In the wee hours of Thanksgiving morn, I found myself insomnia/depression scrolling through eBay to pass the time. I wasn't really looking for anything in particular but merely plugging in different band names to see if anything interesting was available.
That's when a test pressing of Killer Of Sheep's album Scorned popped up. It was being sold by someone from the label that put the record out and it was being sold at a not so friendly price. And that price stuck in my craw a bit.
The likelihood is very high that I could have come up with a copy of this test pressing locally, and at a better price, by sending around a few text messages or making some phone calls. Both weighed down heavily with a heaping helping of gratitude and many a “Please and Thank you.” But that wasn't the point.
The point is that that record should not have been out in the wild in the first place. And definitely not in the savage lands of eBay. As Indiana Jones famously said, “That belongs in a museum!!!” or, at the very least, in my record collection.
A test pressing of Scorned deserves a loving home and who am I not to provide said home. I also wanted to keep it out of the hands of the cursed record flippers who scoop records up and resell them for double the price somehow forgetting that at the end of the day, these are only records. If you'd like evidence of that, there is currently a copy of the first Killer Of Sheep EP, Out Of Time, being sold on Discogs for $99.50. The last time that 7-inch was sold on the site, it went for three dollars. I'm glad I've got a few of those laying around.
One of the pitfalls of being a record nerd is that there are some records that I will buy every time I see them in the bins. This is why I have several old pressings of the same Clash records. I take them home, clean them up and keep them in a temperature and light controlled environment. When I take one off the shelf to listen to, I make sure to grab a different one from the last time so they all get played from time to time. My house is more or less an animal rescue/sanctuary but for records. I know it's weird and trivial but at least I'm not beating up church ladies for their social security checks or a cop for a hobby.
That's why when I saw the test pressing of a record from a band that means a lot to me I had no problem plunking down a day's wages to get it off of the market and onto my shelves. The fact that the guy from label was charging such a high price for it bothered me to no end so I could also suggest that I bought the record out of spite. I know that handing over way too much money for a record that should not have been sold for that amount of money makes little to no sense but I never said I was smart.
I paid up and eagerly awaited my shipping notification. Since the record was coming from Southern California, I knew it might take a minute to land on my porch. My patience was rewarded earlier this week when it arrived among a stack of other vinyl mailers. I am almost positive that everyone that works at my post office hates me due to the frequent trips they make to my house which is why I tip big during the holiday season.
I figured out which package contained Scorned and put it aside. Saving the best for last. First up was a Bad Religion bootleg of a show from 1989 followed by the second Okilly Dokilly record which is a Ned Flanders/Simpsons themed metal band. The third vinyl mailer actually had a book in it which was fitting since it was a book about record collecting titled Stay Fanatic!!!, Vol.2 by Henry Rollins.
Then it was time to open the Killer Of Sheep record and holy shit was I disappointed and furious when I opened that package. The record was only shipped in the paper sleeve that came from the pressing plant that had the hand written information on it. The asshole at the label stuffed it in the vinyl mailer without making sure it was flat so by the time it landed in Pittsburgh, the paper sleeve was severely wrinkled. This might not seem like a big deal but as someone that would like to archive this test pressing for posterity and evidence that the band existed, this is a huge fucking problem. And somehow, the record itself was covered in scratches and some sort of grit. Were they keeping a potted plant on it at the office? Fucking savages. You'd think they'd have taken note of how much I paid for the damned thing and maybe packed it more securely.
This is one of the other pitfalls of record collecting. Encountering a record seller that does not have an appreciation for the sincerity and psychosis of the record buyer. I could have gone unhinged and sent a nasty email to the seller and left a less than positive rating for the transaction but that would not have settled anything or magically fixed the condition of the record.
I gave the record a bath, placed the sleeve between a couple of box sets in an effort to flatten it back out and wrote damn near a thousand words about the ordeal, you know, like a normal person would do. And after a few listens, the scratches don't seem to have any affect on the play back.
I would like to think that I'll get tired of record collecting at some point and succumb to the awfulness of streaming, especially because incidents like this sure do suck the fun out of it. But then again, ones and zeroes over broadband don't create cool artifacts that me and maybe four other people care about.
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