Vinyl Collector of the Day, Sandy Smith

[Guest Admin]

Sandy Smith is our Vinyl Collector of the day, our first from Scotland. Sandy has one of the bigger collections I've seen with over 7,000 records. It helps that Sandy has been collecting for over 30 years. Imagine what your collection will look like 20 or 30 years from now if you continue to collect. While this feature is one of the longer reads we've had, I really encourage you to read all the way through. Sandy has some really interesting perspective on collecting as vinyl collecting has changed so much throughout the years. Take for example something like trading records and imagine how differently that act would be without the internet. I guess I could just say imagine any aspect of life pre-internet, but with trading Sandy mentions getting the newest issue of Maximum Rock n Roll and looking through the classifieds. If you saw someone who mike make a good trading candidate, you would write them a letter and send your trade list. Even though I did plenty of things without the internet, I could not imagine how long this process would take. Sandy answered our questions on first record purchased, out of print records worth killing for, records that should be pressed, thoughts on colored vinyl, and more. Thanks Sandy for taking the time to answer our questions.

You, too, can answer our questions and submit your Vinyl Collector of the Day feature. What are you waiting for? You can find the questions here http://www.vinylcollective.com/2010/06/10/be-our-next-vinyl-collector-of-the-day-new-questions-added/

Click the link to read more about Sandy

http://www.vinylcollective.com/2010/07/16/vinyl-collector-of-the-day-sandy-smith/

[One Hundred Fifty-Two]

SD BH

[richspeedowax]

i love sandy,he rules.got me so many cool dr strange early color vinyl and jawbreaker 7 inches over the years.hes got every single by man or astroman to,thats dedication.all hail sandy.

[lonesomexloveus]

"There are no good stores left anymore"

that's a pretty sweeping and i'm going to go with fairly inaccurate cynical statement. unless, of course, he's a world traveler and has frequented every record store on the planet, which i doubt.

kudos for the gigantic collection, though!

[xjustinxschwierx]

Yeah anyone that throws a blanket statement like that around get's a big fuckin' FAIL from me, Chicago alone has a handful of awesome record stores and I've been to a bunch of others all over the country. Pretty much every place I've ever visited I've found a cool record store.

[MattyIceyo]

Boston, in my own opinion (don't slam me anyone else in the 617/508/978, doesn't have one that I partucularly like. As somone who looks for the mid 90's punk/hc/ska and early HC records, Boston has nothing like that. The closest one around me is Armageddon Shop in Providence, and it's rare that I get down that way. Newbury comics has just turned mainstream, In Your ear has 2 punk sections, and the rest is rock/soul/jazz etc, which is fine. Same with Nuggets, Looney Toones, Weirdo Records, Cheapo records, etc. If a shop like Amoeba, Reckless, Regeneration, etc, opened up in Boston, that would be rad. Welfare records is rad, but again far out of my neighborhood.

sorry for the rant

[lonesomexloveus]

i don't even have ANY record stores within 45 minutes of my house, and even then, there's only 2 or 3, one of those being CI, which is useless. when i visited my friends in san francisco last year, i was super jealous of their quality record stores.

but to make the blanket statement of 'there are no good stores left anymore' is just an uninformed, elitist sounding statement.

[xlovecolouredx]

congrats, sandy....

[oakland]

I moved to Alabama once for about 18 months. I lived in the middle of nowhere (there wasn't even a mall for about 15-20 miles) and I found a record store in the back of a U-Haul store right down the road from my house. Got one of my rarest records there. So yeah, there are gems all over the place. Less and less, but they are still out there.

[selfreliable]

Great read! Lots of interesting comments he made. Besides the blanket statement (which I do see what he means, alot of record stores take the good stuff and sell on ebay now) I agree with alot of what he said. Also cool that his first record was The Stranglers!

[bill]

Good read, Sandy's a good fellow and he lives along the road from where I grew up.

[silentgods]

but i mean, can any of todays stores compare to a gigantic store in 75-85? when vinyl was the dominant medium?

yeah its kind of an elitist statement, but i can see where he's coming from.

[Guest]

Old dude is old. I'm sorry things are different from when you were young. That being said, dude seems pretty cool minus some of the old dude type opinions.

[silentgods]

"There are no good stores left anymore"

that's a pretty sweeping and i'm going to go with fairly inaccurate cynical statement. unless, of course, he's a world traveler and has frequented every record store on the planet, which i doubt.

kudos for the gigantic collection, though!

also aren't record collectors generally a cynical breed?

[lonesomexloveus]

"There are no good stores left anymore"

that's a pretty sweeping and i'm going to go with fairly inaccurate cynical statement. unless, of course, he's a world traveler and has frequented every record store on the planet, which i doubt.

kudos for the gigantic collection, though!

also aren't record collectors generally a cynical breed?

perhaps 'jaded' would have been a better word?

[jhulud]

[richiebullets]

Boston, in my own opinion (don't slam me anyone else in the 617/508/978, doesn't have one that I partucularly like. As somone who looks for the mid 90's punk/hc/ska and early HC records, Boston has nothing like that. The closest one around me is Armageddon Shop in Providence, and it's rare that I get down that way. Newbury comics has just turned mainstream, In Your ear has 2 punk sections, and the rest is rock/soul/jazz etc, which is fine. Same with Nuggets, Looney Toones, Weirdo Records, Cheapo records, etc. If a shop like Amoeba, Reckless, Regeneration, etc, opened up in Boston, that would be rad. Welfare records is rad, but again far out of my neighborhood.

sorry for the rant

true story...what happened boston? you used to be cool...

[xadamhudsonx]

but i mean, can any of todays stores compare to a gigantic store in 75-85? when vinyl was the dominant medium?

yeah its kind of an elitist statement, but i can see where he's coming from.

Ameoba Records in LA, SF, and Berkeley

The two Rasputin stores in SF get honorable mention.

[croy]

This was one of the best reads yet. Great answers.

"It’ll be interesting to see how many of the VC contributors are still around in 10 years time as I’ve seen first hand how fickle a lot of people are and lose interest after a while."

This made me think of that dude "selling my entire record collection" over in the sales section with maybe 30 records listed.

[lonesomexloveus]

but i mean, can any of todays stores compare to a gigantic store in 75-85? when vinyl was the dominant medium?

yeah its kind of an elitist statement, but i can see where he's coming from.

Ameoba Records in LA, SF, and Berkeley

The two Rasputin stores in SF get honorable mention.

i was to the ameoba store in san francisco (on my one and only trip out there) and died a little when i walked in and saw how huge it was. my non-record-collecting friends all died a little too when they realized how long i was going to spend in there.

[billynomates]

Remember Sandy lives in Scotland - the UK generally speaking has very few good record shops left - 10 years ago there was one in every town, now it's left to a few in big cities.

Well done on the Skids STD on Blue Sandy - been looking for that for 30 years. Pretty sure we met at record fairs in Newcastle - looking thro Round Ear stall...

[dynamitekid]

Ive traded with this person before. Great to see this!

[Guest markovianprocess]

Remember Sandy lives in Scotland - the UK generally speaking has very few good record shops left - 10 years ago there was one in every town, now it's left to a few in big cities.

This is very true. There is only one independent record shop I've been to in Scotland that I'd actually recommend to anyone and I've visited a fair few.

[vinyljunkie]

i can ALMOST back the no good record stores around. there are some decent ones, and some OK ones, but only a couple around the country i would call GOOD. and ive been around the country numerous times.

Its relative though. Kids who grow up with no record stores around, and get some pseudo-record store that specializes in mostly bongs and weed paraphernalia and gets a handful of records in, is going to think that a store that has 3 rows of punk records as a "good" store.

I cant tell you how many times ive been out of town and asked people for good record stores in the area, and actually went, and after going went......what a fucking waste of time, i dont see how ANYONE could call that a good record store.

There is a local store here that gets lots of raves, and people even on this board told me how awesome it was before moving here. I went and doubt i will ever need to set foot in again. There was a lot of 70s common records for 15 bucks, and maybe 2 used LPs in the indie/punk category. The new LPs were all over 20 bucks and either reissues of classic rock, or only the biggest mainstream indie releases. granted, thats certainly better than nothing, but its a far cry from a GOOD record store.

So i can see how coming from the 80s someone might say that there are no good stores anymore.

granted there are gems to be found everywhere, and pretty much every place is worth at least ONE trip to, but ive been to literally hundreds of record stores around the US and Canada, and id probably give the "great record store" distinction to maybe 5 stores.

the older you get though, the pickier you get, and you get frustrated with stores only carrying the more mainstream new releases, which is what most stores do, since thats not at all what the average older long time punk collector is looking for.

So a 35 year old who has been collecting records for 20 years is going to have a very different perspective on what constitutes a good store for them, as say a 16 year old kid buying his first few records and just discovering the tip of "independent" music.

[jimmythescumbag]

^ What he said.