Huge vinyl collections?

What do you make of it all? Dudes with trillions of records.

I keep reading about these characters (Carl Cox, Soul Wax blokes, and many others I've forgotten about) who have 3 acres of vinyl circles sitting in an underground bunkers across the planet. Even though I love buying records myself, (I have maybe 2000 cd's and vinyl records in total) even if I won the lottery and had endless cash I reckon I could maybe buy another 500 or so albums I would listen too and keep revisiting. I could envisage 3000 albums as a peak for me, unless my brain flipped and I suddenly got into classical music or jazz in a super-massive big way (which won't happen......I think ).

Apart from John Peel, I can't wrap my head around the point in having a billion records sat in my garage. Just don't get it. I look at my rack of 12"s (not albums) with no discernible description on the spine and feel worn out about flicking through them. What the fuck would I do with 40,000 of them?

I just don't get it. Your thoughts...

It would be an awesome thing to have in retirement, but not something i could ever possibly find time for during my life. imagine though, once you go gray, just being able to drive out to some climate controlled storage unit, or garage or something, and spend days on end digging through piles of now classic electronic lps, eps, 12 inches, etc. fucking excellent.

  On 3/15/2014 at 7:29 PM, yshf said:

It would be an awesome thing to have in retirement, but not something i could ever possibly find time for during my life. imagine though, once you go gray, just being able to drive out to some climate controlled storage unit, or garage or something, and spend days on end digging through piles of now classic electronic lps, eps, 12 inches, etc. fucking excellent.

Madlib said he had 2 tons of vinyl. I don't know how many records that is.

http://hypebeast.com/2013/12/madlib-visits-radio-france-vinyl-record-library

These stories are usually about DJs and radio hosts, so it's just a matter of doing your job for many years and having an opportunity to not sell stuff (by money and living space limits). Same for Madlib, he's sampling stuff for years everyday. Otherwise, it's really another fetish like audophile equipment.

Personally i'm into reducing.

  On 3/15/2014 at 8:50 PM, GRVGLTCHR said:

 

  On 3/15/2014 at 7:29 PM, yshf said:

It would be an awesome thing to have in retirement, but not something i could ever possibly find time for during my life. imagine though, once you go gray, just being able to drive out to some climate controlled storage unit, or garage or something, and spend days on end digging through piles of now classic electronic lps, eps, 12 inches, etc. fucking excellent.

This

 

  On 3/17/2014 at 12:40 AM, dr lopez said:

 

  On 3/15/2014 at 8:50 PM, GRVGLTCHR said:

 

  On 3/15/2014 at 7:29 PM, yshf said:

It would be an awesome thing to have in retirement, but not something i could ever possibly find time for during my life. imagine though, once you go gray, just being able to drive out to some climate controlled storage unit, or garage or something, and spend days on end digging through piles of now classic electronic lps, eps, 12 inches, etc. fucking excellent.

This

 

 

That is an awesome thought.

  On 3/15/2014 at 6:14 PM, beerwolf said:

I just don't get it. Your thoughts...

i can understand how these folks amassed a large collection of records (it's pretty addicting collecting records once you start), but for me it's a matter of quality vs quantity. also, what are they for? can you even listen to acres of records? i feel like a lot of people get records so they can say they have that record, or because someone else got that record and now they want it to. most don't even to the entire record, maybe one song, maybe two. and they only like that song because someone told them it was good, or someone sampled it.

i also like records that tell me something about that person. for example: when i lived in the desert (santa fe new mexico) i met this girl who was in a cult called 'the jupiter children'. she was a super hippy (think manson girl looking but with strawberry blonde hair) travelling with some nincumpoop asshole to taos (neighboring town). anyhoo, this girl gave me this israeli folk record she'd stolen from a salvation army in washington state. this album looks like shit, but still has that distinct 70s wear and tear look that shows it's been handled by many hands. it's also not a record you're likely to find if you just browse ebay or ask someone. it's like you have to be out there, and that other person has to be out there, and pluto has to be in retrograde and somehow you get this particular record at this particular time.

i think this record would sound "meh" to everyone else but me- because for me, it has a story behind it. i have a few like that. but i can't imagine having more than 20 like that. it would cloud the stories

That's a cool post Nebraska

^ditto, I think you're totally right about the allure of "collecting" over actual listening for many producers, it's easy to get into only say, buying and seeking out breakbeat sources or renowned "classic" albums versus true crate-digging and exploring unknown records. I actually collect tapes only specifically to find weird stuff and not go broke easily

DJ Shadow, Jay Dilla, Madlib are among the producers who really have a passion for crate-digging, and it's cool because DJ Shadow actually mentioned how he started only collecting "known" records before he sought out truly obscure stuff:

  On 3/18/2014 at 9:18 PM, Nebraska said:

 

  On 3/15/2014 at 6:14 PM, beerwolf said:

I just don't get it. Your thoughts...

 

 

i also like records that tell me something about that person. for example: when i lived in the desert (santa fe new mexico) i met this girl who was in a cult called 'the jupiter children'. she was a super hippy (think manson girl looking but with strawberry blonde hair) travelling with some nincumpoop asshole to taos (neighboring town). anyhoo, this girl gave me this israeli folk record she'd stolen from a salvation army in washington state. this album looks like shit, but still has that distinct 70s wear and tear look that shows it's been handled by many hands. it's also not a record you're likely to find if you just browse ebay or ask someone. it's like you have to be out there, and that other person has to be out there, and pluto has to be in retrograde and somehow you get this particular record at this particular time.

 

i think this record would sound "meh" to everyone else but me- because for me, it has a story behind it. i have a few like that. but i can't imagine having more than 20 like that. it would cloud the stories

 

It's remarkable how much one album can embody emotionally, it's neat realizing that what's objectively not the greatest music can nonetheless be the greatest music for you personally. That's the final element to any music or art that's truly intangible.

The first post on my tape blog (which I need to update stat!) is an album like that for me. I eventually found someone else, who was a friend back of the artist, who has a copy, but beyond us, I really have no idea how many exist anymore. It's a great ambient album too. Ideally I'd like to take some time off and try to contact his family and visit the owner of the other copy. It'd make a worthy reissue.

Cool method of sampling and collecting, this guy digitizes his finds then sells or trades it.

i'm too much of a minimalist. i'd have an anxiety attack if i had to worry about the care of that many fragile plastic disc musics.

  On 3/20/2014 at 4:02 AM, autopilot said:

i'm too much of a minimalist. i'd have an anxiety attack if i had to worry about the care of that many fragile plastic disc musics.

glad this thread has picked up pace, I think some of you have done a better job of explaining it than I did, this post especially.