The Eight Tribes of Vinyl Collector

LP vinyl use certainly has never gone away, though it is no longer mainstream. Like many niche enthusiasms it will persist far longer than might have been thought by the majority ..

What is certain it that the halcyon days are over though.

New vinyl is not wide enough in repertoire for the general music appreciator, and most people simply do not have the wish to rifle through racks of second hand discs, searching for undamaged or un-worn-out examples.

If a person has a mature LP collection in good condition then the possibility for replaying this in better quality than ever is there [and there is no particular reason to move to a more modern replay system], but starting out from scratch is no less of an eccentricity than preferring to use an ancient classic car for commuting [or indeed as I do an ancient classic cycle]. It is not unreasonable, and a little bit enthusiastic hobbling does no harm, but it is hardly the most effective course of action!

Looking at the eight categories made me realise that I fit none! Fair enough!

ATB from George

I understand where you're coming from George but both the secondhand and new vinyl market are increasing year by year. Amazon has literally millions of vinyl titles for sale and you just need to look at eBay to see how buoyant the secondhand market is. The value of collectable vinyl is rocketing, only today I looked in the Record Collector to see that the value of a Graham Bond LP has gone up in two years from £175 to £400!  After a slump about ten years ago a number of record shops are now springing up all over the country. The vinyl market is blossoming and long may it continue IMO.

ATB

Steve

Dear Steve,

Contained in you post is an interesting clue.

The rocketing price of important [musically speaking] vinyl issues in the second hand market.

This is fine if you own the discs already, but my annual record purchasing budget would be blown on one important LP at that rate. In the last twelve months I have bought about 80 CDs [all new] for less than half of that figure of £400. No doubt that I could have spent the same sum on original vinyl in Harold Moores in Great Marlborough Street and got perhaps ten LPs from among the same recordings.

I have had immense fun assembling a Gran Sport, New Record and Super Record group-set for my Carlton over the last six years, and the cycle is superb to use with it, but this is a long way from being the most efficient route towards getting a cycle nicely on the top line, and certainly is a very minority pursuit among general cyclists. 

It is a hobby, where the pursuit of excellence in an old fashioned system itself leads to immense satisfaction, but it is at least as much about my enthusiasm for the Carlton [and its contemporaneous systems of gearing and braking] as it is about my enjoyment of cycling. I have been shot at over the Carlton as being old-fashioned, less efficient than a modern cycle of similar standing in the production of the day and so forth, but I love it. Therefore I am in a good position to appreciate the love vinyl LP users have for their replay, but like them concerning replay, I am in a tiny minority in the cycling community.

ATB from George

Dear Steve,

On a slight sideline, I could not have afforded to build up my current superb Carlton group-set today. The components have tripled in price in the last three years - for example my Gran Sport [very short reach] brake callipers cost me £30, and now you would be lucky too obtain them for less than £100, and so my quite budget classic build of an Anglo-Italian set-up would have been beyond being possible.

I fear the same fate is overtaking the second-hand LP market, where it becomes exclusive on price as much as on discernment. 

There are even times when I have the heretical thought of stripping down the Carlton and selling all the Campag stuff, and buying a new bespoke bike that would be more easy, such as  new build from Argos Racing Cycles in Bristol fitted with a Rohloff gear at the back.

This would cost about two grand if I kept my front wheels, handle-bar, and saddle. The result would be the right size and supremely reliable, but as I say, it is a heretical thought!

ATB from George

I disagree in  the case of my Carlton. It is no sport for me as I abhor sport with a vengeance, and never compete in any sense at all with it! It is pure aesthetic pleasure for me, as would be running a classic car.

On the other hand I used to have many LPs, and I did not enjoy the ritual of playing them - only listening to the music itself mattered - or having shelve full of large cardboard sleeves ...

The Carlton is just for the pleasure of the object itself, rather than purely its function, which becomes something os a pleasant side-effect.

No doubt that when I don't commute on the bike anymore then pure pleasure cycling will blossom, but I am not there yet! Pleasure cycling is very much the minority for me these days, since the crash.

ATB from George

I suppose that there is no intellectual pleasure from setting up and riding a cycle with finesse? Well that has told me then, has it not?

I actually think there is a massive parallel between the sensory activity of using a turntable, and riding a bike. Both can be done with immense finesse, and enjoyed on an intellectual level as an activity in itself! Well that is my experience.

ATB from George

I've just read the article and, frankly, I think it's a load of old toss put in to fill space and provide a faint connection to Record Store Day.

I certainly don't see myself as any of the 8 "tribes" described. I don't collect vinyl, I buy it to listen to.

steve

Can't you do  both? I certainly do.

8 vignettes. The only sense of tribalism is that they are clearly vinyl buffs as they are all utterly idiosyncratic in taste and outlook.

Cycles and Vinyl: both have precision engineered circular bits that go round.

Well, it's working up here in Minneapolis! I enjoy taking an hour or two on Saturday mornings to stop by my local record shops, but I did not recall that today was RSD. They were absolutely packed, and 90% of the crowd was people half my age or younger!

All somewhat inconvenient, but also a bit fun...like last minute shopping for gifts on Christmas Eve. I was happy for the independent store owners, and I was also happy to pick up a copy of The Grateful Dead's Live at Hampton Coliseum '79.  Listening to it now -- great show, high quality board mix, super quiet vinyl...very cool!  

ATB.

Hook

Oh Char, where's your sartorial sense of adventure?

There is no reason at all to wear lycra on a bike if you do not want to. Depending on what I am doing when I get to where I am going, I wear clothes that suit. Unfortunately for some people, I own no cycling shoe, no lycra nor anything else specific to cycling. Not even one of those plastic cycle helmets. I always have a cap or sun hat on ... This photo shows me hatless!

ATB from George

Yes, but I'm sure my LP12 sounds better when I'm wearing Lycra bib shorts!

And, BTW, motorists can annoy (and kill) cyclists too. 

What a terrible example to set for younger cyclists!  I know you are set in your ways George, most of us are, but were I anything more than just a remote forum acquaintance of yours, I would be in your face and arguing sternly against you putting your life at risk in this way.

Three summers ago, my dear friend's brother's wife was riding down a gentle hill in Bayfield, Wisconsin.  She hit a pothole, and went flying over the handle bars. Among other injuries, she took a bad bump on the head.  Funny, but witnesses say she was sitting up and talking while waiting for an ambulance to arrive, but she was complaining of feeling nauseous. Anyway, she died later that day from major brain trauma. Most agree her death could have been avoided had only she been wearing a plastic cycle helmet...

http://www.ashlandwi.com/obitu...efccf3.html?mode=jqm

Anne was a lovely woman, very smart and friendly.  Her husband and her two little girls miss her dearly.

All the best,

Hook

Dear Hook,

I believe in freedom of choice. I would extend this to crash helmets on motor-cycles as well!

If I get killed falling of a bike then that will be one less to consume the World's finite resources!  I take a quite fatalistic view of life. When it's time to go, then shuffle off quietly is my view.

Best wishes from George

Just bought a crashhelmet  from a supermarket only cost 25 pound full face with visar  feels light, But it as cu mark  when you can pay  200 plus makes me think what's going on regards

In 1987 I was cycling up a hill of ~8% gradient in Bristol, probably going at less than 10mph, passing some vehicles parked on grass at the side of the road when a van driver opened his door. The next thing I knew was waking up on a trolley as I was being wheeled into Frenchay hospital with a fractured skull. I wasn't wearing a helmet. In 1987 they were quite heavy and looked so uncool. Stupid me.

Luckily I survived.

Now I wish that wearing a helmet on a bicycle was a legal requirement. It's just plain stupid no to.

Apologies to the OP for diverting the thread.

Im coming to st Paul in July ! Visiting from Scotland , I must have bought 100 or so albums from Cheapos on Snelling &Lake st over the years . A great city for record shops

George,

respectfully, I share with you...

I have ridden many many miles on my road bike training for triathlons...

i have fallen, and been run into....

rarely these accidents were my fault, (there are several that were)

i can can say with some authority the helmet has saved me from serious injury...  Serious injury...

dorky looking yes, but I am confident the loved ones in my life have unknowingly benefited from it.

i urge you to consider the same...

very sincerely,