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jon_chaissonOkay, a lot of you know that when I finally moved out of the family house, I left my vinyl behind. Originally the intent was to eventually bring it down to NJ, as at the time I figured I would be living there with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
emmalyon and the others for an indeterminate amount of time. That original intent was sidetracked when Emm was offered the San Francisco job, and so instead of eventually taking it with me, I did a thirty-minute quick glance at the collection, pulled all the Beatle-themed (band and solo) records and put them aside to keep (what--you expected me to get rid of that stuff?!??), and pulled a very small amount out to have my sister transfer it to tape, where I would then lift to make it an mp3 later on (the same was done with the cassettes, but I'd pretty much taken what I wanted to keep and given away the rest well before the move). And that vinyl would then be given away or sold at record stores, letting my sister (who did much of the vinyl exodus) keep the money.
Two years on, and I find myself amused that I still don't miss my record collection nearly as much as I thought I would. Sure, when I was younger, I couldn't bear the thought of getting rid of it. I even had a dream once when I was a kid, where there was an addition to my parents' house to fit my insane record collection.
And then of course there's the cd collection. THAT was a feat in itself...somehow I managed to bring the entire collection down to NJ, and between then and moving here, I cut the collection nearly in half (leaving it the trusting hands oflynxreign who I'm pretty sure will keep most if not all of it), and then cutting it in half again after moving here (thank you Amoeba and Rasputin for relieving me of cds and handing me a good chunk of credit in the process). They now fit nicely on the bookshelf pilfered from the apartment foyer that someone had apparently discarded.
And that's the physical collection.
-------------------------
As for the music itself, that's a different story. That goes back a bit further.
I want to say the official start of my music collection was 1978 when my mom picked up The Beatles 1967-1970 up in Keene, NH at a record store, to buy me for Christmas. From there it was a slow process of picking up Beatles albums from the local department store (remember Mars Bargainland,head58??) or from the Rietta Ranch flea market in Hubbardston. And of course, it only grew exponentially from there. There was also the discovery of blank tapes--something that had been in the family before, but usually reserved for my sisters and a bulky tape recorder set as close to the radio speakers as possible. Some time around 1983 or so I began taping stuff off the radio (and TV, when we finally got MTV) myself, and thus the proto-compilation tapes were born. And the collecting continued.
--------------------------
Back to the present, and to my main point...
So while my physical collection has shrunken severely, my digital collection has multiplied. It occured to me some time ago that the search for older tracks on various online services is very much like going to the used record stores and searching through the dollar bins. Especially when, like when I first signed up for eMusic, I found a whole bunch of stuff that I always wanted but never picked up...or had on vinyl but gave away without transferring to mp3. It's that little excitement of finding something I didn't expect to find (especially not in a normal record store) and finding it readily available even if I don't buy it right away. Nerdy way to look at it? Sure, but what the hey...
And now I'm at the point where I'm actually caught up with most of the new stuff I want to acquire (and no longer buying way too much stuff like I did a few years back), and want to pick up more of the old stuff that I haven't had for years...or always wanted to pick up but never got around to buying. Like the old Minutemen stuff, which I had but sadly never quite got around to listening to, or the Felt albums which I've always wanted but never got around to buying. And so on. And I think I've been doing quite well...back in the days of Newbury Comics, I would buy four or five cds a week (hell, NC is, as the logo says, "wicked cheap" and a usual purchase would cost only about $50-$70), and now I rarely stop at music stores, even though there are more than enough of them in this city. In all honesty, I think I'm back to the pre-HMV days now, only buying every now and again.
In all honesty, I never thought I'd get back to this point again, where I'm still a big music fan, but not nearly as obsessive as I once was. It kind of weirds me out, in a way. Perhaps it's that I've gotten older and found more important things to think about, or perhaps it's that I just eventually gained control of wanting to be a completist in my collection, I don't know. But it's no longer an obsession. It's now back to just being a pastime, one that's a bit more affordable and more under control.
Not to mention, one that takes up a lot less space.
I'm still a collector that wants to have an extensive and varied music library, and I know I still have a long way to go, but at least now I'm looking for specific things. Lately it's been a lot of 80s punk and alternative stuff (thanks again, eMusic), and eventually it'll also be mainstream 80s stuff I once had but have no more. But like I said, it's a lot easier and cheaper to acquire now, and I like that.
emmalyon and the others for an indeterminate amount of time. That original intent was sidetracked when Emm was offered the San Francisco job, and so instead of eventually taking it with me, I did a thirty-minute quick glance at the collection, pulled all the Beatle-themed (band and solo) records and put them aside to keep (what--you expected me to get rid of that stuff?!??), and pulled a very small amount out to have my sister transfer it to tape, where I would then lift to make it an mp3 later on (the same was done with the cassettes, but I'd pretty much taken what I wanted to keep and given away the rest well before the move). And that vinyl would then be given away or sold at record stores, letting my sister (who did much of the vinyl exodus) keep the money.Two years on, and I find myself amused that I still don't miss my record collection nearly as much as I thought I would. Sure, when I was younger, I couldn't bear the thought of getting rid of it. I even had a dream once when I was a kid, where there was an addition to my parents' house to fit my insane record collection.
And then of course there's the cd collection. THAT was a feat in itself...somehow I managed to bring the entire collection down to NJ, and between then and moving here, I cut the collection nearly in half (leaving it the trusting hands of
lynxreign who I'm pretty sure will keep most if not all of it), and then cutting it in half again after moving here (thank you Amoeba and Rasputin for relieving me of cds and handing me a good chunk of credit in the process). They now fit nicely on the bookshelf pilfered from the apartment foyer that someone had apparently discarded.And that's the physical collection.
-------------------------
As for the music itself, that's a different story. That goes back a bit further.
I want to say the official start of my music collection was 1978 when my mom picked up The Beatles 1967-1970 up in Keene, NH at a record store, to buy me for Christmas. From there it was a slow process of picking up Beatles albums from the local department store (remember Mars Bargainland,
head58??) or from the Rietta Ranch flea market in Hubbardston. And of course, it only grew exponentially from there. There was also the discovery of blank tapes--something that had been in the family before, but usually reserved for my sisters and a bulky tape recorder set as close to the radio speakers as possible. Some time around 1983 or so I began taping stuff off the radio (and TV, when we finally got MTV) myself, and thus the proto-compilation tapes were born. And the collecting continued.--------------------------
Back to the present, and to my main point...
So while my physical collection has shrunken severely, my digital collection has multiplied. It occured to me some time ago that the search for older tracks on various online services is very much like going to the used record stores and searching through the dollar bins. Especially when, like when I first signed up for eMusic, I found a whole bunch of stuff that I always wanted but never picked up...or had on vinyl but gave away without transferring to mp3. It's that little excitement of finding something I didn't expect to find (especially not in a normal record store) and finding it readily available even if I don't buy it right away. Nerdy way to look at it? Sure, but what the hey...
And now I'm at the point where I'm actually caught up with most of the new stuff I want to acquire (and no longer buying way too much stuff like I did a few years back), and want to pick up more of the old stuff that I haven't had for years...or always wanted to pick up but never got around to buying. Like the old Minutemen stuff, which I had but sadly never quite got around to listening to, or the Felt albums which I've always wanted but never got around to buying. And so on. And I think I've been doing quite well...back in the days of Newbury Comics, I would buy four or five cds a week (hell, NC is, as the logo says, "wicked cheap" and a usual purchase would cost only about $50-$70), and now I rarely stop at music stores, even though there are more than enough of them in this city. In all honesty, I think I'm back to the pre-HMV days now, only buying every now and again.
In all honesty, I never thought I'd get back to this point again, where I'm still a big music fan, but not nearly as obsessive as I once was. It kind of weirds me out, in a way. Perhaps it's that I've gotten older and found more important things to think about, or perhaps it's that I just eventually gained control of wanting to be a completist in my collection, I don't know. But it's no longer an obsession. It's now back to just being a pastime, one that's a bit more affordable and more under control.
Not to mention, one that takes up a lot less space.
I'm still a collector that wants to have an extensive and varied music library, and I know I still have a long way to go, but at least now I'm looking for specific things. Lately it's been a lot of 80s punk and alternative stuff (thanks again, eMusic), and eventually it'll also be mainstream 80s stuff I once had but have no more. But like I said, it's a lot easier and cheaper to acquire now, and I like that.
