Hi. I'M NEW AND I HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT RARE JAZZ MP3S

SO OPSO OP 10 Posts
edited January 2015 in Strut Central
Hi,

I'm new here. Just wanted to say peace to the long-time strutters and ask a quick question. Sorry to be super annoying new guy- I've definitely checked the forums here and there over the years and have found them useful but I never really got involved since I try to stay away from the computer as much as possible.

Quick bio- I got hooked on records in Chicago, where I'm from, and got a great musical education digging at the flea markets and thrift shops in the city. I moved to New York 6 years ago to pursue making my own music. I like vintage tube amps, playing piano and eating soup. I've grown tired of the grind here and how cool everything has to be nowadays and I am planning to move to Tokyo in the fall for no good reason other than I've always wanted to. I've decided to simplify my life and have been selling off records over the past 5 years, initially to pay rent, but more recently to just have less shit and make getting out of the country easier. I've also noticed the more records I have, the more records I need, if that makes any sense. Trying to be more of a minimalist I guess. I've decided to sell most of my LPs and 12s and only bring 45s to Japan since they are much easier to travel with. I plan to live with the bare minimum while I'm there- a portable turntable, a few boxes of 45s, a good quality portable speaker (looking into the Beoplay A2), and I guess some clothes if they fit in the bag.

My question is this- I currently have zero mp3s but I want to have a gang of spiritual jazz to listen to while I'm there. I don't feel comfortable bringing jazz records overseas and having to worry about them. It would be different If I was going permanently, but I have no idea how long I'll be there. Does anyone know how or where to get rare jazz mp3s- Strata East-type stuff- Sun Ra? Private stuff? I'm interested in more common things like Impulse and Flying Dutchman too. Really trying to get this digital collection started asap. I've been digging through blogs and googling things like, "download stanley cowell mp3 blog" but it seems really inefficient and makes my head hurt. I figured someone here would know what to do. Thanks a lot!

Peace,

Matt

  Comments


  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    Welcome.....

    So your asking for a site where u can download raer Jazz?

    And shouldnt you be digitizing your raer collectron yourself?



  • Points for the dismount and spin, but we had to mark you down for the landing.

  • parallaxparallax no-style-having mf'er 1,266 Posts
    www.soulseekqt.net

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,885 Posts
    "珍しい送信するために喜ば"


  • skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
    The 'spiritual' element of this genre cannot be contained within mere ones and zeroes.

    Foolish errand.

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,233 Posts
    there are blogs like this one but they can be hit and miss, the download links don't stay up for very long. Soulseek is a pretty good bet though.

  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,779 Posts
    Matt. Welcome!

    I've recently been archiving and creating play lists based on old Soul Strut threads.

    The best place to find rare stuff is Soulseek. There are PC and Mac clients. You will get some people who are not fond of people who take and don't share. Some of the users with really rare stuff also have enormous cues.

    I have an iMac at home dedicated to downloading and use a LogMeIn account to monitor progress.

    I hope this helps!

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,885 Posts
    I heard that might not be 100% legit in some countries and therefore I would never do that, but if I were to do it, only for music I already paid for and own physically, of course, I would agree that soulseek is proabably the way I would do it if I actually did that kind of thing.

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,885 Posts
    b/w them 2TBs aren't going to fill themselves.

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
    IDFW torrents, but I'd imagine there must be one or two out there specialising in various stripes of teh raer, right? I would have no idea how to locate them, though.

    This thread has made me a little nostalgic for that mid-00s period when Blogger was still largely unregulated, and you could comfortably spend as many evenings as your broadband's monthly limits would permit just dipping into anything out there that happened to pique your curiosity. I seem to recall that rare jazz was one of the genres particularly well-served during that brief Golden Age. Orgy In Rhythm used to be one of the go-to blogs back then. Dunno if it's still active. EDIT: Well, lookee here...

    If one were to examine the trend toward boutique-label reissues of wildly marginal stuff (Light In The Attic's PINA comp springs to mind) or non-Anglo music such as the material Julian Cope covered in Japrocksampler, it'd be interesting to find out what part (if any) mp3 blogs played in that trend. I wouldn't expect it to have made a huge difference; after all, with genres like psych and rare soul/funk (probably others too) there's long existed a committed specialist market that predates the internet, along with established trade networks to service that market. Nonetheless I'm kind of curious to know if any o.g,'s in the game have observed the market for niche genres expanding in any way as a result of people from outside hardcore circles discovering the music via blogs. In other words, is there any empirical evidence of them performing an actual promotional service? Probably a question best asked over at Waxi, but that way madness (and ass-bruning) lies.

  • If you're using Firefox or Chrome, you can get a ton stuff off Youtube with the downloader addon. Then just convert the mp4s to mp3s if you need to.

  • SO OPSO OP 10 Posts
    Dopeness!

    Thanks for the warm welcome and the suggestions. I'll try Soul Seek tonight. I guess finding rare digital music is at least as hard as finding the vinyl itself. I think I was hoping to just click a button somewhere that said, "download entire Strata East discography here" and then go eat a sandwich. The conclusion I'm drawing from this is that it will take some work- and unfortunately, digital digging isn't really that much fun. That's life though.

    I'll go at it with the three pronged approach of digitizing some of the joints I have left, stealing Youtube posts with an mp3 converter, and finding what I can on Soul Seek and the blogs. I might know a couple people who have some mp3s to share as well.

    Thanks for the help! Much appreciated!

  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,779 Posts
    I've also found all kinds of rare here:

    http://mp3clan.com

    Unfortunately, the site is down at the moment. But it's good if you are looking for single tracks.

  • If you're familiar with audio formats (FLAC, 320s etc), you could just try to have an interview for what.cd and not experience any of these problems for the rest of your life

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
    Hoe Cakes said:
    If you're familiar with audio formats (FLAC, 320s etc), you could just try to have an interview for what.cd and not experience any of these problems for the rest of your life

    This has reminded me of another notable first post.

  • DocMcCoy said:
    Hoe Cakes said:
    If you're familiar with audio formats (FLAC, 320s etc), you could just try to have an interview for what.cd and not experience any of these problems for the rest of your life

    This has reminded me of another notable first post.

    I'm sorta surprised there aren't any strutters who are on what.cd! It's a crazy obsessive community, and the expectations for members are steep. But they have pretty much any music release that has been digitized. It's thst deep. And high quality formats, release info, and tagging are emphasized.

    I have thought of trying to join a bunch of times, but honestly I just don't have enough stuff to contribute lol...

    If anyone is interested in trying to join I could help point you to some places you could troll for an invite!

  • toby.dtoby.d 254 Posts
    I am very interested in what.cd, have never heard of that but am totally into the share of rare via internet. I find with some patience and only reasonably good use of keywords I can usually find what I want (as long as it's a known rare or one which has at least been discussed a bit online). Of course if you absolutely have to get the record to hear the music it's eventually more satisfying.

    For example would this blog help with your Strata East discography http://freedom-records.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/strata-east-records-discography-mp3.html ? I only checked a couple of titles but the link seem to be alive. There's still a good network of blogs, I'm usually checking for psych and folk so might find it easier, who post regularly and use hosts which don't pull down the files immediately.

    I've also wondered about the blog/reissue relationship. In general I just like the whole concept behind sharing music which is not widely available to everyone for free and only for the spread of knowledge and enjoyment; however, I do realise it's a bit outdated with all the reissues, especially ones which benefit the original artist.

  • SO OPSO OP 10 Posts
    I'm appreciating the sharing is caring mentality here guys. The thing about all this internet searching for music is that it really really sucks- I have the utmost respect anyone with the patience to sit at the computer and fill up a hard drive with the most exotic Ethiopian jazz and Panamanian funk.

    My original hope was that there would be a much easier way to go about this. I have absolutely no problem being in some old lady's attic for 16 hours digging through her dead husband's records and looking through her photos- that's fun. That's rewarding to me. That feels like life to me. Even if I just walk away with a few weird gospel records I've never heard of or a clean copy of something I already have, maybe she told me some stories or fixed me some tea. Maybe I bought a marimba or some posters and no records at all. Maybe I got creeped the fuck out and fled. Most of my digging experiences have an interesting or fucked up story attached to them- I can remember where and when I bought most of my records and I think that's part of the superiority of vinyl (or the physical format) to the intangible digital one. Virtual digging honestly just makes me tired and sad but I definitely appreciate the convenience of portable music and it's always in NM condition.

    For me this mp3 business is a temporary thing- when I settle down in one place, I fully expect to start buying records again. Its just that right now, the more objects I own the more tied down I feel and I'm not trying to worry about a giant collection of records right now. My taste is so narrow anyway that I don't need 10,000 records.

    That what.cd thing sounds crazy. I looked at the home page- I love the esoteric riddle.

    Thanks for all the suggestions thus far- the freedom records page had some stuff but most didn't work for me and like I mentioned before, this is way too inefficient. I wish sharing music was faster and easier for everyone. I'm going to have to be content with just enough to get by for now. My homie is supposed to hit me off with a bunch of stuff he has on dropbox- that's easy.

    Also, if anyone is interested, I have obtained the entire Black Jazz catalog. Hit me up if you want me to upload it somewhere for your listening pleasure.

    Thanks,

    Matt

  • beezerholmesbeezerholmes Edinburgh 59 Posts
    I see you microsoft cratedigger.

    The benefit i see from this modern mp3 digging is that record shop guy doesn't have to deal with creepy dudes coming in and buying witch finder general records because they have bare breasts on the cover.

    The downside is that they don't meet the incredibly nice christian girl who collects stryper records; that they initially laughed at, but then fostered a weird protective fondness for.

    What cd is good, but much like this place it is a community that you need to give, in order to take from.

  • beezerholmes said:
    I see you microsoft cratedigger.

    The benefit i see from this modern mp3 digging is that record shop guy doesn't have to deal with creepy dudes coming in and buying witch finder general records because they have bare breasts on the cover.

    The downside is that they don't meet the incredibly nice christian girl who collects stryper records; that they initially laughed at, but then fostered a weird protective fondness for.

    What cd is good, but much like this place it is a community that you need to give, in order to take from.

    It's actually less demanding than it seems. I mean, a lot of users put very high bounties on very cheap releases (including the download links), so as long as you're ok with spending 3 dollars once in, like, three or four months to buy a random beatport digital release in order to fill a random user's request, you'll be just fine.

  • I was on Oink back in the day (which was great), but after the whole thing came down I didn't find out about what.cd until too late. I tried to go through their interview process once, but the whole thing seemed so insanely ridiculous to me.

  • dammsdamms 704 Posts
    SO OP said:
    I guess finding rare digital music is at least as hard as finding the vinyl itself.
    guess again

  • SO OPSO OP 10 Posts
    Finding some nice stuff on soulseek. Thanks ery-body.

  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,779 Posts
    damms said:
    SO OP said:
    I guess finding rare digital music is at least as hard as finding the vinyl itself.
    guess again

    That's what I thought after rapidshare, media fire, and all the mp3 blogs got cracked down upon.

    Then I went old school... good old soul seek.


  • parallaxparallax no-style-having mf'er 1,266 Posts
    DOR said:

    "Crafted with a custom color developed through hand-painting techniques and strategic use of robots..."

    wut...

  • covecove 1,566 Posts
    RAJ said:
    after rapidshare, media fire, and all the mp3 blogs got cracked down upon.

    I miss the Golden Age!
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