Post Stories About Radio Station Record Finds
kala
3,361 Posts
I only got lucky once doing this.On a whim I stopped into a rural AM polish station and asked if they had any records.One of the staff-a Polish dude who spoke very little english said they had no records but that he had his own personal collection at the station.He let me cherry pick what was half way decent jazz/funk/rock collection.I pulled melvin sparks ayalahia,leon thomas,and some other flying dutchman/verve/westbound/inner city shit.He charged me 3-5 bucks a pop.I dropped like 60 bucks.I was hoping for some library heat or Polish LPs....no gots.I have gone thru the phone books,made calls and never got another killer record score from a radio station.Maybe one day.
Comments
yup, I hate/love those guys..
- spidey
When stations were switching over to CD's this guy had a record score just about every month.
Sick
Not a record in sight.
YUUUP. I mean they really had it made in their library at one time, and before they moved their spot was so insecure. When you go now, it's like a vault, and they have some pretty intense security measures.
Stealing records from college radio stations is a bitch move - these places need the money to stay on the air.
i know the person who has access to it (or did) but the person is one of those people that suck
if anyone wants to mask up and bring the duct tape im down
stealing
borrowing
wont notice either way
You're wrong. We use our vinyl library all the time - I rely on it for a lot of hip-hop classics that we get on request, but that I don't own yet on wax. I know a number of other DJs who scour the library for good titles. If someone jacks our Fela Kuti or Assagi, I will notice and hunt them the f*ck down.
MORE importantly, at our station I'm starting to pull together some of the more valuable pieces we've got but never really play, and am proposing that we make the station some money by selling them on eBay. In addition to this, we purge CDs and records twice a year, and let go of good stuff on occasion. It's not like we're hoarding it all so it can sit on our shelves and look pretty.
yea but thats your station. im specifically talking about the one i know about. its been locked and untouched for years. and the active library was used until they liquidated it and kept only rap promos for sale to local shops
There were however some gems in there. The collection had obviously been picked over (but not clean) over the years. There were no Blue Notes, no Love records, no Nick Drakes, no Minutemen. I did pull a mono Piper at the Gates of Dawn, "Now and Them", High Tide "Sea Shanties", "No New York", The NItecrawlers "Little Black Egg," Larry Young LP's and loads of great and obscure no-wave records from the early 80's. I'm still finding goodies in there.
Only time I've ever bought from a station was about 3 years ago when I went though about 6-8,000 records that a local station was getting rid of. The thrill of seeing all those boxes died pretty quickly once I realized that 90% was classical and big band/trad jazz stuff. I did find totally random copies of Sonoma Rag and Galt MacDermot "Shapes of Rhythm" though. Too bad it wasn't all like that.
when i was in Australia, friends were talking to this guy about him used to work in a local radio station in Brisbane, and how he had to help clear out their vinyl vault many years back.
a friend then proceed to ask him if he ever came across any record sleeves that are completely green on the cover (looking for hints of any KPM library records stored in there)
the guy said, "oh yea i came across a bunch of those, we thought they were sound effect records and so we threw them all out! what are they any good ??"
not that they're great but still, would be nice to have seen them at least and pick out some good ones.
If college radio stations don't have this music available in their libraries, the radio turns into them playing junk off iPods and never discovering the decades of music that came before them. Some of the most knowledgeable collectors got their start in college radio precisely because it was an opportunity to rummage through decades of music and develop a taste for the good stuff. You can argue all you want that the availability of music on the internet changes this, but the internet only gives you what you search for - nothing can replace going through thousands of records searching for gems.
Like I said in the other thread, jacking records from college radio stations is a bitch move, point blank.
On time a Charles Mingus deluxe double CD came in. Maybe a couple of the Jazz cats could use it, but they let it sit in the new stuff bunch and collect dust. So my girl @ the time was having her Senior Art Show. We agreed that the new Mingus joint would create the right mood - U know Jazz & Wine cliche.
The manager of the station was an Art student as well and he saw the CD sitting next to Cabernet and made a small scene about theft. I was kinda-embarressed, but dude had kept shit from the radio Library himself.
I only felt bad for gettin caught. Fuck him.
To be fair, your debilitating social phobia deserves half the credit for this.
True, it's difficult to engage in the smooth talk necessary to a situation like this when you have the social skills of a pipe bomber.
Report to the "what do you plan to do in the future?" thread immediately.
when he got back a month later, went to do his show, down to the basement to get some blue notes out for the show, and it's empty. 'where's the blue note section?'...
'... oh we threw it all in the skip last week, it's been taken to the dump...'
we're talking 1 or 2 copies each of o.g. albums here, most of the catalogue, mono's, everything...
>i wanted to cry emoticon
this sounds like it would have a lot of potential as a pornagraphic dramady
Just picture a dimly lit room full of empty bottles and you'll have had the full experience without ever leaving home (which just so happenes to be my preferred method of experiencing everything).
awesome
I think the pipe bombers are gonna be upset now....
Ahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Poor b'stard. I GREW UP in Hamilton. It sucked on the music tip - aside from a semi OK punk (ish) scene.
Kind of linked to your thread Holmes - worst music related use of a landfill or similar I've heard of in NZ is when the US Navy pulled out of Wellington in the late 60s...
They were trying to reduce the amount of stuff they were going to take back to the US, so lined up all the band's instruments and gear - whch according to old musicians in WGTN contained beatuiful wurlitzer 120s, gretsch drum kits, selmer saxophones and top of the line brass, 8 track tape recorders, ribbon mics, OG amps / guitars and basses etc and chucked the lot into the harbour. Shit.
Groovy had a bunch of ex-radio station stock in those shiments they were bringing in... I pulled 3 copies of the Gator soundtrack from there for a few dollars each but that's about it