Buying Vinyl?

I've only bought music online once in my life, everywhere else is in stores and whenever a craigslist-user is deciding to sell off stuff, which I'd recommend. Sure the selection online is waaaay superior, but hey it's still only half as fun.

try http://www.musicfearsatan.com (used to be e-vinyl.com but now stock cds and dvds, good prices and quick postage from France)
also I use
http://www.roboticempire.com/store/
http://www.allthatisheavy.com/
http://shop.relapse.com/store/product.aspx
http://www.theomegaorder.com/
http://kreationrecords.net/
http://www.normanrecords.com/
http://www.conspiracyrecords.com/store/index.php
http://www.southernlord.com/store.php
http://www.troublemanunlimited.com/store/
http://www.temporaryresidence.com/
http://www.bluecollardistro.com/bcd/categories.php?cPath=1_481
http://www.shiftyrecords.com/mailorder/
http://www.kozmik-artifactz.com/shop/index.php?language=en
https://www.southern.net/eu-shop/

Hope that is of use to you.

there's insound too

and Amazon is selling vinyl now too. Kind of strange, maybe.

i work for a vinyl record shop that does a small bit of mail order and our catalog is here:
academymailorder.blogspot.com

also fusetronsound.com
eclipse-records.com

and of course EBAY.

Hey Ian...

Which NY store is my best bet for picking up recent reissues? I'm after stuff like Milk n Cookies and Debris' Static Disposal

I'm there on holiday with my girlfriend for the weekend and want to pick up as much as I can before the pound finally crashes out and ends a long spell of cheap-o US mail order. Probably won't make it to more than one or two stores though. I'm hoping to get a quick look at The Thing, at least...

Nevermind! I should have checked that Academy blog listing first. There's loads of stuff there I was after.

Narlus - Do not miss Other Music at 15 East 4th St off Broadway.

http://www.auralexploits.com/

http://www.dustygrooves.com/

I'm after stuff like Milk n Cookies and Debris' Static Disposal

yeah Academy is your spot for that. there's a few locations, you want the one in Williamburg on N. 6th

one of Ian's co-workers put out that Milk n Cookies record I think

How bout The Thing? Is it regularly topped up with new shit? I'm guessing there's a ton of crap, but enough good stuff scattered about to keep it interesting.

I actually haven't been there. I think Jaxon went when he was in town

I think the general consensus is that if you have a lot of time to spend you can find good stuff but if you've only got an hour don't bother

http://www.weirdorecords.com/

and the always entertaining

http://www.anti-naturals.org/swill/maincat.htm (click on 'Reviews' for the lists)

for reggae/dub cannot fuckin beat ERNIE B'S!!

Gnarly! Dude! Come say hello.
I'll put aside copies of the Debris and Milk n Cookies LPs for you.
We are located at 96 North 6th Street in WILLIAMDBURG, BROOKLYN. Off the Bedford Avenue L train stop.

except it looks like we're out of the Debris record at the moment.

Insound and Amazon are terrible choices for vinyl. They have absolutely nothing in stock. I'll give it to Amazon, though, that the vinyl section is somewhat new which could explain the poor catalogue but in the meantime. The other choices Pfunkboy are excellent for rock and metal. Thanks.

http://www.forcedexposure.com/

Has anybody ordered from here? The site appears to have a very comprehensive catalogue in stock but somehow the site just seems very sketchy to me. Do they really have everything they say they do?

http://www.auralexploits.com/
http://www.dustygrooves.com/

I like dustygroove, been ordering from there for a while now. Auralexploits is a good choice, some great reissues and special editions to be found there once in a while but they run out of stock rather quickly.

i work for a vinyl record shop that does a small bit of mail order and our catalog is here:
academymailorder.blogspot.com

Wow, Ian I've been looking for Can's future days and they have it in there as well as some that have caught my attention. Do you ship to Canada and Mexico?

I'll add turntablelab to the list. Good for downtempo, new disco, hip hop:

http://www.turntablelab.com/vinyl/

dustygroove is okay for some stuff but I've really soured on them over the years - their selection can be really spotty, particularly when it comes to stuff I used to rely on them for (like jazz and Brazilian music). They always seem to have some crappy post-peak stuff in stock, but never the canonical works (for ex. check their Coltrane catalog)

and the always entertaining

http://www.anti-naturals.org/swill/maincat.htm (click on 'Reviews' for the lists)

I swear I don't recognize any records listed on both sites you suggested but those surely are some entertaining reviews in there.

Forced Exposure isn't sketchy, they've been around since the '80s

Forced Exposure might not have everything they say they do, but they're very reliable and a quick email to check the stock is simple enough.

FE actually does distribution, don't they?
I've had a few items from orders not be in stock, but they're good about communication and letting you know if things are back.

Wicked. Thank you and sorry, it's just I found it suspicious that none of their items are marked as out of stock, I suppose they erase them from the catalogue when they dont have it. I'm mailing to doublecheck and ordering a couple from there.

Does anyone know a good place to find 'the Zombies' reissues? Are there any reissues at all? I haven't had any luck with these. My father is a crazy Zombies fan and I want to buy him anything I can find.

There are no currently available Zombies reissues on LP.

and Amazon is selling vinyl now too. Kind of strange, maybe.

― Cars That Go Boom (mehlt), Wednesday, September 17, 2008 10:36 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I highly doubt this url will work, but hell, even best buy is selling vinyl now

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcat17080&type=page&qp=ccat02001%23%23-1%23%23-1~~q70726f63657373696e6774696d653a3e313930302d30312d3031~~nf207%7C%7C56494e594c&list=y&nrp=15&sc=musicSP&ks=960&usc=cat02001&sp=&list=y&iht=n&st=processingtime%3A%3E1900-01-01

newbury comics' in-store vinyl section has gotten pretty big lately. not sure how their on-line service is, though.

http://www.newburycomics.com/rel/v2_home.php?storenr=103&deptnr=596

A Zombies "Odyssey and The Oracle" re-issue from a couple of years back is still floating around, I believe. The 2LP "Time of the Zombies" compilation is the easiest to find used Zombies record (check ebay)and it contains most everything a Zombies fan would want.

when I was looking at new vinyl in newbury comics the other day I realized I went from buying records for $6-$8 to CDs for $10-$15 and now back to records for $18-$20.

There are no currently available Zombies reissues on LP.

I was expecting this, they should definitely do some sort of special reissue this year. After all 2008 marks the 50th Anniversary of Odessey and Oracle, am I wrong?

A Zombies "Odyssey and The Oracle" re-issue from a couple of years back is still floating around, I believe. The 2LP "Time of the Zombies" compilation is the easiest to find used Zombies record (check ebay)and it contains most everything a Zombies fan would want.

I'm still to find any trustworthy place to sell the odessey reissue. The 'time of the zombies' is in fact available on ebay and at a reasonable price, but damn that is an ugly cover. Did the people selling this actually listened to the zombies before doing the artwork?

I was expecting this, they should definitely do some sort of special reissue this year. After all 2008 marks the 50th Anniversary of Odessey and Oracle, am I wrong?

It's actually the 40th anniversary, my bad.

http://www.mimaroglumusicsales.com/

great selection + service

I've bought a few LPs from Bullmoose and found them very fast, with cheap shipping to boot. Also when they sent an LP that turned out to be defective I emailed them about it and they just sent out another copy; I didn't have to return the bad copy.

I would just recommend Ebay ... there are a ton of small indie stores that are on there. Some folks charge a bit extra to cover ebay and paypal fees, but you can sometimes contact these places directly and get cheaper off-ebay prices. And these mom-and-pop shops probably need your money more that Insound, Turntablelab, Forced Exposure etc. Or maybe you could just see if your local shop does special orders.

Also, Discogs is great for dance music (especially out-of-print stuff).

I can't stand Gemm with their crappy layout and search function, and Musicstack is only slightly better.

But I do use a lot of the other store/distro sites mentioned above for research purposes. It's great that so many of the big online stores write up reviews and post audioclips.

I wasnt aware Discogs sold vinyls :S

discogs is the means with which independent sellers reach buyers.

gemm is awful for usability but amidst the overpriced crap you can find some deals there sometimes

i have gotten many a good deal on gemm and musicstack, and also found stuff there i've never seen on ebay. don't discount them out of hand...

Did an update to our mailorder catalog this morning.
http://academymailorder.blogspot.com/

Full list:
http://academymailorder.blogspot.com/2008/08/currently-available.html

vinyl vs cd. which keeps its value better?

vinyl, no question.

that is, for an example, you buy a cd for twelve bucks and you'll be lucky to get one or two for it if/when you decide you're done with it. some CDs gain value, or maintain their value, but the vast majority don't. OTOH, say I buy a record on ebay for $50, chances are that if/when I decide to sell it, i'll be able to get about the same as what i paid. this is in my experience.

^yeah i just dropped $25 on a mint orig press of "wonderwall music" by george harrison, was just curious basically but i'm sure i can ebay it later for that if not more if i get sick of it.

the thing is though that you spend £40 on a first pressing of are you experienced and then you never want to play it in fear of the value going down by you wearing it out.

aw, that's silly. if you know how to take care of an LP you should be able to play it hundreds of times without any noticeable damage to it. so long as your needle isn't damaged or blunted, the act of playing an LP doesn't do much to "wear it out."

Since 9 of the 15 items I ordered on Forced Exposure aren't in (for reference sake, they're techno 12"s from 06 and 07, stuff like Achso, Full Clip, and stuff on labels like Bar25 and Oslo). I want these records, would like to get the other stuff I ordered in like a month from now. Is there even a chance these records will ever be in stock again (I asked in an email they said they don't know when they'd be in)? Will they just hold my order forever?

It'd be wise to email them asking for their stocks before placing any orders. That's the first thing I did after I saw a vinyl I was looking for everywhere ('Lali Puna's Scary world theory') and that was supposedly available on Forced Exposure. Then I learnt they don't have any 'out of stock' Lps over there.

Prolly you should ask for a refund on those 9 Lps.

I also wonder if/when the general shoddiness of new pressings is going to catch up with them. I realize a truly perfect pressing is rare and every LP will probably have some bit of surface noise on it but the amount of non-fill and random clicking I've been hearing on some albums right out of the shrink is maddening. I've used the Amazon return trick a few times to replace these copies, sometimes it's just a bad one, but sometimes it appears the entire run is just bad. Which is frustrating because from what I've read it really isn't that hard to prevent these things. I mean its wild that used, often dirty looking LPs will sometimes play with less noise than something that's brand new, in fact there seemed to be hardly any straight up bad pressings in the 70s and 80s, but nowadays you kind of roll the dice with everything. I can see people just getting frustrated and saying fuck it when it comes to buying new vinyl.

iirc a lot of that comes from not letting the records cool properly and for long enough once off the presses, but yeah I suspect we are not alone in mostly giving up on new vinyl

Kind of ironic that so many people got into vinyl “because it sounds better” at a time when it in fact mostly does not sound better

Double Decker? Yeah that's a huge bummer, curious as to what the reason is too. I feel like the owner just wanted to do other things as even on random weekdays the place would be bustling with people and on Fridays and Saturdays it was jammed, without fail.

Yes! The store was incredible - for a while they were posting sealed OG Funkadelic records, just driving me nuts that I didn't live closer - even in my few times there I always came away with A+ purchases. Their prices were mostly fair from what I had seen. 27 years is a long time in any business so you might be right.

Recently had to take a trip to a mid-sized American city, a once booming but now sorely neglected corner of the great Midwest. Found an expansive record store, stacks crammed into every corner of an old house -- three stories in total -- with sizable jazz, soul, country, classical, and international sections (though sadly A and even most B-Tier stuff was picked over).

Browsing the country stacks, I found no fewer than 10 copies of Rosanne Cash's Seven Year Ache all priced above $15! Still thoroughly enjoyed the experience of meandering through the place, and I left satisfied with similarly over-priced copies of Anita Baker's Rapture, Jerry Jeff Walker's Viva Terlingua, and The Judds' Why Not Me.

How mysterious! Sounds like Cleveland but I can’t think of any place like that there.

Almost sounds like toad Hall in Rockford

for me the heyday of the new vinyl resurgence really was 15-20 years ago, when so much new vinyl was $15 or under. i still remember aron's records in hollywood had virtually all new indie rock vinyl priced at $7.99, $12.99 for double LPs. i remember picking up all the sleater-kinney vinyl at that rate. i think One Beat was more premium -- $8.99!)

in the new era, there are so few artists who have enough loyalty from the new vinyl target audience. Lana Del Rey can easily sell her albums for $30-$40, same goes for Taylor Swift and a small handful of others. legacy artists or those who are favored by the slightly older more trad vinyl audience will do pretty well. but for the vast majority of new LPs, they just sit there forever, or so it seems. i don't understand who's dropping $30-$50 on some of these when the CD is sitting there a few rows away for a fraction of the cost.

related: a friend and fellow U2 fan just sent me a link (emphasized with an angry face emoji) to the RSD release of Live Under a Blood Red Sky, which is retailing for $54.99.

xp ding ding ding -- impressive

Double Decker? Yeah that's a huge bummer, curious as to what the reason is too. I feel like the owner just wanted to do other things as even on random weekdays the place would be bustling with people and on Fridays and Saturdays it was jammed, without fail.

Yes! The store was incredible - for a while they were posting sealed OG Funkadelic records, just driving me nuts that I didn't live closer - even in my few times there I always came away with A+ purchases. Their prices were mostly fair from what I had seen. 27 years is a long time in any business so you might be right.

― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 15:46 (three hours ago) link

Last night I had to break the news to my Bethlehem-based friend cause I saw the announcement before he did. Did not take it well...

It's got to be a personal or lease related reason. But the fact that it closes on December 2nd and was announced last night... there must be some major unavoidable reason why they'd provide such short notice with no word of store closing sale or anything, seemed odd to me.

The one measly visit I made there I got some insane deals on a couple of Grouper records, by the way, but the high priced stuff was especially high iirc.

Their $3 bins were really good if you want stuff like near mint Hall & Oates records.

Really interesting conversation. I'm a relatively new returner to vinyl - I have no idea how common my situation is, maybe it's a little unusual...

The first thing to say is that I'm really an amateur in all this business. I also suspect I have somewhat cloth ears for the finer points of recording quality. I follow the debate of whether CD/Vinyl/FLAC whatever gives better sound quality, but in all honesty myself I just can't tell. This even applies to my total rubbish record deck (how rubbish, you ask? Well my mum bought it from *Lidl* 10 years ago). Oftentimes it sounds fuzzy as hell. I don't care though, I still enjoy listening to it.

So why have I started to buy the odd bit of vinyl? Well it comes mostly from guilt. See, for about 15 years I never once purchased music. It wasn't that I stopped listening - it was simply Napster and downloads as a teen, then youtube, now streaming. It started to get ridiculous when I consider how much joy some musicians have given me - and some are still alive and releasing music.

It's so easy for me to reach for one of these digital solutions and basically have the music available - at effectively no price. CDs are indeed super cheap but feel a bit pointless, since it's almost the same experience (if you don't count finding a CD player and fussing with the disc). So post-pandemic I've been trying to see more acts live, and buy merchandise directly, in order to support them. Picking up some vinyl at a reasonable price (I can't really justify spending more than £30) - especially if I can buy direct from e.g. Bandcamp gives me the warm-and-fuzzies. They genuinely will be the medium I reach for in the evening, it's nice having the packaging and the old cliche of the "physical object".

Not sure how big a contribution people like me make though. I couldn't be bothered to do this with the "big acts" (they have enough cash aleady!). Will also never buy a tape again.

people want something shiny to hold and look at.

this weekend I saw some 2023 Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo Japanese releases displayed behind the counter. I couldn’t tell if they were 7”s or special cd packaging or something but they looked super nice.

nice thoughts jifMoose :)

This might be answered on a different thread but roughly what are the artists making on cd vs vinyl at a gig? ie what do they get for each £25-30 record sold vs a £10 CD? (Adjust to your local currency and actually throw in a £20-25 t-shirt while we're here)

Partly just curious but I'd like a concrete idea when I'm doing these weird merch table calculations as I decide whether and what to buy (feeling flush vs feeling broke, liked the band vs loved them, beautiful artifact vs nice enough object, band needs support vs commercial monster etc etc).

Last night I had to break the news to my Bethlehem-based friend cause I saw the announcement before he did. Did not take it well...

It's got to be a personal or lease related reason. But the fact that it closes on December 2nd and was announced last night... there must be some major unavoidable reason why they'd provide such short notice with no word of store closing sale or anything, seemed odd to me.

― Evan, Tuesday, November 21, 2023 2:18 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah the suddenness is very strange and I think you're right that even if it was his decision it decision it probably was a result of some outside factors.

They are a great store and they do what all great stores do - price stuff to move and turn their inventory over, mark it down until it sells, lean on old stuff and carry a curated selection of new stuff.

Stores who price stuff like they need to squeeze every possible penny (according to Discogs stats) that a record might be worth and leave it there for months or years, what's the thinking there? Idk

I hardly ever buy new vinyl for the reasons mentioned above, but as far as used stuff goes I've recently discovered the joys of classical vinyl. Compared to other genres it tends to be cheap and in excellent condition, and the pressings are usually high-quality to begin with.

For a long time I had the mindset that classical music is best-suited to digital formats because of digital's superior dynamics, absence of surface noise, not having to flip the record for longer pieces, etc. Then a few weeks ago I found a pristine copy of Gustav Leonhardt's 1969 recording of Bach's Art of Fugue on harpsichord (this one) at a local store for $6, and it totally destroyed my world. Sacred mathematics at the gates of infinity, elevated in the indescribable way you only get from a flawless vinyl pressing. Also for music this dense I find that being forced to listen in smaller sidelong doses is the best way to take it in.

So now I'm on a Bach vinyl spree (mostly keyboard works so far), and it sure as hell beats tracking down OG pressings of 70s prog and folk records like I had been doing for a while.

I'll stop raving, but first I want to shout out this pressing of Helmut Walcha's 1973-74 recording of The Well-Tempered Clavier on harpsichord. 5 LPs of some of the greatest keyboard music ever in a gorgeous package, and NM copies currently go for about $20.

That sounds like a neat way to switch things up.

that's awesome. Leonhardt's Bach harpsichord recordings are indeed transcendent

holy shit, yes! i have that same box! amazing

also, #onethread, try switching it up later tonight or tomorrow with this extremely glittery harpsichord-adjacent Catherine Christer Hennix keyboard interface composition:

https://blankformseditions.bandcamp.com/album/solo-for-tamburium

RSD release of Live Under a Blood Red Sky, which is retailing for $54.99.

i saw this...wtf, this is barely a full album's worth of music

budo jeru, I'm liking that Hennix quite a bit.

we are having kind of a joyous Hennix celebration across multiple threads at the moment!

Yeah budo, thanks for the Hennix rec (you had me at "harpsichord-adjacent" lol). About 10 minutes into it and I'm flying.

Also awesome that you have the Walcha WTC box. Desert island material for me.

i meant the Leonhardt box actually!

but i will definitely check out the Walcha recording

Oh sorry. The Leonhardt is just as awesome! I also love the cover design on that box, really suits the dark gothic vibe of the music.

I'm just gonna buy them both ;)

and yes, old used classical vinyl is absolutely one of the best bangs for your buck in terms of value for money

I love this thing:
https://www.discogs.com/release/4340406-Sibelius-Okko-Kamu-Herbert-von-Karajan-Gerhard-Stempnik-Radion-Sinfoniaorkesteri-Berliner-Philharmon

I'm just gonna buy them both ;)

This is the way.

Been meaning to get some Sibelius and that set looks lovely

I also wonder if/when the general shoddiness of new pressings is going to catch up with them

my new vinyl buying has dwindled to a trickle (those prices!) but the few i do pick up have been surprisingly/happily free of issues bar the occasional bit of distortion (grrr the reissue of ptah the el daoud notably), def not as bad as some of the rubbish pressings i have from the 2010s era looking at you 4mwb.

re classical scores: my shelves are BULGING with cheap & amazing classical lps... will forever bless the day i lucked into a mint copy of this for the equivalent of about 5 us dollars!

I picked up this from a National Trust shop the other day, unplayed and sounds amazing and has a lovely booklet as part of the box set:
https://www.discogs.com/release/10359578-Klemperer-Wagner-The-Philharmonia-Orchestra-Klemperer-Conducts-Wagner

I remember NickB provided some tips about what to look out for when buying second-hand classical vinyl, I will try to look those out and re-post

My main interest in classical vinyl is the 60s/70s avant stuff like Stockhausen and Xenakis, unfortunately the prices on those sets went through the roof years ago.

This is definitely one of the tricks to still enjoying collecting records - find stuff the general public don't want lol. Classical records are so plentiful and cheap at pretty much every store. There are a bunch of genres like that, too. I collect local country/folk/country rock records from the 70s and yeah there are the whales that command some money but so much is available for under $10. Many of them are miserable but sifting through is part of the whole thing, really.

xp no lime tangier, that Messiaen box looks incredible. I had no idea he recorded his own organ works! I'll have to track that down at some point, though I'm sure I'll have to pay a bit more than $5...

Another recent classical vinyl epiphany: Quartetto Italiano's 1965 recording of Debussy and Ravel's String Quartets on Philips (early Netherlands pressing). They're best versions I've heard of those magical quartets with surprisingly great fidelity for 1965; the recording sounds like it could have been made yesterday.

My main interest in classical vinyl is the 60s/70s avant stuff like Stockhausen and Xenakis, unfortunately the prices on those sets went through the roof years ago.

― lord of the rongs (anagram), Wednesday, November 22, 2023 4:16 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's been my experience that a lot of this can still be had for under $10!

xp*They're the best, that is

xp budo jeru Yeah I feel like almost every record store I've visited recently has a copy of this pressing of Xenakis's Metastasis / Pithoprakta / Eonta for under $10. But it's true the rarer Stockhausen, Xenakis, et al. pressings can be outrageously expensive.

I actually have had my eyes on a nice $45 copy of Stockhausen's Hymnen (mid-70s Deutsche Grammophon reissue) at a local shop for a while, but every time I go I find something cheaper that excites me even more.