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2 Podcasts for the Price of 1, New VC Podcast

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Hello friends, the latest episodes of the Vinyl Collective podcast are up! I am downloading it now and can't wait to hear it. Here's a brief recap of the episodes:

Episode 5 part 1:

* Justin and Andy play songs from the Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, Rx Bandits, Portugal the Man, Chris Clavin, Hot Water Music, Planes Mistaken for Stars, Able Baker Fox, Adolescents, and Bad Brains.

* You will hear songs while Andy and Justin speak, the first person to correctly identify all of the Band and Song Names will win a $50 Gift Certificate. If no one correctly guesses all of the songs, we will pick one winner who got the most correct. Make sure you enter because Episode 4's winner didn't even come close to answering all of the songs correctly..

* Andy and Justin discuss things going on at Vinyl Collective.

Episode 5 part 2

* I spoke with Var Thelin from No Idea Records, this was meant to be about a 5 minute call, but as I mentioned on the board, Var can talk. The episode is 51 minutes long but it is jam packed with great discussions about vinyl, No Idea, color variants, test pressings, records var would have loved to have put out, and more.

Click the links below to download the episode (right click to download):

Episode 5 part 1

https://vinylcollective.solidcasts.com/xml/download/1442/audio/3578/vc5p1.mp3

Episode 5 part 2

https://vinylcollective.solidcasts.com/xml/download/1442/audio/3579/vc5p2.mp3

And remember, you can always subscribe to the Podcast, by copying and pasting: feed://vinylcollective.solidcasts.com/xml/podcast/1438 into Itunes or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Var just emailed this to me:

I remembered a record that I wanted to put out. OPERATION IVY. Before they recorded their album, they were going to record two songs for a split 7" that was to come with issue #7 of NO IDEA fanzine. Something went weird with the recording and they scrapped it, then recorded again for what became the their album. They were going to record for the split after that, but then they BROKE UP. The songs for the split were supposed to be "If the Kids are United" and "These Boots are Made for Walking". I was a little leery them doing two songs that were so frequently covered, but... all you have to do is play "Energy" and that tells the tale. Wow. So THAT is a 7" I wish had happened! So close!

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I'm on dialup, downloaded it and transcribed over half of it, there is about a 2-3 minute spot I didn't finish and the last however many minutes. I'm just burned out on listening to these two, lol

Really good interview and if you're on dialup and don't wanna download this, I would suggest it anyways, well worth it. I was hoping to get some tips from these two guys on how to score test pressings, but no such luck, lol

enjoy or add to it if you're bored like me I guess.....

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Virgil: Hey, is this Var?

Var: Uh, yes indeed.

Virgil: Hey Var, it's Virgil with Vinyl Collective, how ya doin?

Var: I'm doin alright other than this abscess on my back.

(laughter)

Var: I'm not kidding though actually.

Virgil: Oh shit, I'm sorry to hear about that. Well, I guess without talking about that, um, I wanted to call and see if I could steal ya for a couple minutes and talk, uh, do a Q&A with you for the Vinyl Collective podcast.

Var: Certainly. I will be Podcast rated.

Virgil: Alright great! What is the first record that you ever bought with your own money?

Var: Oh gosh, um, I have a hard time remembering exactly. It was either two seven inch 45's at once or it was a double LP, I think it was a double LP, like a couple years earlier. It was either the Star Wars storybook, which I think was actually a single LP, which would have been probably like around '78 or around the same time I bought a pair of seven inches because there was like a sale or something and uh, one of them was The Gambler and the other one, oh my god, I'm drawin' a blank all of a sudden, um...

Virgil: Kenny Rogers The Gambler

Var: Yeah and the other one was, I don't man, it mighta been like YMCA or something ridiculous. It was something like that, where you look back and you're like, "What in the world was I thinking?" Me at 7 or 8 years old.

Virgil: Oh man, you know, we all gotta somewhere right?

Var: I'm okay with the gambler one, but I'm like why would anyone in their right mind ever need to buy a Village People record because, your like, you can hear that anyway, you don't have to go, at least at that time, you didn't really have to go out of your way.

Virgil: Yeah, but with the record, you probably had a picture of them dressed up

Var: No No, I don't think either of them were pictures sleeves. I think they were just the old style, ya know, just like, blank, label, logo, big hole with a big 'ole record in it and I don't think they were picture sleeves even.

Virgil: That is awesome.

Var:I know the kenny rogers one wasn't, cause you'd remember that.

Virgil: Are you personally a vinyl collector.

Var: Ummmm, yes and no. At my heart I am, but I am very lazy about it, um, the reason why is because I only have certain number of hours in the day and I let that side of me go a long time ago in lieu of working absurd hours actually making records and I think when you make records yourself for your own label, you tend to slowly sometimes, either really embrace collecting records full on because you're so obsessed with records or you slowly drift away from it because the last thing you wanna do sometimes after dealing with a record all day long is think about more records and uhm, that's not totally the case with me cause I'm obsessed with music in some regards but, I do find myself sometimes getting away from the root of why we do what we do and then getting to worked up about, oh my god, I got deadlines, I gotta get things done and every now and then you have to step back and be like, nope, the whole reason I'm doing this, is cause this band and this record are awesome and you can have that reaction with anyones record, no matter how far into you are on your own and so that's the thing, it always brings you back, always revitalizes you when you hear that one record that just blows you away and you're like man, where did this seven inch come from, it's great and to be part of that process, is kind of revitalizing too, hoping that maybe something you're involved with strikes someone else that way but, I did actually come to within the last couple of years and I realized that, my record collecting, kind of, ended virtually in like, I dunno, I wanna say like the late '90s, really, cause that's when I was more, I would go to the record store, I would trade in a bunch of stuff, I would have a bunch of credit, I would get, ya know, 30 seven inches.

Virgil: Oh sure.

Var: Just be like, this looks cool, like, friends at record stores would be like man, have you heard this band, they're awesome, check it out, I'll throw it on, you'll be like, oh it sounds great. So I kind of missed about ten years worth of, being that nose to the ground, ear to the ground, checking stuff out, being like, a real true band/music fan, in that way. Like, the same part of you that is the kid that read Maximum RockNRoll from front to back, that doesn't read it at all anymore, except maybe to skim if it at best. That side of me tends to drift away sometimes. But it's still in there a little bit and I came to recently. 4:26

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But I've got like a ten year hole in my record, because there's all these that came and went and I'm like, that record was everywhere, oh wait, that's an $80 record now. Well sure as shit I'm never gonna have it now. Like, I don't care that much. But there's a whole lot ya know, a whole lot of stuff I should have picked up and with us doing a distro and a mailorder and stuff, a lot of these records we would just have in quantity, day in, day out. Everybody around the building would be playing them and you'd come to and you would be like, do I need the new Fucked Up record, no, cause somebody's gonna play it three times a day for six months somewhere around me. You come to a few years later and you go, man, I never did pick that up and I kinda wanna hear it now.

Virgil:Oh for sure.

Var: So I've slowly gone back a little bit and picked up some of that stuff, but, ummmmm. I definitely feel like I focus on other things, which I had to do, but every now then I kinda get a regret like, these records were everywhere and I coulda picked 'em up.

Virgil: I feel like the same thing here because we used to run a record store in the late 90's and there's so many records that, even a lot that you were putting out at the time, like, theres the hot water, tomorrow split and the clairmel split which were on the weird sizes that we had a million of at one time, the now they're gone.

Var: Cause like for three or four years, you could always get it in some form and then all of a sudden they dried up and some of the records we've done, from being on the inside perspective, some of the records we did, that I think are phenomenal records, ya know, took six or seven years to sell a thousand and then the day you sell them all, someone pops up and goes, oh hey, do you have that panther uk united 13 LP and I would go, oh my god, we were selling those for $1.99 for four years and it's an amazing record granted, but there's no band to back it up and it just sorta has this weird cult following. I mean, it's virtually the day we sold the last one someone popped and was like, oh my god, I gotta have this record and you're like dude, they're gone.

Virgil: That's usually how it happens.

Var: We gave away, I mean, we didn't put out his record, we gave away probably over 2,000 copies of the first Avail 12". Gave them away. And I guarantee you that, I mean, it took us about ten years to do that. Maybe eight years. Something stupid like that, like a long time. Let me think about this for a second, yeah, more like about 7-8 years. And so you know, people were taking us up on it, but it took a long time to get rid of them, it's a great record, I've always liked that record. But we just had so many of them, it wasn't our label, the label was gone, the band didn't want them, nobody wanted them it seemed, so we just kinda gave them away. And now....you know, I bet as soon as they're gone, the day they're gone, somebody's gonna pop up crying about how they couldn't find it and about how it's $25 on ebay and sure enough, that happened and I was also, in the back of my head, I was like, ya know what's gonna happen is, probably six months after they're finally all gone, somebody's gonna reissue it and people are gonna want it.

Virgil: Oh yeah....

Var: Ya know, they're gonna be like, oh my god, it got reissued on orange vinyl or something and they'll be like, oh my god, I gotta have that.

Virgil: yeah it's funny how that happens.

Var: Yeah, ya know and it's one of those funny things too, like thinking about, some of their other, that particular bands other LP's and you're like, yeah, some of those other LP's are a lot more "rare" because they didn't have the giant press runs that probably that one did for the first few years and like, there's people that are looking for them and you sometimes tend to, maybe undervalue something that's sitting in front of you.

Virgil: Oh yeah, I see that all the time. For sure, you know a question I have for you, what's you're least enjoyable aspect of running No Idea?

Var: Accounting and/or looking at a computer all day, everyday.

Virgil: Gotcha...

Var: I don't really like accounting, once I get into it it's actually kinda fascinating. But I have to break through that kind of...mental barrier and go okay, I'm gonna sit down and do this. "Mainly?", I don't like accounting is cause it's so hard for me to take the time out from laying out records and working on art....ya know, sometimes hang out in the studio and being like, hey, your vocals suck, let's try to work on that, or just whatever ya know. Hey, your guitars should be more aggressive, that kind of thing. And just having kids, trying to have a life; trying to work that all in sometimes, it's hard to stop and, alright, it's time to do this dry work and also, I started doing graphic design, cut'n paste in the 80's and I learned from the bottom up and after awhile desktop computers came into it and so I have to look at a computer all day now to do layouts, even though all I'm doing is trying to replicate what I was doing with an x-acto knife on a computer. I still have to look at 'em all day and to be quite honest, I'd rather not, I'd rather just look at a bunch of pieces of paper and......do it that way, cause it's much more enjoyable to me. But that's just how it is, I save $500-$1000 every LP I lay out in a computer vs. cutting and pasting it and then the old school way, that you basically can't even do anymore.

Virgil: Sure, totally.

Var: Try to go to film and all that, it's actually difficult.

Virgil: Well here's the next question for ya. What record would you love to put out, that, if you could put out anything, what would you put out on No Idea?

Var: Uhhhhhhh, you mean, like a record someone else already put out?

Virgil: You know, someone else already put out or if theres a band that blows you away, past, present, whatever.

Var: That's a really odd one. Umm, I would love to put out, ummm, I'll have to split the answer. I would love to put out something by Louie Armstrong from like the 30's or 40's or the first couple years of Billy Holiday or maybe even some of the early to mid era jack teegarden and stuff. This is all, obviously pretty, not early jazz, but ya know, it's pretty melodic, it's not the hard bop or anything like that obviously. All pretty vocal heavy, I just really like that era of music and that's probably like, if I was gonna give an honest answer, it would be, ya know, something like that. It would probably be one of those weird, early, Louie Armstrong collections that I had when I was younger. I'd probably love to press something like that. Anything by the cure, before the 90's, ummm, lemme think. This is alot of stuff I don't even necessarily listen to that much right now, but it's just something where like, hey, me at 15 would shit myself to think I could ever do something like that ya know? Trying to think if there's anything else, anything more contemporary. I mean, that's the stuff that always kind of tugs at my heart strings the most to be quite honest, I mean...........if someone said, hey, would you like to put out that one Lucero record, you'd be like, well fuck yeah, I'd be stupid not to wanna put out that record, it's a great record, a band people like, you just can't lose. But I can't think of anything like that really contemporary, where I'm like, oh man I wish I could've done this record or hey man, ya know, there's this band that nobody's heard of that I want to put out. Trying to think real quick, I mean theres, theres really good bands that I think at a point I probably had a, a pretty good shot at, but I was too oblivious or too sidetracked to realize, ya know, like ergs or something like that. Those guys were in front of my face for a long time and it wasn't until kinda later on that I realized how awesome they were and what nice people they were and they were really good friends with friends of mine and people that work here, but like, I was more worried about things like Jennifer's really pregnant and I'm about to be a father. I was actually really, for at least maybe 6months, a year there, I was really resistant to the idea of even thinking about putting out new bands. So I was just like, fuck that. I'm trying to think of what else, I mean, there's been quite a few bands that have come through over the years, that had sent us demos and stuff, that we didn't, I mean we never had time to listen to...it wasn't an insult, it wasn't like you suck, we don't like you, it was just we never had time to listen to them. Some of that stuffs pretty funny ya know, even bands that I don't really even know what they sound like, I just know were big for awhile, like New Found Glory or something, I'm like, yeah, they sent us a demo, with the, wanna take it to the next level letter. But that was pretty common in that era, you'd get stuff like that, but, looking back sometimes you'll find something like that in some corner of the office and you'll be like, holy shit, look at this or hey, you know this guy that's in band now that we're friends with, like, check it out, here's this letter he sent us five years ago and you're like holy shit.

Virgil: Yeah, those are always great to look back on for sure.

Var: Or you know, things like that, um, trying to think, I kinda got sidetracked a little again. But um, trying to think of there's any like, really obvious ones that we've slubbed. I dunno, I mean, at the time to...at another point were I was pretty distracted and stressed out and busy, ya know, there are bands like latterman, who I kinda came to like a little bit after the fact, even though a good three or four really solid people were like really trying to get me to listen to them and think about it. I was just so stressed out and distracted and overwhelmed that I couldn't even consider even listening to a record, ya know, much less thinking about putting out another band. And it just things like that, I don't really totally regret it, but it's like one of those, yeah, they probably should've put out the record with us, if I hadn't been so bogged down.

Virgil: Sometimes you just hear a record once and it doesn't grab you that time and then two years later you hear it and you're like, wow, what was I thinking, ya know....

Var: Or in my case, really it's like, you just never listen to it, period. Literally you get it, you put it on a stack and you go, I intend to listen to this because this one guy whose always been pretty nice to me, really wants me to listen to his friends band and okay, I'll do it. Put it on the pile, you intend to and something happens, that pile grows. It's like I tell people about my email inbox, I'm like, hey man, if I don't write you back within a couple of days, theres a really good chance, your notes gonna sink so far into the depths of my email...

Virgil: dude, I used to never be that way, but yeah, same thing here. I actually have been playing with the idea of having one of the people in our office help me answer my emails because it's just so much, ya know.

Var: My emails not even posted on our website, it's not hard to find, but it's not like front and center, but it's one of those things where, I still get a lot of legitimate stuff I have to deal with and I've actually had days and I probably will do this actually at one point, it's kind of along the lines of what you just said, I've actually considered, switching to a completely private email account and just posting like a responder on my email account that says like, I stopped using email. Like literally and I've though about it because I think that in a lot of ways, it makes our lives so much more convenient and so much more immediate, but really, I do find myself getting very distracted by it and I think that, I think like you said, like if I had, which I don't, but if I had like, like a helper person whose kind of like a personal assistant or something who was like, I'm gonna read all your emails for you and I'm gonna deal with and I'm going to delegate all the things that came through there that you don't even need to see, because it's someone else's job. Then that would save a lot of time and if somebody was like, oh this person just needs a phone number, I'll get it for them and redirected everything, then I would end up seeing, probably, four or five messages a day.

Virgil: That's what I'm kind of struggling with now because, as Vinyl Collective and Suburban Home continue to grow and I'm trying to take care of everything I possibly can, you can't ya know.

Var: No, it's impossible and a lot of the stuff that you want to try and take care of is ludicrous to begin with and the main thing is, is pinpointing what you just need to throw away and that's the important part. You know, you have to throw away stuff a lot. and I'm a pack rat and I am really, it's really hard for me to live by my own words of wisdom, but the best thing you can do is, throw dumb shit away, like actually, literally throw it away. Like take that big box of records and CDs that you've been tripping over for the last three years and throw it away.

Virgil: totally, completely.

Var: And that's brutal to say, but ya know, you and I have, we have an interesting way of being able to throw things away, one of the ways that you and I can throw things away is by taking it and putting it in someone's mailorder. That's where all the demos go, that's where all the seven inches by labels that we haven't talked to for six years go, that's where all that shit goes for the most part and it is pretty funny, like, we have definitely had at least two bands get shows because there demo came in and we threw it in with the mailorder and some mailorder kid got it, liked it and contacted the band and set them up a show and that's such a bizarre thing. We actually had one band very confused, write us, saying, hey, I don't understand, I mailed you a CD for you to check out and this guy in this weird state booked us a show and that's cool, but I'm really confused and you kinda write back and you're like, that either means we didn't like your demo or we didn't have time to listen to it or whatever, we did something with it. We didn't throw it away, we threw it out in the world and you just got a show. And then it was like, okay, I guess I get it. You're like, alright. So I don't know what people think when they get this stuff. They open their box and they're like, why do I have these extra records that i don't know what are. But it's a good way to get rid of your garbage and I'm actually right now because I was supposed to be cleaning out and gutting my old office room in our office so that some other people could start using it and I just came to and realized that, the guy thats coming back from vacation to occupy the room, is like getting on the plane today and he's gonna be back on Monday and I'm like, shit, I've had a month and I didn't even touch it. So that's me, I'm looking around talking about stacks and piles, but I'm literally looking around my old office and going, like, okay, here's a stack of test pressings that I just have to put in a box or figure out what to do with, heres like an old computer box, here's like a box of papers from when I moved into this building 7 or 8 years ago that obviously was crucial. Stuff like that, so you gotta throw that shit away. I'm about to probably do that.

Virgil: Yeah, I've gotten better with that, but yeah, it's hard to juggle all this stuff. Well a question I have for you, kind of on a similar topic to a question I asked earlier. What record or band on No Idea, should listeners check out that might not be on the radar right now? Might be under-appreciated overall, but you're just like, I don't understand why these people don't get it.

Var: I've had a few bands like that over the years, I mean, there's been really obvious ones to me like, some bands I understand, I'm like man, this bands kinda quirky. Like I get it, like, I do and don't understand why people didn't catch onto, say True North more than they did, even though they got rid of a fair amount of records. I always thought, like, you know, by like their final record, I thought, damn, they're really onto something, like, I dunno what it is, but they're onto it and it's coming together. And um, then also, bands like trapdoor fucking exit from Sweden who I just think are hands down brilliant. You know, they're not writin' pop songs, but they're writing some really, really, "heady?", musiciany, music that doesn't come across, at least to me, as being overtly, um, musiciany. Like a lot of times, there's guys in bands, like some bands that normal people don't like, they don't play instruments and they don't know that, boy, what they're playing is super tricky. And trapdoor had both of those, they did stuff that was pretty intense, but it sounded like it was supposed to be that way, it sounded like a song. I thought they were phenomenal and they did decent, but they never toured the states, they were never able to get beyond a certain point. Yeah, they probably sold a thousand copies of their stuff over time, maybe a little bit more, but like it never went beyond that and I just, I never was really baffled by that, but in a way I always thought it would catch on a little more over time, but at the end of the day I was happy that the people that really got it, really got it. And there's a few other bands too, trying to think of another good example. I mean, they're a pretty perfect one. Lemme think about that one for a minute. I had another one in mind and kind of blanked on it. But most of the time when we put out records that are pretty small, a lot of times.....pretty much everything we put out, we expect is that way, you know, we put out everything thinking, eh, you know, whatever, if we get rid of a pressing, that would be cool, if it does better than that, that's awesome too. We always sorta come from that background of going, yeah, our first records we would just press like 300 seven inches and when and if they ever disappeared, we might make more. So we always approach things that way, even if we are doing a much larger run, we still kind of approach it from that background, where we go, we got pretty humble expectations and sometimes we hope for more, but usually we kinda set our sights fairly low as far as what we'll be happy with and then push to do as much better than that as possible. Trying to think if there's another really good band that I thought would click with people more immediately than did, but.....I would have said bridge and tunnel, just cause they're a pretty kind of up and coming newer band, but it seems like people are pretty receptive to 'em. And they're also, the other reason why I would keep them from that list at this point is realizing that, like, they are going to play a bunch of shows and they're gonna get out there and do things and they're way that's very humble and very direct and very sincere, so I feel like, they're not like massive or anything today but I feel like they're gonna take care of themselves for one and I think other people are gonna take care of them too, because I think they foster that kind of, that kind of response from people, so I kinda feel like I should mention them because they're newer and a sorta smaller band, but I kinda think that people that have heard them, they are pretty receptive and I feel like, they have chances that bands from 7 to 10 years ago didn't have. they have their album streaming somewhere where anybody can hear it and there's no cost and a decade ago, you'd be going, uhh, I wanna try and get my song on the radio at some cool station at some college, how do I do that? Maybe you can't and now it's like, well you can stream anything to anybody, anywhere, then they at least have a chance. So I dunno, I mean, I've done a lot of weird records over the years, I think elmer was phenomenal too, but I totally understand why, some people wouldn't think, especially at that point, that like, weirdo, fast, country'ish, punk, wasn't gonna fly.

Virgil: Actually the funny thing is, an old no idea band came up in a conversation at a show the other night and you put out a seven inch or maybe a couple by that band, JUD JUD.

Var: Yeah, I put out one, but yeah.....

Virgil: I think you distributed another one and I think we were buying directly from you at that point for our old store "bako mono?" But we sold a bunch of those just by playing it, there people were like what the hell is this, this is crazy, ya know?

Var: Oh yeah, that was the thing, like, we did uh, we were one of the first labels or group of people or whatever that did those incredibly cheap CD comps...

Virgil: yeah..

Var: Because we got a really good rate through a friend of ours who had an account direct with a plant, which in those days, no one did. So we were getting, like CDs at like 85 cents a piece, plus packaging and so, I mean that's of course double what a lot of people pay now, which is ridiculous, but at the time, people were like oh my god, you got the price down to what? And we're like yeah, 85 cents is the cheapest I've ever heard of. SO we made, whatever, a thousand of these CD's made pretty cheap, fold over color covers, put 'em in a bag and we would sell them for like two bucks outside of shows and stuff and people at that point were just like, they couldn't believe you're doing it, like anybody would give you two bucks out by a show. Because they just couldn't believe it and they'd be like, I recognize two bands, here's two bucks, are you kidding me? Like they'd almost be like, am I fucking you by taking this? And you'd be like, no dude, it's all part of it and then very quickly, every newsprint zine, of which there were way too many around that time too, was putting in a CD comp all of a sudden and it just kinda fell through the shitter and everybody kinda went, eh, CD's, who cares. But at the time, it was really cool, cause other people had done it, but we were definitely one of the first around here that did and like, it just kinda blew peoples minds you could do something that cheap and JUD JUD was one of those songs on that and people were like what the fuck is that. Ya know, you would spin your head, cause you'd go, people would just burst out laughing. Like I got letters from people, that would be like, okay, I got your comp, I put it in the car, I was driving around and that song came on and I almost got in a wreck because I started laughing so hard, ya know and that's pretty noteworthy, but there were three bands on that comp that kinda had that kinda impact for people and it's pretty funny, because that was the day and age, kind of were comps still had that effect on people and I don't think they really do anymore and uh......

Virgil: I don't think they do at all now...

Var: I mean, we're very close to not having a comp. section for CD's at all, cause it's just ridiculous. Like we're actually, I was talking about this the other day, we're actually gonna go in and....of the like, whatever, nine feet worth of shelf space that the comp. CD's take up, we're literally probably gonna cut that down to about two, just because, all the old shit that's up there, those labels are long gone, we're just gonna throw it in a box, but um, but at the time, you know, it's like you think about it, we were just doing stuff that nobody knew about, like bands who didn't have anything out, like JUD JUD or I Hate Myself or Hankshaw and at the time, like we would get all these letters, like actual letters in the mail from people being like, I heard this one song, who the hell is this band and how do I find out more about them, I'm hungry. And now it's not really so much like that because there so many other pathways and I mean, I think even doing an awesome CD comp now would be like, hey dude, it's thirty bands, check it out. People would be like, eh.....

Virgil: Yeah, they would just be like, oh, whatever

Var: I was so spoiled, ya know, I'd be like, eh, whatever, i dunno

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Virgil: So here's a question that I've been dealing with and I wanna pick your brain about. Invariably people will get in touch and say hey, I love this band that you put out, can I buy a test pressing from you. I know that you have a lot of people that you deal with with this type of stuff, do you have a general rule of thumb when it comes to test pressings?

Var: Ummmm, a general rule of thumb as far as what?

Virgil: As far as, this person wants a test pressing from this record, should I just sell him one or should I

Var: I've had different ways of looking at it over the years and one thing I was doing for awhile, was, I would periodically run out of space or just get sick of it and I would grab like a stack of 20 or 30 test pressings and I would just ebay 'em. And some of them would go for five bucks, some would go for fifty bucks, whatever. I didn't really think much about it, I was just like, fuck this, I'm gonna get rid of this. Later on, I was thinking, ya know, this is stuid, I've got my own website, why the hell am I listing this stuff on ebay, if I'm gonna sell it, I'm just gonna be the guy that's out there that says, fuck it, I'm selling this. You want it, you buy it, you don't, who cares. So we listed a bunch of that stuff on our own website for awhile and got rid of most of the stuff that we needed to and then I started to feel little bit weird about it after awhile because....my perspective on it started changing and I was like, hmm, I dunno, this might be a little strange. I think I wanna reconsider this. So I took everything for the most part off of our website, that was left, which was hardly anything.

Virgil: Right....

Var: And then just sort of said I'll let this lie for awhile and then during the fest every year we have like a 3 or 4 hour sale actually in our parking lot and that came from us basically looking at each other and saying, there's no way in hell that I'm gonna set up for three days outside of one of these clubs, selling records, I wanna go see some bands. So we were like, fuck this, I'm not gonna do this again, so we were like, we're gonna set up for one day, for four hours and that's it. And that's it. So we did that two years in a row and it was really cool because strangely, we actually got rid of way more stuff, then being set up for three days straight and missing bands. So we're actually, so ya know, we start doing it that way

and I usually have like a box or two there, where I'm like, okay I dug through some boxes, I have extras of some of these weird, older records, here's a bunch of test pressings, like people can dig through this if they want and I try to price stuff so that it's just high enough that nobody's looking at it and going, dude, I'm gonna grab this, I'm gonna take a picture of it when I walk around the corner and I'll post it on ebay and I'll make a killing and still be a pretty good deal. You look at it and you're like, I love this band, this is my favorite band and I'm gonna keep this record. So I try to do it right in the middle ground and again, I have a whole lot of five and ten dollar records and it's really all about whether you care about that obscure band or not. And people seem really stoked about that too and I felt like, good.........and dealing with people directly like that was really awesome as well because you can really "assess?" people out immediately and if somebody's glowing and they're all like, oh my god, I can't believe you're gonna let me buy this record. And I feel pretty good about that, I would cut people alotta deals and I ended up, last year, pretty funny, somebody asked for a record that I just happened to remember that I thought I had and I came upstairs, rooted through a box and I found, like, two or three copies of it and I brought them downstairs and sold them pretty much immediately and it was cool because it was the more obscure band and I was like, man, really, you want this? If you want this record, I'll go find it.

Virgil: Oh yeah......

Var: The other thing I've done with test pressings, is, I've sold them as benefits, for people that I've felt like, were really in need. Like J Robbins kid, Cal. Alot of people have done this, I'm not trying to glorify us. I mean, hey, pay attention to what's going on with this kid, but, I was like man, there's all these weird crossovers and similarities between he and I and it was just a little too close to home to not do something. So we ended up selling a bunch of test pressings on ebay and within I think three weeks, we raised almost seven thousand dollars and I was like, alright, this actually goes somewhere, this actually helps. And I felt pretty good about that, I mean, obviously, you can never do enough, but I thought that was a really good way to take some of the stuff that was basically just taking up space and get it to people who really wanted it, everybody knew it was a pure situation. We actually, we paid all the extra fees too. We ended up contributing a couple hundred bucks out of our own pockets just because of the fees. We just paid them, we just gave all the money straight. And also just the time it took us all. Matt or whoever had to pack it and Jennifer had to do a lot of tracking and I had to do some tracking. So we all felt like, okay, we really put in some time, we got this going and it also had this weird ripple effect where other people started their own benefits. It was interesting because we started our auctions because we saw someone else do auctions and we thought, wait, we should do this, like, we've sent money periodically, but we should actually do a more public thing and I think we're about to do the same thing again in the next couple days, because a local friend of ours, just got hit on Saturday and broke his femur.

Virgil: Oh god...

Var: Yeah, he was unloading gear out of the back of a car and somebody hit the front of that car that he was unloading and it knocked the car seven feet, so they were going.....when you hit a parked car and knock it seven feet, I guess you're going pretty fast.

Virgil: Yeah, really fast...

Var: Yeah, so it broke his femur and he's doing good. I talked to him a couple of times, but, you know, he's got titanium in his leg and he's gonna be healing for awhile. His name's Rob MacGregor, he's a local man-about-town

Virgil: I know that name....

Var: He's recorded a lot of records. He recorded the first Against Me! album, he's recorded a lot of Hot Water stuff and almost any band from Gainseville you can think of, he's recorded a lot of bands from all over the country and a lot of people...it's kinda that same thing, wait, I know who that is. And he's been in a lot of bands himself over the years and it was one of these things where we go, oh man, I heard about yesterday and was like, whhhaatt!, called him and he was like, yep and told me the story. I'm like, okay, he's got no insurance or very little. The guy that hit him was wasted, apparently had very very little insurance and so he's at a point where, like, ya know, the hospitals gonna come to Rob and say, you need to pay us and he's gonna be able to get almost nothing if anything from insurance for it and he's gonna have at least $50,000 probably worth of expenses, cause he's gonna have to go through rehab and all this other stuff

Virgil: Oh wow...

Var: And I don't know what kinda time period we're looking at here

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