Sunday, July 10, 2016

Assailed by Waves of Nostalgia



After having been compensated for my vinyl loss due to the flood at the end of  May, I’m feeling mixed emotions right now. I’d have preferred the whole affair had never happened, but it did so one has to bite the bullet and come to terms with the situation. Loads of my records, some of them my most treasured and valued, were either destroyed or completely devalued due to the surprise bursting of a pipe behind the bathroom sink.  Having said that, I had just started to catalogue my collection on Discogs a month or two before. Once I actually knew how many records I’ve got, the next step would have been to sell quite a few of them and free up some space. I can’t lie when I say that a large number of those damaged would have been up for grabs.

So in that respect the disaster saved me a lot of work. I wasn’t in a hurry though, and could quite happily have let events take their course, selling at a leisurely pace would have been no problem for me. The water changed all that however. So this morning I took a load down to the council tip. This wasn’t a pleasant experience, as each time I threw a few into the skip, the one on top looked up at me and induced multiple Proustian moments. Short term memory has fluctuated over the years, but I am effortlessly transported to another time and place after having exhumed older records to play them. Unfortunately this wasn’t such an occasion. Old blokes at the tip felt sorry for me, I could see it in their eyes. One or two approached me and asked what I was throwing away and why. ‘Have you got any albums there mate?’ ‘Some” I said, ‘but they’re damaged and mouldy. You’re welcome to take what you want, but I doubt you’re into early noughties Chicago-inspired house.’

It wasn’t just that, but there was lots of it. Lavish Habits comes to mind, as well as Greens Keepers and a load of Brett Johnson stuff. Aesoteric Records, Panhandle Records . . . I loved this stuff . . .  I had to chuck Dave Clarke’s albums away, not that I’d played much of this stuff for a long while, but that’s not the point. Memories came and went so I shut my eyes while putting them out of their misery. The memories and the records that is, most of which had been contaminated by mold over the past few weeks lying at the top of the stairs. Had I been able to save them all I would have, but the house is far too small to be able to have vinyl covering every available square centimeter. In any case, another plus is that I’m now going to be a lot more selective.

I haven’t bought many records since the start of the year, and don’t feel that I’ve missed out on much. I also feel that the market is stagnating a bit. I always have a list on the go at Juno, and often take a while to get around to buying what’s on it, usually being spurred into action buy one or two choice bits disappearing from it while I procrastinate. However, recently stuff has been staying put for a lot longer. Maybe what I’m interested in has suddenly become less in demand, but I don’t think it’s that. Discogs is playing a bigger and bigger role and the market is becoming more self-perpetuating. Anyway, what next?


Well the new Spacetravel on Perlon, ‘Desert Eagle’ by Omar S, ‘Infinitesimal’ by Steven Tang and the reissue of ‘Gesamtkuntswerk’ by Dopplereffekt to name but a few. I shall also be dipping my feet in Discogs murky waters over the next few weeks. More when sated.

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