Record Collecting, Pt. 2

What started out as something I believed to be a minor experience exploded into a full on thing, which tends to happen when I latch on to a new passion. 

And it's not that putting a record collection together is a new thing for me; I sold (most of) my entire collection of nearly 5,000 records back in 2009 in order to move to San Francisco for grad school. And I gotta tell ya, that was the dumbest thing I ever did. Not because of how much some of those records are worth now, but because of how much it would cost me to put some of those records back into my collection. Some of my favorite albums (particularly those by the People Under the Stairs and Massive Attack's "100th Window") are now very nearly cost-prohibitive as to be almost unattainable. 

So I've started over. Not quite from scratch as I kept about 50 or 60 records back; the important ones I didn't want to part with for one reason or another. But my approach to buying is different than it used to be. Now, I approach the building of my collection from a listening standpoint whereas before, I wouldn't flinch at buying a record with only 2 or 3 tracks on it purely with the dancefloor in mind. If I have no interest in the whole album, I don't buy any part of it. I'm more judicious with my choices, though I'm giving more up-and-coming producers a chance.

Part of this stems from having been a DJ for nearly 20 years. At this point, I've listened to and loved so many different artists and genres that it's easy for me to know what I like or what I'll latch on to. There are record labels in Budapest and Germany and Portugal and Russia, all pumping out great instrumental hip hop from producers who, while not necessarily breaking the mold of the genre, are creating really great albums full of great material worth listening to repeatedly. Artists like B-Side, Philanthrope, SicknessMP, Figub Brazlevic, Thelonious Coltrane, Birocratic, Emapea, and Flitz & Suppe line my shelves because they are quality producers creating quality music on labels that care about creating quality.

And much of that new stuff has to be bought online as it's made in small batches or doesn't get the same kind of exposure in the states as it does in Europe. That's one of the great things about music and the internet - how easily you can find one via the other and really find out what other countries are making, music-wise. It's fantastic.

Overwhelmingly, however, I still prefer the dig. I prefer walking into a record store and flipping through thousands of records over the course of several hours. It's a kind of therapy for me. This method also allows me the element of surprise when I come across something I'd never even thought to buy, but which I cannot leave buried in the stacks when it's time to check out and leave. It takes another vinyl or music lover to go record shopping with as they can appreciate that time moves differently when you shop for music at this level. Record shopping days aren't about popping right in and out quickly, they're about marinating in the environment and letting the records find you.

Once the dig is done, once the shops have been hit and rummaged through, I enjoy the leftover feeling of dry, dusty fingers in need of lotion. I do not, however, enjoy what I call "digger's finger," where the right bit of cardboard slides up underneath the fingernail and slices open the skin. I got one of these back in September and it still gives me issues nearly 6 months later.

My jazz and soul section is FAR larger now than it was in my previous iteration. I believe a good part of this is due to knowing way more about the samples used in most of my favorite hip hop albums. Once I heard the sample, I'd check out the rest of the full song. Once I heard the song, if I liked it (I typically did), then I'd check out the rest of the album and typically enjoy it too.

I have a lot of the typical jazz shit; Miles, Coltrane, Lionel Hampton, Ella, etc. But now there are massive amounts of artists like Cal Tjader, Grover Washington, Bob James, Idris Muhammed, Yusef Lateef, Lonnie Liston Smith, Ronnie Laws and Pharoah Sanders.

The problem becomes, of course, a financial one. Because I enjoy a broad spectrum of genres (not country), I have bands and artists from pretty much every genre that I really enjoy. I move as easily to the old DC hardcore of Minor Threat to the lush piano vibes of Fiona Apple. I like the impressively mathematical progressive metal of Gojira or Meshuggah, but I also love and appreciate the less complex nature of ambient or drone music like A Winged Victory for the Sullen or Loscil.

I've played in a few bands as a bass player and I've been a DJ for two decades. I think what I love most about music is how connected so much of it is. Not only connected to other genres, but the way a certain chord progression evokes an emotional response or how a particular song can elicit memories that have long been submerged in the black of the subconscious. 

There is color to the sound, there is feeling in the frequency. 

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