vinyldiscovery: Is It Possible To Have Too Many Records?

In the past few months we've been doing a lot of traveling -- visiting New York, Nashville, Spain, Portugal, northern California, southern Oregon, with a number of local trips mixed in. As you might expect, everywhere we've gone I've spent time visiting used record stores and antique malls in search of LPs. In addition, I've bought a number of new releases online and have stumbled across some great deals on Discogs and Ebay that were too good to pass up. The result is that I've added more than a hundred albums to my collection in a very short time.

This is not the actual pile of records I bought. Warning: having this many records is hazardous to your health and will likely void your lease. Side effects may include vertigo and disorientation.

While getting a bunch of new records is clearly not a problem in and of itself, as I stare at the ever-growing pile of vinyl that I need to clean, catalog, and listen to, I've started to wonder if buying records is getting in the way of my enjoyment of music. I generally spend four or five hours a day listening to records. Sometimes I know just what I want to hear, and other times I'll browse the shelves and see what catches my eye - an old favorite or a hidden gem that I've forgotten about. For me, that's a big part of the attraction of listening to music on LPs. I get to reread the liner notes, enjoy the labels and cover art, and am reminded of where and when I bought the particular album.

But here is the problem: When I buy records, I have a regular process of cleaning, cataloging, and listening to the new titles. And when it comes to jazz albums, I also like to spend some time learning more about the sessions, the musicians, maybe comparing different pressings, and reading reviews of the music. Naturally, all of that takes some time.

The actual pile of new and used records waiting to be processed.

So with a never-ending stack of newly-purchased LPs, I find that I'm not spending much time listening to records already in my collection. Whenever I put on Sgt. Peppers, Kind of Blue, or anything already in the collection, I feel a little guilty that I'm not cleaning and listening to my new finds instead.

The obvious solution is to quit buying so many records. (Though I have to admit that those words in that order don't even make sense to me.) I won't live long enough to listen to all the records I already have, so what's the point of buying more? The answer, of course, is that no matter what you collect -- LPs, stamps, coins, comic books, baseball cards, wine, or whatever -- the fun isn't just in having a big honking pile of whatever it is you like to collect. It's enjoying and appreciating what you have, while adding new and interesting items. And like most collectors, I love the thrill of the chase -- hunting down obscure releases online, stumbling on an original Blue Note at a yard sale, or maybe discovering a new artist that I've never heard of at the local antiques mall.

Recently at one of my local haunts, I found a 1973 album on the Atlantic label called In April Came The Dawning Of The Red Suns by a group named Ramatam. They put out two albums, the self-titled Ramatam in 1972, and In April in 1973. I have never heard of them in my life and am pretty certain that I've never, ever seen one of their albums before. How is that possible? Well, it turns out to be a very interesting album (despite the inclusion of a straight-up cover of Stars and Stripes Forever.) Plus, it has a great, oh so 1970s cover. How could I not buy it?

Back to our story. Despite grousing about having too many records (talk about your first world problems), I picked up a bunch of really interesting LPs during our travels this summer. While we were in Portugal and Spain, I hit eight or ten used record stores, on the lookout for European artists that I like, as well as some Brazilian albums that are either very hard to find or amazingly expensive in the U.S.

Louie Louie, in Lisbon

In general, my record shopping experience in Portugal was not great. In Lisbon I found an indoor shopping center that had three different used record dealers. Unfortunately, in each one the selection was limited and expensive, and the building was so hot and stuffy that after about a half hour I gave up and went looking for a cold drink. I had better luck at a shop called Louie Louie, which is downtown near Rossio Square, where I found a couple of LPs by the great Brazilian artist, Jorge Ben.

Madrid, on the other hand, is overrun with excellent used record stores, including a half dozen that were within easy walking distance of where we were staying near the Palacio Real. Among the ones that I particularly liked were Bajoelvolcan, La Metralletta (despite their regrettable "machine gun" name, with matching logo), as well as Discos Babel and Discos Bangla Desh. The last two are side-by-side on a street behind Opera Square.

Discos Bangla Desh on the left, and Babel Discos on the right

I could easily have spent another two or three days going through all the record stores in Madrid, although I would have needed another suitcase to get all the albums home. As it was, I found some great copies of Italian pop records, Spanish re-pressings of Brazilian disks by Vinicious and Odette Lara, Astrud Gilberto, and Antonio Carlos Jobim, an interesting early 1970s Colombian pop album by a sister act named Elia and Elizabeth, a couple of tango albums by Astor Piazzolla, the Argentinian master of the bandoneon, some UK and Spanish pressings of 70s rock albums, and even a NM copy of the U.S.-pressed Original Jazz Classic release of "Portrait of Wes" (Montgomery).

Finally, at a Madrid branch of the FNAC store (a French-based home electronics chain), they were practically giving away brand new re-pressings of classic jazz LPs from the 50s and 60s. There are a slew of EU companies putting out these reprints, including Wax Time, Pan Am, DOL, Doxy, and Barcelona's own Jazz Wax label. No doubt you've run across some of these if you've spent any time looking at jazz LPs in the last few years. There is some discussion about the quality of these pressings, as well as questions about whether the companies are taking unfair advantage of lax European copyright laws to re-press albums that are still under copyright in the U.S. Even if the later is true, as far as I know these records are perfectly legal to buy and own and are widely sold in the U.S. on Amazon and elsewhere. As I wrote in my post about Rhino/Scorpio Blue Note re-pressings, as long as you know what you're buying (albums that are likely cut from digital files), it's hard to argue with brand new classic jazz albums that cost $10-12.

La Metralletta in Madrid

And while I've seen complaints about the quality of these reissues online, I will say that all of the EU jazz reprints that I have are extremely well done. They are all pressed on 180-gram vinyl, have nicely-printed jackets on heavy stock (although usually not the original artwork), and seem to be pressed primarily at gzvinyl in the Czech Republic. Even if they aren't the last word in fidelity, they sound pretty good to me, and there is something to be said for knowing that you are getting a brand new, flat, quiet, well-pressed album. I have dozens of records pressed by gzvinyl, and every one of them is perfect. I haven't been nearly as lucky with recent U.S. pressings. (Speaking of which, I received my copy of the new remaster of Tom Wait's Blue Valentine in the mail today. It was pressed by Independent Record Pressing in Bordentown, NJ, a relatively new plant that opened in 2015. As I was cleaning the record, I saw that it had a bad scratch on the first track. When I put it on the turntable, it skipped three or four times in the first 20 seconds. Really?? It seems that about one third of all the new U.S. pressings I buy has some defect right out of the jacket -- unless they come from RTI, QRP, or a couple of the other high-end pressing plants. Is quality control really that hard? The Czechs seem to be able to do it. What's their secret? I don't know, maybe they just hire somebody to look at the albums before they get put in the sleeves and pull the ones with the big gauges in the vinyl? You can read my previous post if you want more of this rant.)

In my trips to New York and Nashville, I was mostly disappointed with the shops that I visited. I bought a few things, but overall -- and not surprisingly -- it seems that shops in big U.S. cities are more expensive and more picked over. Since there is less competition, I tend to find more interesting records (and at much better prices) in record shops and antique stores in smaller cities and towns.