Part 4: Storage and Care
OK so you’ve built up a record collection (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3). What were you gonna do, leave it stacked up on your floor? Not if you want it to retain its value, and in the long run, its functionality. No, this is an investment of time and resources, and you need to treat it right if you want it to last. Otherwise you’re going to end up like one of these scrubs on Craigslist wasting everyone’s time with “RARE VINYLS FOR SALE” that all look like they’ve been played with steel wool and barely survived an apartment fire. Don’t be that person. You’re better than that.
Storage
Always store records upright and in their jackets and dust sleeves. Do not store records flat, and definitely do not stack them on top of one another for long periods of time. Conditions like weight, heat, and exposure to direct sunlight can warp vinyl.
If you’ve only got a few records, they’ll likely end up on your bookshelf. No big deal. But many traditional bookshelves are not designed to handle the weight of a lot of records, and the last thing you want is to come home from work one day to find your shelf collapsed and your records messed up on your floor. Back in the ’60s and ‘70s, shelving units and home furnishings were more sympathetic towards record storage, because LPs were the dominant medium in recorded music, and every home had a number of them on hand. Nowadays, not so much, and a lot of the things we collect on shelves, like CDs and DVDs, don’t put the same kind of pressure on their environment.
To that end, there are still a number of standbys to get your records out of your floor space. The standard for lots of folks with decently-sized collections is an IKEA unit called the Expedit, which nests a set number of shelves, arranged cubically in rows and columns, within a reinforced frame of finished particle board. They’re boxy, sleek options for modern living spaces, but once you run out of space, it’s time to get a new one. My choice for shelving, also from IKEA, is their traditional Ivar system. It’s modular shelving made from solid, lightweight but sturdy unfinished pine, held into place with adjustable pegs and wiry metal cross braces. Use two of the cross pieces for each free-standing unit you’re going to use, one at the top of the unit and the other on the bottom. It’s important to reinforce these shelves in such a way. I’ve got these set up in my office, a full three columns of shelving for records, each one seven shelves high, and I store my boxes of 7” singles on the top. I’ve got to use a stepladder to get up there, but that sort of goes along with the college radio record library motif the room has taken on.
Whatever option you choose, make sure that the shelves you put your collection on are sturdy and do not buckle in the middle when full.
Sleeving Records
Cardboard record jackets, and the records within them, are susceptible to the elements to which they are exposed. These elements can negatively affect the condition and playability of your records, as well as any potential resale value they might hold. You’ve no doubt noticed the condition known as “ringwear” on record covers–a circular discoloration on all or part of the jacket that touches the outer edge of the record inside. This happens when bare record sleeves are pressed against each other. Plastic sleeving is an option that will allow you to retain the condition of your records.
Plastic sleeves are available from Bags Unlimited (a mail order retailer of collection protection equipment) and at many record stores that cater to vinyl. Place each record in its own sleeve, with the mouth facing upwards. You’d be surprised, but I’ve heard from people who had to deal with floods in the spaces where they keep their records, and one who had the sleeves open to the jacket’s mouth found that his entire bottom row of albums got destroyed by the rising waters. Keeping the open end of the sleeve in the opposite direction from the floor is the most foolproof solution. Lately, thinner mylar bags with resealable flaps have been introduced as a comparable solution, but I don’t think these are as sturdy, and can’t really recommend them.
Cleaning
Records should remain clean in order for the best results. Factors such as dust, dirt and liquids with a slow evaporation point can impact playback and damage your stylus. There are plenty of options, from a velour brush doused with cleaning fluid to a high-end wet-dry record vacuum with standalone turntable. Find the one that best fits your budget. If you’re a crate digger in particularly dusty venues, you might find that a professional cleaning vacuum will turn filthy records into ones that look and play like new, by removing dirt stuck into the grooves without merely pushing it around the surface.
I also found this reference guide online that was originally published in the ‘60s, but its information still holds true with respect to record care. Check it out here.
Part Three: Some Friendly Advice
As stated in the first two editions of this series (see part one here and part two here), you really shouldn’t need rules to collect records. But if you are new to this undertaking, there’s some ethical advice I’d recommend that you follow. Even if you’ve been going at this your whole life, even if you’ve made this pastime into a career–and there’s no shame in that–these words of wisdom, collected by me in the field, are as good as gold to help you through the decisions and interactions you’re going to face while digging.
Know your place and accept your luck
Realize that you are just one of many people out there looking for records, and that nothing you can do will change that. You might be the first to get to a bin of new arrivals, but in all likelihood, you won’t. Some days you might scoop everybody else, and some days everybody else will scoop you. Deal. If you are impatient, and need security in the hunt, or simply wish to remove all elements of surprise from the pastime, please have fun sniping records off of eBay. You won’t learn much, but the people who would go about things in this fashion often feel they don’t need to. If you get there first, that’s cool. If you didn’t, no big deal. Breathe deeply and walk it off.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions
Sure, the record store clerks and the people talking to them can be surly and unapproachable. Some might even mock you for your purchases. This is not your concern, and never will be. Collecting and dealing records does strange things to people, but your good nature will be a deterrent to any snarky comeback these folks will have to say. Part of the real-life record shopping experience carries with it a vital counterpart of social interaction. These people should be excited about some music for sale in their stores. Ask them about it, about other places where they like to shop, and other small talk. Be nice! Engage them in a positive and non-antagonistic manner and you will sow the seeds of learning and trust. There are sometimes benefits–percentage discounts, hook-ups, inside information–that come with the experience. But, as in life, people know when they’re being taken advantage of. Don’t be the person who does that.
Budget your time wisely
Some days you will have hours to yourself to go through a store’s contents. Other days you will have people waiting patiently for you to finish. It’s been my experience that companions who have no interest in record shopping really resent having to wait around for you to finish up. Don’t force your companions into this situation. Shop when you can, and use the time allotted in advantageous ways. You’ll never cover a large store in 30 minutes, for example, so hit up the sections you know will interest you–new arrivals are always interesting–then whatever genres and/or formats float your boat.
Etiquette means A to Z, and waiting your turn
Pretty simple. If someone is digging in a section you wish you were in, you gotta wait your turn. If someone else is waiting before you, no cuts. Don’t pull that sort of crap where you start digging through the back of a bin currently being combed by someone from the other end. You need to be patient. As an addendum, there’s more to it than knowing what you want. You need to become familiar with the way certain records look so you will know in which areas you are wasting your time and can dig faster. It is therefore best if you do a complete scan of everything you’re interested in. This may take a while if you’re a beginner, as just about everything in a store may appear foreign to you. Your digging speed and competency will slowly increase over time. As another addendum, be as stern as you need to with others who are approaching the bins you’re going through. Don’t let people get away with the things that you wouldn’t do yourself. You have the right to call out people for breaking the rules of proper conduct. Exercise it judiciously.
If you want it, grab it
Provided you aren’t doing anything untoward, like digging through somebody’s hold pile, or going through stuff that hasn’t been priced yet, you need to come to grips that a record you want that is in your hands is a temporal object. It may not be there the next time you visit the store. It may be a steal. It also may be grossly overpriced, and at the next spot you hit, you may find it for substantially cheaper. Until you get your game up regarding prices and condition as they relate to regional record shopping (which will take years and years of research), be advised to keep it in the here and now. It’s just a record, and you don’t need it. But if you want it, have the money to cover it, have weighed the opportunity costs with what buying it will have on your budget and can live with it, then by all means, go for it. Sometimes I don’t follow my own logic in this regard and am still kicking myself for passing on what seemed like expensive items at the time, even at a store where I receive a pretty favorable employee discount. I let them slip by, and when regret sparked a return visit, the records I wanted were long gone. I knew better, and still this went down. I’m bummed, but I’ll deal with it, just by hoping such offers come across again. Point is, you really can’t think about desirable objects in terms of the money. Money comes and goes, and you wouldn’t be wasting it on records if you cared about such things.
It’s OK to not know about everything in the store
Chances are, nobody does. Trends in what’s popular and what’s rare come and go, and fluctuate with the market. Bear in mind that this market is very small and very diverse, but also very fluid. eBay and Internet sales, coupled with decreases in pressing quantities for newer product, have thrown two significant spikes in sales. To this end, it’s cool to make lists and follow them when you go to the store. Even easier, just do research online beforehand, if you feel up to it. But don’t act like you are some sort of inexhaustible font of knowledge on such topics if you’re not.
Get ready to be disappointed
We’re in an era where store clerks would just as soon take way more from some random person on eBay than sell it to you for the listed price. This sucks, and is a root cause of why record stores are failing: a lack of good terms with customers, and a subsequent drop in new collections coming in. Times are tough right now for anyone selling physical media. Tools like Popsike and Goldmine lists have wildly inflated what certain titles will sell for, and are used as the rule in far too many cases, as opposed to the prices for which they should sell. Chalk it up to greed. This operator will die off, and maybe you can swoop down in the hard-luck going out of business sale that will go down in the near future. In short, this is an unfair game played by a sampling of all types of people; within that sampling are people you and I might consider to be obsessives, nerds, and losers. If someone is going to try to take advantage of you, you don’t have to deal with them…but all the same, that’s one record you might have wanted that you’re not buying on principal, and if you don’t, somebody else will. Trust your gut. It’s always best to feel better than to give in.
Don’t gloat
You will have days where you are wildly successful. One time during college, I visited my local used record store and asked the owner if any Sun Ra records were coming in, as well as any copies of the rare and awesome John Cale/Terry Riley collaboration, Church of Anthrax. Knowing this was a wild pitch, I nearly shat myself when I walked in a couple of months later, right after Christmas, and was told “Doug, where you been? I’ve been holding onto these records for you!” Placed into my hands was a mint import of the latter, and six Sun Ra records, including a title called Beyond the Purple Star Zone, a1980 title on Saturn that had yet to be reissued, for $7 apiece. Coupled with finding an OG Agent Orange Living in Darkness for $5, this was clearly among the best days of record digging I’d ever had, and I told everyone I could. Soon after, I got dumped by the girl I was seeing (on New Year’s Eve, in my own goddamn house), I was fired from my student job, and the family dog I’d known since I was five years old had to be put to sleep. I don’t really believe in karma, or luck, but I had a sneaking suspicion that these events were somehow related. I’d go on to dig, and score, and my life has been filled with ups and downs since then, but I never forgot this incident. In the words of William DeVaughn, “be thankful for whatcha got.”
Make sure you check condition while you have the chance
Don’t overpay for hammered copies of records, water-damaged sleeves, warped vinyl, and other flaws in your finds. Know how to take care of records at home, including cleaning procedures, and learn the difference between dirty vinyl and actual scratches and flaws in a pressing. If you can feel the effects of a scratch or gouge on the vinyl, you will sure as hell hear it when you get it home. Chances are the store is not going to be so kind to you when you try to return it.
Listening stations are nice, but don’t hog them
Sometimes records are pressed wildly off-center, and in this regard will provide you with a flawed listening experience. Check out the things you’re interested in buying in the store if you can, but be respectful of other customers who are trying to do the same.
Don’t get greedy
There’s a difference between finding a deal and exploiting it. Do not turn into the type of person whose ridiculous demands and antagonistic shopping patterns earn you the enmity of store staff. There are a handful of these losers out there and they are universally hated. You don’t want to join their ranks.
Dig in unexpected places
I’d have never known that the video store near my apartment sold records unless I looked myself. Flea markets, garage sales, estate sales, storage unit auctions, and libraries are great, non-traditional places to dig for vinyl. Craigslist features a high number of crazies who think that they’re sitting on a goldmine with some worn out Sinatra LPs. It’s up to you to know the difference, but you won’t unless you look for yourself.
HAVE FUN!
When it all comes down to it, very few people rely on flipping vinyl at a profit to supplement their income. It’s a time, money, and space-consuming enterprise, but you probably know that already if you want to be part of it. So get out there and have a good time.
So you decided not to back out, and you want to start a record collection of your own, or you have a small one and you want to make it bigger–like, you-have-to-hire-movers-next-time bigger. No way do you need this; it’s something you have to want.
To to that extent I can offer up the following advice:
- You have to love music to make this work. You will become obsessive about it in due time, should you choose to follow this course of action, so at least be obsessed with something that you love.
- If you are unlucky enough to be afflicted with OCD, this is a Grand Canyon-esque expanse for you to throw your anxieties into. A man, a plan, a canal; Panama. People built that canal. This is your canal.
- If for some lame reason you are jumping in to become a record dealer because you see recent singles going for three bills on eBay, you really are going to have to love the music you’re flipping enough to know what you’re trying to get into and get rid of. This is not some “get rich quick” scheme by any measure. No one person could impart you with that much information in a way you could understand it, either, so don’t try hopping on somebody else’s coattails to know what you need to know. Nobody’s that lonely, and record collectors are generally more suspicious than the average person.
Listening to music has always been a big concern in my own life. As a little boy I had a Fisher-Price turntable and a rack full of records I could ruin all on my own, scored from garage sales and the cut-out bin at the local Peaches. I moved onto cassette tapes and then CDs in a trajectory that led from Duran Duran and Thriller to the Beastie Boys and Ozzy solo. This in turn put me right in the frame for “YO! MTV Raps” in the butter years, then down that evergreen path that many an early ’90s pre-teen followed: Violent Femmes into Dead Milkmen, then the Chili Peppers and Nirvana, then Ministry, then Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. and Mudhoney. Pretty soon I discovered college radio and filled in a lot of the gaps; a few years later I was at a college radio station, doing a radio show and listening to everything that came out that looked interesting, and going to see bands several night a week. Every time I turned around, there was something new to check out. That’d be enough for most people, but I got involved with running a label and promoting shows on my own on top of that. I guess somewhere inside I have this driving need to program the air around me with music, to show how I’m feeling at that particular moment, and to get the people around me to understand and celebrate (or commiserate, as it were).
It’s with that life experience that the last important thing you need to take in before starting a record collection is to share. Be pleasant, be enthusiastic, and share (I don’t mean give away your records–though if and when the time comes to do that, you’ll know. You do have to share, however–information, stories, advice, scores, goodwill. I’m not suggesting that you offer it when it’s not asked for; I’m merely saying that this is going to be a pretty lonely and unfulfilling time if you can’t reach out to other people and talk about it. Nobody wants to hang out with the guy from the cover of the Warrant album, greedily hoarding four bins of new arrivals. Don’t be that person. There’s enough of 98% of the records out there for everybody who wants one to own it. Share, and be cool with sharing. Unless you’re confronted with a manipulative sociopath, you will find that sharing represents one of the only ways to get by.
OK. So you like a particular kind of music? Go out and buy records. Repeat as often as necessary.
HA!
Next installment I will provide you with some more wisdom about etiquette, digging, and a handful of other chestnuts.
(Missed somthing? Read Part 1)
Tomorrow, April 19th, is the first annual Record Store Day–a celebration of vinyl, CDs, and the stores that sell them near you. Hundreds of retailers across the United States will be celebrating with sale pricing, live bands, DJ sets, cookouts, giveaways, and more. In that regard, our own Doug Mosurock starts a multi-chapter article about how to develop and maintain your own record collection. Despite his advice to the contrary, Record Store Day would be a great place for any of you to get started on such a project, or build out the collection you already have.
If you are reading this to learn how to start a vinyl record collection, you can stop right here. You are crazy for wanting to do this. You do not need a wall of records in your home, and you are likely going to attract the ire of people who are already too far gone in this pursuit, in deed and in action, to make it worth your while.
That being said, for some of you out there, a record collection will fill a void in your life with music, history, and a shared experience. It may steer your listening habits towards the more critical and appreciative ends of the attention span. It may also make you into somewhat of an exhibitionist, in that you’ll want to share your finds with friends and strangers alike, listen to music with others at home, and possibly want to ply your tastes on the public as a DJ in a bar, a club, a podcast or a college or community radio station. These can all be good things and worthwhile pursuits, but they are also ego-driven to varying degrees, so if you don’t think you can hang with that in any capacity, then this hobby is likely not for you.
So, where to start? Do you like music? How much? Go back in your mind to how your listening habits were formed. How much of a presence was music in your formative years? Did your parents have records of their own? Did you have a record player or cassette deck of your own? Early exposure to music, even outside of the spectrum of pop, can be fairly critical to how you feel about the medium today, to the point of digging through record stores to satisfy a yen for personal discovery. When you start caring about the differences between pressings, as well as discovering who played on what, and the sounds of different eras and producers, you’re on board, but even before such navel-gazing activities commence, you’ll have to have an understanding and a passion for knowledge of what music will make you feel the way you want to when you listen to it. How these tracks best augment your own personality will ultimately guide your listening habits and purchases as your record collection bulks up.
Does format matter to you? Are you still holding onto your CD collection, or are you reverting back to vinyl, the king of all formats? Are you content with MP3s? If you answered yes to the latter, you can stop right here. There is more recorded music available online, be it legitimately sold or illegally procured, than you will ever have cause to listen to in the course of your entire life. So if you just want to listen to things and make the connections in your head, by all means, go this route. You will save money, back pain, and grief. You’re also missing out on what can be a truly rewarding experience: going to your local record store, digging through the bins, talking to the employees about music, listening and learning about things that, once revealed, will make your lives feel incomplete until you own them.
Also, take this time to be honest with yourself about how much room you can dedicate to building a record collection in your home. I’ve got an entire room dedicated to mine, with 21 shelves of LPs from the floor to the ceiling, with boxes of 45s stacked above them, an additional unit’s worth of vinyl (compilation LPs and hip-hop) stacked below my listening post, and a closet filled with dance records. I need to use a stepladder to get to the highest shelf. I’ve also got a fiancée who is understanding of this need for space, and I do my best to keep the peace around our apartment by keeping the music to the confines of this space. If you don’t want this to be your life, you can back out right now, and not worry about it anymore. If I haven’t dissuaded you yet, then by all means get started. I’ll be back with tips soon.
Elvis Costello is the latest in a string of high-profile artists who are utilizing vinyl records to set themselves apart from the same old music industry release dilemma. Momofuku is the title of Elvis Costello’s latest album, to be released exclusively on vinyl April 22 on Lost Highway and containing a coupon good for one free digital download of the album with purchase. No CD counterpart in sight. The album title translates roughly to “lucky peach,” a bit of rough slang that mixes up Japanese and Korean. But New Yorkers and followers of culinary trends know Momofuku as the name of a small but popular chain of Asian restaurants in Manhattan owned by culinary wunderkind David Chang.
Coincidence? Parallels? Would we go so far as to liken the original Momofuku Noodle Bar to the true aim of Costello’s career from its starts up through Spike? To compare Momofuku Ssam Bar, its trendier and more daring successor, to Costello’s wild experiments of the ‘90s from opera to duets with Diana Krall and Burt Bacharach? And now, Momofuku Ko, an intimate dining experience involving a menu that changes at chef David Chang’s whim, and an exclusive online reservation system…to Elvis’ own Momofuku.
Sure, we can go there. In the past six months, bands like Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and Jack White’s supergroup the Raconteurs have all figured the format significantly into their latest releases, coinciding with an uptick in vinyl sales across the music industry. Maybe it’s the collectibility factor, or a growing desire for formatted, curated content among the listening public: the return of the album, if you will, and the return of artists whose careers have been staked on the long form object, rather than single tracks. But it seems to be working, at least from the looks of intrepid indie labels like Matador, Sub Pop, and Secretly Canadian, all of which have been including download coupons with their vinyl titles for the past year or two.
A vinyl-only release is a bold move, one which surely might limit Elvis Costello’s audience on this one…but hey, much like Chang’s done with Ko, it’s his choice. No word on whether Costello’s a fan of Chang’s restaurant, but if he could find a way to give out an order of Momofuku’s steamed pork buns with the record, that’d be good enough for me.
Bloggers are bloggin’. Magazines are writin’. Newspaper editors are yellin’ “Stop the presses!” What’s the good word? Apparently, vinyl is back! Vinyl records–seven-inch singles and twelve-inch LPs, and all the in-between formats–are back in vogue. Turntables are once again being produced for a market more than willing to snatch them up, plug them into their USB ports, and digitize their collections. Speculators are out there, digging through the crates at stores, flea markets and yard sales, their eyes and hands serving as some manner of divining rod that’ll net them a solid return on investment via eBay.
The resurgence of public interest in vinyl resides primarily in circles of independent artists and labels positioned outside of the traditional music industry, as well as those within who are looking for some leverage against the slump in CD sales, stemming from the surge in both the sales of electronic media and the act of illegal downloads. Last year, the U.K.’s legendary and forward-thinking Southern Records launched a vinyl-only label, Black Diamond, with its first release by indie underdog P.W. Long, God Bless the Drunkard’s Dog.
Vinyl, you see, is the peoples’ medium. Rejected by an industry that once held it as its backbone, it’s become the mouthpiece of counter-culturists, DIY lifers, and the disenfranchised. It’s a format that’s breathed life into genres like punk, garage, and power pop both in their infancy and in each of its revivals. It’s been used by artists with voices as strong as their marketing savvy to improve their own individual outlooks on how to gain notice and operate as their own self-sufficient entity–see Superchunk or the White Stripes for a concrete example. As a used medium, it’s even sweeter: fans can purchase classic albums for pennies on the dollar, eschewing technological advances for an unbeatable bargain.
Vinyl’s also a medium ripe for exploitation. With the sales of music declining across the board, pressings of new records have dropped significantly, upping the collectability factor. Being in the right place and time counts in such matters of hoarding, and a group of would-be “blue chip” record collectors have proven that a rare record is a rare record, be it old or new. Thus, we have a fairly unscrupulous set of diggers out there who are driving up prices on desirable releases, the revenue from which is rarely seen by the artists responsible. This sword has two edges; witness the recent vinyl/data disc box set release of Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV, limited to 2500 copies, priced at $300 a pop, and sold exclusively by Trent Reznor’s web operation. It’s great to provide superfans with such an intimately packaged artifact, but to blow past the standard price point for such a release by about $200 raises questions about the nature of music as a commodity.
As the technology and formats of music delivery continue to evolve, vinyl is somehow still a player. Whether or not younger generations without the sentimental association will embrace it as a valuable or interesting option remains to be seen. Still, if you stumble across a turntable in a thrift store for $10, you might want to pick it up.
Doug Mosurock will be leading a panel discussion about the vinyl revival at Austin’s SXSW this Saturday, March 15th at 12pm in room 15 of the Austin Convention Center, joined by panel of independent label personnel, distributors, and record store owners to discuss the current state of vinyl, where it might go from here, and if there’s a chance that the format that started the music industry might be able to save it after all.