Moving on, scaling back.
mylatency
10,475 Posts
Anyone else scaling back their buying these days? Has anyone actually given up the game/quest/hustle to pursue more in life?I wanna hear those stories, especially since I've been really cutting back and barely digging (compared to 3 years ago, etc). WHY (does) RECORD COLLECTING SUCK(S) IN '06?
Comments
um
yeah, i guess that contributed nothing to this post. no, don't get up, i'm leaving already ...
as far as buying vinyl per se, i've cut back loads as a result of both family and equipment commitments. i tend to buy major things i'm hungering for, but as a rule i tend to spend more on buying things to make music with, rather than music itself these days
because material possessions are a thing of the previous milenium.
Mp3s collecting it's where is at. Mp3s are like the soul of music. Records are the mortal remains. I collect spirituality in the form of mp3s.
of stuff lately so it gets me amped to hit more spots on a regular
basis. When things are slow, it gets frustrating, so it slows down somewhat.
Last year was mad slow and I went on a serious CD binge, buying lots of
rock, especially stuff I wanted my daughter to hear: The Stones, The Beatles,
The Faces, The Kinks, Bowie etc.
As far as breaks/sample stuff, I really don't have any left, things with one good track or just
a beat have no place in my stacks these days. I don't produce so what's the point?
I'm looking for lp's I can listen to all the way through, that's probably why reggae is my main
focus right now. Plus their isn't as much competition, compared to soul/funk/jazz.
um
i know what they're saying but it's pretty close to "i got the fleer rookie card... you wanna trade?"
nah, that shit doesn't do it for me. i have nuff mp3s but i find it hard to place any real value on them at all. it's kind of like if i can't touch it, i'm not feelin it no AYO etc.)
a) I've been busy with school and work
b) because the record prices here are outrageous.
I still get out to car boot sales/ charity shops regularly and often come up, occasionally I splurge at a record shop, but I've also been trying focus my digging on out of town/ out of the country trips. For instance when I go back to the states for Xmas I'll be looking at a few collections and hitting up old
I have no digging partner in crime here, which is both good and bad.
For the most part though records/ djing have taken a back seat to Art-making and I'm not mad at all cause that's going really well..
So for the most part I have cut down but I try and tell myself it's temporary and circumstantial.
Nice to hear that! Didn't you blow out a bunch of stuff on the 'bay to help fund your move, or am I thinking of someone else?
Someone else
As my main man Ness once said, "Record collecting has become the new skateboarding". He has also (mostly, kind of) moved past records into bigger and deffer areas of life.
The competition is mega macho. The stores are drained for the most part by scores of diggers, armies of part-time ebayers, and the stores themselves trying to milk every dollar out of every record sans ebay.
Also, there's so much knowledge available to anyone at anytime, there are very few surprises left. We seen most of the things out there already on the internet or in magazines. It's just the very small thrill of actually holding them in your hands that get when you finally run into it.
As far as the brick and mortar stores are concerned, less records have been coming in. With the help of the new resurgence of the "flyer dealer" by the time the records actually hit the door, at least a couple of dudes have gone through them and picked the best joints out to put on Ebay.
Our one time pocket filler, holy grail finder, blessing called Ebay has killed the field experience. Most people sell a lot more than they buy on the "big screen". Most people here auction off their better records and take their dogs to the local store, where you get a store full of dog ass records. As for buying in the field, it's mostly just about trying to find someone slipping pricing at a record store these days instead of actually trying to find good records. The stores are scared to put anything out because of the pickers. It's a viscious cycle. Unless you're in the club and get let into "the back room".
I get depressed when I go into most stores these days. Most of the time I want to spend money but there's nothing to buy. I keep trudging on though, hitting the same spots religiously. Keep the faith diggers.
I've been mostly re-buying nicer upgrades of stuff I really like, trying to actually have a collection I can be proud of. Well kept, clean records I actually play and not just have because they're rare or the hot record of the month. I still spend as much, I just don't buy as many records.
Peace,
SONIC
Important point. I'm feeling more and more unconfortable when I'm leaving a store empty-handed. It's the store owner's look saying "The last 10 times you were here you didn't buy a thing".
You have to be willing to try new areas of digging or old ways; ask old folk in your neighborhood, search abandoned houses, and search yardsales in the poorest part of town. I'm cheap.
There just isn't much to buy...I liked that DWG "Be Intelligent" EP. I would love to buy more stuff like this, but no one is putting it out.
This pretty much sums it up.
I have had too many times where I've dug for hours upon hours and leave empty handed. There comes a time where you need to do a cost/benefit analysis and the typical result is that 9/10 it's really never going to go your way.
I would much rather spend more money buying from a dealer or ebay and have my time rather than getting a $50 LP for $5. Time is worth more to me.
I got "Thembi" the other day for $1 and that really stoked me out. I copped Joe Pass "Better Days" in a bin about 11 months ago. That was the last real score I've had.
Having those type of scores happen 1 time a year is not keeping me motiviated.
I think some people read about some hot shit in wax poetics & get bummed when they go out & can't find ultra rare private press funk.
personally I just like records & find the whole process of looking at records nearly meditative.
it helps to try to keep your digging expectations reasonable, if I can find an oddball spoken word lp or something I'm usually happy, if I find mega heat all the better, I just try not to expect it.
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The game done changed, my dudes.
And the demands of family life and houses and all that adulthood stuff has made me more thankful for the time to just enjoy what I have. I still can't sit in the house all day when I have a day off, though, the collector blood in me runs thick and red.
We all got into record collecting for different reasons, but you got a mad good point here. I've only been strutting for a minute, but I already see the threads about 'So-and-so just made the switch to laptop-macro-wave, we lost another one' popping up. When the CDJs first dropped, it was the same rush to get new techology to make spinning or mixing that much easier.
But who the fff needs music to be easy???
I fought the CDJs, I fought Final-Scratch et al, and I'll fight the next development whereby the machine will pick out the songs and mix them for you.
Don't you see that all the tech-gadget-schnitt is destroying the old theories of digging faster than C-list is killing newspaper classifieds. The march of progress is a one way street.
All that aside, I feel the poster's orig. point. You get older, and other things get more important. Now that I'm in my mid-thirties I do have a slightly less rabid feel to my digging exploits. Yesterday I was checking out that fly Headless Heroes burner at the local wax-joint, and it was only $79. The old me would have bought it like a freekin' share of berkshire-hathaway to sit on for a millennium. The new me just held it for a minute and put it back...
it's NOT an investment, it's a SPIRIT.
My record buying goes in waves, too - a few weeks I'm not really studying the record stores at all, next few weeks I'm buying everything that ain't nailed down. And yes, I weed out what I don't want or can live without. But since I'm a music fan first and a collector second (and breakbeats don't appeal to me), I'm not really doing mental cartwheels about it.
f'real?
That sums it up real good.
I like to spend time and money for records, but real digging is a rare occurence. I almost stopped to buy new vinyl records.
I go to school, work 30 hours a week, deejay a few nights a week, make beats, and run a lil music operation. A lot of that shit is way more important to me than "diggin' in da cratez". Believe me if I had the time to do so I would but in the meantime hitting up the Groove Merchant & Justin Torres is more than enough.
Mp3's do nothing for me, and I've never bought a record on ebay.
It is best for the game that you exit sooner rather than later.
D*****, you're adorable.