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Nowadays you can get pretty much every record you want sooner or later by scouring Discogs. It’s a great platform for music fans and collectors in particular. But it’s also responsible for prices skyrocketing, at least partly. So, what can you do if you want to find rare records that don’t cost an arm and a leg? For me, local listings, formerly known as eBay local listings, has been the best source to find older records at really good prices. 

Sometime in September I found a listing of a hardcore record collection that really made my eyes pop. It was not just a collection of records, there were all kinds of crazy rare records in there that made me drool all over my keyboard - and that was only because  of the records in the pictures, which as it turned out showed only a small of part of the collection that was up for sale. I contacted the seller and he sent me videos of the whole collection. I made a list of everything I was interested in, but I quickly realized that I had to make some cuts because even a conservative estimate was a low four figure number if I really wanted everything on my list. So I made some cuts, and then I made some more cuts, and then I had a list I was happy with. I sent the seller my list with offers and we came to an agreement. 

In between sending back and forth messages with the seller, I asked two good friends of mine if they knew the guy because they lived roughly in the same area. You know, just to make sure the seller was legit. Not only did they know him, they were really good friends with him and had bought a whole bunch of records from him from the same collection. By coincidence my wife and I had made plans to visit our friends later that month, so they suggested we visit their friend and pick up the records I wanted in person. Perfect. No shipping = more money for records. 

When we went to the seller’s house he couldn’t have been nicer. I got to dig through the remains of a collection he’d bought from some other collector and got to hold some incredible records. Really a collector’s dream come true. I picked up the records I wanted, plus some more stuff he hadn’t ’t shown in the videos. Meanwhile, our kids played together and my son even got a ride along on the riding mower. So pretty much a perfect day.

I’d picked up a copy of this Driftnet 7” some time prior, but since this one came with a different cover and I didn’t know the song titles by heart, I picked up a second copy just because the cover screamed 90s hardcore. I don’t actually need two copies of this record, so one copy has been earmarked as a present for a friend of mine in the nearby future. 

2nd Press w/ Limited Cover on Keep It Alive Records

Inside of the cover with the address of the label and the numbering. I don’t know how many copies this is out of. 

#37/???

Collecting Have Heart records is a daunting and expensive enterprise, especially the Demo 7”, which came out on a myriad of pressings. I came up with my own parameters as to which variants I want to collect and which not, and for the Demo and What Counts 7” it’s mostly different covers. I hadn’t added anything to the 7” collection in a long time, so crossing off this one felt really good. 

Sink With Cali III Cover /100

Finding rare Go It Alone records is Really hard. The really rare stuff pops up very seldom on Discogs, and if something pops up, the prices are usually rather high, so finding one in the wild was pretty cool. Go It Alone kept it simple with this release. No special covers, just a few select different colours (black, red and white; the latter was used for a bunch of different versions). The main difference between all the different white variants are the labels. As you can see, this is the variant made for the record release show. Question: is this a thing in other genres as well? Are there record release variants for rock’n’roll, soul or hip hop records? I’m genuinely interested. 

Record Release Edition #66/70

What’s better than finding one rare record by a band you collect? Right, two! This record I hadn’t noticed in the videos. I don’t know why, but I was all the more excited when I found it while browsing through the 7”s. I just love Vancouver Gold. I still need a record release cover. I doubt that I will ever find a test press of this and I’ve never seen one of those red transition copies Kyle Whitlow talks about on his blog, so maybe one more copy for me and I think I’m good. 

1st Press w/ Train Tracks Cover #33/70

To stick with the theme of the last post: here’s one more variant of a Youth of Today record on We Bite Records. 

German/European Press on We Bite /???

I know that I dedicated this blog to posting about my record collection, as in vinyl records. BUT this was to cool a pick up not to write about it. I’ve been collecting Count Me Out for a bunch of years now and I’m quite happy with the collection I have. But I’ve never had a demo of theirs, so when I saw this sitting in a box with a bunch of other demos, I had to get it. 

This demo tape is very confusing to be honest. It’s not listed on Discogs. Well, there is a demo tape which was released in 1997 listed on Discogs, but it’s not this one. This comes with a Milo rip-off cover and is labelled “What The Fuck! 97”. 

The label says that the same songs are on both sides. Cool, no rewinding! The cassette itself is numbered #62/75. 

This is the inside of the cover and as you can see Jason Mazola is not the original singer. I’d heard this before but never knew for sure, but this confirms it. I hope the RIP after Jimmy‘s name only refers to him being in the band and not that he actually passed away. You can also see this is apparently a limited edition out of 15. I have #2.  

To make things completely confused, the spine reads Count Me Out Demo #2/75. 

Overall, me looking for records on local listenings couldn‘t have turned out better. Well, maybe if I‘d pulled the trigger on some of the heavy hitters that were available, but I‘m really happy with my record haul.