Infected by Records

The newest load of 45's turned up some great finds. A dealer dug through the last of the boxes and pulled out a handful of 45's which had previous sales figures on popsike of 900, 350, 350, 300, etc. He needed them all and plopped down some good cash. A lot of the $5 stuff is with me right now to listen to before i decide to sell it. It's a lot of stuff like Stiff Little Fingers, Clash, Buzzcocks, Adam Ant, Blondie Japanese sleeves, Sex Pistols and other assorted commons.

A new contact came by and dropped off a list of psych rarities needed. It mirrored the red folder rarities for sale from two years ago. Odd how focused the lists are of rare records. There's a lot of titles, but relatively focused for all of the music ever made.

I have a new contact to sell some 45's for me on the internet. Its finally time to break out the shovel and start moving some of the 60,000 + singles to a new home. In the first two boxes alone, there were some very nice Northern Soul finds and some good odd label rarities and an early Beatles pic sleeve.

Brooklyn #11 is finished and needs a final mixdown.

The boxes are unloading slowly. There are 35 LP boxes emptied and still the fresh new 50 singles boxes to uncover. Yesterday, an unexpected visit by a record dealer once again confirmed that the amount was overwhelming to most. After first egregiously expecting to flip through and find the gems, he found that the amount was too large to even start to look, but made an appointment to come back and tackle one section at a time. Strangely enough, this dealer was the only other to ever have known about the secret vinyl stash about an hour from here. He had visited five times and also had been there before I, meaning that he was part of the reason our finds there were only moderately successful.

Brooklyn mix #9 features some cool songs including Mecano Ltd, XRay Pop, Statistics, Tot Rocket & the Twins, Josef K, Tagmemics, Marquis de Sade, Margaret Thatcher & the Supply Side, and New Math. I had to look up dates for some of the songs, and that's where Google is invaluable. I also added a pic of the Brooklyn Bridge to the cd cover, which itunes allows a nice printing mosaic to make liner notes.

Brooklyn #10 includes a rare song by The Five, Luxury Item, Lumpen Proles, Lew Lewis Reformer, Last Man in Europe, Snakefinger, Knots, Taixz Sly, Theatre of Hate, Blue Nile, Lights, Basement 5, Big Liz, Inmates, RL Crutchfields Dark Day, Yachts, and Shrapnel, Waitresses, and Visitors. I added another black and white pic of the Brooklyn Bridge.

I may find a way to release this series, in some sort of cd-r form to those interested. Maybe $50 for a set of 10. It wouldn't be about making money, but more about trading and sharing. Mix #11 is completed, but not mixed down.

I also just picked up a punk load of records yesterday including most of the Circle Jerks, Exploited, and all the other usual suspects. There was one Misfits LP i hadn't seen before, a fair amount of 45s and lots of Clash stuff. Altogether, a load of 150 LP's and 50 singles.

Yesterday I picked up the second 45 load from Brooklyn. This was the remaining pop/rock/punk titles and included fifty filled single boxes plus six boxes of LPs. The price was pre-determined and fair. The records are varied, but stay within the range of 1975-1985. I grabbed a few pieces and made Brooklyn mix #9 which included Human Switchboard, Meteors, Metros, mekons, Medium Medium, Marquis de Sade, Slickee Boys, Margaret Thatcher & Supply Side, Maneaters, and more. I have to mix it down yet and get it burned to cd.

My contact in Brooklyn has another 25,000 or more 45's yet, and most of those are either Teen/Pop/Punk/DooWop/or Psych. I took a quick look at the Psych 45's and even though he said i hadn't hit a good vein of them, they looked pretty good to me, as we flipped through the "i" section and i saw 15 names in a row that i had never heard of, or at least they didn't register for me.

I will start to prepare for another load, possibly in September or October. I had a great Pastrami/Corned Beef sandwich on the ride home at Harolds' NY Deli.

I've been too busy to write much lately. The boxes from Brooklyn arrived without too much trouble. It took us and four movers the whole day to unload the basement in Brooklyn, lugging out the 165 heavy moving boxes, and up into the streets on a rainy April Friday. The traffic wasn't too bad going in, but the moving truck was tied up in traffic trying to get out of the city. We got the boxes back home and unloaded them, finishing up around 9 pm, a 12 hour work day. It was quite a load and a hard toil.

Now it is July. We have emptied only about 30 of the boxes, and the treasures are immense. The boxes are arranged in columns of 40 boxes in the basement. There are so many records that I have never seen in my time. Thousands. Many of the stranger items were sold in lots to dealers, and many are still undiscovered. I have also made a total of 8 Brooklyn Uncovered Mixes on cd, which have given a detailed description of the excellent music uncovered in these boxes.

I am writing today to detail that tomorrow is the possible final pick up of 6-10,000 singles in boxes. Many of the best punk and post punk 45's were brought home in April. This last load will reveal the rest of the secrets. The large runs of artists and unknowns from the NY area. The completist nature of the collection.

I will update sooner.