for those who never gave up their turntables
BE THE FIRST ON YOU BLOCK to read my new column, The Avid Record Collector! Sub-titled “From the Cut-Out Bin,” it can be found on the Sixties Music Secrets website! In each column, I will look at records that were mass-produced in the 1960s and subsequently deleted from record company catalogs. [Read more] “announcing my new column “the avid record collector””
ON QUORA, it appears that most people ask a question hoping for an intelligent answer. The question is a genuine search for information. But it’s apparent that some people ask a question and then answer their own question. This seems to be a rhetorical device to impart information, to express an opinion, or to seek affirmation of an opinion. [Read more] “if you have an overture, do you also need an underture?”
WE HAD BEEN TOGETHER for a year when we finally decided to make the move from the sultry summers of the East Coast to the more moderate West Coast. It was 1978 and the dreams of ‘the sixties’ didn’t seem so far off. Working two jobs each, we had saved the equivalent of $10,000 in today’s dollars. [Read more] “my first record show as a dealer (rock of ages part 1)”
THELONIOUS MONK was perhaps the most stylistically and artistically idiosyncratic (and visionary?) pianist and composer of his era. By the end of the ’50s, Monk was already a legend among jazz musicians and aficionados. He had also had it with dealing with tiny Riverside Records. As was and is common with musicians and their record companies, there were disagreements over money. [Read more] “thelonious monk columbia album discography & price guide”
GREAT SINGLES IN 1967 by established artists that should have been BIG hits but weren’t were common. For example, Buffalo Springfield’s Mr. Soul, the Byrds’ Lady Friend, and the Hollies’ King Midas In Reverse (and I could go on but that’s grist for another mill). But perhaps the biggest disappointment was the Rolling Stones second single of the year, We Love You / Dandelion. [Read more] “between the buttons and the dandelion, we love you!”
THIS ARTICLE addresses the first few years in which deleted record albums flooded retail stores across the country. Stores that had never contemplated a bargain bin in their record department started one and record-buying was never the same. But these records should have had a huge impact on the early record collectors price guides, but did not. [Read more] “a few faverave albums of the cut-out era”
THIS ARTICLE is about my first price guide, the 1985–86 edition of the Rock & Roll Record Albums Price Guide. I discuss some of the reasoning that I used and the results that had an immediate and profoundly unsettling impact on the hobby and business of selling and buying records. It makes public the reasoning that went behind the decisions that sticker-shocked (shocked I say!) [Read more] “on my first price guide”
A FRIEND WAS LEARNING THE ROPES of making money by selling other people’s ‘collectables’ by auctioning them on eBay. It’s his experience that inspired this article, “Grading Records for Sale Part 1.” Let’s pretend his name is Luke. As the bulk of Luke’s consignments were from friends, it was a reasonably relaxed affair and no one was trying to pull the wool over the other’s eyes. [Read more] “on grading records for sale part 1: ‘still sealed’ and ‘mint’ are not the same thing”
THIS IS THE SECOND of five articles devoted to the trio of albums and their related singles that Chad & Jeremy released in 1967-1968. OF CABBAGES AND KINGS and THE ARK and the soundtrack to 3 IN THE ATTIC reflect the more ‘pop’-oriented psychedelicism of the English musicians at the time and have long been held in a bit of contempt by older aficionados and collectors of Sixties psych. [Read more] “of cabbages and kings, of arks and attics – the pseudo-psychedelic sound of chad & jeremy 1967–1968 (part 2)”