So it's one thing to move house, and obviously quite another to totally put everything you own in the right place. I'm really lucky (or canny) because this apartment has a lot of storage space, even not counting the second bathroom which I do not use as a bathroom. But I did of course stash stuff away in places that it didn't necessarily want to be permanently and so this morning I thought I'd address a bit of that. Mainly, all the 7" singles I had in the cupboard, just stacked up willy-nilly (there was also an unexplained handful shoved in a box I unpacked which I then put in the upstairs bookshelf- random). So, with a view to perhaps relocating the cupboard all the 7"s were in, I started pulling them out and going through them. I had actually thought about them in the abstract some time ago in a kind of almost out of sight, almost out of mind kind of way - do I need them? Maybe I don't. The thing is, I could kind of sell them, I guess, but I don't even really need to do that - I suppose I would rather have the money than the space they would take up, yeah. I have some singles that I bought new in the early 80s and have played once or twice. One in particular I came across and remembered that when I bought it from the artist I wrote them a letter saying, I don't regret buying it (which was about the nicest thing I could say) and they responded: that's not a common response (or words to that effect). Anyway, that single is now worth over $100 (discogs says it's worth $125, less their $10 of course. Others have paid more for the same thing). I suppose I don't mind getting that kind of money from someone to be relieved of a record I actually think is kind of shit, but at the same time, I feel bad that someone is so dumb as to think it's worth owning. By the same token, I am obviously that dumb too (now I think about it, had I looked it up on discogs and seen that no-one's ever paid more than 20c for it, then I'd just throw it out like I threw out the really scratched up copy of William Shakespeare's 'My Little Angel', a song by the way I adore, but I have it on at least one LP, maybe more, and don't need it on a 7", that's for sure. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to sell a bunch of these singles somewhere - not online, but to a shop I trust, so I won't make a huge amount but nor will I have to have a little place to keep these things and fret over their condition etc - and use the money wisely, probably putting it towards one of those albums I've been meaning to put out for years, perhaps the asylum seekers fundraiser record I made with Mia ten years ago. It has some good stuff on it, seems a shame to let all that effort go to waste, not just my effort.
As I went through all these records I found a lot of junk too including broken and otherwise fucked records like the one above. I don't know what it is, where it came from or how it came to have a bite taken out of it, but there you go. Luxaflex claims to have 'all the answers', I actually thought they were the company that made the flexi, i.e. a luxaflexidisc but looking them up on line I am now of the opinion that more likely it's Luxaflex the awnings/blinds company, not directly connected with the manufacture of the record. Anyway, it's broken, I should just throw it away shouldn't I. I actually find that kind of thing hard to do. Conversely once I do it, I don't think of the thing ever again, so that's a bit ridiculous.
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