for those who never gave up their turntables
HERE’S ANOTHER QUESTION ABOUT VINYL on Quora that distracted me from various writing projects! The question is, “What vinyl album cover empty is worth more than a mint vinyl album without the cover?” Or, as I have worded it in this article’s title: Are there albums with covers that are worth more than the records? [Continue reading]
THE AVID RECORD COLLECTOR is a column that I recently started contributing to the Sixties Music Secrets blog. The intention of the column was to address LPs released in the ’60s and subsequently deleted. Then they found their way into cut-out bins of retail record stores around the country and then, years later, found their way onto collector’s want-lists. [Continue reading]
“BACK THROUGH THE OPERA GLASS” is the title of three lengthy articles that review most of the Beach Boys album covers released on major labels in the US. It is subtitled “The Stories Behind the Album Covers” and was written by Malcolm Searles. This massive project covers every important album from 1962 through the present. [Continue reading]
THERE ARE A HANDFUL OF RECORDS from the ’70s that are so common among British collectors that they receive little attention from them. But they are all rather rare records outside of the UK—so rare, that most non-UK collectors have only seen them as images on the internet! [Continue reading]
WHILE RESEARCHING THE ARTICLE that I just published, I amassed almost 5,000 words of information and more than three dozen images. I deleted almost one-third of those words and images and titled the completed article “Is It The Sounds Of Silence or The Sound Of Silence?” What was left behind—the flotsam and jetsam—is what you will find below: an addendum to the original article! [Continue reading]
IN THE FINAL WEEKS OF 1965, Top 40 stations around the country started playing a new record by a not-so-new duo with the oddly intriguing name of Simon & Garfunkel. (At least it was odd if you weren’t Jewish or didn’t live on the East Coast.) The record was The Sounds Of Silence. [Continue reading]
BOOK REVIEWS ARE NOT MY THING here on Rather Rare records, but exceptions to unwritten rules are often good things. So here is a review of “Stacks Of Wax – The Complete History Of The Record Labels Of Cincinnati, Ohio,” a self-published effort by David Bottoms. [Continue reading]
IF I EVER GET AROUND to writing a book about the how’s, why’s, and wherefore’s of collecting records, I will include a chapter on “On How Not To Handle Your Records.” However the book is laid out, I would hope to use a photo like the one below for this chapter.
I assume everybody reading this blog knows not to handle their records in a manner that places the oil and dirt on their fingertips on the grooves of the record. [Continue reading]
I HAVE A FACEBOOK PAGE titled Bleeding Heart Liberal Petitions. Most days, I receive a slew of emails with petitions for various causes such as saving an endangered species, urging my representatives in state and federal government to vote for or against a particular bill, protest an injustice, etc. I read them all, sign most of them, and add a few to the Facebook page. [Continue reading]