[Overstreet]

My renewed interest in vinyl is picking up steam. Lately, I've started seeking out vinyl editions of favorite albums, and I'm finding that I still get a very particular thrill from that slight static charge of pulling the disc from the sleeve, from the pop of the needle on the record.

Recently, I've picked up a mint-condition LP of The Turning (with the Compassion advert, complete with a message from Leslie Phillips inside!), a two-record set of Peter Gabriel's Passion, REM's Document, and some of my childhood favorites (The Rescuers, and my very first LP: Disney's The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf).

I've been lurking on Amazon and eBay, but I wonder: Do any longtime vinyl collectors have any favorite sites or tips? And is anyone here interested in listing LPs they'd like to sell at bargain prices? Just curious.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Quasi-ahem. Or link, whichever. (It's an old thread.)

See also last year's thread on 'Phonograph Recommendations'.

[Holy Moly!]

The best thing is to go to stores. I've found some real gems at the Everyday Music on Broadway, both Easy Street stores & Sonic Boom stores. Jive Time is okay too. Go straight to the new arrivals. At Easy St, I found a copy of Quasi's "Featuring Birds" this week, which has been out of print for years, for $10.

[Overstreet]

I recently discovered Bop Street Records in Ballard, which is such a massive warehouse full of records it's a little frightening. But that's where I found the pristine copy of Danny Elfman's Midnight Run soundtrack on vinyl for eight bucks. I've been planning a return trip, but I recently heard that the lower level of the store flooded recently and ruined a lot of their inventory. I felt sick reading that news.

[Holy Moly!]

Bop Street is...okay. Sometimes you find some gems (my friend found a bunch of old Go Team 45s) and their collection of vintage soul/jazz/r&b is better than anywhere else in seattle. But their prices aren't great, and they don't really have much in their collection that's been released since 1993 or so.

I saw some of the video of the flooding, and it's not as catastrophic as it's been made to sound--though this sort of thing is always tragic.

[mrmando]

I used to make frequent trips to the main Salvation Army store at Rainier & Dearborn, where one never knew what one might find in the vinyl rack. It's been quite a while, though, since I really no longer collect vinyl. I sure miss the University Way stores (Cellophane Square, Second Time Around, Yesterday and Today, etc.). A few years ago there was a way-cool coffee shop/vinyl store in Lake City, but I don't think it's still there. You could also check out the store at Thackeray & 45th, whose name escapes me right now.

[Jim Janknegt]

I have about four linear feet of vinyl stored in my barn. My daughter has fallen in love with the Beatles so I went down yesterday and pulled out the original LP's of Magical Mystery Tour, Sgt. Pepper, The White Album and Abbey Road and gave them to her. She was impressed and liked getting the albums (although we don't have a turntable). The White Album still had the big fold out poster inside.

I have no idea what vinyl is selling for these days?

[Andy Whitman]

Jim Janknegt, on 02 November 2009 - 10:44 AM, said:

I have about four linear feet of vinyl stored in my barn. My daughter has fallen in love with the Beatles so I went down yesterday and pulled out the original LP's of Magical Mystery Tour, Sgt. Pepper, The White Album and Abbey Road and gave them to her. She was impressed and liked getting the albums (although we don't have a turntable). The White Album still had the big fold out poster inside.

I have no idea what vinyl is selling for these days?

I would guess that I have several thousand vinyl albums. I don't know what that translates to in terms of linear feet. I know they take up most of one room.

I'm in a church full of vinyl-loving youngsters who seek out non-scratchy, big, black records as if they were the Holy Grail. It cracks me up to watch the eyes bulge out when they enter the cave/shrine, where I keep a candle perpetually burning in front of the gigantic foldout poster from Dark Side of the Moon. Okay, no I don't. But it's still fun to watch the reactions.

Of course, vinyl was simply the only medium available when I was buying a lot of that music. Well, there were 8-track tapes, but even back in the Jurassic Age I knew better than to invest in those. I'm told that some of those albums would fetch a lot of money. They're not for sale. I do know that new vinyl albums typically go for $15 - $20, far more expensive than CDs or MP3s.

This post has been edited by Andy Whitman: 02 November 2009 - 11:19 AM

[Holy Moly!]

It depends on the label too. When CDs were introduced, they cost more than LPs for years, even though they were cheaper to manufacture. Now that the vinyl market is growing and fetishization of the art object is coming back, it's not unusual to see an double 180 gram LP cost 22.99 for a CD that you can get for 13.99. On the other hand, K records (which never stopped producing vinyl for most of their releases) sells new LPs for $10.

[Overstreet]

Does anybody here buy vinyl online? If so, where?

This post has been edited by Overstreet: 02 November 2009 - 01:03 PM

[Overstreet]

Andy, since you have such a great collection, I'd love to hear from you about which albums you'd say are especially distinct in their vinyl versions. Soemtimes, it's just a disc in a sleeve. What records are the holy grails of your vinyl collection? What should I be watching for in thrift shops and garage sales that, while they might be available in other formats, are particularly pleasing LP packages?

I love gatefolds. The Joshua Tree and Ohio gatefold LPs I have are beautiful packages. I was a little disappointed last week when I got my hands on a two-record set of Peter Gabriel's Passion... that it was just two discs shoved into one sleeve, with very little in the way of notes and artwork.

I'd especially like to start shopping for good jazz vinyl, as that's the section of my collection that needs the most work. What would your essential jazz LP list look like?

[Andy Whitman]

Overstreet, on 06 November 2009 - 01:16 PM, said:

Andy, since you have such a great collection, I'd love to hear from you about which albums you'd say are especially distinct in their vinyl versions. Soemtimes, it's just a disc in a sleeve. What records are the holy grails of your vinyl collection? What should I be watching for in thrift shops and garage sales that, while they might be available in other formats, are particularly pleasing LP packages?

I love gatefolds. The Joshua Tree and Ohio gatefold LPs I have are beautiful packages. I was a little disappointed last week when I got my hands on a two-record set of Peter Gabriel's Passion... that it was just two discs shoved into one sleeve, with very little in the way of notes and artwork.

I'd especially like to start shopping for good jazz vinyl, as that's the section of my collection that needs the most work. What would your essential jazz LP list look like?

Wow. Big questions.

As far as lavish vinyl packaging, I can recommend several exemplary packages. The problem is that you may or may not be interested in the music. But the packaging is superb.

-- Yes -- Yessongs -- This was originally a 3-album live set, a sort of live Greatest Hits collection. The gatefold cover features surrealistic art, and folds out to about six feet wide. The insurmountable obstacle is that you then have to listen to three albums of Yes.

-- Chicago IV -- Incredibly lavish packaging in this box set. There are four albums, recorded live in Carnegie Hall. The music is abysmal, and this is coming from someone who once really liked the early Chicago. But there are two big books of photos, a nice historical essay about Carnegie Hall, and three or four posters of the band, one of which is about eight feet by six feet, because every music fan needs to wallpaper their room with Chicago posters.

-- The Beatles -- White Album -- The gatefold isn't anything special. But the accompanying, gigantic poster/collage is a definite collectible. The music is pretty decent as well.

-- Led Zeppelin III -- Make sure you get the vinyl version with the spinning thingie. There are open slots in the cover itself. Spin the wheel, and the slots reveal different pretty pictures of Robert Plant, Jimmie Page, etc. It's sort of a rock 'n roll Viewmaster.

-- Jethro Tull -- Thick as a Brick -- The album that comes with a full newspaper. The front cover opens up to reveal a full 16 pages of a newspaper from a non-existent English town, complete with horoscopes, TV listings, crossword puzzles, and gossip column, all composed by Ian Anderson.

Those are at least some of the goodies that you'll find with vinyl that can't be replicated in the CD world.

As far as jazz, the best I can do is to recommend a few albums that are simply great jazz albums, regardless of their format. They're pretty much essential standards. But in this case, I know that the following all exist in vinyl, because I have them in vinyl:

-- Miles Davis -- Kind of Blue
-- John Coltrane -- A Love Supreme
-- Thelonious Monk -- Straight, No Chaser
-- Louis Armstrong -- Hot 5s and Hot 7s
-- Sonny Rollins -- Saxophone Colossus
-- Bill Evans -- Waltz for Debbie
-- Duke Ellington -- The Webster/Blanton Years
-- Count Basie -- Live at Newport
-- Jimmy Smith -- The Sermon
-- Lee Morgan -- The Gigolo
-- Oscar Peterson Trio -- Night Train
-- Charles Mingus -- Mingus Ah Um
-- Billie Holiday -- Lady in Satin
-- Ornette Coleman -- The Shape of Things to Come
-- Art Blakey -- Moanin'
-- Ella Fitzgerald -- The George Gershwin Songbook
-- Oliver Nelson -- The Blues and the Abstract Truth

I could go on and on here, but those are all albums that are typically viewed as among the best recordings (if not the best) from each artist, and which all exist in vinyl. The packaging may or may not be particularly wonderful, but the good news is that most of them were recorded in the '50s and '60s, an arguable jazz heyday, and an inarguable high point of jazz portraiture. There are some great album covers there.

I hope that helps.

This post has been edited by Andy Whitman: 06 November 2009 - 02:02 PM

[J.R.]

Overstreet, on 02 November 2009 - 02:03 PM, said:

Does anybody here buy vinyl online? If so, where?

I bought a few records from Insound (www.insound.com) earlier this year and would recommend them if you're looking for new releases/reissues.

[Christian]

Saturday is Independent Record Store Day. Show your support, if you're so inclined.

EDIT: List of participating stores here.

This post has been edited by Christian: 13 April 2010 - 12:34 PM

[Overstreet]

Recently picked up the "Days of Heaven" soundtrack on vinyl for $15 in like-new condition.

Sam Phillips' "Cruel Inventions" ... I wasn't even aware that had been released on vinyl. Got it for 99 cents.

Both St. Vincent's "Marry Me" and "Actor."

Maria McKee, "Maria McKee."

[Holy Moly!]

oh my. that arthur russell reissue for record store day sounds dreamy.

This post has been edited by Holy Moly!: 13 April 2010 - 08:22 PM

[Christian]

For my third Atlantic-related post of the past few minutes -- yes, I've been going through the Atlantic site this morning -- here's Sam Machkovech on "How Record Stores Can Survive the Internet Age":

My take on Record Store Day—and, more important to me, the days after—got picked apart by a few columnists this week. I expected that, and I enjoyed reading the disagreements, but they each lacked a substantive reply to what I'd implied: that modern record stores have retreated, not advanced, as taste-curators and conversation-starters. Record Store Day is fantastic, but if shops want to hugely promote the holiday, then that one-day spike deserves to be scrutinized and capitalized upon. ...

This post has been edited by Christian: 01 May 2010 - 08:32 AM

[Holy Moly!]

Half-Price books had a big warehouse sale which was disappointing in the books dept, but a success on the music front! Got a total of 24 LPs for a quarter a piece, including most of the early Amy Grant catalog, Petra, Wham, and in my rarest find, an odd looking 1981 youth ensemble produced by local legend Kearney Barton!