*I* think it was a stupid reason for me to buy records IN HINDSIGHT if the only thing "good" on the album is the loop.
I do NOT, at all, regret learning how to collect records based on samples. Not at all. But at this point, yeah, I feel sheepish owning loads of records that I only bought b/c someone used a loop on it but the rest of the album isn't worth my time to listen to it.
I.e. your "Mannekinds", your Vic Juris', more CTI albums then I probably care to remember, at least 2/3rds of my Cannonball Adderley collection ("Soul of the Bible" ain't going nowhere though). Do I really need Jack Bruce's "Things We Like"?
I'm just saying - I'm not declaring war on shit just because it was sampled. I just don't think I personally need to keep a lot of this though and IN HINDSIGHT, I probably could have saved myself a lot of money if I had more foresight back in the day.
This said - there are some surprises so far, for example: The Crusaders were pretty good. I expected to unload my entire collection but listening to their stuff agian, a lot of their early-to-mid 70s titles still catch my ear. Alas, "Images" has loops galore on the intros, but the songs themselves, I find to be too fusiony for my taste though I might just keep this for "Marcella's Dream."
Your craking me up. All the stuff you've been talkingabout is the same stuff I'm unloading. Also, I think when you start with the whole beat digging thing you actually expect their to be other good stuff on an LP. Or for that matter you actually expect the LP to be good at all. Some stuff just sucks and even the looped bit was lame until some chopped it and put a good beat under it.
I cannot believe how much fusion I've bought over the years. Seriously, WHAT THE FUCK was I thinking? Like - I own three Fourth Way albums? Why, god, why?!?!?!?!?!
This isn't a blood letting. This is slashing arteries. I've already pulled at least 50 or so LPs and I'm only at "G".
I'm also going to offend some people by saying this but seriously: the B3 Hammond can get the dills. I'm unloading organ jazz albums by the bushel at this point.
I'm also going to offend some people by saying this but seriously: the B3 Hammond can get the dills. I'm unloading organ jazz albums by the bushel at this point.
Finally something I was ahead of you on. Did that a couple years aog. Kept a handfull of Jimmy Smith and a couple others and that's enough.
I haven't gotten to this point yet, but it will happen within the next year or two I'm sure.
I'm starting to realize how Recycled on Haight can be a great "garbage disposal". My usual habit is take chances on anything at Amoeba or Rasputins that are real cheap but look half way interesting and if they end up crap, Recycled will take them for 3-4 bucks in trade. I haven't done a mass drop-off there, but bringing in 15 fairly clean, not rare, good, or collectable, but not dollarbin recognizable either records will get you $50 in trade. I think that's more than Open Mind or Amoeba will dish out. Then you bring up $60 worth of records and the dude there says "OK that's cool - we're even". So crap records I spent maybe $40 in cash somewhere else can be turned into that plus a little bit more at Recycled. The idea is to never spend cash in there again.
Everything they get from me, they try to sell for about $6-10. Don't know if you might get more for things they'd try to sell for $12 - 20 (like Auger, Adderley) but you're pretty guaranteed of getting at least the $3-4 in trade. Now as to whether you'd actually want $2000 in trade from that place is another story, but it seems to (kind of consistently) yield enough decent stuff that it might be fun to get free records from that place for the next 10 years. Just some thoughts...
How are Recycled on cash trades? I'm not looking for credit unless it's at Amoeba.
Well, cut your trade down to half of what JB was saying and you're in the ballpark...couple to a few bucks cash each for the $5-15 retail joints? Keep in mind their eyes to value/desirability will differ considerably to your own...sometimes to your favor, sometimes against.
This is a truly humbling experience. I never realized how bad my taste in jazz records was. Seriously - I owned FOUR Woody Herman LPs. Including one that I paid $9. NINE DOLLARS. I'm feeling a little nauseous right now.
This is a truly humbling experience. I never realized how bad my taste in jazz records was. Seriously - I owned FOUR Woody Herman LPs. Including one that I paid $9. NINE DOLLARS. I'm feeling a little nauseous right now.
Hey O~
Try to offset that disappointment in the accumulation of 70's columbia big band fusion records by slanging a couple rare funk lp's on ebay...you won't feel so bad when your return exceeds your expenditures there. Particularly with the one-trackers.
This is a truly humbling experience. I never realized how bad my taste in jazz records was. Seriously - I owned FOUR Woody Herman LPs. Including one that I paid $9. NINE DOLLARS. I'm feeling a little nauseous right now.
Hey O~
Try to offset that disappointment in the accumulation of 70's columbia big band fusion records by slanging a couple rare funk lp's on ebay...you won't feel so bad when your return exceeds your expenditures there. Particularly with the one-trackers.
You're assuming I have rare funk LPs to sell. But then again, I haven't gotten to my soul collection yet (which I know is generally better in quality than my jazz). Still, I'll probably have at least 150-200 jazz LPs to sell at the end of this and while it's not all dollar bin, just doing the mental math in my head is ugly enough.
I realize what partially happened is that I bought a lot of stuff b/t 1993 and 2004 b/c I wanted stuff for my radio show that I could play and at the time, "quality control" standards were a bit, shall we say, looser? As long as it ate up 3-4 minutes of time and didn't completely bore me silly, I was willing to entertain a lot of subpar "funky" jazz. For example, I own about 6 too many Quincy Jones LPs, 5 too many Bob James LPs, 4 too many Hank Crawford LPs, etc. etc.
I don't mean to shit on CTI/Kudu since I know - that was Diggin' 101 for most of us - but seriously, besides a few choice titles (Bob James' "One" and "Two" just for sentimentality and historic sake), the rest of this catalog that I happen to own (which is all the obvious titles) is functionally unlistenable.
How are Recycled on cash trades? I'm not looking for credit unless it's at Amoeba.
Well, cut your trade down to half of what JB was saying and you're in the ballpark...couple to a few bucks cash each for the $5-15 retail joints? Keep in mind their eyes to value/desirability will differ considerably to your own...sometimes to your favor, sometimes against.
Yeah getting cash is a little trickier. I would agree with Josh, you're probably looking at maybe $2-3 apiece, but who knows? If you come in with a few hundred records they might start breaking things down into $6 and $4 piles for the better stuff. Sometimes if things have been slow over there though, they're not interested in buying anything. Strictly trade and sometimes not even that if it the weather sucks and there's no tourists coming through.
I think I'd sell as much as I could at a show or three and then call up Recycled/Saturn/DBA Brown/Jack's Record Cellar etc. and see what kind of deal they'd be willing to throw at you.
thanks for the advice fellas. My stacks are starting to take some shape and really, we're looking at a fairly even split between stuff that, on my own, I could probably sell for $5 or less...and then it jumps up to a smaller stack of $10 material and a very, very short stack of $15 and up.
A record fair wouldn't be worth it - I doubt I'd have more than 200 to sell and even then, seeing how KUSF panned out today, I'd be surprised if I even moved 20% of my stock.
I love this post. As someone who regularly checks your mp3 blog, and often downloads the gems you post, it's nice to see you humble yourself and bring yourself down to the average digger level.
A couple of observations:
1) Yes most of CTI sucks. But don't sleep on the Grover records like Hydra or Mr. Magic. And Freddy Hubbard had a few keepers as did Esther Phillips.
2) the great thing about the internet is that there are people who freak out for that Woody Herman. So while I have no experience ebaying, it might make sense to offer your wares to cyberspace. I mean there is a whole record collecting world out there that has no idea about soulstrut or loops and just likes old jazz records.
3) The market for Hammond funk/jazz is definitely shrinking now that it's over a decade since the beasties dropped check your head. That said I just got electric feel by McDuff and that Junior Parker/McGriff record and am listening to it in the early evening when I'm making salad and marinating chicken for my girl.
Yeah, this has been a healthy exercise. By the time I'm done, my jazz collection will be slimmed down by at least a quarter, if not third. We'll have to see how the soul scourging goes - I don't expect to dump as many but we'll have to see.
1) I kept a few CTI albums. I'm not dogging the entire catalog but anything that was MOR fusion got the door.
2) Believe me, no one wants a copy of Woody Herman's "Heavy Exposure" for more than a few bucks.
4) "Keeper" = no objective criteria. Do I still feel it? Does it have at least a song I like? Is it something I might play out? Or use for a mixtape or blog post? And last but not least, do I have a sentimental relationship to it (if all else fails)?
That's what's striking about this process - it makes me confront what records have fallen out of favor with my tastes...so much so that I don't even have the emotional memory of why I liked them to begin with.
I love this post. As someone who regularly checks your mp3 blog, and often downloads the gems you post, it's nice to see you humble yourself and bring yourself down to the average digger level.
A couple of observations:
1) Yes most of CTI sucks. But don't sleep on the Grover records like Hydra or Mr. Magic. And Freddy Hubbard had a few keepers as did Esther Phillips.
2) the great thing about the internet is that there are people who freak out for that Woody Herman. So while I have no experience ebaying, it might make sense to offer your wares to cyberspace. I mean there is a whole record collecting world out there that has no idea about soulstrut or loops and just likes old jazz records.
3) The market for Hammond funk/jazz is definitely shrinking now that it's over a decade since the beasties dropped check your head. That said I just got electric feel by McDuff and that Junior Parker/McGriff record and am listening to it in the early evening when I'm making salad and marinating chicken for my girl.
As usual oliver's on point. It's my personal opinion that unless you're taking the perspective of an archivist or historian, it doesn't make sense to keep anything in your collection you don't actively listen to / use and won't in the next few years. As cool as it is to ferret stuff away, it's liberating to realize what you no longer need.
O-Dub, I've been in the same predicament a few times and here is a sneaky little trick i've tried and it seemed to work out well. Post up on Ebay, but list the item as (for example) "100 Hip-Hop 12's You choice $3 each" Then, in the body of the auction, list out exactly what youve got in this category and then explian that the first person to "buy it now" gets the pick of the litter at the $3 price. I liked to give them a price break for buying bulk (1-20 records are $3, 21-50 $2.75, etc.) Tell them that they HAVE to pay you in 24 hours so that you can go ahead and post the remainder of the set once you get payment for the ones they took. Ive gotten rid of a about a 100 12's at an average of 3$ a piece. Thats better than the $1 the local spot will give on trade-in. I THINK its legal on Ebay, but to be honest, Im not sure. but they've never called me on it so far.
O-Dub, I've been in the same predicament a few times and here is a sneaky little trick i've tried and it seemed to work out well. Post up on Ebay, but list the item as (for example) "100 Hip-Hop 12's You choice $3 each" Then, in the body of the auction, list out exactly what youve got in this category and then explian that the first person to "buy it now" gets the pick of the litter at the $3 price. I liked to give them a price break for buying bulk (1-20 records are $3, 21-50 $2.75, etc.) Tell them that they HAVE to pay you in 24 hours so that you can go ahead and post the remainder of the set once you get payment for the ones they took. Ive gotten rid of a about a 100 12's at an average of 3$ a piece. Thats better than the $1 the local spot will give on trade-in. I THINK its legal on Ebay, but to be honest, Im not sure. but they've never called me on it so far.
Pretty sneaky sis.
But I'm not selling hip-hop off right now and this would make it tricky to apply to other genres.
Comments
Your craking me up. All the stuff you've been talkingabout is the same stuff I'm unloading. Also, I think when you start with the whole beat digging thing you actually expect their to be other good stuff on an LP. Or for that matter you actually expect the LP to be good at all. Some stuff just sucks and even the looped bit was lame until some chopped it and put a good beat under it.
I cannot believe how much fusion I've bought over the years. Seriously, WHAT THE FUCK was I thinking? Like - I own three Fourth Way albums? Why, god, why?!?!?!?!?!
This isn't a blood letting. This is slashing arteries. I've already pulled at least 50 or so LPs and I'm only at "G".
I'm also going to offend some people by saying this but seriously: the B3 Hammond can get the dills. I'm unloading organ jazz albums by the bushel at this point.
Finally something I was ahead of you on. Did that a couple years aog. Kept a handfull of Jimmy Smith and a couple others and that's enough.
I'm starting to realize how Recycled on Haight can be a great "garbage disposal". My usual habit is take chances on anything at Amoeba or Rasputins that are real cheap but look half way interesting and if they end up crap, Recycled will take them for 3-4 bucks in trade. I haven't done a mass drop-off there, but bringing in 15 fairly clean, not rare, good, or collectable, but not dollarbin recognizable either records will get you $50 in trade. I think that's more than Open Mind or Amoeba will dish out. Then you bring up $60 worth of records and the dude there says "OK that's cool - we're even". So crap records I spent maybe $40 in cash somewhere else can be turned into that plus a little bit more at Recycled. The idea is to never spend cash in there again.
Everything they get from me, they try to sell for about $6-10. Don't know if you might get more for things they'd try to sell for $12 - 20 (like Auger, Adderley) but you're pretty guaranteed of getting at least the $3-4 in trade. Now as to whether you'd actually want $2000 in trade from that place is another story, but it seems to (kind of consistently) yield enough decent stuff that it might be fun to get free records from that place for the next 10 years. Just some thoughts...
shhhhh!
How are Recycled on cash trades? I'm not looking for credit unless it's at Amoeba.
Well, cut your trade down to half of what JB was saying and you're in the ballpark...couple to a few bucks cash each for the $5-15 retail joints? Keep in mind their eyes to value/desirability will differ considerably to your own...sometimes to your favor, sometimes against.
Hey O~
Try to offset that disappointment in the accumulation of 70's columbia big band fusion records by slanging a couple rare funk lp's on ebay...you won't feel so bad when your return exceeds your expenditures there. Particularly with the one-trackers.
You're assuming I have rare funk LPs to sell. But then again, I haven't gotten to my soul collection yet (which I know is generally better in quality than my jazz). Still, I'll probably have at least 150-200 jazz LPs to sell at the end of this and while it's not all dollar bin, just doing the mental math in my head is ugly enough.
I realize what partially happened is that I bought a lot of stuff b/t 1993 and 2004 b/c I wanted stuff for my radio show that I could play and at the time, "quality control" standards were a bit, shall we say, looser? As long as it ate up 3-4 minutes of time and didn't completely bore me silly, I was willing to entertain a lot of subpar "funky" jazz. For example, I own about 6 too many Quincy Jones LPs, 5 too many Bob James LPs, 4 too many Hank Crawford LPs, etc. etc.
I don't mean to shit on CTI/Kudu since I know - that was Diggin' 101 for most of us - but seriously, besides a few choice titles (Bob James' "One" and "Two" just for sentimentality and historic sake), the rest of this catalog that I happen to own (which is all the obvious titles) is functionally unlistenable.
Yeah getting cash is a little trickier. I would agree with Josh, you're probably looking at maybe $2-3 apiece, but who knows? If you come in with a few hundred records they might start breaking things down into $6 and $4 piles for the better stuff. Sometimes if things have been slow over there though, they're not interested in buying anything. Strictly trade and sometimes not even that if it the weather sucks and there's no tourists coming through.
I think I'd sell as much as I could at a show or three and then call up Recycled/Saturn/DBA Brown/Jack's Record Cellar etc. and see what kind of deal they'd be willing to throw at you.
A record fair wouldn't be worth it - I doubt I'd have more than 200 to sell and even then, seeing how KUSF panned out today, I'd be surprised if I even moved 20% of my stock.
A couple of observations:
1) Yes most of CTI sucks. But don't sleep on the Grover records like Hydra or Mr. Magic. And Freddy Hubbard had a few keepers as did Esther Phillips.
2) the great thing about the internet is that there are people who freak out for that Woody Herman. So while I have no experience ebaying, it might make sense to offer your wares to cyberspace. I mean there is a whole record collecting world out there that has no idea about soulstrut or loops and just likes old jazz records.
3) The market for Hammond funk/jazz is definitely shrinking now that it's over a decade since the beasties dropped check your head. That said I just got electric feel by McDuff and that Junior Parker/McGriff record and am listening to it in the early evening when I'm making salad and marinating chicken for my girl.
4) Dub, could you post your criteria for keeper?
1) I kept a few CTI albums. I'm not dogging the entire catalog but anything that was MOR fusion got the door.
2) Believe me, no one wants a copy of Woody Herman's "Heavy Exposure" for more than a few bucks.
4) "Keeper" = no objective criteria. Do I still feel it? Does it have at least a song I like? Is it something I might play out? Or use for a mixtape or blog post? And last but not least, do I have a sentimental relationship to it (if all else fails)?
That's what's striking about this process - it makes me confront what records have fallen out of favor with my tastes...so much so that I don't even have the emotional memory of why I liked them to begin with.
I've been in the same predicament a few times and here is a sneaky little trick i've tried and it seemed to work out well. Post up on Ebay, but list the item as (for example) "100 Hip-Hop 12's You choice $3 each" Then, in the body of the auction, list out exactly what youve got in this category and then explian that the first person to "buy it now" gets the pick of the litter at the $3 price. I liked to give them a price break for buying bulk (1-20 records are $3, 21-50 $2.75, etc.) Tell them that they HAVE to pay you in 24 hours so that you can go ahead and post the remainder of the set once you get payment for the ones they took. Ive gotten rid of a about a 100 12's at an average of 3$ a piece. Thats better than the $1 the local spot will give on trade-in. I THINK its legal on Ebay, but to be honest, Im not sure. but they've never called me on it so far.
Pretty sneaky sis.
But I'm not selling hip-hop off right now and this would make it tricky to apply to other genres.