Does Anyone Read Goldmine?
LaserWolf
Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
Ever? Anyone? What about Discoveries? 
LaserWolf
Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
Comments
Goldmine is just plain dull, although older editions from 1979-84 are a wealth of readable info (I haven't seen any issues from before then).
Strangely enough, even though I know Goldmine still exists, I don't see it anymore. And in a city as big as Chicago, that's saying something. Most of the places that used to carry it either stopped (Borders) or closed down altogether (Tower).
And to a lesser extent, I think Mojo may have stolen their thunder, even though their quality has been dipping in the past few years.
Eh. I don't think the similarities are large enough to wrap the demise of Goldmine into the rise of Mojo.
The huge difference being that Goldmine was THE record collecting mag before the internuts took over... half the reason you'd buy it would be for the ads (to buy/trade/sell rare wax), and the articles are often far nerdier in regards to collector minutia than anything you'd find in a 'normal' music rag.
They were giving out the current ish (GM that is) at a record show I went to last year - it was okay. I wouldn't bother buying it in 2008.
I meant MOJO's quality has been dipping lately. Like Goldmine, Mojo was once a good place to read about esoteric artists from the past that wouldn't be covered by the mainstream media. But in the past three or four years, they too have been losing steam, IMO.
Goldmine lost their excitement long, long ago. Like I said, their best issues were from the 1979-84 era; then they went biweekly and boring. In the nineties, I used to pick up Goldmine, turn to Cub Koda's column, read it, then put it back down without buying it. Koda's "Vinyl Junkie" feature was the only good thing about that magazine by then.
I never considered Mojo a "normal" music rag (although it looks like they're trying to become one), and the ads in Goldmine were always #2 behind the articles for me.
To their credit, both magazines went well out of their way to attract different kinds of genres and subgenres, but the '50s/'60s oldies market remained their bread and butter. I do see younger folks coming up collecting old rockabilly, garage-rock, R&B, etc.. But definitely not doo-wop. Most of the people still alive who are passionate about the Harptones and the Crows probably bought all that stuff already, 30-40 years ago.
But how many Manfred Mann discographies or Simple Minds raer appreciations do you need?
It obviously fills a need.
I actually bought records via mail auctions for the first and last time through a Goldmine ad. I spent a good bit of change probably around '98 for "We The People" by the Soul Searchers, and "Black Smith" by Jimmy Smith. Those records represented both the good and the annoying about mail auctions... The Jimmy Smith I was extremely happy with because I'd wanted it and couldn't find it in stores anywhere. The Soul Searchers...well, it's a decent record, but I was under the mistaken impression that that was the album with "Ashley's Roach Clip" and thanks to the minimal information available I ended up paying like $35 for an album without the one song I wanted. I ended up selling it on eBay years later.
And eBay...that's what really ended my frequent purchases of Goldmine and Discoveries. Suddenly I didn't have to bother with reading a bunch of ads with tiny print, scanning hundreds and hundreds of listings just to find exactly what I wanted. In '98 around the same time I won those albums by mail auction I started hitting up eBay and getting most of my hard-to-find records that way. Similarly, I got broadband internet in '98 and was able to get a lot of bootlegs for free that I'd previously been buying on CD for $20-30 a disc. There's only so many times I can read articles on the damned Beatles catalog and that's essentially what those mags boil down to when you're not dependent on the ads anymore. So...I might have bought an occasional Goldmine sometime in the past decade but it's a very occasional impulse purchase. I actually saw Goldmine at a magazine rack a couple weeks ago and it was a total time warp; I'd forgotten about the magazine entirely and was almost shocked it still existed.
Goldmine is from America and I hardly ever see that one anymore. In the meantime, Record Collector still stares me in the face at record and fanzine shops. Never could get into this mag, always seemed a little too dry to me.
Heh, heh...I think eBay ended Discoveries altogether!
I think that mag would have gone out of business just when eBay started to really come on strong.
"There used to be[/b] this one magazine called Goldmine, you don't see it around anymore,[/b] but before eBay, that's where I used to[/b] get a lot of rare records!"
Wolf should have called this thread "Does Anyone Read Goldmine Anymore?"
This guy showed up to the record show acting all important. Said he was from Boston. Told me if I let him early he would give me a good write up in Goldmine. And I'm thinking, "does anyone read Goldmine, Anymore?". Now I know the answer;
Nobody looked at Goldmine or Discoveries for the articles.
For me it was always the nudie flicks.
I would eventually write for both "Goldmine" and "Discoveries", but when my hip-hop reviews and suggested article were rejected in 1992-1993 ("because hip-hop records aren't of value"), I gave up. "Record Collector" would occasionally have an article or sidebar on electro and old school stuff, and of course a brief mention of Northern soul or obscure funk, but "Goldmine" just did not care that much. I do agree though, a lot of the articles from the 80's/early 90's were deep in information, stuff that hasn't been repeated online. I threw away tons of issues a long time ago, but still have a few.
Even though everything is centered around the internet, there are many dealers who never heard of a .com, but I don't know what their current circulation is.
I sure as hell did.
Rolling Stone or Spin weren't running regular columns devoted to Chicago soul or obscure rockabillies or old rock TV shows or hard-to-find psych LP's. Goldmine did.
Yeah, the record-sale listings were fun to look at, but for my $$$ I also like to see the bios behind these same records. Goldmine was worth looking at once upon a time, and in their prime you'd best believe it wasn't all about the ads.
Discoveries was okay, not a classic but it had its' moments.
I read them mostly for the articles. I bought very few records from the ads. I did read set sale ads to get a feel for values. When I threw out all my 80s Goldmines I clipped all the discogs first and put them into notebooks in alpha order.
About '91 me and 2 other guys got a fed ex subscription in an attempt to be the first to see the ads. That didn't really pan out.
Both Goldmine (Umphred) and Osbourne (Discoveries) price guides went through a great many printings before they started to include soul artists. There was always a note in the front of the guide saying they were working on a soul price guide to be coming soon. But then there would be a C&W guide, and a jazz guide and a soundtrack guide then the rock pop guide again and never was there a soul guide.
I have had 2 "journalists" ask me for bribes in exchange for good write ups. Is this common?
Exactly.