Last new record I bought was DJ Healer Nothing to Loose and a bunch stuff in Hard Wax as a techno tourist in like April 2018. Other than that its been sub $8 wax but I’ll shell out $20 for a used gem lots. Stuff like Radiohead, Bjork, Kendrick, and Dilla that I won’t regret owning 20+ years down the line.
I’ve never bought wax to play out at functions but am thinking one day I’ll actually have money and do this for fun. Went to Berlin / HardWax for the first time last Spring, copped like 100€ in wax for the 2018 memories (Pom Pom, Koze, SleepArchive, Lowtec) and my mind was blown by the concept that a record store would have a copy for customers to listen to and then 10+ new copies of it in the back stock. I was so stoked at the time, but also shows just how little new record purchasing and how much dusty used record store digging in the Bay Area and Portland I had been doing in the 6 years prior to that.
I bought my first record, a noise remixed one off Record Store Day Akron/Family album, in 2009 before I owned a record player. I had inherited a friends records and tables at 16 but was way too irresponsible to keep them around, I think I sold them for a skateboard and a quarter of ganja…But I kept that Akron with me for 3-4 house moves until finally moving in with roomates that had tables, and then really got into it in 2011. Now I’ve got the bug and have been exploring music backwards through vinyl.
I want new labels to be able to continue to release vinyl in sustainable ways. There’s a label in Portland called Mississippi Records, also the name of their store, which is where I pretty much learned to dig. They do a CSR, short for Community Supported Records, model. Subscriptions go for as long as u wanna pay and you get X amount of records for your deposit on the first press along with some other goodies. I think it’s a cool model but only if you have a devoted following, not sure it can work in forward thinking and more trendy nebulous genre worlds like what we all nerd out on here.
https://sites.google.com/site/mississippicsr/
From the website above ^
Here’s how it works: You send us any amount of money, between $68 & $300 (sorry not paypal – you actually mail us a check or cash). In exchange, we will send every Mississippi/Change Record that comes out until that amount of money is tapped out. By printing & filling out the questionnaire below, you can customize what types of records you get (basically punk, international and Americana). An average Mississippi/Change title will set you back between $10 and $12. If you sign up for this service, some specialty limited press items (usually 300 copies printed with fancy sleeves!) will be sent that could cost as much as $13. 7" records will cost $5. Shipping per unit will vary between $3.50 and $5, depending on how many records ship at once. If money is left over in your account that does not add up to the cost of a single LP, we will simply send a check for your remaining balance along with the last record you receive.
Maybe someone else knows labels that are doing similar things / innovating models of distro??
These guys are a very special record store / label to me. Keeping it real amid Portland’s gentrifuckery…
