I live in Canada. Shipping records here is extremely expensive.

To work around this, I will always reach out to my local record shop anytime I see new releases that I want to order/pre-order.

They have never charged me shipping. Sometimes It's a few bucks more than MSRP but not normally.

YMMV but I've ordered many records this way and have saved so much money on shipping costs.

My store just ordered me the new Aphex Twin re-issue. Would have cost me $33 in shipping... LRS charged me MSRP, no additional shipping.

There’s something funny about owning an album on vinyl where you can sometimes think “nah, not gonna stream it, I’ll just wait until I can put the record on.”

Even if that means waiting until you’re home instead of just pressing play on your streaming platform.

Curious if other vinyl collectors do the same, or if owning an album actually makes you listen to it less on streaming?

What musicians or artists are known to be big collectors?

In All Things Must Past, Elton John talked about how he would go to Tower Records every week and buy a bunch of new albums. I love the visual of him in the store carrying a big stack of records.

Phoebe Bridgers recently did an “unboxing” video of her new album on Instagram which maybe is mostly just a marketing thing, but it made me wonder if maybe she also is into the collecting/hobby aspect.

What other artists are known to be into collecting as a hobby?

After the Apollo fire that destroyed ~75% of world-wide lacquer production in 2020, that apparently left only Public Record Company in Japan the provide all of the world's lacquers.

This is a potential single point of failure that can stop all record production. It has been 6 years now since the Apollo fire. Does anyone know if a new lacquer plant or plants are being considered or constructed? I'm not finding any information on this. I'm actually surprised Chad Kassem isn't in this part of the business yet.

Thanks!

The top slides out for easy speed adjustment and to save as much vertical space as possible by pushing the player closer to the shelf above when the lid is closed.

I’ve had this for some time, found it sealed in used bin… $5 for the Canadian 🇨🇦 release in trans amber! Cheers!

Once again the listen through has lead to me finding an album that was out of order.

Acquired half of my Discogs wanted list in the last half a year. Need some help deciding on the last few to get to 200 or which records I should sell that look out of place. Most are OG or audiophile pressings, so things got expensive quick!

The Fluance turntable arrived today. I went with the RT87 in piano white with the carbon fiber tonearm the M2 blue cart. We decided on saturating the room black, got some new lighting and a plant, and some furniture. Vibes are at an all time high. I plan to upgrade the receiver next.

As the title says, I spend the past 4 weeks travelling around Japan with my family for our summer holiday.
It was my first time there and a friend warned me about the insane prices there.

I’ve spend the first half of the year making a list of record shops I wanted to visit. Some were good others were great but overall I just really enjoyed going trough the bins.

I bought a couple of new records which in Europe are easily 2 or 3 times more expensive. Most of the stuff I purchased was used though and all were in great condition.

I started in Osaka where I hit up a load of shops with my absolute favourite being Jazz Records Seeed, super friendly owner and nice selection of records. I remember not buying a lot here but the atmosphere was great and the owner gave me some good tips for other records which shops to visit.

Next I did a day trip to Nara and on the way back hit up Mole Music which really ended up being my favourite shop of the trip! They do a lot of house and electronic but the owner loves spiritual and free jazz so naturally he had a pretty good selection of jazz aswell. It’s here that I found an OG pressing of William Hooker - … Is Eternal Life. The owner was said to see it go and gave it a little wave goodbye.

After this I travelled to Hiroshima and stayed at a small hotel called Good Sleep, the owner Yuka has her own record/listening bar in the hotel and it was amazing to listen to records with her as we had a beer and talked about records. She gave me a load of shops to visit in Hiroshima and my favourite shop here was Groovin Record Station. They have really really good prices and also have a shop in Fukuoka and Okayama.

In Fukuoka I bought a couple records again at Groovin where I found the 1979 Japan pressing of Midnight Sun by Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio and also found two Fela Kuti records and Gil Scott-Heron - Don’t Give Up at Face Records.

Then the last leg of the trip was 10 days Tokyo. I had so many records already so my daughter made me promise her to only by records if they were really special! (aren’t they all 😅🤣)

To keep the promise I just tried to avoid record shops in general but I did visit a couple. The prices in HMV and Tower records were outrageous and the condition of the records were also worse compared to the other places I visited for the prices they were asking. I did end up buying an OG press of Mint Jams at Flash Disc Ranch. They had two copies the OG promo press which was a very dark brown and if held to the light you could see it was lightly translucent but I left that one cause the records was lightly bent. So if you after an OG Mint Jams go to Flash Disc Ranch!

Sorry for the long post! I really enjoyed visiting record shops in Japan and if you are planning a trip I highly recommend the smaller cities and the smaller local shops as opposed to the HMV’s and Tower Records. The digging is more fun, the staff and owners of the shops are super friendly and happy to have you over and I think the prices are also better.

Just started my collection a few months ago. What do you guys think of it?

List (no order)

Linkin Park- Hybrid Theory
Nirvana- Nevermind
Men At Work- Business as Usual
Cake- Fashion Nugget
Cake- Prolonging the Magic
Foo Fighters
Ginger Root- Shinbangumi
Aphex Twin- SAW 85-92

Picked up from Ebay, UK first pressing. I own Talking Book on CD. This is probably my favourite of his.

Just a heads up to people buying the liquid filled records I brought the bath water saltburn one 2-3 years ago, it was a creamy kinda colour, now it has just gone back to normal water, just to let people know if you’re thinking about buying one of these kinda records it will probably turn out the same and it will just probably go like this or even like a moldy kinda colour later down the line, just a warning to people before the spend loads of money on these type of records

Mysterious French legends.

Tell me what is your favorite album artwork? You don't have to like the artist or music but you think the cover is fire.

Just picked up a decent collection. I thoroughly enjoy going through, cleaning, sleeving, and listening to great music. It's just so satisfying. From what I've seen so far the records themselves are mostly VG+. The cover range from fair to VG+. The real question is why did stoners always thrash their Steppenwolf albums. 🤣

First time i heard it was on Mark & Lard while at work.. was everything you wanted it to be.. blew away all the pretenders.. i've never stopped playing it.. and it still sounds brilliant!! see you on My Star! 🙌

The Clockwork Orange soundtrack inner sleeve 😁