Just for the record

PL attempts to fight his vinyl addiction, but relapses

“It was his belief that a man could only properly hold “around four hundred” records in his mind. A collection should be no larger. He had no time for anyone (which was almost everyone, as he well knew) who amassed thousands of records “without regard to quality or importance”. There existed what he called a golden number. About this number he could grow quite mystical, but he would never tell me what it was. He would audition many records, but if he wanted to keep one, another had to go. Each new star had to deserve its place in the constellation. It had to be, in a word he always used with great gravity, “worthwhile”. For me, who found it wrenching to let go of anything, even music I never listened to and didn’t really like, this was impressive. Because of it, Bly was constantly buying and selling records, sometimes stringing together complex deals, acquiring material in which he had no pesonal interest to use as bargaining chips in some drawn-out game with another collector.”

I’m indebted to Et Al subscriber, Brendon O’Connor, Sydney University to Professor of US Politics and US Foreign Relations, for tipping me into Hari Kunzru’s White Tears, a bleak satire, set among obsessive American record collectors and from which the above quote is taken. I’d misread that paragraph the first time around and thought the perfect number of records was 40, not 400, and I’m feeling a little better about my failed attempt over the past few days to thin out my increasingly unmanageable collection of vinyl albums and singles.

Things haven’t got too out of hand, and even if they did, they’d never approach the sort of completist insanity of Brazilian Zero Freitas, who has gathered over 6 million records. It’s important for one’s self-esteem to know there is always somebody worse. Maybe there’s 700 odd LPs in my shed, possibly 200 singles. They were once contained to a set of shelves that held eight milk crates, but the records and the number of crates needed to house them have continued to grow until they now fill every available space. There’s also the ‘kitchen records’ which I, rather generously, buy as gifts for Sue, so I can play for her while up in the house. The topic is front of mind because I’ve had to make room for a few more crates (lets say four) from two other collections in recent times, and while it means I now have less leg room under the desk at which I’m now typing, and a little less floor space, I’m reassured that I’ve been almost ascetic in comparison to Freitas who once bought one million records from another collector.

Record collections are fascinating things. Like books on a shelf, they tell you a lot about the owner of the space you have just walked into. I remember some years ago at Rozelle Markets going through crates of records at a stall staffed by what appeared to be a mother and a young adult daughter. This stuff was right up my alley. A lot of Hunters, Harem Scarem, Laughing Clowns and all those alternative early 80s artists the crowd I ran with listened to. I figured I had probably been at a few gigs with the man – it felt like a male collection – who owned them, and then I had a sinking feeling. I complimented the woman on the records and said it was clearly put together by someone with good taste. Their faces confirmed my suspicions. Sadly, the husband and father was no longer among us and here they were flogging something he clearly cherished when he was.