label we love. Focusing on mostly the first 20 years of 4AD's history, it has the prestigious boast of having the cover designed by Vaughan Oliver and will also be available as a limited edition with 2 CD's of some of the labels musical history. Info here :
As a warning to all those looking to try and pre-order the the book, be aware that Amazon do not have copies of the limited edition on order to sell to pre-orders made on Amazon. Amazon may get some copies if the publishers don't sell all the limited editions and have some left to pass on. I fell into this trap with Amazon before when they list something they may likely never get their hands on......so buyers beware.
On a slightly different note, I've started to notice a pattern of reprints of cassettes. I say reprints because they are not official re-releases, but an obvious sign that the originally made stock has run out and new batches of cassettes manufactured. Cassettes are really easy to spot because of the change in cassette design during the eighties. In the early eighties, cassettes were solid colour plastic, usually white or black, occasionally other funky colours to match the general colour of the album design but the coloured ones are much more rare. By the mid eighties though, a new fashion for seeing the workings of a mechanical object became desirable, the watch makers Swatch being one of the trendier items that everyone wanted which showed the gears and workings of the watch behind garish cheap clear plastic.
Cassette manufacturers such as TDK followed this fashion through, showing the tape wound up on the spools through clear plastic. Pretty soon, you couldn't get a cassette tape that wasn't trendy and see through and I suspect that 4AD had the same issue when ordering new stock. So there are distinct and obvious signs of a reprint of early eighties releases on cassette. This Mortal coil and Cocteau Twins albums are the first that I've noticed and I'm sure there will be more to be found.
So if you are interested in getting original cassettes for early eighties albums, stick to the solid colour plastics and not the clear.
Saturday, 3 December 2011
How much is it worth?
Congratulations to Elizabeth who won the Cocteau Twins Italian 7” single of Pearly Dewdrops Drops. Watch this space as there may be more to come, seeing as I still keep buying releases twice!
There are changes in record collecting, and there have been interesting changes in 4AD collecting over the past couple of years. A couple of years ago, if you searched on ebay worldwide for “4AD”, there used to be on average 3 to 4 hundred pieces for sale. Now if you search for the same thing there can easily be 1500. In fact, a search done today returned 3741 items for sale. Smarter sellers are realising the best key words to use when adding an item on ebay.
This is probably a reflection on record selling online everywhere. There seems to be a myth that any vinyl, no matter how awful the music is, is collectable. I’m constantly finding the average middle aged couple has a couple of boxes of vinyl stuck up in their loft. When I ask why they are in the loft, they all seem to think that they are worth something and one day they will get around to selling them for a vast fortune.
Of course anyone who collects vinyl will know that the vast majority of vinyl is practically worthless. In the scheme of art collections around the world, vinyl is a poor mans hobby. The most valued item I can think of is the Quarrymen’s (The Beatles before they became The Beatles) single “That’ll be the day” of which only one (the original) exists and is owned by Paul McCartney. This has been valued at about £250,000. That sounds a lot of money, but this is the one single rarity that most likely dictates the value of all vinyl values below it. Very rare Beatles vinyl that was on general release fetch a couple of thousand pounds. Your average 1963 “Please Please Me” album will, if in really good condition, fetch £20 to £100. If your album is a late 1963 release then the value has fallen to half of this. This is the most famous in the world, and your original album from 1963 may not even be worth £10. Yet the myth prevails that your dusty and moldy set of Bay City Rollers LP’s will fetch a healthy sum when it comes to selling them!
Sorry, but it’s not going to happen. Many folk are really shocked and disappointed when they find out how little their vinyl is worth. This myth is probably not helped by the marketers on ebay. I’ve mentioned before how the same single can be purchased for £1 and can also be found for sale at £30. I believe the professional market purposely has some stock over inflated in price, knowing it will never sell, but helps push the average price of a release up. This is also why there are so many items for sale as many items are overpriced tactical additions. Right now there is a Pixies Doolittle German LP on a buy it now price of 133.48 Euros??!! This shouldn’t be any more than 20 Euros at the most. It must be gold plated!
The market is on the up. Values are going up. There was even suggestion to investment bankers a year ago to look into music collections as a viable alternative to wine and gold. Music does have a fickle following though and the popularity of music’s followers determines the value of any music’s collection pieces. In 20 years, there may be no market at all, as the general public loses any interest in the physical value of music. If that happens the value of collection pieces will hit rock bottom.
So why am I collecting if what I collect could be worth nothing in time? As signs are showing recently of a trend in a disinterest in the physical release of an album or single, I believe an intended experience by artists and bands to enjoy a full package including the covers, books and anything included within it, will be lost. This will be a diminished experience as a set of MP3’s will be just a small portion of the intended piece of art. This full experience needs to be preserved. I think this also includes how the same art was packaged for different audiences and countries.
I hope that the trend reverses and people see more the worth of a physical product. But this isn’t helped by the industry, that will obviously make lots more profit out of a download file than a fully produced CD.
The market is changing, which way it will go is anybody’s guess
***Find me on Facebook***
There are changes in record collecting, and there have been interesting changes in 4AD collecting over the past couple of years. A couple of years ago, if you searched on ebay worldwide for “4AD”, there used to be on average 3 to 4 hundred pieces for sale. Now if you search for the same thing there can easily be 1500. In fact, a search done today returned 3741 items for sale. Smarter sellers are realising the best key words to use when adding an item on ebay.
This is probably a reflection on record selling online everywhere. There seems to be a myth that any vinyl, no matter how awful the music is, is collectable. I’m constantly finding the average middle aged couple has a couple of boxes of vinyl stuck up in their loft. When I ask why they are in the loft, they all seem to think that they are worth something and one day they will get around to selling them for a vast fortune.
Of course anyone who collects vinyl will know that the vast majority of vinyl is practically worthless. In the scheme of art collections around the world, vinyl is a poor mans hobby. The most valued item I can think of is the Quarrymen’s (The Beatles before they became The Beatles) single “That’ll be the day” of which only one (the original) exists and is owned by Paul McCartney. This has been valued at about £250,000. That sounds a lot of money, but this is the one single rarity that most likely dictates the value of all vinyl values below it. Very rare Beatles vinyl that was on general release fetch a couple of thousand pounds. Your average 1963 “Please Please Me” album will, if in really good condition, fetch £20 to £100. If your album is a late 1963 release then the value has fallen to half of this. This is the most famous in the world, and your original album from 1963 may not even be worth £10. Yet the myth prevails that your dusty and moldy set of Bay City Rollers LP’s will fetch a healthy sum when it comes to selling them!
Sorry, but it’s not going to happen. Many folk are really shocked and disappointed when they find out how little their vinyl is worth. This myth is probably not helped by the marketers on ebay. I’ve mentioned before how the same single can be purchased for £1 and can also be found for sale at £30. I believe the professional market purposely has some stock over inflated in price, knowing it will never sell, but helps push the average price of a release up. This is also why there are so many items for sale as many items are overpriced tactical additions. Right now there is a Pixies Doolittle German LP on a buy it now price of 133.48 Euros??!! This shouldn’t be any more than 20 Euros at the most. It must be gold plated!
The market is on the up. Values are going up. There was even suggestion to investment bankers a year ago to look into music collections as a viable alternative to wine and gold. Music does have a fickle following though and the popularity of music’s followers determines the value of any music’s collection pieces. In 20 years, there may be no market at all, as the general public loses any interest in the physical value of music. If that happens the value of collection pieces will hit rock bottom.
So why am I collecting if what I collect could be worth nothing in time? As signs are showing recently of a trend in a disinterest in the physical release of an album or single, I believe an intended experience by artists and bands to enjoy a full package including the covers, books and anything included within it, will be lost. This will be a diminished experience as a set of MP3’s will be just a small portion of the intended piece of art. This full experience needs to be preserved. I think this also includes how the same art was packaged for different audiences and countries.
I hope that the trend reverses and people see more the worth of a physical product. But this isn’t helped by the industry, that will obviously make lots more profit out of a download file than a fully produced CD.
The market is changing, which way it will go is anybody’s guess
***Find me on Facebook***
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Time...Enough
I’m sure I’m not on my own wondering where the time goes. Or wondering how I can find the time to do the things I want to do while not being a hermit, a bad husband and not being completely anti-social.
I work full time and sleep. So out of the normal day, I’ve lost 16 hours straight away. Out of the remaining time I need to eat, exercise, walk and feed the dog, groom myself, smoke, do home chores, shopping etc etc. The time that is left is mine then to split between my life priorities. These are
Spending time with my wife (outside of the above tasks)
The 4AD project
Movies
Other music
Relatives
PS3
Going “out”
The Playstation currently gets the lowest priority, which is annoying as I do like to play. But Playstation time is very selfish, especially as my long suffering wife, as most level headed wives, doesn’t go for the first person shoot em up war games. So the best use of this spare time is killing two birds with one stone, watching a movie with my wife.
This leaves my 4AD project with about an hour a day if I’m lucky. These blog entries can take me all week to write up, correct and post. Which takes time away from looking for collection pieces, keeping up to date on a handful of blogs and facebook, emails, looking after the Discogs data, and planning future blog possibilities. Most of the blog work I do is done at work. I go into work an hour early and work on my 4AD project stuff before I start work. This time is precious and usually quiet, not always though. But just to compose an email would in theory only take five minutes, but of course it never does, so I’m usually lucky to get my Discogs inbox cleared, send out an email, check one or two forums and that’s the morning gone.
I need a secretary.
This isn’t just a load of excuses. I bet many of you have the same issues. At least I’m fed (sometimes too much), warm, working and have a loving wife and a stupid dog.
I work full time and sleep. So out of the normal day, I’ve lost 16 hours straight away. Out of the remaining time I need to eat, exercise, walk and feed the dog, groom myself, smoke, do home chores, shopping etc etc. The time that is left is mine then to split between my life priorities. These are
Spending time with my wife (outside of the above tasks)
The 4AD project
Movies
Other music
Relatives
PS3
Going “out”
The Playstation currently gets the lowest priority, which is annoying as I do like to play. But Playstation time is very selfish, especially as my long suffering wife, as most level headed wives, doesn’t go for the first person shoot em up war games. So the best use of this spare time is killing two birds with one stone, watching a movie with my wife.
This leaves my 4AD project with about an hour a day if I’m lucky. These blog entries can take me all week to write up, correct and post. Which takes time away from looking for collection pieces, keeping up to date on a handful of blogs and facebook, emails, looking after the Discogs data, and planning future blog possibilities. Most of the blog work I do is done at work. I go into work an hour early and work on my 4AD project stuff before I start work. This time is precious and usually quiet, not always though. But just to compose an email would in theory only take five minutes, but of course it never does, so I’m usually lucky to get my Discogs inbox cleared, send out an email, check one or two forums and that’s the morning gone.
I need a secretary.
This isn’t just a load of excuses. I bet many of you have the same issues. At least I’m fed (sometimes too much), warm, working and have a loving wife and a stupid dog.
So to recent purchases :
Pixies - Here comes your man - UK Cd single
Pixies - Bossanova - Czech cassette album
Ultra Vivid Scene - Special one - US Cd Single
Cocteau Twins - 4AD Catalog sampler - 1 sided promo cassette
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