Just a quick post before I grab some sleep … the 5 most watched tunes are now
Underkut/Under Kut - Both Ends has attracted the most bids and The Men From Del Bosca - El-Bland-E has the highest current price at £29.
I know some of you may be interested in how I created all the soundclips to go with each listing, so here is how I did it. Nothing magic or particularly easy I’m afraid … and overall it was very timeconsuming!!
I’ve been ripping all my vinyl for years now. I think my first rips were done back in 2001 on an old Citronic deck fed through some cheapo Amp and into a pretty rubbish soundcard. These days I try an do a proper job using my 1210’s combined with a quality amp/soundcard. Anyway, I’ve always used Adobe Audition for the ripping process and it does a blinding job. Everything is ripped at @192 with the occasional one @320.
Every record I have up for sale I have ripped in the past so I have the original mp3’s. These are way to big to make available for download as sound samples (averaging I suppose around 7Mb a track). Six months of looking drew a blank and then totally by chance I stumbled across GoldWave and it did exactly what I needed it do. It has a built in batch processor/converter so I could just point the program to all my mp3’s and tell it to trim and re-encode at a lower bit-rate (64kbps Mono) which created much smaller files at only 712Kb. Result. It was still time consuming, but much quicker than doing it by hand one at a time.
Job done. I created 1080 sound clips for these auctions and my only concern now is that my monthly server bandwidth allocation will not be enough. Fingers crossed!!
Just a quick little update on how things developed through the night. The five tunes currently generating the most interest are :
No real surprises there. I’ll post more later today about how I made my listings and a few stats about the number of sound samples and label images I made.
It’s time to resurrect the old blog … I started it with such good intentions but they soon disappeared. Anyway, the purpose of this resurrection is to keep a daily update of how things develop with the sale of my tunes on Ebay. You see it’s not just any old sale of everyday 99p run-of-the-mill vinyl, this is a selection of big time sought after classics. I’ve been planning this since the beginning of December and it’s basically taken me close to 2 months to get all the listings prepared. Tonight, scheduled through Turbo Lister, they all went live. So for the next 10 days I will be somewhat tense as some of the jewels from my cherished collection go out there to fend for themselves on their way to finding a new home.
Tonghts post is just a quick one as I’m off for some sleep in a minute, but here are a couple of snippets of goodness from the first 4 hours of listing …
More tomorrow morning.
I’ve had this heap of unlabelled video tapes sat next to me for months now. I could vaguely recall what was on them, but couldn’t be totally sure. Inquisitiveness finally got the better of me, and I dug out my old VCR from it’s retirement spot in the garage.
First tape in the slot, press play and straight in with a result … it’s (a very young) Mode 2 at Freestyle ‘85 talking about the Crime Time Kings. This footage was part of the epic ‘Get The Message‘ documentary made by The Artful Dodger back in 1994.
Freestyle ‘85 -Jubilee Hall, Covent Garden, London, December 1985.
A review of the event by Justin Onyera appeared in issue 9 of Street Scene magazine;
It’s a fairly cold Saturday morning and a strong cosmopolitan crowd of a few hundred youngsters have lined-up patiently outside Covent Garden’s Jubilee Hall. They’ve all come to see an exhibition of the best British graffiti art, break dancing and rapping. Under the banner of ‘Freestyle ‘85′, the organisers, Centre Promotions - a non-profit committee composed of some of the performers themselves - hope to ensure a more genuine insight into the subculture that grew out of the South Bronx, which has had more than it’s fair share of exploitation in recent years.
The proposed line-up, thought literally London dominated, is impressive; Sipho the Human Beat Box, Imperial Mixers, rapper Daddy Speedo, London All-Star Breakers, graffiti artists Chrome Angels and IDJ dancers, to name a few. Inside, the main hall is divided into two sections. Graffiti murals line the perimeter of one half, while the main focal point - the stage - occupies part of the other section.
The hall is now prominently full, the Imperial Mixers are warming up with some stabbing, jittery tracks and a crew are stabilising their filming positions. In the graffiti section of the hall, a notepad clutching group congregates around the Chrome Angels, seeking arty signatures from them. “We’ve been doing art for two years,” says Pride, “and have had an exhibition of our work in Paris and London. We want people to respect us for what we do and our main aim isn’t to make money, but to stay ahead.”
Throughout the afternoon, there seemed to be a lack of continuity in the performances. Sipho and Live to Break dancers had done their spots and during the long lapses, videos were shown or Sergeant V or Daddy Speedo tried to hold things together with some pleasant rapping. “It’s good now that rapper are rapping to the people instead of against each other,” noted 15 year old Sipho.
The main disappointment though was the non-appearance of the IDJ Dancers and London All-Star Breakers. They might have added more of the zest and created some of the high-pitched excitement the exhibition needed.
In essence though, the exhibition was a breakthrough. It highlighted at least the commitment of a group of performers to establish a strong footing for the subculture they’ve now become part of. And it’s that commitment and determination, you can not take away from them.
As an event that was so ground breaking, it’s not at all well documented. Junk from Second To None has put together a blinding page of photos taken during the event. A few screen-caps (and some extended footage for sale on DVD) appear on Aerosol Planet.
Here is a little bit more from the history archives. Enjoy.
A few months ago I started to rip most of tape packs to mp3. I’ve been doing my vinyl for several years now, but had yet to really spend any time sorting through the many (read hundreds) of tapes I still have. Dreamscape, Dance Planet, Helter Skelter, AWOL, Yaman studio, Quest, The Edge, Vibealite, Obsession, United Dance, Temptation …. the lot …. all getting dusty sat in a corner. I’d spent time ripping a few back in 2003 when I used Soulseek a lot. Just the best ones, Bukem & Top Buzz at Universe, DJ Hype’s ‘Ruff Stuff’ and a few other choice sets that had remained resident in my walkman for years.
It was around this time I started to seriously buy vinyl again, and some of the first tunes I wanted were the ones on these tapes. Hype’s ‘Ruff Stuff Volume 5′ was my starting point, and after a bit of searching, I found an almost complete tracklisting on breakizm. Not sure who put it together, as breakizm is now closed for business, and the only existing reference available is a cached Google page which is missing any credit.
Is credit important? As I hastily copied that list back in 2003 and added each tune into my favourite searches on Ebay, I probably didn’t give it much thought. Why should I? It takes a lot of time and hard work, that’s why.
A couple of months ago I started the tracklistings for Dance Planet Detonator III. An event that took place early in 1994 … the time when I was going weekly to events & clubs and buying the most vinyl. I’m an authority on this period, so how hard could it be to remember the tunes? Reality check. Just 5 minutes into the first tape and I’m stuck … that’s just two tunes in and the first one was ‘Dark Stranger’! Not letting this put me off, I persevere and end up with a 50% complete listing for Slipmatt’s set. 2 hours to do half of one tape from an 8 tape pack. Words like frustrating & irritating sum up the process nicely. You know the tune … it’s on the tip of your tongue … but it escapes you. Time to trawel through the mp3’s to see if you can find it.
Eventually I get through all 8 tapes and I end up with an 80% complete set of listings (I had a little help from Paul Waight). I admit I’m not the expert I thought I was, and look upon the tracklistings others have done with much greater respect.
There are currently 735 Jungle & 378 Drum n Bass releases listed on discogs for 1994. Take into account those that aren’t yet listed, the tunes mixed in from previous years or from other genres, and you’ve got an incredible amount to remember.
The tracklisting for Detonator III is now complete all except for one tune … maximum respect to JJ for filling in the gaps. Next stop for me, the United Dance & Temptation six pack.
Pay homage to :
These guys provide some of the most valuable resources you could ever wish for.
It’s been a quiet week on Ebay for old skool sales. Just a few big sellers to mention, with some of the regular money makers going for a bargain. Prices are definitely in the buyers favour right now! Imagine picking up a copy of STEP01 - Cheeba City ‘Hardcore Disco’ for just £13.06 a few months ago …. inconceivable!
Yesterday I was checking out the excellent article about the Lazerdrome and peeped their Flyer Gallery. Knowing I had some old Lazerdrome flyers, I had a root around to see what I could find. Whilst doing this I found a whole bunch of old black and white photocopied zines from 1993 and 1994 which I’d totally forgotten I had. It’s a bit fiddly scanning them, but I thought it’ll be worthwhile … so to kick things off, here is Issue #48 of Ravescene Magazeen published sometime around February 1994.
Click the thumbnails to view a larger image.
I’ll scan up some more as I find time. If this tickles your fancy, then have a look at The Vault. There is some really obscure stuff scanned and posted on there including issue 2 of Labello Magazine and some Brain Records business cards!
Staurday 24th July 1993
Rollerbury, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Despite being into the music long before the summer of 1993, up until this night I’d only really been to small gatherings and house parties. Quite odd looking back …. but that’s how it was and I won’t claim anything different.
Thinking about it now, I don’t really remember any specifics about the night … danced a lot right up the front by the stage, shook hands with most members of The Prodigy after their live PA … but I do distinctly remember to this day the overwhelming feeling of discovering something so special when walking out of that place at 7am.
If anyone does happen to have some audio, video or photos from this night, then I’d be eternally grateful if you could pass it/them my way.
If prices on Ebay are anything to go by (are they ever), popularity for these obscure mid-90’s releases seems to be at an all time high. Both Crazy Bald Head and Jungle In Jungle have sold for 200+ pounds in the last few days.
Last month JIB001 (a remix of General Degree ‘Papa Lover’) sold for £100.
I wonder how many more of these will surface, and how their value change over time.
