[78-L] Why we collect

[simmonssomer]

He's obviously adopted the "Know thyself" mantra.
I give him a lot of credit, but fortunately I don't know myself that well.

Al Simmons

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <soundthink at aol.com>
To: <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 11:50 AM
Subject: [78-L] Why we collect


> The only difference between me and this poor soul is the kind of music we 
> collect. And that I still have all of my stuff. But I'm sure I'm not the 
> only one to view his/her collection in this fashion.
>
> Cary Ginell
>
> The Stranger
> December 22, 2008
> MUSIC
> Dispossessed
> How I Lost Most of My Music Collection—and Nearly My Mind
> by DAVE SEGAL
>
> T his past August, I moved back to Seattle from Orange County. An ordeal 
> for anyone, moving for me means shipping about 2,500 pieces of vinyl and 
> thrice as many CDs, which took about a week of long days to pack. For this 
> trip, I arranged for the Los Angeles moving company Eagle Express to haul 
> my belongings up from Costa Mesa, a decision that ranks as my biggest 
> regret of this—or maybe any—year.
>
> Eagle Express's supervisor, David Gomez, assured me that the delivery 
> would take two weeks max. In fact, it took almost a month, and when the 
> slack mothertruckers finally arrived at my Capitol Hill storage facility, 
> it was clear something had gone horribly awry: Expecting around 60 boxes 
> full of my music collection, there were instead only 15.
>
> One of the movers, Adam—who, I later discovered, was actually an employee 
> of West Coast Van Lines—initially expressed confusion about the missing 
> boxes. After much agitated questioning, he said he'd had to unload some of 
> his cargo due to weight issues. Incredulous, I demanded he call Eagle 
> Express to find out where my goods were. He made a call, speaking to Gomez 
> in Spanish; during the shor
> t conversation, Adam became increasingly angry and then he hung up. Adam 
> said something vague about a warehouse in the L.A. area. I called Gomez 
> but couldn't get a straight answer from him. Their stories weren't jibing, 
> and my records were gone. I cursed Gomez in a vicious tone I hadn't used 
> since George W. Bush became president in 2001.
>
> I felt as if I'd gone in for a routine chiropractic visit and left the 
> office with three of my limbs amputated.
>
> T hat's the thing about collectors, according to Seattle psychotherapist 
> Gaelen Billingsley: "Many collectors feel synonymous with the objects they 
> collect and use them to derive or define a sense of self. Though they may 
> not have any objective value, objects collected are seen as uniquely 
> interesting or valuable to the individual collector. Thus as collectors 
> accumulate large numbers of valuable items, they construct the sense that 
> they, too, are valuable by association, i.e., 'The more of this great 
> stuff I accumulate, the more I matter.'"
>
> Obsessive collecting, she explains, "tends to arise out of one (or a 
> combination) of the following three basic human needs: the need for a 
> personal self- definition of worth, the need for a sense of life purpose 
> (or meaning), and the desire for immortality."
>
> Damn, Ms. Billingsley. It's like you peered directly into my mind.
>
> I'm as guilty of this dubious behavior as anyone. It's neurotic. But my 
> excuses go far beyond the identity aggrandizing, the phallic substitution 
> and surrogate dick-waving. I actually do have legitima
> te reasons for accumulating so many records: One is for DJing, which I've 
> done with some frequency on radio and in clubs since 1996 (and I will 
> always prefer to spin vinyl for such gigs). In fact, I had to turn down a 
> juicy DJ opportunity soon after I returned to Seattle because I lacked the 
> crucial weapons from my vinyl arsenal.
>
> Another reason is research/reference. As a music journalist, I regularly 
> relied on my extensive library to help me to write reviews and features. 
> My collection also served as a resource for friends looking to expand 
> their knowledge. As I've told my friends many times, my collection and my 
> knowledge are here to be used. So, like Bill Withers sang, use me. (Sadly, 
> a huge music collection does not always work as an aphrodisiac.) Fourthly, 
> a megalomaniacal urge to know almost everything about almost every 
> worthwhile musician can be a dangerous thing, I've discovered—especially 
> when it comes time to move. Fifthly, almost every record and CD has a 
> complicated network of memories and associations attached to it. Losing as 
> many items as I did feels like having several key scenes excised from my 
> autobiography.
>
> A s the weeks passed with no sighting of my precious cargo, I became 
> increasingly ill with anger and toxic vengefulness every time I pondered 
> Eagle Express's botched job. For a while, I was phoning Gomez every day, 
> furious over my enormous loss (fuck a 401[k]; those records were my 
> pension!). When he did pick up, Gomez would profusely apologize in heavily 
> accented Engli
> sh and vow to try to find out what happened to my stuff. Rinse, repeat, 
> rage.
>
> Over the next four months and dozens of (mostly unanswered) calls and many 
> empty promises later, I still can't get a satisfactory response from 
> Gomez. At one point, Gomez said that Adam had tried to escape into Canada 
> to avoid the law on some charge, and that a truck with my boxes was 
> somewhere near the border. My calls to West Coast Van Lines went 
> unreturned.
>
> I've pretty much resigned myself to never seeing those lost records and 
> CDs (and the dresser I'd owned since I was 9 and some other less important 
> items) again. Now I just want monetary compensation—and Gomez's head on a 
> pike. Trouble is, I don't know any lawyers in L.A., and even if I did, I 
> have no stomach for dealing with them. And, foolishly, I didn't insure my 
> belongings—after moving five times in as many years without incident, I'd 
> become complacent. (This, too, ranks in the top five of my Regrets Hall of 
> Shame.)
>
> Y ou should have seen my friends'—especially fellow collectors'—responses 
> to my situation. Their faces would slacken with a mixture of disgust and 
> disbelief, and they'd gasp for a bit until they could utter words of pity 
> and consolation. It felt like I was witnessing my own funeral every time I 
> broke the news to somebody.
>
> After I told Jason Pettigrew, an ex– Alternative Press magazine coworker 
> and fellow music obsessive, about my travails, he said, "I would be 
> getting background checks on the individual
> movers and start brutally murdering their family members at random."
>
> Obviously, a loss of this magnitude prompts much reflection (and many 
> nights spent dreaming of flying to L.A. to seek revenge). After the shock, 
> disbelief, and the barely suppressible rage had (mostly) subsided, I began 
> to ponder the significance of music—and its physical manifestations—in my 
> life. Maybe my obsession with it wasn't that healthy. Certainly, even 
> after my moving disaster, I still possess more recorded music than, oh, 97 
> percent of the population. I am definitely not wanting for things to 
> listen to. By any "normal" standard, I owned way too many CDs and LPs.
>
> And yet the knowledge of all those rare records (how will I ever find 
> those Bernard Parmegiani and M. Frog Labat LPs?) and obscure, 
> limited-edition CDs and boxed sets that I'd gathered over the last 29 
> years and that are now dispersed to who knows where continues to gnaw at 
> me—every hour, every day. "Normal" is boring and mediocre. I didn't get 
> where I am today—for better or worse—through sensible moderation in my 
> listening/collecting habits. When music is your religion, as it is mine, 
> losing reliquaries of it can damage your soul and threaten your sanity.
>
> Among the items missing from my collection: my entire stash of hiphop 
> vinyl and two-thirds of my hiphop CDs; all of my world-music CDs 
> (including 16 Fela Kuti and all of my Sublime Frequencies discs); all of 
> my highbrow, 20th-century composer stuff; my cherished Soul Jazz Records 
> CDs; my20soundtracks; rare psych-rock LPs by Friendsound (the LSD-inspired 
> side project by some Paul Revere and the Raiders members); little-known 
> Kraut-rock classics by Exmagma and Et Cetera; Bernard Szajner's imaginary 
> soundtrack to Dune done under the moniker Zed; Kraftwerk's first three 
> amazing albums, all of which they stubbornly, foolishly refuse to 
> officially reissue; TONTO's Expanding Head Band's Zero Time, with two 
> separate covers; that sweet 100 Proof (Aged in Soul) LP on the Motown 
> composers Holland-Dozier-Holland's Hot Wax label.... Someone could open a 
> decent music shop with those fugitive goods—and then promptly go out of 
> business.
>
> Yes, I can get back a lot of the AWOL titles, provided I devote 
> considerable time and money to the endeavor. Hell, I've already begun to 
> replenish my collection as thriftily as possible. I've been rifling 
> through the used bins at Jive Time, Everyday Music, Wall of Sound, Sonic 
> Boom, and Easy Street with the kind of diligence that would impress DJ 
> Premier. Also, friends have come through with loans, burns, MP3s, gifts, 
> condolences, and sympathy.
>
> Y ou'd think this would be the opportune time to switch to a more digital 
> approach to music consumption. It should be, but my analog por vida 
> attitude dies hard. I can't help thinking that vinyl is the ultimate 
> musical format, with CDs second, and MP3s a distant third. Daily, hourly, 
> megabytes of great, obscure audio get uploaded to YouTube, the torrent 
> sites, and blogs like Mutant Sounds (mutant-sounds.blogspot.com). And 
> that's great for everyo
> ne, except maybe for copyright holders. But I'm not clever enough to DJ 
> with a YouTube video, and torrent sites often misidentify releases (which 
> often sound shitty, anyway), and, honestly, I don't want to rip off 
> musicians. That and the whole physical-artifact factor: I don't think I'm 
> alone in thinking that the gatefold double-LP version of Miles Davis's 
> Bitches Brew will always hold more allure and aesthetic value than that 
> album reduced to 1s and 0s in an iPod.
>
> That being said, I now have over 2,500 songs on my iTunes at work, but 
> they don't seem like they're mine so much as my computer's. And that 
> somehow bothers me. Were some benefactor to replace all of my missing 
> songs on the planet's biggest hard drive, I would be grateful, but still 
> would not feel as fulfilled as if I could regain the actual releases. I'm 
> firmly in the rearguard with regard to Serato/iPod "upgrading," and my 
> tragedy hasn't nudged me into the 21st century. Not yet, anyway.
>
> Besides, I've become addicted to the thrill of the hunt for music. So much 
> of my life's been spent in record stores, digging through bins, swapping 
> info with clerks and fellow music nerds; to stop now would be as hard as a 
> lifelong smoker ditching his cigs in middle age.
>
> So I continue to obsess over musical products, compulsively. While most 
> people in my circle scheme about getting drunk, high, laid, or by with the 
> least amount of effort, I spend my idle moments figuring out the most 
> efficient way to rebuild my shelves-full of Acid Mothers=2
> 0Temple and Muslimgauze releases—and hundreds of other treasures without 
> which my life seems terribly diminished. Most (straight) guys in my circle 
> try to score pussy; I strive to re-score Pussy Galore's Sugarshit Sharp 
> 12-inch (okay, and some pussy; I may be a geek, but I have other needs, 
> too).
>
> If anything, my obsession with record collecting has only intensified 
> following this catastrophe. It's as if I need to be physically immersed 
> not only in the sounds, but also in the vessels from which they emanate. I 
> crave the totems that announce to my visitors (and the world) that my 
> taste is impeccable. Sorry, but your thousands of MP3s on your hard drive 
> can't compete with an entire room jammed floor to ceiling with wax. 
> Anybody can say he digs Nurse with Wound; but if you show me a shelf in 
> your pad groaning with their releases, you've earned more respect in my 
> eyes.
>
> S cott Giampino—who books shows at Seattle supper club the Triple Door and 
> DJs soul, funk, and R&B under the name Self- Administered Beatdown—also 
> recently lost the bulk of his long-accruing collection. In 2004, his house 
> burned to the ground, and he and his family lost almost everything they 
> owned. Giampino estimates 2,500 out of 3,000 records were damaged in the 
> blaze. (Although he notes, "Oddly, virtually all the CDs in the house 
> survived. Irony!")
>
> Eventually, Giampino's sense of loss diminished, so maybe there's hope for 
> me. "I tried and still try to be rather 'Zen' about the entire 
> owning-objects thing now," he s
> ays. I dunno: It's hard to be Zen when I want to get all Bruce Lee on the 
> mugs responsible for decimating my collection.
>
> "My attitude has changed in the fact that I am much easier to let things 
> go," Giampino observes. "I sell way more records now than I used to. I 
> used to hoard stuff, like any compulsive collector, but now I have a much 
> mellower attitude toward it. It's twofold, with one part being, 'Hey, it's 
> just stuff, easy come easy go,' and the other part is, 'Hey, if I really 
> need this copy of "insert album title here," I can pony up the dough and 
> buy it.' I'll find it again, the philosophy being: Sure, I have to pay 
> more, but it's (usually) obtainable, somewhere."
>
> I f anything positive has resulted from my tragic loss, it's that I've 
> become more appreciative of what I do have now. While I will agonize for 
> years over several vanished gems, others will not be mourned, as my 
> memory's not flawless. Hell, I've forgotten about more music than most 
> people have heard or will hear. That's not braggadocio, but simply factual 
> reportage of an obsessive-compulsive music critic's life. It's a curse 
> wrapped up in a blessing.
>
> Like many of my ilk, maybe I do view my collection as a bulwark against 
> mortality—or at least a tangible legacy of my existence on earth. Forget 
> leaving a good-looking corpse; I want my survivors to gape in awe at shelf 
> upon shelf, crate upon crate of my music stash—a monument to monomania. It 
> would be nice if they listened to the things, too. 0A
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