Take it!
The Vinyl Solution
This is one of 52 twelve-inch vinyl records I now own. When I woke up this morning, I owned somewhere in the region of 2,000. In the ongoing life laundry, a very nice man called Rob drove down from Newcastle this afternoon to take my record collection off my hands. He runs a second-hand record business called Steel Wheels, from which you will now be able to buy all my old records. I have been hanging on to my vinyl for too long. In fact, it's moved house three times and it's bloody heavy. So, when Rob and I transferred it from the spare room down into his car, that was the last time I will ever have to break sweat over it.
I kept back 52 records - no more than a BBC record box's worth. This is mainly my 80s-themed DJ set, should I ever be called upon to provide it in the future, plus one or two that I know aren't available on CD, such as my Age Of Chance collection, including the above, One Thousand Years Of Trouble. Interestingly, I was contacted the other day by Steven E, formerly of Age Of Chance until he left, fairly acrimoniously, before their second album, the disappointing Mecca, my copy of which, by the way, now resides at Steel Wheels. It's always nice to hear from your heroes. Steve confirms that, unlike Cud, whom he's mates with, AOC won't be reforming. He wonders if One Thousand Years should be reissued on CD. I say, YES! It really is one of the truly great lost albums.
It feels good to be free of the vinyl. I kept back my seven-inch singles too, by the way - they really are like a photo album and represent a much more formative time of my life, when all I could afford were singles. Also, they don't take up so much damn space. On a related note, we moved out the final carload of videos and books yesterday, to Oxfam in Purley, who did promise they'd take some stuff after their refit, and they were true to their word. After driving round the roundabout twice, circling the plum parking space right outside the shop, we eventually pulled up on the kerb, kind of daring a traffic warden to punish us for our act of neatly-boxed charity. It was 3.30. The shop closes at 4.30. But as I approached, an elderly lady was flipping the CLOSED sign round. I look at her through the glass with such an urgent expression, she opened the door, and said they were closing early due to staff shortages (they had to get to the bank). But after my pleading, she agreed to stand at the door and unlock it for each batch of boxes. It was such a relief to to leave it all with them and drive away with an empty car.
So, the act is done. No more videos. No more vinyl. No more magazines (except for my New Yorkers and a collection of vintage Mad magazines from the 60s and 70s). And less books. A lot less books. So hats off to Oxfam, the most accommodating of all charity shops (I know, they are the biggest and best-established, but you can't beat a bit of organisational and shopfitting skill), and Scope.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 6:02 PM
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14 Comments:
I have spent much too much time in Steel Wheels whenever I've been in Newcastle (when I should have been in work) it's a very fine place indeed, finer still now it has a few more Age Of Chance records.
Glad to hear it, Simon, although you have misread the entry - it's the Age Of Chance records I kept back. Steel Wheels got everything but ...
Sorry to be picky but it's Steven E rather than Stephen. This is important because on Big Bad Rap, when he asks the band to spell his name, S-T-E-P-H-E-N-E wouldn't scan.
Andrew - A thousand apologies I spend my day looking at words put in front of me whilst working for Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs and my mind starts to add and subtract words at will. Today I spent time reading about the new LEAN management ethos which seems to occur through PIE (Performance Improve Events)events - I kid you not - and something called a Deep Dive - I do begin to wonder whether it's something they put in the water. Good work on keeping back the Age Of Chance records a mighty mighty fine band.
Before you dumped the vinyl did you convert any to digital format? I'm not sure I could dump mine quite yet - I can't find the Rema Rema "Wheel in the roses" EP anywhere on CD.
As the owner of a second hand record shop myself I am currently having a "you lucky sod" moment of jealousy.
Well done, Andrew!
I keep intending to empty my loft of vinyl, particularly as we are thinking of moving house early next year and I thought that this would be a job better sorted out before the big pack-up starts.
Problem is, I just can’t do it. I love my vinyl, even though just about everything worth having I’ve now replaced with cd (which are also redundant now, because of iTunes/iPod).
I still love all my old New Order 12”s and after a holiday in Ibiza in the early 90’s I had a two year period of buying dance 12”s on the slightest whim and I can’t even bare the thought of giving them away! I must have had a fairly affluent period in my life, as I went through a stage of trying to get more then one copy of every New Order/Pet Shop Boys piece of vinyl and I know some of them are worth a few quid, but no, I still can’t do it. I’m just not ready...
My vinyl record collection will be taken when I'm dead, not before.
I'm still extending my (pretty poor) vinyl collection.
My daughter's godfather will get my whole record collection when I pop my clogs, and not before.
Getting rid of one's records is like selling your children. I just couldn't do it. Although, a recent weeding out of doublers made a pretty penny on a popular auction site on the interweb.
Paul
Dunfermline
I must have 1000 lps and maybe 200 12"s, but even after replacing my favourites on CD, I simply can't bring myself to get rid of them. In fact, recently they have been rehomed to a nice old pine cupboard. Magazines too...they grow by five issues each month(Q/Mojo/Uncut/Word/Trail) which is crazy. I need help.
Please continue to persuade Ste to release the Age of Chance album on CD - I have a ropey cassette version transferred on my Ipod only!
I had One Thousand Years of Trouble. What a corking album - Learn to Pray and Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Noise were outstanding tracks. I also had their version of Kiss on 7"
You're in the biz, Andrew. Why don't these people reissue this stuff as a download? It's not making any cash stuck in some vault somewhere.
If anyone's interested there's an original CD version of this album on Ebay right now . . .what a great album! and how disappointing was 'Mecca' afterwards!
says - Paul from London.
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