opus to water damage
tripledouble
7,636 Posts
my dear friend abby just got hit hard...her records, tapestry of her existence, just got spilt on by a broken basement pipe. she wrote up some moving oratory that she wanted to share with the record people. 
A SAD LOSS FOR ME BUT ALSO FOR THE RECORDS THAT RAISED US ALL...Friends and family I ask you to read this because I know all of you understand the collective sense of loss when vinyl is lost or damaged and this is my brief eulogy herein because this week, after years of collecting, years of DJ-ing, years of obsession and love and endless digging in spots that don't even exist any longer, and years of living in New York but still keeping a huge portion of my vinyl collection in Mom dukes' basement in Philly rather than in New York where there's not enough room and because it's free and safe and dry and more spacious and accessible the unspeakable occurred when a low-lying pipe developed a crack and leaked 2 inches of water, damaging everything that was touching the floor level.I got down there, I screamed and cried and felt my heart break in my chest all while simultaneously hauling ass to move the shit upstairs and outside so that at least the vinyl, if not some sleeves as well could be saved from death... there was no time to waste. And with the help of others we did save all the vinyl miraculously, wiping away the moisture gently in the direction of the grooves with soft old tee shirts, and with the help of my insurance company many sleeves, though forever changed by exposure to water went that night to get dried at a special facility of the sort I never knew existed where a wall of industrial dehumidifiers and drying machines safely pull the moisture out as they sit in an enclosed chamber. And the records on the upper shelves were spared and so amidst this craziness I feel oddly fortunate but the sight of the damaged sleeves still hurts to look at and I see it as a collective loss for us all. It may sound corny but I have spent so many years sharing these records with so many people whether as a DJ before the mp3 era or in my living room with friends and with people I love, cooking or smoking weed with a boyfriend on a Sunday listening to the same album over and over with fresh awe each time or even as a little girl when I made mix tapes for anyone who asked me for one, so to see these wet sleeves was a huge reminder of the passage of time, of the fading and changing nature of finding records, of making music, stores long since gone in neighborhoods changed, Philly crackheads I used to buy whole collections from after school who knows what became of them, of hours upon hours of time spent messing with records in that same basement as a kid, and of how at least for me the fun in records is about sharing which is ultimately the oldest way to keep something alive. After all you can't just walk into a store and buy this shit, it takes years and a lot of love and being the weirdo who gives a shit so you have to make it matter beyond itself otherwise you are just a baseball card collector. So I feel lucky to still be able to share and I hope I can keep doing that for a long time.And a word on that value tip, I truly hate to give credit to the Babylon system but this insurance situation is absolutely necessary and they are handling everything and have been so helpful with every step of this debacle and so to all of you who have vinyl get it insured because I never thought this could happen and I was always careful but it clearly can happen indeed. I want to thank everyone who is helping with this especially my dear friend Brendan Bringem who has gone through this himself in his own basement and gave me so much valuable info and comfort and to Liz Solms and my mom who had never cleaned vinyl before and were so solid through the entire night.I have enclosed some images that are meant not only to be a slightly somber yet hopeful reminder for us all of the beauty and special-ness of vinyl but also to be shared so especially those of you with sites and means to blog etc. So much history disappears every day so share what you can however you can, daily but live in the present and contribute your own new ideas and artwork and music as you do so.And please share this and the pics because again this is about the collective experience that magically occurs by proxy of the realness that is vinyl.LOVEAbby Klein
Comments
the junk removal people came and must of tossed it. sad thing is i can't even list what was in the box. i know there was a grip of hard to find 12"s in there.
i only remember what was in there when i go to locate a 12" and can't. that is when i add it to my lost list...
i feel your friends' pain.
hurt
wow.
ask her if she needs SS to do a sleeve drive. We're always hooking each other up with empty sleeves in the Real Headz forum. Who's down? I dunno what I can contribute but I'm down to look.
Do not keep records on the basement floor. Always put things at least a foot or two off the floor. Most basements will flood at some point.
yeah, I'm down too... maybe get a list of what covers she needs man, post 'em up with an address...
peace.
they hire nerds and run the collection through...
Strutter real world moves revealed?
She might want to also dry out the sleeves that didn't actually get hit by water. Just being down there when this happened they could have absorbed enough moisture to have problems with mold in the future if left alone.
ditto. i have several sleeves ready to reunite with their vinyl mates...
Don't store your records. Keep them handy and listen to them. Storage is bad news.
Do not store on concrete floors or against concrete walls. Concrete is porous and absorbs water. Slowly of the years your records will get water damaged sitting in a dry basement, garage, or any where else with a concrete floor.
I just bought what would have been a more valuable Beatles collection except the bottom 2" of all the sleeves had foxing (that yellow stain paper gets) from sitting, in a box, on the garage floor.
I was collecting Folkways records when I opened my first shop. The rest of my lifes collection was for sale, but the Folkways were in the back on the floor when it flooded. I was there when it happened and waded in real quick and pulled them out and threw away the sleeves and dried out the covers. As soon as everything was back together I sold them. No sense keeping them if they just sat on the floor in the back.
I hope I can help with covers.