Today was the first day of the WFMU Record Fair. I awoke at 9:00am this morning and grabbed my belongings from my father’s house, raced (down the street) to my mother’s house, and prepared for the day. I toasted a whole wheat bagel (you have no idea how much I’ve missed East Coast bagels! Fuck L.A. bagels!) and spread some peanut butter on it. I grabbed a Snapple and a bottle of water, my box of records, and drove into Manhattan. Even with a stop at Bank of America for some cash, it took only 30 minutes to reach the Holland Tunnel. Traffic was non-existant. I’m sure tomorrow will be a different story, but at 11am there were no cars backed up on the Turnpike extension or the 139 approach. The satellite radio in my mother’s car made the drive a bit more fun.
I drove to 19th Street and called my bosses, who responded excitedly about meeting them and delivering the box of foam boards I had shipped to my mother’s house earlier this week. When I turned onto 19th Street, I noticed a line stretched around the corner of record dealers waiting to load-in for the day. I asked one of my bosses what he thought of the process, and he laughed and remarked about how many records there were waiting to be sold. After they removed the foam boards from the trunk of the car I drove to a parking lot on 22nd Street, and walked back to the fair.
I was given a dealer pass and brought inside. We opened the box of foam boards and tried to figure out how to best utilize them. Someone had a good idea to cut some of the boards into braces that could be taped to folding chairs, which would allow boards to stand up almost perfectly vertical. We constructed maybe 9-12 displays this way. As they unpacked their wares and figured out the best way to display all the records and memorabilia, I began walking around the room and visiting other dealers’ tables.
The first record in the first bin I looked at was an original copy of the Spacemen 3 record Recurring, so I considered that a sign that this would be a good day of shopping. It turned out to be true, too, as I spent $140 (a whole $60 under my estimated total for the day!) on a variety of recordings. I found some good deals and some not-so-good deals, all of which I will describe now for my fellow collector scum readers:
This Heat – Health And Efficiency ($22)
Breeders – Pod (1st Press) ($15)
Whitehouse – Wriggle Like A Fucking Eel ($15)
Bachs – Out Of The Bachs ($30) (Finally!)
Deerhoof – Reveille ($20)
Tar – Jackson ($3)
Cows – Sexy Pee Story ($8)
Jack Rose – Raag Manifestos ($10) (still-sealed!)
Om / Current 93 – Split 10″ ($6) (clear wax)
Howlin’ Wolf – His New Album ($10) (original)
I recognized so many people today from all over the world, it was super embarrassing and nerdy. A Japanese dealer who I helped to buy many, many psych/prog records a few months ago stopped to say hello to me, and informed me that he’d be in the store on Monday. I told him I wouldn’t be there to help him, but to have a good time. At least three other dealers were customers I’ve helped at the store, and many more admitted to being online customers. It was quite fascinating to meet some of them, and to see other dealers from stores across the country who I’ve met before and recognized, or vice versa. Thurston Moore was looking at records next to me when I found the Howlin’ Wolf record. It took all my power not to turn and ask him if he could run down the street and get me a Starbucks. Sell-out!
Ian and Jon showed up around 7:00, and they helped reinvigorate me, as I was starting to lose it a little bit towards the end of the day. Although, my bosses paid for my pizza and poured me a glass of red wine from the bottle they were sharing while I helped man their tables, so that was super nice of them, and it helped keep me from falling asleep. Ian found a nice, clean original copy of the Dennis Wilson LP (the last one on eBay sold for more than double what he paid) and a Kevin Ayers LP he’s been desiring for some time. I think he just about creamed his pants when he saw it. Hilarious! Jon was mostly interested in Brit Pop stuff, which was not easy to find today. Hopefully he’ll have better luck tomorrow. Speaking of which, tomorrow I’m getting the chance to sell a few records of my own — as well as some for Jack — so hopefully a modest 10% commission plus whatever I make on my own records will provide me with the money I’ll need to do some more shopping.
It was also good to see Justin and Sharon, who I haven’t seen in ages. Sharon’s father was selling some of his jazz records, so the two of them were helping him however they could. He’s got an amazing collection, based on everything I’ve heard from Ian and from browsing through what he had for sale today. Sharon snapped this lovely picture of the three nerds pretending to shop.
Oh, God. I’m hideous. How am I getting laid?
As the clock raced towards closing time (10pm), we ducked out and I drove Ian and Jon back to their street (they live across the street in SoHo! how gaycute!), and we listened to some of our records and had a beer. We tried out Jon’s VPI on some of my noisy records to no avail (damn you, Frigid Stars, will you ever not sound so dirty!). He claims the next time I’m home he’ll have better VPI fluid, but I think he’s just trying to justify the poor outcome of washing my discs. And now I have to wash my dick, so I can go to bed and get a few good hours of sleep. I think I’m a little jet-lagged. I don’t get tired easily enough.
