57. The Theory Of The Leisure Class

Tim and Paul get to grips with awkward customers, more Discogs woes, Gareth gives us a new vinyl round up, Paul goes virtual record shopping and Tim looks into how shops offer to buy used records. Plus readers letters, news, quiz and all your usual crate digging nonsense

Hosts

Paul Field and Tim Scullion

Written & Produced

Paul Field

Editor

Tim Scullion

Twitter: @WeBuyRecordsPod
Twitter: @wmt_network
Website: wemadethisnetwork.com

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We made this. Hello and welcometo We Buy Records. I'm Paul Field

(00:45):
and I'm joined as ever by thelovely mister Tim Scullion. Hello Tim,
Hello there, Paul. How areyou sweating? Because it's summer, It's
Belgrade and it's very, very hotagain today. Well it's it's a little
bit cooler here in the south coastof England, in East Sussex. But
apparently British listeners will probably know this. We've apparently got a forty degree heatwave

(01:08):
coming. Oh was that in theDaily Mail? I can't confirm my sources,
Paul. Do you know this aboutme? Well, my laptop says
it's seventy four and old money atthe moment, bearing a mind it still
early in the morning. Whatever thatmeans. British people don't know what seventy
four means, Paul. Oh,okay, Sorry, this is the we

(01:30):
By Records podcast. Thanks everyone forjoining us. How do we do this,
Paul, I've forgotten a quick bitof housekeeping, Tim, housekeeping so
quick. Thank you to everyone who'ssupported us on coffee. Tim, I've
forgot to put out the names,but we will mention you next time,
I promise. Thanks everybody, youcan support us on coffee. We do

(01:53):
have costs associated with the podcast.We have to pay for the way that
we record it. You can findus Kofi dot com, forward slash,
we buy records something like that.I'll put a link in the show thing.
It might be we by Records pod, but we can try one of
them. It's quite early, it'squite early in the morning. I'm not

(02:16):
really with it yet, but it'sgoing to be. It's going to be
a great show. Oh, Tim, I've got some housekeeping. What's happened
to you the last couple of weeks, Paul? Now, well, if
that so, Paul, this explainswhy. So our intention was to get
the podcast out more frequently again andit make it be more like the good
old days. But we've been thwartedbecause of something that happened to you a

(02:38):
couple of weeks ago. Well,a couple of things. First my laptop
broke, then I took it tobe repaired, then it broke again,
and then I bought another one,and as I bought that, the landlord
came to see me and said youneed to leave the store. I'm like,
oh dear, oh dear. Nowthere is a weird story here and

(03:00):
I'd be curious what any listeners thinkabout this. So he handed me a
thirty days termination, told me toget out that he'd sold the store,
and I was like, how's hesold it? Nobody's been to look at
it. Good point, And Iwas quite annoyed by this very short notice

(03:22):
period, so I did push back, said this form isn't in English,
it's just gibberish. Gave it backto him, said come back when you've
done it correctly. This is buyingme time. Sorry, just to make
it clear that you're not a racist. Presumably it was in a kind of
broken English. It was in GoogleTranslate, but it was a legal document.

(03:44):
You can't use Google Translate for Yeah, it did sound a bit like
you were. You were saying thatSerbian is gibberish, So I thought,
I thought i'd clarify for the listeners. No, no, no, the
English version was complete gibberish. Iknew that's what you meant, but everything
has if you're a foreigner, everythinghas to be due, lingual and certified
for it to be legal. Soanyway, he came back the next day

(04:04):
and I'm like, that was quick, and he had a guy with him,
and I looked at this guy andmy friend was translating, and he
said, oh, this is thisis the new owner. He's opening a
photocopy shop. There are two hundredphotocopying shops in Belgrade him they desperately needed
another one. Laundering anyway, Ilooked at this guy and I'm like,

(04:29):
I know you. You've been tothe shop four or five times. Oh.
I was told he was an architectwho was coming to look at doing
provisions for the roof for the butyep, oh, come on. Then
their translator turned up and I lookedat him and I went, hang on
a second, I know you aswell. Oh. This kid had been

(04:50):
hanging around the shop, never buyinganything, and I thought, why is
he here? A bit weird.They've been spying on the store for months
and months, Paul. But here'swhat's weird, Tim. Not only did
that make my skin crawl that thesepeople were there with under pretense, but
if the guy turned up and said, do you know what, I'm really

(05:12):
sorry, I'm thinking of selling thestore. These people would like to have
a look, Is that okay?I would have said of course, yeah.
I also wouldn't have wouldn't have deployedrecently, all the new CD shelving
or the new LED signage in thewindow. I could have just paused those
projects, which were you know,they weren't massively expensive, but what a
pain. That way of going aboutthings is just horrible. So that piss

(05:36):
me off. I like more thanthe notice period that these this underhand situation.
So I really pushed back, andluckily my friend was there's a he's
a friend of the mayor, heworks for the government. Anyway, you
and your connections in Belgrade. Ireally pushed back hard against these guys,

(05:59):
said right, I'm going to showyou the same courtesy that you've shown me.
See every LED panel in the ceiling, see every light socket, every
switch, all the plumbing, theair conditioning. I changed everything because it
was all dangerous, broken, causingfusing. I didn't trouble the land or
because I'm a good tenant. Ijust wanted to get on with staff.

(06:20):
I haven't got time to waste.However, as a courtesy to you,
I am now going to rip everysingle speck of this out of the building.
And you could see the blood drainingfrom their faces. Then my friend
from the city took over and lookedat them all blasted them for a good

(06:41):
twenty minutes without taking a breath.Oh my god. An hour later,
my lawyer phoned to me and says, oh, Hypaul, what happened in
the store today? I went why? He said, I've just got a
thing that thirty days is now sixtydays, and they're going to pay you
for every single thing you've done forthe shop. You're kidding, I'm not

(07:02):
kidding. They literally ran away withtheir towels between their legs. Wow.
So I mean you took I guessyou took a slight risk in in you
know, going hard on them,but it actually paid off. Oh.
I completely lost it, completely lostit when I realized what had been going
on. Bloody hell, Paul,what are you supposed to do? I'm

(07:23):
very very proud of you. Anyway, we found a new premises and it's
thirty seconds walk from the old one, and most importantly, it's got a
bath. Most importantly, Tim soin our in our house, our little
house here, we have three bathroomsbut no bath. Now we have a
shop which has our bath. Whydoesn't our shop have a bath? I

(07:46):
know I was when I looked atit. I was so confused little kicker
on the bath. Yes, Isaid to the guy, are you including
this bath in the square meterage thatyou're renting, because as a retail space,
a bath, Yeah, it's it'sof no use? Is it of
no use? What he didn't knowis that secretly I was like, yes,

(08:09):
a bath. Oh god, wow, Paul, is it is the
is the premises bigger than your currentpremises a tiny bit six six square meters,
but take away the bath there's abit of storage. So yeah,
just just to put our listeners mindsat ease, the bath isn't in the
shop, is it. No,No, it's in the bath. It's

(08:31):
in the bathroom. I just thoughti'd checked that. So well done,
Paul. You've you've you've ridden thisthis emotional wave of being kicked out of
your shop very well. I thinkI have and found a new one very
quickly and smoothly. And I'm I'myeah, it's to your credit. Thanks.
When when you message me to justsay hi, I'm being kicked out
of the shop, my you know, my stomach did churn a bit and

(08:54):
I thought, oh god, thisis going to be a big, awful
epic. And then about maybe fourdays later you're like, found one.
It's got a bath so well,well done, Well done, Paul,
And I'm sure that you'll be You'llbe keeping us updated, won't you with
with you know, with the excitementof a of a new and improved shop.

(09:16):
Oh, yes, very exciting.Should we Should we do the news?
Yes? What have you got,Tim? Well, it's the same
news that we have every few months, Paul, Oh, which is that
record sales are up again, whichis obviously fantastic. But we were both

(09:37):
doing a bit of research into thisand seeing if we could come up with,
you know, a slightly new angleon this exact same story. Indeed,
and you and you found an articleon the Conversation dot com which suggests
the reason. Yes, it's notthe only reason, Paul, But do

(10:01):
you know the weird thing is somebody, this old boy was talking to me
outside of the shop the other dayand this was he said this. He
said this to me, Oh,it's just people showing off, and I
was like, oh really, Andthen I happened to see this literally two
days later. So what they're sayingis one of the likely reasons for the
resurgence of records was identified by aneconomist over a century ago checks out.

(10:26):
In the late eighteen nineties, aguy called Torstein Veblen looked at spending in
society and wrote an influential book calledThe Theory of the Leisure Class. Right
now, Tim, would you sayyour customers a part of the leisure class?
Yes? Yes. He explains thatpeople buy items as a way to

(10:46):
gain and convey status, because,yeah, not everything in life is purchased
because it is easy, fun,or high quality. Sometimes harder, more
time consuming or exotic items offer morestatus. I think the kids call it
flexing. Is this partly? Isuppose this is also why kindles and e

(11:07):
readers haven't killed books. Yes,because it's far more convenient to read a
book on an e reader, yep. But the effort to go and purchase
and carry around and read a realbook, you know. I don't think
it's just convey status, but thepleasure in that effort and that ritual because

(11:31):
we've talked about ritual before, andthe ritual playing record is quite magical and
powerful. I think if you can, if you if you combine Veblen's theory
of leisure class about status, ifyou combine that with ritual, I think
I think you've got your answer.And the one thing they haven't mentioned social
media. So my customers will flextheir purchases on Instagram religiously, do they

(11:58):
Yes, all the time. Andweirdly, some of them post pictures of
records that they haven't actually bought.So they come into the shop, they'll
have their photo taken. Yeah,with records. I'll see them on their
Instagram feed and think, hang on, that's still in the rack there,
but they're anyone looking at it.I think they were totally Yeah, of

(12:20):
course. Yeah, that's a weirdphenomenon. Have you had that? No,
I haven't. I don't think i'dlike it. I'd like it because
it's promoting the shop. But buyit if you're gonna, if you're gonna
make it look like you've bought it, you do have to buy it to
get that to get that status,the status that it conveys. Well,
you don't, tim This is exactlythe point. You really don't have to

(12:41):
buy it. Oh you're pulling aface. Yikes. Listeners, have you
ever have you ever posed with arecord and a record shop put it on
your social media and not bought itor like to shame you, that's one
for the if you've done that rightto us, and we will put it
on the confessional. I promise wewon't say who you are. I think

(13:01):
it's a good theory. I thinkit sounds like it is critical. You
know, there's it's got an airof that. It sounds a bit judgy,
this this theory to say that it'sabout status. But I think that
there is a pleasure to be foundin. As you said, not everything

(13:22):
in life is purchased or done becauseit is easy or fun or of the
highest quality. And I think that'sfor someone one hundred and thirty years ago
to have, you know, crystallizedthat thought and it's still totally applicable now.
Is pretty good, isn't it?So no judgment here, Oh no,
no, it's just we're just justan observation. Now, Tim,

(13:46):
this isn't really news, but it'sreally starting to wind me up. And
I want to ask you about.Okay, people who come into your shop
right now, I've been to yourshop. You've been to there's plenty of
space at the front of the rackfor you to just flick the records gently
forward. I would even say thereis deliberately plenty of space to do that.

(14:07):
But yes, one thing that pissesme off is shops that overfill their
racks so you can't flip through likethat. Of course we've covered this,
so yes, continue. I've noticedthis recent trend of people who flick from
the back. They start lifting theback wreck back record and to do this
up down motion from the back tothe front. They lift every record.

(14:31):
Ye, starting at the back.So I've I've had this. And so
I'll be busy behind the counter doingsomething, looking at records, looking on
my laptop, cleaning something. Iidentify these people through sound. Yes,
so you'll be doing something else andyou'll hear fuck th th th thack,

(14:54):
and that is some nutter. That'ssomething else. Then, no, is
some nutter lifting and dropping from theback every single record. And yes,
it has happened in our shop,and I do not understand it. And
I'll go further, Paul, inour shop, it's people looking at a

(15:15):
certain genre of music as well,right, do you want to elaborate?
I do, And it's the same. And please don't be upset if you
are a regular in our shop andthis is the genre that you look at.
The people who do that are thesame people who when they've gone,
and you go and maybe tidy up. At the end of the day,

(15:37):
you will find records upside down,back to front, sideways on Oh yeah,
record not put back into the innersleeve. That only happens in one
genre, is it? Beard music? Team? It only happens in Duff
Duff music. Oh oh, ofcourse, half my shop is for DJ's
team. It looks like I've beenburgled once they've left, So, Paul,

(16:00):
it doesn't fucking happen with jazz,indie, psycho, reggae. It
only happens in techno, house,breaks, whatever. But these people don't
don't dig from the back. Theydo flick forward. It's just because they
pick out fifty or sixty records toaudition. They go back in just a
chaotic manner, even though I tryand put them back myself. Would it

(16:23):
kill them to put them back ina nice way? No, just leave
them, I'll do it, Ikeep saying to them, I pay myself
to do this. Yes, yes, And that sounds like a kindness,
but it's actually because you know thatif they put them back, I'll put
them back in an absolute fucking state. So, dance people, could you
sort yourselves out? Please? Yeah. Tim. One other little niggle people

(16:45):
who come in rather holding their phone, shopping bags whenever it might be,
and try to look through records withone hand. You can't do it.
It's all coming out now, it'sall coming out, Paul. Not just
not really, because they make aright faff of it and they just I'm

(17:06):
just like, put your stuff down, use two hands. I've even said
to one person who was making sucha right mess. It's much easier if
you use two hands. Would youlike me to take your bags? Oh?
People tend to put their bags onthe floor in the shop. One
thing, do you think one?I know one thing that also does happen,
which may have happened to you,is people will come in with a

(17:30):
takeaway cup of coffee, you know, with a lid or thing, and
they will balance them on the racknext to the one they're looking at and
then start flicking. Yep, sothat's happened to you as well. I
cannot believe that anyone would do that. It happened the other day somebody brought
in a bottle of Fanta. Yeah, and on the on the sort of

(17:52):
the apex at the front of therack with the where the divider meets the
front. He balanced it there.Wow, And I looked at him and
I was like, my friend,you really can't leave that there, because
can you see the future. Andhe's like, oh yeah, sorry man,
sorry, Wow. Yeah, ithappens. It happens too often to
just be you know, it isa thing that happens. And people are

(18:15):
normally people who are always very nicewhen we say, oh could you could
you not do that please? Butyeah, I have to. There's quite
a big drinking culture where we are, so sometimes get a group in that
can we bring our beer in?Oh it's drunk shopper And I'm like,
if you're really careful, fine,And of course twice I've been mopping up
spilt beer. But it's on thefloor, so it's not the end of

(18:37):
the world. But yeah, yeah, But did they spend more money because
they were pissed? Paul, No, no, no, no, no,
no no no. It's not likethey were on Rakia. It's not
like I was at borco shop wherehe gets you drunk and then gets you
to spend your money. It's veryclever, that, isn't it. Even
though that that wasn't news, Iguess that concludes the news portion. It
was just more too old record shopmen when about their customers. But I

(19:02):
quite enjoyed it. Now, Paul, you've done something which some people are
going to find unbelievably exciting and somethingwhich exists at the at the white hot
tip of technological developments. It does. What have you done? So I

(19:26):
was I was literally in the shop. This couple came into the store and
said, you're Paul, aren't you. I went, yes, we listened
to your show. We've brought youa cup of cup of coffee. And
I'm like, okay, what's goingon here? This is weird because they
were from somewhere from overseas. Istill, We're from Belarus, we live
in London. We come to seeyou. We've got this really good idea.

(19:48):
I'm like, okay, how wouldyou like to go record shopping in
Japan from your home? I'm like, yes, please sign me up.
Yes. So he's created a platformand a streaming technology and hired freelance diggers
around the world. You can gorecord shopping in America Japan, but primarily

(20:12):
this is a Japan thing, especiallyfor Europeans. Okay, these are local
diggers. You can go into thiswebsite. You can choose the diggie you
want. You can tell him whichshops to go to, or ask them
for recommendations. I should say thisis beat. I think bitter testing.
Yeah, they have like a specialsort of harness thing where they clip in

(20:33):
there camera. They're an earpiece sothey can hear you. They'll go to
the store and very gently and carefullylift up each record from the section from
the back. Interested in yet fromthe back you can say pause, can
I ever closer? Look? Price? You'll get all the information. The

(20:53):
guy I hired fantastic, just fantastic, really cool guy. He went to
three stores for me, got loadsof I gave him a little sort of
art style of artists and music Iwanted in advance. I got loads of
cheap sort of rock and pop stuffwith the Abbie, some really cool soundtracks,

(21:15):
a smith's test pressing. Yeah,incredible floating around one shop. And
the bargain of the day I thinkwas the Alien soundtrack from Japan for twelve
quid with Abby. Yes, yeah, crazy, someone is going to just
flip for that in your shop.Yeah yeah, and it very reasonably priced.

(21:37):
We're just doing the paperwork to getthem shipped here slightly more complicated for
Serby than any other country. ButI can tell you now, in the
two two and a half hours Ihad the guy, I bought eighty eight
records. That's a lot. Yeah, Oh my god, I didn't think
you didn't think you'd got that many, dude, I know muck about when
I'm record shopping. Jesus Paul.I'm like, yes, yes, no,
no, yes no, And ifyou don't mind telling us a ballpark

(22:02):
figure, how much did you spend? Roughly? Oh, apparently I set
a target of one thousand pounds andI think I spent something like a thousand
and twenty. And then and thenyou're going to have to pay shipping fees
and potentially customs fees. Yes,in a future episode, we're going to
we'll report back and say the kindof final analysis that's it. We will

(22:22):
report back on the total costs.And because the services aimed at record stores,
but I suspect it more likely highnet worth or individuals or all people
who just want to have a splurge. Yeah. Yeah. But so the
real question that I'm sure everyone isasking is how does this business idea make

(22:42):
any money? Ah? Well,well we'll cover that. When everythink when
the stuff arrives and we'll go throughthe numbers, okay, because does it
make sense to you a little bit? Yes, I can see scaling the
business might be tricky, but Icould. I mean, the idea,

(23:02):
the execution, everything is good.It's just how the platform generates good revenue
that will be the key, becauseI'm I'm super excited about it. But
what might The thing that I'm strugglingwith is either for them to make money,
the costs for you doing it willhave to creep up, because if
you've got buying the records, payinga fee, doing the shipping, doing

(23:25):
the customs, it starts to feela little bit more expensive. Or if
the fee is are minimal and thereforeit's more appealing for you to do it,
they hardly make anything correct, soit's it's really really interesting, but
it's I mean, it's super exciting, and I'm incredibly jealous that they came
into your shop and not ours.Please do let us know what goes on.

(23:52):
I'm very very keen to hear ifthis kind of ends up working,
because bloody hell, it's quite exciting. Paul. Shall we get the latest
highs and lows of new pressing Recordsfrom the lovely Gareth of Clash Magazine.
Oh yes, please take it away, Gareth. Hello, let's get started

(24:15):
with some new releases, shall we. I know a lot of people were
very excited about the new Pet ShotBoys compilation. There are those that say,
do we need another Pet Shot Boyscompilation? However, what happened here
is they were planning on doing avinyl reissue of Discography, the famous original
compilation which sounds superb on its originaltwo LP vinyl, very hard to find
these days, so the label askedthe band if they'd be up for reissuing

(24:37):
it, at which point the band, being as they are at Chris and
Neil were then having a conversation,but can we do Discography two and three
and kind of continue the series,look at the rest of our singles.
They even got as far as makingartwork for these releases before they realize,
no, let's just do a bigbox set. And so Chris came up
with the name Smash because of obviouslyNeil being part of Smash Hits and the
fact it suggests a big hit single. So what you end up with is

(24:57):
a six LP set. She essentiallyworks out as two LPs for each of
Discography one, two, and three, so the concept is still basically there.
This comes in quite a nice shinyouter box and then you've got six
individual LPs inside with this distorted artworkthat many people who have seen that Pharaoh
came up with for the project.The big question is is it worth spending

(25:18):
just over one hundred pounds on thesesix LPs for songs that you know,
if you're a Petriot Boys fan,Let's be honest, you've probably already got
because you buy everything. That's whatPetriot Boys fans are like. It's okay,
you know. The remastering that's beendone by Andy Baldwin at Metropolis is
quite squashed. Particularly listen to thedigital edition of it. You will notice
there's very little dynamic range going on. It still sounds pretty good, because
it's not like they're a band thathad masses of dynamic range in their more

(25:41):
recent work. Anyway, However,that first compilation Discography does sound really open,
and if you compare the tracks fromthe original discography to those tracks on
this new set, I would argueit's really noticeably better on the original version.
And if you then think about popArt, which came out in the
early naughties, which people criticize thesound quality of at the time, that
it too sort of loaded towards thehigh end and it didn't really deal with

(26:03):
the bass very well. This timearound, I think, you know,
sound like Flamboyant that was new onpop art sounds probably slightly better on pop
art than it does on smash.So it's one of those where if you
want everything together, I mean,it's an incredible body of work. These
singles are superb and it's a greatreminder that they've not been sitting by idly
for the last few years. Themore recent stuff still sounds excellent too.
When you've got tracks like the PopKids in there and Monkey Business stuff like

(26:25):
that, they've still been great.Essentially, if you're a collector, you'll
probably want it. If you're acasual purchaue probably be fine with it.
If you're looking for an upgrade,I wouldn't bother. Dan Kroll is a
name that was fairly new to mein this respect, but his new album
Fools you can get it for undertwenty quid. It was done at press
on viol in the UK. Itis a bargain presentation. However, the
music is far from cheap. You'vegot Matthew E. White on co production,

(26:47):
so you get a lovely, warm, rich bass sound. Two things
sounds somewhere between sort of ten CCand Josh Rouse, which is quite a
comforting oral sort of soundtrack. Iwould suggest sunkissed kind of indie power pop
with that AM radio field. Reallylovely stuff. Title track in particular is
a way in if you want tosample it. Very straightforward but blissful kind
of course, is ideal for summermonths. Got a lovely orange leave too

(27:08):
as well, and the pressing Ithought was pretty good too. FeelA Brazilia
retrospective that they put out a fewyears back has been reduxed for recent eras
they reformed it a little bit duringthe COVID years. So it's now nineteen
twenty twenty two, and this iskind of, you know, electronic music
of various different hues. You've gotthe kind of banging stuff of the early

(27:30):
days and then more introspective and expansivestuff that has followed over time. And
Rewarm Label, who are doing somefabulous stuff these days, have put this
out again in a kind of updatedformat, so it's not technically a reshoot's
a kind of expanded version and previousdigital only tracks have now made it to
vinyl, along with a new piece, Toro de Fuego and sound stage.
It's absolutely enormous on this. It'sa pretty quiet, optimal pressing and if

(27:51):
that's been catching your eye then youcan proceed without any worries at all.
It sounds fantastic. And finally,Jim. It's not the most imaginative new
stage name for Jim Barron, butit's just Jim Capital letters. Jim used
to be one member of Electronic atCrazy P now doing kind of introspective West
Country folk that sounds a bit likeCrosby Steals and Nash. There's a bit

(28:11):
of Terry Callier in there, andit also reminds me of the Steve Mason
debut album Boys Outside, which isgreatly underrated twenty ten release which I think
is just beautiful. Loads of thiskind of stuff going on. There's gorgeous
strings from the Long Eaton Quartet onthere, and beautiful mastering from Simon Mills.
It's been done in the UK viaVinyl. Present sounds great to me.
A tiny bit of service noise hereand there, but the actual mastering
of its superb album is called LoveMakes Magic. But even if you know

(28:34):
this artist of old, he doesn'tsound like that. Now. Problem is,
of course, by calling yourself Jim, you make yourself almost ungoogleable.
So if you do want to searchfor that, then the album is called
Love Makes Magic by Jim. SoGareth, my favorite part of your segment
is who is on the naughty step? And why well this one it's almost
a naughty step this time. I'vebeen prevaricating over the last few times we've

(28:56):
spoken and being a little bit toogentle, but I mean this one's a
bit of a bizarre one. Iam a big fan of the half speed
remastering in general. You know,they're not always great. We've talked about
this before. If you've got abad sauce, then half speed remastering won't
make that better. It'll just youknow, use a half speed curve bad
sauce and so Down the years peoplehave been oddly against these as a format.
I think partly because they think itmight be snake orl and so and

(29:17):
so forth. I don't buy youknow. I've spoken to my Shoal about
his practices at Abbey Road. Iknow he did a wonderful job on that
Abber reissue we spoke about previously,and lots of his stuff is fantastic,
but for some reason they've opted fora two times forty five rpm half speed
remaster of Tom Waite's debut album,Closing Time. Now it's a super record,
and I say this as a bigfan of the album man of Tom
Waits in general. I've got anoriginal issue, you know, it's not

(29:40):
first press or this on the otherthe first few years, which sounds tremendous,
nice and open, great lp.I tried the twenty eighteen Waits Brennan
remaster, as they were officially brandedby the sticker on the outside, and
I found them quite heavy, anda lot of people at the time thought
the bottom end was a bit boostedon those reissues and that they didn't quite
capture that open ended magic. Andyou know, with Tom Waits, there
is that kind of creaking necessity tothe sound stage that you want to enjoy,

(30:03):
which wasn't there really, And soI think the half speed remuster has
done a fine job with what it'sgot, but I wouldn't be at all
surprised if it's not using the samemastering because to my mind, it sounded
similarly slightly disappointing. The pressing wasreasonably quiet done through record industry in Netherlands,
but not as quite as I'm usedto from them are either. So
I'm sitting there thinking thirty two poundsfor a two LP at forty five rpm.

(30:25):
In theory, that's gonna make thesound awful lot better. But if
you don't put in the best sourceto start with, then there's no point
blaming the person cutting it. It'swhat they're working with. So you know,
if you've already got an original orif you're happy with the twenty eighteen.
I can't really see the circumstances whereyou'd actually want to stump up thirty
quid fo this other than being areally obsessive collector, because beyond that,
you know, it sounds okay.I don't really see the point. So

(30:48):
what impossible to find desperately needed reissuesare up this episode? Please Gareth all
sorts this month. It's a it'sa Smager's board of delights. I can
start with Eels Blinking Lights another relationswhich in many ways it was their last
great moment as a band. Originallyit didn't come out on vinyl. Then
a little bit later they did avery very deluxe box set edition that was
only really sold in the US.It made it over to the UK Vira

(31:11):
import. Then it's sold out veryquickly. Then a few damage copies got
dredged up again, but people reallystruggled to find it, and it was
one of those way if you didn'twant a live album and a hard back
book, you couldn't just buy thealbum. Now they did a load of
reissues recently and now they've done thisone as a three LP set been pressed
through tack, pressed on purple vinylpressing. Over All, this pretty good,
I would suggest, sounds decent tome, and you know, the
mastering is excellent. Take a tracklike Heyman, now You're Really Living,

(31:33):
which was the big single from thattime, and that absolutely burst from the
speak is a real pleasure to listento. There's a twelve inch by twelve
inch booklets. I assume it's akind of paper copy of the thing that
was hardback previously on the old boxset. Really enjoy it. I think
it looks fantastic. A little bitsurprised by the fact that when it first
came out it seemed to be retailingaround thirty five thirty six quid for three
LPs, which I thought was rathergenerous, And then when I was looking

(31:55):
it back up to talk to youabout this, it seems to be closer
to fifty now, So I don'tknow if somebody, somebody in the distribution
plant went ag on a minute,what we're doing here. So if you
can find it slightly cheaper, grabit, because I don't think it'll be
at that price for much longer.And Matt Berries Killed the Wolf is an
album my cherish. You know,he's made some fantastic records through his musical
career, and there's a temptation toassume it's just going to be comedy music

(32:15):
because of his acting work, butthese are beautiful records. This is a
man who essentially manages to make anineteen sixty nine folk album that should be
a Mojo berried treasure piece. Everysingle time he goes in the studio.
It is remarkable. The mastering issuperb. It really sounds like that sort
of turn of the seventies production.Bottom end is beautiful, but it's warm
in the way that is probably cliche, but it's true. Ten years since

(32:37):
the original release, there's been acouple of reissues since, but now it's
on two LPs. It is onblood splatter vinyl, which I'll never quite
fully understand, but actually it's quitequiet GEZ pressing that actually holds up.
It comes in at under thirty quidfor the double LP set, beautiful gatefold
artwork. If you buy it straightfrom Acid Jazz, you can get a
bonus seven inch in there as well. I think it sounds fantastic. I
think the mastering continues to be absolutelyexcellent. Opener Gather Up is just this

(33:00):
gorgeous, unraveling folk thing. There'sa great track on there called Solstice that
is just totally atmospheric and absorbing.And then my favorite song on there,
which you know, genuinely an alltime favorite song, is Medicine, which
does just sound like something that wasrecorded fifty years ago and sparkles to this
day. And they've added all thebonus bits that were on the box set
edition, which is very hard tofind to make the second LP so again

(33:21):
good value in that respect too.You get to kill the wolf EP material,
you get the bonus bits from theCD that was in the box set,
loads of other stuff, really goodselection of bonus bits if you love
that album, and honestly, ifyou're going to do it for under thirty
quid double LP reissue from an indielabel, you can't really fault their efforts
there. The big thing that's beenkind of discussing audio file circumstances recently is

(33:43):
a label called new Land, whoI've mentioned once or twice before with some
jazz reissues. They've done a boxset of Dorothy Ashby albums and her Cadet
music stuff has been sampled quite alot, and one of her titles from
that era was recently reissued by JackWhite with this new third Man imprint that
he's doing a verve reissues. Sadlythat you know, the covers on those
look appalling, The sleeves are fairlycheap. The mastering's great pressings are a

(34:07):
bit variable. However, for thisnew Land box set, what they've done
is go to the albums before theperiod where she was heavily sampled. Now
she's a jazz harpist, absolutely lyrical, playing really beautiful recordings from that time,
and these are six albums taken fromthat era. They've gone back to
the master tapes. They've been veryhonest in the accompanying book, and it's
a gorgeous book that comes with it, that two of the album their original

(34:28):
tapes are lost, and so they'vebeen very clear they've had to use a
replica source. To my mind,I don't think it sounds massively worse than
the other sources, which you know, it still sounds tremendous, But I
really appreciate a label being upfront aboutthat sort of thing, because we've seen
what happens when people don't. Soyou've got six audio file cuts by Kevin
Gray using his usual analog chain thatwe used to do from things like the

(34:49):
Blue Note reissues, and they've beenpressed at Palace, which these days isn't
quite as perfect it has been.There's a tiny bit of noise here and
there, but it kind of playedand cleaned out. And I will just
point out one of these six LPs, few copies have got out into the
wild, where the first album hasthe same side on both sides. There's
a manufacturing issue at the plant,which the label are totally sorting and honoring,
So fair play to them. Inthe unlikely chance you were to get
an edition like that, contact themand they'll see you right, But honestly,

(35:13):
the music across this the debut albumThe Jazz Harpist, is just stunning.
And as it moves through the seriesof the six LPs at the Fantastic
Jazz Hub of Dorothy Ashby, Ithought was a particular highlight that these are
beautiful, beautiful records. There's onlya thousand of this box. Now.
The stinger is that, because youare buying audio file jazz LPs, that
they've only made a thousand of.It comes in a beautiful silver full box
set, but I will tell youit's two hundred pounds. Now, if

(35:34):
you think in terms of blue notetone poets, if you bought six tone
post, that's going to cost youabout two hundred and twenty two thirty.
So it's not ridiculous. There isa booklet in there. It's ridiculous against
prices from five years ago, butit's not ridiculous against current prices. And
this is a niche product. Theyknow they're serving a niche Having said that,
if you are interested in this,I wouldn't hang around. My understanding
is the copies aren't flying out becausepeople have been waiting for these titles for

(35:55):
ages and they've been very very welldone. So while I appreciate this will
be for everyone, indeed it willvery lightly only be for a couple of
people. If you are on thefence about this, I would not hang
around. I thought it was beautiful. I'm very impressed. It's one of
the most beautiful things I've reviewed thisyear, So Dorothy Ashby the the set
is called with Strings attached. Ifyou're attempted, don't hang around. And
finally the big one. Lots ofpeople have been waiting for this as a

(36:17):
reissue. Hopefully it heralds the startof a whole series of reissues. Girls
Alouds debut Sound of the Underground hasmade it too Vinyl and the Universal of
opted for two editions, so thereis a green vinyl edition and there is
a picture disc edition. Both usethe same part and I cut through Gez
the green vinyl pressing after a cleanthought. I thought sounded pretty good.
It needed a bit of a cleanup the usual bits on the disc,

(36:39):
but actually largely played silently, andconsidering you've got quite a lot of music
on there and the master ring hasbeen done pretty well, it does not
end up a kind of big blurrymess when you get towards the center of
the disc. I will just atthis point mention, if you love this
kind of music and you've not readMichael Crag's book Reach for the Stars,
which is an oral history of thatkind of music from sort of ninety six
to the mid noughties, honestly,go and grab it and take it with

(37:00):
you wherever you go this summer.You will love it. But this albums,
it's fifty four minutes, the mostbizarre stuff. They became incredible when
they cemented their partnership with Xenomania forall the albums that followed. For this
album, they're partly working with Xenomaniaand then partly loads of other people that
were brought in when you won aTV talent show. So some of the
songs are great, some of themare not so great. You've got,
you know, overlooked treat of asingle, Life Got Cold. There's a

(37:22):
track that's been written produced by BettyBoo called Miles Attack that really sounds like
it's a Betty Boo song. Butyou know, when you can get the
Xenomania stuff involved, it sounds superb. And yeah, they've done a great
job on the artwork. They've renderedit for vinyl. You know. It's
one of the things where if you'vebeen waiting for this, they've really delivered
and hopefully we'll get the rest ofthe catalog soon. Well, Gareth,

(37:43):
I've just had the electric bill.I've not got a lot left, so
what am I spending of the pickof the pops? Well? This is
the Kit have got their latest recordout now via Rough Trade and Kate Stables
has used this name for many,many years. Originally it was just a
stage name for her as a singer, and now she has a band formed
around that name. This is theKit and Careful of Your Keepers is their

(38:04):
latest album. It's just over twentypounds, so price very sensibly. I
was suggest by rough Trade. Itis an optimal pressing as well, so
it sounds pretty good, pretty quietin that respect. The green vinyl edition,
which is what I sampled, camewith the hypstick saying exclusive locked groove.
I'm not sure a locked groove necessarilywarrants the title exclusive, and it
does just mean that towards the endof it you just get this, you
know, the last bit on theend of one side. And is that

(38:27):
a selling point? I don't knowwhat is a selling point. It's an
incredible album and it's been produced byGriff Reiths from Superfurry Animals. It is
sonically just spectacular. What I've alwaysloved about this is the Kid is the
textures to the music. So whatyou find with her records is there's just
loads of lots of layers going on. They're kind of languid, so it
doesn't kind of bash you about thehead. It just gradually builds beautifully hypnotic,
you know, And I'm always consciousthat whenever I review her music,

(38:51):
I'm at risk of using all ofthe music review of cliches because there's warmth,
there's depth, there's texture, it'shypnotic. It's all those things that
you kind of try to reaching for, but it does them all so beautifully.
I think her vocal style is absolutelymagnificent. I think it's been beautifully
recorded for this record. If youtry the track Take You to Sleep,
if you want a sense of thosekind of lovely building textures, that should

(39:13):
give you a great sense. Andthere's a moment on Goodbye Bite where the
brass kicks in and that just makesme beam with joy every time that happens.
It's just absolutely gorgeous and then insideoutside just just sort of ascends into
this wonderful pile of noise towards theend, which is also just fantastic.
And when I wrote about this,I compared it to the spirit of the
Spirit of Eden era Talk Talk,which I think for some people is hopefully

(39:34):
a good reference point as well.You know, Mastring's be done by Jason
Mitchell Atloud. I think it honestly, it sounds totally sublime. Kate's voice
is just wonderful throughout. And ifyou've ever liked her work, and some
of you might know her through collaborationswith a national as well, and if
you've ever liked her work, thenmake sure you give this one a listen.
But even if she's totally new toyou, like I said, perhaps
try the track take You to Sleep. But the album's called Careful of Your

(39:54):
Keepers. It's out on Rough Tradeand it's from this is the kit.
Thank you ever so much, GarethGaretha of Clash Magazine. If you want
more from Gareth, find him onTwitter at just Played, where he has
a weekly mailing list which is provingvery popular. Here. Fantastic, Thank
you, Gareth, Tim Been twentyRecord fairs lately, yes, any good.

(40:25):
Well, I think record fairs aregoing downhill because I think that dealer's
prices are going and I think thatthey're just they're suckered in. It's it's
not uncommon now for me to seeThriller by Michael Jackson for twenty five quid
in a record fair and that Ijust don't think that used to happen.

(40:49):
So you'll still get if you goto a big record fair, there'll be
one or two tables that are fantastic, and then every other table you'll quickly
learn, oh, there's no pointme looking here because they've put twenty quid
on abbot or whatever. And itreally didn't used to be the case.
So I'm yeah, I'm not sureabout the future of record affairs at the
moment. Well, I've been toa couple. I think we mentioned it

(41:09):
maybe the last episode. I wentto the one in Niche Rubbish. I
think only one cellar ad prices andall the rest didn't, so I just
was just a complete waste of time. And I went to one last week
and there were only three sellers.Two had no prices, so again I
just one of them. I wouldhave probably had twenty or thirty titles.

(41:30):
But I am not going through theperformance of saying how much is this?
How much is this? How muchis this? How it's just ridiculous.
No, it's horrible. One guydid have prices and yet a Yugoslavian cure
disintegration. I thought, oh,I'll have that, yes, And then
I saw the price and it wasdouble the actual cost or worth, and

(41:52):
I just thought, I know,there's no point. I'm not haggling in
down by sixty percent. So Ijust walked away from that one and left
complete waste of time. But Paul, one of our listeners, has had
an interesting experience at a record fair. A friend of the show, Simon
Galloway over on Elon Musk's Twitter,reported of a very odd experience a record

(42:17):
fair, which I will tell younow. He says, I fancied a
browse, so I went along tothis record fair. There wasn't much there
for me at a price that i'dwant to pay, As we said Paul,
Anyway, I'd been there for awhile when I happened upon a stall
with a few boxes of three poundLPs, which are the best things that
i'd seen there. Just as anaside always. My favorite bits at record

(42:42):
fairs are the one pound box,two pound box, three pound box of
albums because somebody might hate a kindof music that I love, and they
might just like in your case,dance music, Paul, And you can
still get treasure, I think inthe bargain boxes because it's a to genre
or band that is overlooked by theseller. Very quick confession. My hatred

(43:05):
of you two runs so deep thatI always put their records in the bargain
bin. Oh my god, right, thank you, yikes. Simon continues.
The stallholder took exception to how Iwas looking at his precious bargain bin
offerings and told me to stop lookingat his records. I'd already pulled a

(43:29):
few out by this point, buthe refused to sell them to me.
I tried to carry on looking,and he threatened to call a security guard,
so I told him to By thispoint, he was shaking in anger,
and all I wanted to do wasby a few cheap LPs. I
offered him the cash, and hepoint blank refused and kept threatening me with

(43:53):
the security guard. I would havehappily had a chat with said guard.
In the end, I walked awayrather baffled, and not a single one
of the stalls got any money fromme. Paul, what the what?
So this is someone who was ishaving a time, isn't it this this

(44:13):
seller? Do you think Simon waslifting the records from the back Simon?
If you were, I think wemay have found the reason. Admit it.
You're a backlifter. Backlift, that'sa come on, Simon, Oh
dear, I mean I've got nothingon this. I mean I can't find

(44:35):
it. Well, apart from backlifting, I can't see any reason why anyone
would would take this attitude with itwith somebody looking at their stock of The
obvious way to come out of thissegment is to ask listeners have they ever
had any experiences like this? What'sthe what's the strangest way you've been dealt
with by a weird, rude,aggressive or passive aggressive record dealer? Because

(44:57):
I've definitely had a sort of weird, unpleasant experiences, sarcastic nastiness from dealers,
but I've never I don't think I'veever had anyone refused to sell me
records because they didn't like the waythat I flipped through. We did have
in the early days of our shop. Someone did record a half hour I
think I've mentioned this before, ahalf hour YouTube rant about how awful we

(45:21):
are because we wouldn't give him anadditional discount on two quid bargain records.
I remember that, what a swattad you did a pole? Why did
you do this pole? What wasthe reasoning behind this? Explain I like
a pole? Well. I haverecently discovered the joys and sometimes not so

(45:45):
much, of going to other recordshops in the country with a bag of
records pulled out from our stock,which maybe I'm less interested in. Or
we've had multiple copies of the samerecord recently, or we've had them in
their racks for a few months andthey haven't sold and I'm kind of bored

(46:05):
of seeing them there. So notrubbish, but just stuff that for various
reasons I can tolerate. Moving on. I find it often it's because of
multiple copies of stuff. So I'venow taken to go into other record shops
and trading them in. So thetheory is you get more bang for your
buck than you would as a cashoffer for the records. It doesn't feel

(46:29):
like you've spent any money, andthen you can pick up things from their
shop which you wouldn't have bought atthe price got you that they've put it
out. So let's say a TomWaits record that you would sell for twenty
quid, they've got for twenty quid, So you couldn't just buy it wouldn't
make any sense. But if you'retrading in a bunch of records that you
feel, you know you've already earneda bit of money from the collection they

(46:51):
came from. They haven't sold yet, they're just they're dead stock at the
moment, so move them on,get some credit, and then you come
back with things that you actually dowant. You don't make much money that
way, but you get to putlovely things in your shop and keep the
keep the stock moving. But whathas really really shocked me is how many

(47:14):
of the shops I've gone into havetried to get me to tell them how
much they should be offering for thisassorted bag of records. M Because I
naively didn't think that any shops dothat. Because it's your business, it's
your expertise. You need to tellme how much you're you know, for

(47:36):
one thing, there could be rarestuff in there that I've overlooked, and
you're hoping that I'll give you alow amount and then you can go yes,
great, lovely, which I thinkis often why they do it.
Well, that's why they do it, but but well, but it's also
laziness, isn't it? And withapologies to any record dealers who do it
this way. You may well haveyour reasons, but I was. I
personally was really shocked. I wouldabout at least half more than half of

(48:04):
the shops that I went into tryto get me to come up with the
price for them, and I justcouldn't believe it. So I took to
Elon Musk's Twitter and I set apole. When selling or trading records to
a shop, do the staff usuallycome up with an offer or do they
ask you how much you want?We had sixty five votes. Thank you

(48:24):
to everyone for voting, and Ithink it is quite high. Sixty seven
point seven percent said no, theshop makes me an offer, which is
what it should do. But thirtytwo point three percent of responders said the
shop wants a figure from me.So listeners, what do you think?

(48:45):
Do you think that's acceptable? So, Tim, I do exactly the same
as you do. I'll take therecords in, I'll look each one of
them up. That it takes time, but you never know what you're going
to find. And as you say, there could be something really rare in
there. What's here? I betyou've probably never had this, But I
get this maybe one or two timeseach week. I've got some records for

(49:07):
sale. How much will you giveme for them? There are no records
on their person, there are nodetails of the records. Just a person
walks in and says, I havesome records, how much will you give
me for them? And this happensat least twice a week. I mean,
if you know, in our shop, if that happened once in a
year, we would think, wow, that was a bit weird. Do

(49:28):
you know the reply I give themgo on, how long is a piece
of string? Oh? I betthey love that, Paul. They do
not, They really don't. Sothat must be culturally that. Yes,
there is this sense in Serbia ofthe value of a record, and maybe
it's one euro yeah, yeah,yeah. There's no concept that they have

(49:52):
a different value depending on banned year, rarity, condition, any of this
stuff. It's just here's a record. It has a value, and this
applies to every single one weirder.Well, you've previously told me that you've
also had to somewhat teach the peopleof Belgrade that grading is a factor.
I'm the only shop that has grading, and would would the shops of your

(50:15):
neck of the woods kind of justpriced the record the same, pretty much
like, oh, it's a craftwork album, it's worth this courage and
then you have to check the conditionand no, it's not worth this much.
That so weird, isn't it?Very weird? Cultural difference? Paul?
I love it. Well, that'sit. I just wanted to raise
it and I was really really curiousto see if it was just me.

(50:35):
You know, I'm sorry that therewas one case where a guy tried to
get me to come up with theprice and I refused, and so he
come up with the price and itwas a bit low, but it was
tolerable. And then when when wewere kind of settling up, I just
happened to mention to him, ohand oh and I said, oh,
and you know this um, thismetal picture, this twelve inch, it's

(50:57):
worth about forty quid. You know, I said to know that right,
and he went, oh m.He'd basically I then realized put it on
his pile of these are aquid eachbecause I could see what else he'd put
in that pile. So he gothis phone out. I think he got
his phone out for the first timelooking at the entire record collection. I

(51:19):
don't think he'd looked up anything.And he did a quick look on Discogs
and went oh, and then hesaid, okay, go and pick another
record out of the racks, andI'll give you that one as well.
Tim. People are unhappy with Discogsagain. So we've got two Discogs related

(51:43):
things we're going to through here quickly. Matt Haynes writes in to say that
he has broken a kind of thirtyhiatus and come back to record collecting.
It's been binging the show. Thankyou very much, welcome. But he's
given four examples here of purchases he'smade when what has turned up has not

(52:05):
been what he was expecting, andweirdly all Depeche Mode. He tried to
buy a Spanish copy of World inMy Eyes a UK one turned up.
He tried to buy a marbled violGerman copy of Master of Servant. Of
course it was a standard UK release. Wow, a suffer well promo which
was very similar looking promo, butit was wrongly picked again. And then

(52:29):
the worst offender, a very expensiveVG plus copy of Excit turned up and
it was a battered reissue. Ohmy god. I mean I've I've not
really had I've never know and it'snothing. I mean, I've had the
odd that this wasn't quite the condition, but nothing that I've never had anything

(52:50):
like this. I've had things turnedup broken in half. Yeah. Anyway,
Matt wants to know other listeners,what has been your worst experience of
buying something on discogs? What's turnedup compared to what you were expecting?
And I mean I would throw itopen to eBay as well. I have
to say. Yes, you know, it's the world of buying blind,

(53:12):
isn't it. So listeners, youcan email us, you can find us
we buy Records pod at gmail dotcom. Yeah, we'd very much like
to know what is the what isthe wrongest thing you've received, either condition
or item from online selling platforms inthe world of music. I tend to
tell people, so people in theshops sometimes ask me, oh, do

(53:35):
you sell on eBay? To sellon discogs? Would you recommend ebail?
Discogs a lot of people haven't heardof discogs who come into the shop.
It's it's more more than you'd think. I've not heard of discogs, and
I tend to say, oh,I'd strongly recommend discogs over eBay if you're
buying or selling, because in general, people on discogs are a kind of

(53:57):
self selecting group where they have managedto find discogs and therefore to some extent,
they know what they're doing because they'reon discogs, whereas eBay is still
a wild west of people that haven'tgot a clue what they're doing. If
you've managed to set up on discogsand create a set of profile and jump
through their hoops and sort out yourpostage, in theory, you know what

(54:22):
you're doing. But as our listenerhere Matt says, it really isn't always
the case. So maybe I shouldput this slight caveat in that it's not
a guarantee. Now, Tim,you sell records, not not loads,
but you put some of your fancybits on discogs from the store. Correct,
Yes, what do you think aboutthe new charges? Well, I

(54:45):
aren't they aren't They a minor increase? It's a one point increase, So
it looks like it's one percent,but it's not one percent when you actually
drill down into the real world explain. So it's the fees have gone up
from eight to nine. But lookingthrough the forums where people are kicking off
about this, the actual real worldincrease because they're including the charge a percentage

(55:09):
on the postage fee as well.Now it's something like a twelve and a
half to twenty percent increase depending onthe value of the item. It can't
be Yeah, it is ah okay, horror over to the discos forum that
says, wow, selling fees havegone up in your see, very people

(55:30):
much cleverer than other than us,have done Carroll Vauderman style mathematics and done
the breakdown of all the different things, and it's not at what it looks
like at first glance at all.Oh shit. Yeah, so I kind
of ignored it and glossed over itand thought, oh, I think most
people will they say, oh,it's gone from eight till nine. They've
got our best interests at heart.They've got to make some money. It's

(55:52):
probably fine. Oh, dear listener, John Shepherd has a suggestion that we
try and get somebody from discogs onfor an interview. Now, we have
tried this before. We have andthe problem is we only really approach them
when things have gone wrong, andevery single time and they've declined. But

(56:15):
we will try again, because younever know. You've got to. You've
got a very broadly say that Discogsdoes most things right. The way that
they organize so that you can youcan navigate the master release of something,
see all of the versions of it, navigate to find your version, scrutinize

(56:35):
the pictures to check exactly which versionit is, and then list your copy
for sale under the correct subversion.It's it's it's a pretty good system.
It certainly isn't perfect, but I'veyou know, I'm I'm pretty pro Discogs,
Paul, I have to say,oh yeah, I mean, well,
I don't like fees going up,No nobody does. But I mean,
obviously one elephant in the room iswhen they change their ship policy section

(57:01):
and made it like a sort ofCrypton Factor style puzzle to figure out how
to do your shipping. And Idon't think there was anybody on the planet
who was particularly happy with you.And they didn't want to talk about that
either, No, they didn't.Would you like a quiz, Tim,

(57:22):
Yes, super yes. Now,our friends over at discogs oh no,
have produced a list of twenty twentythree releases that have gone up in value
by quite a bit some of them. Oh that's good, right, I'm
getting my pencil, so what andkeep tracking. So, listeners, if

(57:44):
you've been buying some new records thisyear, I bet Gareth's going to be
loving this quiz because he's probably boughtmost of these. And he'll be he
will be laughing, I can tellyou that much. So I've got a
list here of ten of the recordsfrom twenty twenty three new releases that have
significantly gone up in value, andwe're going to go through them, and
you're just going to tell me ifthe next record is higher or lower than

(58:07):
the previous one. I'm going togive you the average selling price. Okay.
So we're going to start with theDoors. The Doors, Tim,
Now, this has been audio filegrade pressing using the original analog master tapes
and a vinyl cutting system from thenineteen sixties. Okay, Now, how

(58:28):
much is the average selling price forthe Doors not long after release? This
applies to all of the records,So let's get a baseline. Let's say,
I guess it is abound sixty quicksix hundred and forty five dollars already,
So you did well if you boughtone of those. So I can
see we're in the world of highpriced records. So the Rolling Stones in

(58:50):
Mono, this is a limited boxset from this year. Now, how
much is that higher or lower thanthe Doors? Well, I think I
remember that coming out and it wasyeah, it was something like three hundred
quid or something. Wasn't it lower? Lower than six? It is lower.
It's now reselling for three hundred andseventy three dollars, so you've got

(59:14):
a point, thank god, Sothat might not be that much more than
it's RRP. Smashing Pumpkins, arock opera in three acts. This is
another vinyl box limited edition numbered higheror lower. Well, they're very hot
right now. For some reason,the pumpkins are really really hot, and
people pay silly money for the originalmelancholy pressings and stuff. Higher. I

(59:38):
reckon that's higher than the it's not. It's actually lower. Three hundred and
sixty dollars. That's a lot ofmoney. Still, Okay, I'm on
one point. Mariah Carey, OhButterfly, the deluxe edition reissue in gold
vinyl. Now is that higher orlower than the Smashing Pumpkins. Well,

(59:59):
so far everything has been lower,so I reckon you'll have put in a
higher now higher? No, it'slower. It's two hundred and ninety nine
dollars. Tim, what's you're gettingstrug up here? This is so stupid?
Everything is okay, I know whatto answer next time. Okay,
I'm still on one point, butyou wait for this. Here we go.

(01:00:19):
Now lower an album? I don'tthink any of our listeners will will
will have At the Dark Side ofthe Moon by a band called Pink Floyd.
Yes, I've heard of that fiftiethanniversary edition. Higher or lower than
Mariah Carey? Lower? It islower, Tim, It's two hundred and
sixty four dollars. Paul, Ithink you've done this quiz role now?

(01:00:45):
Okay? Fine Dirt by Alison Chainsde Luxe box set. It comes with
a turntable, figurine and some metalshavings to create your own dirt pattern.
On the cover a sentence I neverthought i'd be reading out stupid pollocks.
I quite like the metal shavings anda figurine. Does it really say figuring.

(01:01:08):
Yeah, a turntable figurine figuring higheror lower than the Dark Side of
the Moon. Do grunge fans wanta turntable figurine? Because I don't think
they do. Do they want metalshavings? Yeah? Okay, at some
point you're going to have to havechanged your how you're doing this so higher,
don't make it lower. Paul pause, pulling a face at me.

(01:01:29):
Five hundred and sixty dollars, Welldone, Tim, Yes, thank you,
well done. Alison Chains, oneof the blokes from Oasis, Oh
yeah, limited edition numbered Great Councilskies. Higher or lower than the Alison
Chains? Lower? It got tobe, it's lower. Four hundred and
forty four dollars. Well done.I'm trying to I'm trying to predict how

(01:01:53):
your brain works. It's not easy, Paul. We loved a bit of
Lana on the show, Tim,Yes, we do. And they're born
to die out yet again, butthis time on a picture disc? Is
that higher or lower than one ofthe people from Oasis? Lower? It
is lower, but it's still threehundred and fifty five dollars for a brat

(01:02:15):
for a new picture again? Howthe shitting hell is that? How on
Earth? Is that possible? Lanafans are crazy? Man? What's that's?
That's a couple of hundred quid?Isn't it? Their borderline demented?
Some Lana fans tim the Pretty Things? Oh yes, yep, the complete
studio albums nineteen sixty five to twentytwenty. Is that higher or lower than

(01:02:37):
have been of Lana on picture disc? I reckon that is your face is
so cheeky. I want to saylower, because almost higher. It was
lower? It was three hundred andforty dollars twat Terry Callier. This is

(01:02:58):
the kind of thing that Gareth probablyowns. High five reissue, pressed and
printed using vintage equipment in a limitedrun of three hundred and forty five copies,
higher or lower than the Pretty Things? Whichever I answer, I'll be
cross because I'll be cross if it'slower, because they've almost all been lower.

(01:03:20):
But I'll be cross if I saylower and it's higher. Is this
the last one? Paul? Yes? Then higher? It is a tiny
bit higher at one thousand and seventyfour dollars. You're kidding? No,
okay? So I got six.I got six, which is more than
half, So I take that.I think that is a win. Yeah,

(01:03:42):
I think I officially won that things. When they do these things,
why are they only making three hundredand forty five because you're automatically pissing off
your audience. Well that's the realquestion, isn't it. Listeners? Do
you get really annoyed when companies dothese stupidly ultra limited editions and it's glued
an awful lot of people. Youhave to be have your finger on the

(01:04:03):
trigger on the day, be pluggedinto every bloody media account mailing list to
get this stuff. This is whathappened with me and soundtracks after the whole
blood Field Aliens one debacle. Theypissed me off so much I never bought
another record from that company. Ever. You really can't be learning that.
But Paul, I've got a theoryas to why it's happening. Go on.

(01:04:28):
I think that people often buy itemsas a way to gain and convey
status. Do you think, Yes, it's my It's Tim Scullion's theory of
the leisure class, and I've justcome up with it. I've just come
up with it now. But Imean that is that? Is it?
It's tracks chasing status? Not tobe confused with Chase and status one of

(01:04:53):
your favorites, Paul, join usnext time for more adventures in Vinyl on
We Records. Hey guys, myname is Tony Black, podcaster and author,

(01:05:31):
and I'm here to tell you aboutPartisan, a podcast about politics and
history in film and entertainment. I'llbe joined by guests as we discuss films,
TV shows, and maybe a littlebit more, examining political and historical
topics such as how Elvis intersects withblack culture history in Lehman's film The idea

(01:05:53):
of the Black characters and maybe kindof they're used as catalysts based in Loue
Elvis forward in his career. Ithink that that's how I saw it.
The rise and fall of Richard Nixon. It seems to be historians who to
agree with this is that he wasthe first president that really capitalize on the

(01:06:15):
evangelical vote and politicize them, thedisturbing class satire in society, and much
much work. Partisan's free to downloadon Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your
podcast app of choice, and youcan follow us on Facebook and Twitter at
Partisan pod. I hope you'll votewith your feet and join us on the journey