Comments on: Oddballs and Ends

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 06 Nov 2021 21:39:59 +0000

Turbocharged Weasel,

do you reside in the PGH area, by chance?

thx
Mike

By: TurboCharged Weasel

TurboCharged Weasel — Mon, 27 Sep 2021 22:02:30 +0000

Ceedee- I so far have never gotten into that kind of situation, funnily enough. Whenever I’ve been interested in a jazz record that hasn’t been priced yet, they always go straight to Discogs. They don’t even give it 5 seconds… straight to Discogs, nearly every single time (and if they don’t do that, they just casually look at the record and price it right there). I wonder if that’s part of the difference between busier cities and calmer cities… in New York, business is pretty hectic, and a lot of record store owners don’t have time to look everything up and often just want to make sales and get rid of people. Here, there are often maybe 5 people in the store. They’re in no rush to get rid of people, and they’re significantly smaller in scale. They have time to go through everything. Makes it more likely to find the good stuff whenever it shows up (far less common than in New York), since it’s not as picked over, but less likely to find a record that they haven’t looked up. It still happens, but more often than not I think the deal with a good price is just that they don’t really feel like pushing eBay prices on locals. Plus, Santa Rosa isn’t hugely known for music- I think Julie London was from here, and we’ve also got some punk bands and metal bands, a few rappers, and every now and then some respected metal acts from SF would record down here, but I think that’s it- so they’re not getting the jazz or psych crowds from tourists that San Francisco and New York City get. Put a reasonably nice Blue Note on the wall for $500 at a record store in NYC, it’s gone in a day or two… do that here, it sits untouched for a month. It’s a different market. Anyways… I’ve generally found here that the price is a little bit flexible if I already have a stack of records under my arm. That’s what happened with the Evans record… I already had a stack of records with me. The owner was thinking $150 or more, saw the stack, and just said it was mine for $100 because I already had a stack of records. This was after he saw the Discogs sales records listing $235 as a median and well over $800 as a high. It’s interesting… in busier areas you’re more likely to be able to get an amazing deal because the owners are busy, but anything they realize is valuable is going to carry a heftier price tag, whereas in less busy areas, the pickings are slimmer and the owners generally know what they have, but their prices may be more reasonable. (This is, of course, discounting exceptions, like that guy in Sebastopol that regularly demanded nearly $200 for $20 Zappa records and was known to do things like shatter records by flinging them against the wall if a customer took too long thinking about an offer. That’s an entirely different situation and is an outlier.) It’s a bit of a trade off.

Also, I must say… having been to the Village Vanguard for a show myself, I get chills listening to that Evans record… It’s the acoustics and the way the clapping sounds. That place really does have a distinctive sound, and it’s on that record in spades. I honestly didn’t even think about how going to the Village Vanguard could affect my listening experiences in regards to anything that was recorded there… it really is something.

By: Ceedee

Ceedee — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 19:51:48 +0000

Weasel, there is a certain skill set that comes with crate diggin’ and waiting to look through some just arrived lps-without appearing TOO interested-is one of them. Another is the old “Well,what about this?” routine. You know-the one where you take a bunch of records to the counter to get costs(assuming they’re not marked) and get prices on records YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST IN. If things go according to plan,the prices will be “too much”(true or not) before you get to what you REALLY want..at which point a (lo-info) seller may just give you the MOST “reasonable ” price,even if only to get rid of you. “Ok,look..just give me(whatever) for those, alright? How’s that?” At which point you reach in your pocket for whatever funds you were hoping to pay for the haul. This technique always works better if preceded by a “Give me a cash price” sweetener.
When trying to score rare Jazz lps,to use a familiar phrase,”Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”

By: TurboCharged Weasel

TurboCharged Weasel — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 07:24:48 +0000

It’s not exactly a bargain bin find, but just yesterday I found an original mono issue of Sunday at the Village Vanguard by the Bill Evans Trio for $100 at that same record store. It isn’t perfect, but it’s far from bad, and would fetch a few times that or so on eBay. I’m happy to add it to my collection. The person that brought it in apparently lives in Sonoma… they brought a few records by a few days back and left them there for the guys to look through, and I saw Soultrane and some Miles Davis peeking out of the stack. Those didn’t end up on the sales floor… that guy remembered that those had belonged to his late father, so he didn’t end up selling them. But he didn’t mind parting with the Evans. Of course, modern times being modern times, I had to wait for the clerk to finish dealing with a lady with a box full of mutilated mass-selling 70s rock and her husband that was arguing with the owner over his offer for it via video call before I could see if those records were available. There is a bit of truth to the statement that most everybody thinks they’re an expert because they have internet access… you can’t sell a record for top dollar if it’s unplayable, and arguing with the local record store owner on a video call about how he should pay you enough to buy a new iPhone for stuff you couldn’t even sell for enough to buy an old Nokia simply because the artists are recognizable doesn’t change that. C’est la vie….

By: Art Klempner

Art Klempner — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:51:13 +0000

I would like to find the old Jazzcollector website, you remember the old one too ? Seems the new one was hacked ….

By: TurboCharged Weasel

TurboCharged Weasel — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:04:52 +0000

Yeah… the story with the name was that it had been The Last Record Store since I think ‘83, and then one of the owners retired. He apparently had rights to the name, and wanted to be paid a bit more for it. They didn’t want to do that. So, he kept the name, and they came up with The Next Record Store. That was in May… I haven’t had enough time to find amazing things for nothing there, admittedly. It’ll probably take a year or two before I’ve got a few new great stories of wonderful finds, but I have been having a different kind of luck there. They keep getting expensive stuff that I can buy and resell for more. $50 for an unofficial issue of the soundtrack to Lost In Translation. Over $200 on eBay. $150 for a first pressing of Milo Goes to College (they realized that it’s worth more than $10 or $15 this time). Nearly $400 on eBay. $100 for a mint MoFi of Dark Side of the Moon. $200 on eBay. I’ve also had a lot of “price tag says $20, internet says $50-$75” going on there as of late, although mostly in the realm of punk and late 80s stuff that didn’t get big vinyl releases but wouldn’t obviously be valuable, like the first Tracey Chapman album. It has been kind to me financially. I mean, this jazz vinyl ain’t gonna buy itself, padding my wallet on the side by reselling cool expensive stuff I bought at the record store is mutually beneficial. Best “expensive for cheap” deal so far there is probably $10 for a rare KISS record I’ll get $50+ for, but… that doesn’t count in this conversation. Nobody wants to think about Gene Simmons right now. I did find an early issue of Birth of the Cool in the dollar bin a couple weeks ago, and it actually played nice, but it looked rather grim, so… that’s probably more of a happy accident than a case of an overlooked gem getting tossed in the bargain bin. I wouldn’t have guessed that it would sound that nice while looking like Freddy Krueger used it as a frisbee. 50s vinyl is a lot hardier than it looks.

And yeah… Mike really loved Rush Limbaugh and liked talking about how he just found him likable and thought he had a great personality. He just thought Rush was a really swell guy. I’m pretty sure my thoughts on that matter can be assumed and left unwritten. The store owners are all Grateful Dead/ Jerry Garcia fans, so their thoughts on Rush kinda aligned with my own. Basically, we all thought it best to let Dollar Mike like what Dollar Mike likes.

By: Ceedee

Ceedee — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:21:57 +0000

Ok,Weasel, let me get this straight: Dollar Mike was actually in a “gush over Rush” and the store that he frequents is now called The Next Record Store which was once,before reopening,The Last Record Store? Ok, I got it. I just wanted to confirm it before I mulled over the one about his making real(fake) replicas of Beatles butcher covers. Wow. This is a lot to handle before my morning coffee!
Thanks for the well-told tales. They remind me that there is something very important behind the “things” we search out,and that’s people..and their stories.

By: SuperCharged Weasel

SuperCharged Weasel — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 08:27:50 +0000

Heh, Dollar Mike… he’s a character. I think I heard that he has a side-gig making replica Butcher Covers (Beatles) for people that can’t afford real Butcher Covers… he buys copies of Yesterday… and Today and puts replica Butcher Cover slicks on them made using a real slick as reference, because he apparently has one and has a means of making high-quality copies of that slick. He says they’re replicas when selling them, so I guess it’s all ethical. I wasn’t super surprised to hear that he had issues with the masks, since he had been a big Rush Limbaugh fan, regularly taking the opportunity to gush over Rush to people that, uh, don’t want to hear about Rush. I’m pretty sure he’s doing alright, though… him leaving maskless declaring that he won’t comply with the mask mandate was within the last month. Before that I hadn’t seen him since April or May of 2020, when he was again bucking the mask rule… the store (The Next Record Store- formerly The Last Record Store- in Santa Rosa, CA) had closed up for the shutdown, only being “open” so that people could pick up orders they made online (the only way they could legally operate then), but they were still buying stuff, and they were letting individual people show up to look at things, only on a one-person basis by special appointment, which I think complied with county rules. They weren’t technically open for business. Masks and distancing still applied. Anyways, one of the guys got in touch with me by finding me at work in their free time to tell me that they had got some great dollar records- a bunch of Zeppelin, Sabbath, Beatles, even a copy of Electric Mud by Muddy Waters… all stuff I can totally sell (except for the Muddy Waters… I didn’t have that yet, so I kept it)- and that I should stop by. When I showed up, Dollar Mike was finishing up looking at some other records, and they had had to bring everything for him to look at out front of the store right by a very busy street with them watching him through the window, because not only did he refuse to wear a mask… he didn’t even have one, but still insisted on looking through records. He was a valued long-time customer, so they made allowances for him, but they weren’t gonna get shut down by letting him in the store. I think he paid in cash from outside the door. It was nice to see that he didn’t die, but come on, Mike… wear the mask. I enjoyed hearing those tips about vinyl that was worth looking out for.

And yeah, people hide stuff in the store on occasion. The worst day for that was Record Store Day pre-shutdown… the rule was one copy per person of any release, so people would try to be clever and would grab two or whatever of sought-after releases and then either stick them in the wrong section so they could find them later or hide them while waiting in line to check out. The guys there know that routine… they go around the store looking for these stashes throughout the day and put them right back in the sections.

And yeah… the guys running the store have mixed feelings towards eBay. They sometimes use it for selling the really rare stuff (they have to pay rent), and they’ll use it for pricing reference for really special things that show up in the store, but in general they don’t like some of the trouble eBay has caused in regards to record pricing. It has made some stuff impossible for many people to get ahold of, and it also means that anybody with an internet connection can somehow come to the incorrect conclusion that their copy of The White Album is worth four digits. (My copy of The White Album actually being worth four digits doesn’t negate the fact that most copies of The White Album are not actually worth four digits.) I’ve heard two separate stories of people calling them to tell them they have The White Album, with one guy casually saying he wanted $3,000 for a mediocre copy that was maybe worth $30, tops. They won’t just give things away, but they know that they’re running a record store instead of an eBay store. One of my favourite examples of this was when it was just me and the former owner (he retired) about 20 minutes before closing time… he had found a sealed original copy of the early 70s German prog album Nevergreen! by The Missing Link, and had just looked it up. It sells for between $200-$400 opened, and this one was sealed and untouched. It could be worth $500 or more sealed, and there was no second pressing in the 70s. This was the real deal. He declared that he had hit the jackpot, I congratulated him on it, he looked it over grinning silently for a moment, and just casually said, “I’ll sell it to ya for $100.” These places still exist, and these record store owners still exist. You won’t always find gold- in fact, you very rarely will- but… sometimes, you just might.

By: Ceedee

Ceedee — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 04:40:09 +0000

Weasel,I love your stories! The image of Dollar Mike striking a blow for freedom is priceless-although let’s hope that the reason you haven’t seen him for a while is that he’s “fighting against ( insert cause here)” and not related to his issues with clothing choices. Dollar Mike, there are lots of LP bins awaiting your perusal. So, just wear the damn mask,OK? ?
BTW,once more on those bins. If someone reading likes to pull the best selections from the jazz CD or LP browser,buy a couple, but stick the rest in the “Soundtracks” or “Avantgarde” section and come back later in the week..I’m onto you! I will NOT be deterred from looking for a killer recording just because you shove it behind a copy of the “Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes” S/T or place it in the midst of John Zorns latest game theory releases.
So,don’t even THINK about it… ?

By: TurboCharged Weasel

TurboCharged Weasel — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 00:17:07 +0000

Speaking of, actually, I was told about the value of the mono Bookends by a guy that was a regular at the local record store that was known as “Dollar Mike” because he would come in, buy often about 50 dollar records, and leave. I haven’t seen him much lately… apparently he takes issue with the mask mandate and hasn’t been in much. Last time I saw him he was heading out maskless saying something along the lines of “I will not comply!” Anyways, he told me to look out for those, since they were valuable. He said he had found a few in the dollar bin because nobody really knows about them… they’re very collectible, yet most people don’t have a clue, so they might just end up in the bargain bins. Kinda proves Ceedee’s point, doesn’t it?