Space: The Vinyl Frontier
Nov. 1st, 2006 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
barondaveI need space more than I need vinyl albums. My record collection was never very large and really stopped growing at least ten years ago, before I moved to this condo. Since then, I've been selling off records scattershot, as I've replaced favorites with CDs and some others. My general tendency not to throw out things that might, possibly, maybe, someday, be useful again had bumped into another technological space hog: floppy disks. So in the last couple of months I've gotten rid of several hundred floppies (and other misc computer stuff)...
... and just donated or sold over a hundred vinyl albums. Probably about a quarter to a third of the remaining LPs. My goal was to free up at least one record shelf, and I did that. Still, it was harder than I thought.
Even though I haven't listened to a record in years, I remember intimate details. For dozens if not hundreds of records, I can tell you when I got it, which of my college friends liked it and which didn't, what other records I was listening to at the time, which city I was in when it was important, what the cryptic symbols written on the sleeve mean, and so on.
Some of the records weren't too hard to part with. When many of my friends were playing Grateful Dead all over the place, I wanted to hear real country and built up a fair collection of Flatt & Scruggs bluegrass. I still like bluegrass (and related genres like country swing and rockabilly), but have a fair amount on CD. At some point I'll get around to more Flatt & Scruggs (who remain the top of my bluegrass favorites), but for now I'm okay.
I finally bit the bullet and got rid of my Patti Smith albums. I have several of them on CD, but not all. But I could if I wanted to.
Quite a few of my records had never been listened to, and another large chunk with only a listen or two. Giving up on a record that I'd been hauling around for nearly 20 years was hard. And, in fact, I kept some of them. But many went pfft.
The records I kept probably tell more about me than the ones now gone. I kept all the 78s and 45s; not many of either and many not listened to in decades if at all, but I can't part with them. Perhaps technology is catching up and I can transfer them to digital.
I kept most of the comedy. Partly because I got them used and they're in terrible shape I'm too ashamed even to donate them to charity. I'll digitize all the Shecky Greene and Bob Newhart then toss 'em. If they play.
For the umpteenth time, I had Caught In The Act in my hand. It's the live Victor Borge album from 1953; I have the CD and, if truth be known, really only play a cut or two ("Phonetic Punctuation"). Then, for the umpteenth time, I looked down and saw my father's name on the sleeve. *sigh* Yeah, I'll keep it.
I'll probably never get rid of the Steeleye Span. For one thing, they're very well played. For another, they hold fond memories. Many of them are imports, and in college I hoarded my imports while diverse contemporaries hoarded their cheaper but less played albums. Even if I take the plunge and get rid of them, I'll keep All Around My Hat since the CD only prints the front cover. The album has a front and back cover of the band members in projected art: You pull the lyric sheet out just an inch and bend it up or down and look through the holes to see the band members as they should be. Too nifty to toss.
All sorts of strange and odd records, most not rereleased on CD though I haven't checked in a while, made this cut. Selling CDs is getting hard, as young whippersnappers think mp3s are the cat's meow. Selling records is even harder. Still, as long as I can get a tax write-off and a reasonable chance that they can find a good home, this was probably not the last cut.
But it's getting harder.
... and just donated or sold over a hundred vinyl albums. Probably about a quarter to a third of the remaining LPs. My goal was to free up at least one record shelf, and I did that. Still, it was harder than I thought.
Even though I haven't listened to a record in years, I remember intimate details. For dozens if not hundreds of records, I can tell you when I got it, which of my college friends liked it and which didn't, what other records I was listening to at the time, which city I was in when it was important, what the cryptic symbols written on the sleeve mean, and so on.
Some of the records weren't too hard to part with. When many of my friends were playing Grateful Dead all over the place, I wanted to hear real country and built up a fair collection of Flatt & Scruggs bluegrass. I still like bluegrass (and related genres like country swing and rockabilly), but have a fair amount on CD. At some point I'll get around to more Flatt & Scruggs (who remain the top of my bluegrass favorites), but for now I'm okay.
I finally bit the bullet and got rid of my Patti Smith albums. I have several of them on CD, but not all. But I could if I wanted to.
Quite a few of my records had never been listened to, and another large chunk with only a listen or two. Giving up on a record that I'd been hauling around for nearly 20 years was hard. And, in fact, I kept some of them. But many went pfft.
The records I kept probably tell more about me than the ones now gone. I kept all the 78s and 45s; not many of either and many not listened to in decades if at all, but I can't part with them. Perhaps technology is catching up and I can transfer them to digital.
I kept most of the comedy. Partly because I got them used and they're in terrible shape I'm too ashamed even to donate them to charity. I'll digitize all the Shecky Greene and Bob Newhart then toss 'em. If they play.
For the umpteenth time, I had Caught In The Act in my hand. It's the live Victor Borge album from 1953; I have the CD and, if truth be known, really only play a cut or two ("Phonetic Punctuation"). Then, for the umpteenth time, I looked down and saw my father's name on the sleeve. *sigh* Yeah, I'll keep it.
I'll probably never get rid of the Steeleye Span. For one thing, they're very well played. For another, they hold fond memories. Many of them are imports, and in college I hoarded my imports while diverse contemporaries hoarded their cheaper but less played albums. Even if I take the plunge and get rid of them, I'll keep All Around My Hat since the CD only prints the front cover. The album has a front and back cover of the band members in projected art: You pull the lyric sheet out just an inch and bend it up or down and look through the holes to see the band members as they should be. Too nifty to toss.
All sorts of strange and odd records, most not rereleased on CD though I haven't checked in a while, made this cut. Selling CDs is getting hard, as young whippersnappers think mp3s are the cat's meow. Selling records is even harder. Still, as long as I can get a tax write-off and a reasonable chance that they can find a good home, this was probably not the last cut.
But it's getting harder.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-01 09:06 pm (UTC)By the way, a brief lecture on terminology, or at least, the way I use certain terms, and anybody else may of course do as they please:
A flat, 12" microgroove recording which plays properly at 33 1/3 RPM is a long-playing record, or LP. This format (ignoring earlier, unsuccessful versions done by RCA decades earlier) was invented by Peter Goldmark and introduced commercially by Columbia Records in 1948. They trademarked the term "LP" for it; I'm not necessarily slavish to such concerns, but by gum this is the official term for this medium and that's what I use.
The word "album," to me, applies to a collection of several (usually three, four, or five, but sometimes more) 78 RPM records in sleeves which are bound together, and released together as an integral set. Some of these were collections of popular music; the ones with which I'm more familiar are works of classical music, such as symphonies or concertos, in which it is intended that the sides be played one after the other, which is why they're sold together. Somehow or other the term "album" got applied to LPs, primarily by popular music enthusiasts in the 1970s, presumably to distinguish them from 45 RPM singles. I consider this usage to be flatly wrong, as it is utterly antithetical to the original concept. But again, that's just me.
"Vinyl" is general shorthand for polyvinyl chloride, also abbreviated as PVC. It is the substance of which the great majority of LPs was made. It was also used for 78 RPM records in the declining years of that medium. Therefore, it is (in my point of view) insufficiently specific as to speed and format.
I could go on, as with detailing why not all 78s were recorded at 78 RPM, and about the "format war" surrounding the introduction of the 45 RPM record (briefly, RCA wanted the 45, Columbia wanted the LP, and the compromise was to use the former for singles and the latter for compilations or larger works), and other crap, but I wouldn't want to hijack your blog, would I?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-02 04:57 pm (UTC)The machine that pressed the disks for The Jazz Singer are at the Pavak Museum.
The word "album" to me applies to a collection of photos or songs. I use it interchangeably between vinyl or CD. The more generic terminology is handier. I can say, "The Beatles released an album" and don't have to worry when. I generally refer to "vinyl albums" as simply "vinyl" for specificity of needing-a-needle-and-turntable-to-play, not necessarily specifying the speed.
Still, the format wars for vinyl in many ways mirror the format wars currently going on (indeed, continuously going on) in the digital realm, and would make an interesting Bartcop-E column (hint hint).
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-02 01:29 am (UTC)I've picked up a couple more good turntables at yard sales over the years. I plan to set one up in my office for transferring music to digital format on one of my Macs.
I don't suppose you have the original Ginger Baker's Air Force 2-album set you might want to get rid of?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-02 09:59 am (UTC)Playing one song or two from a record? Man, that's so . . 1980s, man. I remember feeling spoiled by cassettes that could hold one album per side -- and then becoming frustrated when taping more records for portability.
I can see the advantages to ripping all my music into a hard disk someplace, but I still don't think that would give me enough incentive to toss all my other media.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-02 05:07 pm (UTC)I know what you mean: CDs make it easy to play a cut or two from an album, and mp3 players make it desirable. I force myself to listen to all songs at least twice before making a final decision on their rating, but some songs really need more than that. Some songs, even the not-so-good ones, need to be heard now and again, or work in the flow.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-02 05:01 pm (UTC)The closest thing to Air Force I had was Disreali Gears.
I can, in theory, easily set up my system to go from my amp to the computer, but I haven't done so. And I don't really want to put the turntable back in. When you're ready, can you transfer some of my records? We can work something out...