Fourthed, though I think Cary's observation constitutes a valid criticism of Record Store Day product.
I got to my local in Fairfax, VA at about 7:30 am for an 8:00 am opening and was pleased and amused to see that the 12 people ahead of me were all MUCH younger. At 50, I was easily old enough to be the father of all of them but one. The people in line behind me were also mostly very young. I don't think anyone who works in this store is much over thirty. In spite of the internet, a lot of young people really enjoy record shopping and learning about music that way.
Matthew Barton
Library of Congress
-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 3:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Record Store Day and - "ARSCers"
Thirded. 46 years old and my music collection (about 70% CD, 29% grooved disks, 1% tapes) splits:
40% jazz, everything from very early-era 78's through acid-jazz with a very few examples of fusion and no "free jazz".
15% blues, soul, R&B, funk and what could be called ethnographic and "world music" (mainly Afro-funk).
20% rock, from "Rocket 88" to punk, thrash and heavy metal, a very few rock-rap crossover titles and a very few 80s syntho-rock stuff, also includes folk 25% classical, with an emphasis on orchestral music and very little vocal music
I also have quite a few spoken-word recordings and OTR recordings, but nothing approaching a real collection like what some of you have.
My friend and I were talking about how we keep discovering things with Record Store Day reissues because we grew up pre-InterWebs and there were only so many sources of information about music in the suburbs where I grew up and in farm country where he grew up. Radio was less cookie-cutter back then, but college radio was still the only place with real out-of-mainstream playlists. Record stores were past their heyday and were clogged with LP and cassette versions of the latest Hot 100 hits and a little bit of back-catalog from the majors (definite exceptions if one travelled into NYC in those days). And MTV, from the beginning, was all about promoting pop hits, not about variety.
Kids today do not understand what the pre-Napster world was. I say pre-Napster because the whole idea of readily-available digital music really took off (illegally) with Napster, and now the genie is out of the bottle. So a kid curious about just about anything will likely find a full-length version of it on YouTube or at least plenty of half-minute excerpts on Amazon or iTunes. Unless it's relatively obscure, he may find it and many related tunes using Pandora, although at best I'd compare Pandora to what used to be called "progressive radio" when I was a kid -- it's not really that far out of the mainstream but it's far enough to encompass some interesting stuff.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brandon Burke" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 2:49 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Record Store Day and - "ARSCers"
> Seconded. I'm 38 years old and my LP collection is probably:
>
> 40% rock: 60's psychedelic, 70's punk, 80's post-punk, contemporary indie, etc.
> 30% jazz: post-bop (and, to my wife's chagrin, avant-garde)
> 20% ethnographic: UNESCO, Folkways, Nonesuch Explorer, etc.
> 5% folk/blues: John Fahey, Sandy Bull, Bert Jansch, the Harry Smiths, Revenant reissues, etc.
> 5% reggae/soul/hip hop
>
> They may not make their voices heard on the listserv or come to every conference, but there are
> plenty of people like me in ARSC.
>
> Brandon
>
>
> ---------------------------
> Brandon Burke
> Archivist for Recorded Sound Collections
> Hoover Institution Archives
> Stanford University
> Stanford, CA 94305-6010
> vox: 650.724.9711
> fax: 650.725.3445
> email: [log in to unmask]
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: "Jim Sam" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 9:22:02 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Record Store Day and - "ARSCers"
>
> Steve,
>
> Thank you. You hit the nail on the head. I would like to add to what
> you wrote and have people peruse ARSC's "About Us" spiel:
> http://arsc-audio.org/about.html I don't see any mention of dates or
> genres in that.
>
> For what it's worth, I did go to my local (Amoeba SF) on Saturday and
> managed to pick up Too Pure's repressing of Mclusky's Do Dallas. That
> record can fetch triple digits on eBay. Unfortunately they didn't
> have Future of the Left's Australian-session 7" (any UK ARSC person
> want to help me out?), but I was happy enough. I highly doubt many on
> this list would be able to make it through either release.
>
> Jim
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 12:04 PM, Steve Ramm <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Cary wrote:"I have seen nothing in the way of new compilations of material
>> on vinyl or reissues of classic jazz,
>> Broadway, country, or even generic pop. The Record Store Day releases,
>> aside from the occasional
>> "novelty" issue of something on 78 (the Beach Boys' 78 of "Good
>> Vibrations" last year comes to
>> mind), are still of little interest to ARSCers - at least from a West
>> Coast perspective."
>>
>> While I'm sure I know where you are coming from in your comment Cary, I
>> think that if the term "ARSCers" will always be defined as those who collect
>> recordings (including CDs) pressed before 1980 or so (or even before 2000)
>> then ARSC needs to broden its exposure to new collectors. We have folks like
>> Uncle Dave Lewis who give a classical music AND a punk rock paper at an
>> ARSC Conference (great jobs on both!) but not everyone is UDL. Are the folks
>> who really flock RSD ARSC member (and hence ARSCLIst member) possibilities?
>> I understand the 78-L listserve members (many who are here) but it seems
>> to me that we should be as diverse as the MLA listsefe - and, actually, more
>> sore since many of the MLA folks work with sound recordings as part of the
>> JOB and not hobby (and probably could care less about RSD).
>>
>> What I thought was the dumbest RSD move was for Tompkins Square records to
>> press 500 78s and send to the stores. They probably could have produced
>> 2,000 or more and sold them. They'd make a nice profit and collectors would
>> thank them. Instead those "resellers" who grabbed the 500 will put on eBay
>> and Tompkins Square won't see a penny. We only had one (out of of 6
>> independent record stores within blocks of my house) participate in RSD and they had
>> basically no "special product).
>>
>> Steve Ramm
>
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