[peel] Who here can relate??

[tony donaghey]

You have to have an incentive to sell your vinyl - mine was the opportunity to publish a book by Kevin Coyne - an old time Peel favourite.
  Tony

colin bray <colinbray@...> wrote:
              Nice piece.
  I stripped out a few hundred records a few years ago and just put them in black bags to be collected for some reason. I had always planned to sell records when I didn't 'need' them anymore but when the time came I just chucked them away.
  Not sure what that means, I'll have to ask my counsellor...
  On house music dating badly, I have found when playing Peel tapes these days how odd it is that some tracks still sound great and others sound terribly dated even though they were top of the form in 1989 or whenever. And this doesn't seem to follow any rhyme or reason. Some dance tracks still sound good and some noise tracks still do too. But other tracks from both genres now sound two-dimensional and dull. The thing is that it was not predictable back in the day which tracks would date and which wouldn't.
  Regardless John still sounds great.

    
---------------------------------
  From: troche@...
Reply-To: peel@yahoogroups.com
To: peel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [peel] Who here can relate??
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:30:07 -0500 (GMT-05:00)

        

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1927568,00.html

In the vinyl analysis
Music fans over the age of 30 will have amassed a sizable record 
collection over the years, which they rarely play. Is it time to put 
away childish things?

By Jacques Peretti
The Guardian

Saturday October 21, 2006

Ive done it. I have done it. I cant actually believe Ive done it, 
but I have (done it). And now Im looking at the floor - at where 
everything I loved and cherished and held dear to my cold heart used to 
be - and I cant help thinking it looks wrong. Yesterday, the entire 
floor space of my dusty attic was covered in records: 30,000 lumps of 
plastic warping gently in the autumn sun. Records called things like 
Trance Orgasm Express and Black Magic Horn by long-forgotten people with 
names such as DJ Spanky; Mushroom Mike and Melting Dolphins (featuring 
the vocal talents of Janeen).

There they stood, like some frightening installation of everything 
frightening and underground from the 1990s, a few embarrassing, a few 
rare, believe it or not, and worth an absolute fortune, but the vast 
majority (all of them basically, bar an armful), 1990s house music in 
all its pompous glory: when dance music went all Rick Wakeman and prog 
rock, taking itself so seriously, it disappeared up its own 
linen-trousered backside. The King (Crimson) of this prog house shit was 
someone called Sasha. Every Sasha record was identical: thered be a 
blurry photo on the cover of a moody Sasha on a cliff-top, looking out 
across the sea to some far-away destination (a place called Meaning). 
The record would last 45 minutes, with a 25-minute intro of doomy synth 
washes. This would be followed by a multiple orgasm of drum-rolls and 
then some woman (Janeen probably) wailing Take Me Higher, Let Me Be Your 
Fantasy, Come On My Face or some such charming refrain over the top ...

Im trying to damn these records to sound modern and with it but truth 
is I have great affection for this rubbish - it sounds so anachronistic 
now, its laughable. But at the time, it all made sense and it was rock 
and guitars, not dance music, that seemed out of date. I remember Bill 
Drummond of the KLF saying that in the future, there will be no more 
need for to live music because well have enough samples to last 
forever. Oh well. Theres wrong and theres Ive seen the future and its 
shaped like a rave saucer. Im sitting in the living room under strict 
instructions from the missus to be brutal when it comes to choosing what 
to keep when sorting my choons.

I started out in front of the telly taking them a hundred at a time, 
putting this Lil Louis French Kiss in the KEEP pile, Phutures Acid 
Trax in the KEEP pile, Josh Winks Higher State Of Consciousness, hmmmm, 
in the KEEP pile. This is going well, this sorting out. It takes me only 
a few minutes to get through a hundred records. How did that go? the 
wife asks. I have, lets see, ooh, maybe,

96, 97, yup, about, er, 100 in the KEEP pile.

Right. And how many in the chuck pile?

In the CHUCK pile? Hmmm ... lets see. That would be, er, none.

Turns out I was keeping not just the eBay-able records, but the 
tackiest, cheesiest abominations ever committed to plastic: the rave 
version of Jump by Van Halen, some speed barrage thing that sampled the 
Casualty title music with bits of Knight Rider thrown in. I even have a 
happy hardcore remix of the theme to Bob The Builder. What the fuck are 
you keeping this for? And why did you ever buy it in the first place? 
Its good! I reply defensively. Thats rare that. Theres an Erick 
Morillo dub on the back with no vocals and that is awesome. My wife 
looks at me with pity.

I need a different strategy. I need to chuck the lot. I could put it all 
on eBay I suppose, but I think my records are better than that. I see 
myself as some sort of house music curator, like a rave dad version of 
Charles Saatchi, keen to donate my collection to a deserving museum or 
library. What the hell are you talking about? my wife says. Take them 
to Oxfam. So off I go. Im weirdly hyped up as I head off to Oxfam in 
Dalston - a veritable Aladdins superstore of mauled childrens toys and 
dead peoples cardigans.

Hi, I say brightly. Ive got about 30, 000 records I need to get rid 
of. The quiet man at the counter looks at me. OK, he replies. Where 
are they? I take him and four colleagues to the back of the car. I open 
the boot, half-thinking I should have set up some Raiders Of the Last 
Ark lightshow to go with the reveal moment.

Wow! They are not disappointed. Over the next three hours, we ship the 
vinyl weight equivalent of nine elephants from my house to Oxfam.

Theres some good stuff in here one of the guys says to me when were 
nearly finished. And some not so good stuff (holding up a copy of 
Saturday Night by Whigfield (the Brothers In Rhythm remix). That is a 
credible tune! I shout. The Brothers In Rhythm remix! Its ace! Ask 
anyone!! Not a patch on this surely he says, taunting me with a Paul 
Oakenfold cash-in remix of The Lighthouse Family. I was given that! I 
never bought it ... I never ... bought it (my words petering out).

Or this. Nigel Benns rapping attempt to break into the pop business. 
You bought that?! I do not have words. Or this Blue Pearls Naked In 
The Rain. I leave, without giving my name.

Ive been here before. When I was 16, I sold all my records (about 5,000 
that time) in order to pay to travel round Europe (fucking rubbish 
Europe, shouldnt have bothered). I got about 100 quid from some morose 
gent in a Cure T-shirt at Record & Tape Exchange. The irony is that all 
those records I bought when 13, 14, 15 - avant garde mid-1980s indie 
guitar thrash noise - would be worth a serious amount of money today. 
They sound like The Killers, whereas house music just sounds weird and 
gone. Like it never happened.

Anyway, I have a plan - now that Im feeling the loss. Im thinking of 
buying the records back - popping in and paying 50p a time. It makes 
sense. Its worth it. Join me if you like - Ill be the one clutching 
The Prodigys Out Of Space and fighting off old people trying to get to 
the Best Of Barbara Dickson.








  
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