Old Rare New: The Independent Record Shop

There is nothing quite like the feeling of thumbing through LP after LP in a dusty old record shop, only to stumble upon some hidden treasure, new obsession or forgotten love. Old Rare New: The Independent Record Shop is a homage to the holy places of music collecting, complete with their particular anecdotes, peculiar characters, and unique environments.

Emma Pettit, formerly of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, has travelled across the UK and America into these eclectic spaces of musical exchange, interviewing record shop owners, collectors and musicians to provide a rich account of the increasingly rare independent record shop. Featured shops include Other Music (New York), Aquarius Records (San Francisco), Amoeba Records (California) and Jazz Record Mart (Chicago). The first comprehensive look at these important institutions, Old Rare New: The Independent Record Shop is an essential read for the musically inclined.

Featuring contributions by Byron Coley (Ecstatic Yod), James Dean Bradfield (Manic Street Preachers), Simon Reynolds, Devendra Banhart, Billy Childish, Bob Stanley (Saint Etienne), Sean Bidder (Vinyl Factory), Rob Da Bank (Bestival) and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy.

From the Back Cover
'There is nothing quite like walking into a strange little record store in a town far from home and finding a record you've been after for so long, you didnt even remember you wanted it until you flipped through the bin and saw it. There is no similar charge available online, and it can't be gotten from a CD. It is something unique to vinyl and little stores and the people who live to breathe their air.' - Byron Coley from Ecstatic Yod

The Long-Player Goodbye by Travis Elborough

A record-making invention

The CD was just a shiny toy; it was the LP that revolutionised the way we hear music

The Long-Player Goodbye
Travis Elborough
Sceptre £14.99, pp468

Is anyone likely to lament the death of CDs? The evidence suggests not. When EMI announced that it was shipping over a million unsold units of Robbie Williams' Rudebox to China for the polycarbonate plastic to be recycled into road surfacing landfill, it felt like a fair use of the discs, rather than the label's own critique of their artist. Other than audiophiles, thrilled by the sonic sheen that the compact disc promised when it arrived on the market in 1983, few people have warmed to the CD in the same way that they once fell for vinyl.

It was 35 years earlier, in June 1948, that Edward Wallerstein of Columbia Records in New York introduced the world to the LP. Standing flanked by two stacks of discs, he demonstrated the difference in playing time between a conventional shellac 78 and a 12-inch disc designed to spin at 33 revolutions per minute. This vinyl acetate platter lasted 22½ minutes - enough time, using both sides, to listen to Beethoven's 'Eroica', or the first part of Yes's Tales From Topographic Oceans, should it ever come to that.

While the LP was conceived with the classical market in mind (and because the Second World War caused a shortage in shellac), it opened up new sonic vistas. For instance, Eric Satie's idea of musique d'ameublement was realised by a deluge of LPs with titles such as Music for Dining, Music for Reading and the studiously un-erotic Music for Two People Alone.

There was a similar shortlived boom in 'travelogue' LPs. A specialist in this field was Jo Basile (later to compose the music for The Magic Roundabout), who created records such as Accordion de Paris, the sleeve of which featured a beret-clad musician serenading a saucy mademoiselle.

The arrival of the LP spurred on the nascent art of sleeve design, kindling the attachment between fan and artist (later generations would derive their kicks from the artwork for Roxy Music's Country Life or, later, Big Black's Songs About Fucking). But the real significance of the LP was that it encouraged musicians to think of themselves as artists for the first time - rather than as simply hired hands there to interpret the music under the control of a composer or arranger.

If any LP can be considered key, surely it's Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours (1955), which he crafted meticulously, recording at night to ensure his voice had the right love-torn timbre. Sinatra resurrected his career with the record and went on to outsell Elvis for the rest of the decade, even if Presley enjoyed more number one hit singles. Later the Beatles announced their highbrow ambitions through records such as Rubber Soul which, rather than simply being a collection of singles, felt like an intended whole, paving the way for Sgt Pepper.

The desirability of such developments is something that Travis Elborough skips in this enjoyable history of the LP. The Long-Player Goodbye peters to a close with the arrival of the compact disc, but the CD did nothing to dismantle this new conception of pop: on the contrary, record labels and new magazines like Q rushed to construct the rock canon, encouraging the idea that no home library could ever be complete without at least one Phil Collins album. The long history of the LP would really end with the arrival of the MP3 player (the MPMan F10 in America 10 years ago), which has reinvoked that old idea of the hit song as pop's chief currency. It's easier to love an iPod than a Sony Discman, too.

Buy Long Player Goodbye at the Guardian bookshop
A fascinating and funny history of the pop album from the invention of vinyl and the LP 60 years ago, to its revival in the iPod age. Filled with enough detail and idiosyncrasy to inclusive insight into how music has shaped our lives.

[Guardian]

Overdue Library Books Can Prevent You From Getting That New Car or Home

How One Overdue Book Can Hurt a Credit Record

It may be wrong to return a library book late — or to never return it. But how severe should the punishment be? Should it include being saddled with a bad credit score?

Abraham Kleinman says no. Mr. Kleinman, a lawyer from Uniondale, N.Y., represented a Queens man who sued Unique Management Services for reporting his $295 late bill from the Queens Library system to credit bureaus. The man, Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow, won a settlement on a technicality — Unique’s license to operate in New York State had lapsed when it reported him — but Mr. Kleinman is still angry about the tactic that was used against his client.

A library fine is not really a debt, Mr. Kleinman argues, and should not be covered by regulations that allow collection agencies to report bad consumer behavior.

“That’s his opinion,” said Kenes Bowling, a spokesman for Unique. For 15 years, the company has operated a successful “materials collection” business as a debt collector for libraries, and it relies on its ability to threaten scofflaws with negative credit reports.

When a patron fails to return a book and is then billed for it by a library, Mr. Bowling said, “it is a legitimate debt, and it is credit-reportable.”

It is not clear how many library patrons are reported to credit bureaus, or how many of them have trouble getting credit as a result. The three main credit bureaus, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian, compile information from lenders and debt collectors and provide it to banks and other lenders who use it to estimate how likely a consumer is to repay a loan — and thus who should get credit and at what interest rate.

Federal regulations limit only how old a late payment can be before it is reported and for how long — seven years — that negative information can stay on a consumer’s record. It is up to credit bureaus to decide what kinds of payments to record, and they generally choose the ones that they think will be useful to the lenders who are their clients, said Rebecca Kuehn, assistant director of the Federal Trade Commission’s division of privacy and identity protection.

Experian and TransUnion accept reports from Unique, according to spokesmen for those companies, but only put debts of more than $50 on consumers’ records.

David Rubinger, a vice president at Equifax, initially said that the company did not accept reports of library debts. It would be unfair, he said, because not all libraries use a debt collector, and consumers whose libraries do not use them would have an advantage in the marketplace over people whose libraries do.

But on further investigation, Mr. Rubinger said that Equifax had received library reports without realizing it because the nature of a debt is not always clear in the records. The data was discarded because it lacked the numerical coding that the company required to categorize types of debts.

Traditionally, only loans and other debts in which the payments are made over time and assessed interest — such as mortgages, car notes and credit cards — end up on credit reports.

In recent years, debt collectors in some states have reported rent and utility payments. Credit bureaus say the practice is a way for people who choose not to buy on credit to show that they pay their bills on time. Critics say the additional reports extend creditors’ reach.

Mr. Kleinman argued that if library fines are reported, they should also be used to establish a positive credit record.

“It should be the good, the bad and the ugly,” Mr. Kleinman said. “If you can report a library record, it should be balanced and should include all the times that a consumer visited the library and followed the rules.”

Mr. Bowling said fewer than 10 percent of the library patrons that Unique contacts about overdue materials and unpaid fines end up being reported to the credit bureaus.

Once a library debt is paid, Mr. Bowling said, even if it has been reported to a credit bureau, it usually has “minimal to zero influence on a person’s credit rating.” The amounts are usually too small to concern creditors.

But creditors do take notice if the report says the library patron has an outstanding debt or overdue materials, Mr. Bowling said. “So if I, for example, have an unpaid library debt on a credit report, and I apply for a mortgage, usually the creditor will not extend credit unless the debt is paid,” he said.

Steven R. Katz, a spokesman for TransUnion, said the best way to stay out of trouble is to pay all debts promptly.

“If you attempt to apply that rule across all your dealings, whether it’s a library book or a parking ticket or a credit card account, you’ll never have to wonder because you’ll know that you’re handling your finances in a responsible way,” he said.

Jeannean Kenney, a senior policy analyst at Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, said: “What will be shocking for consumers is a five-year-old library fine could affect your credit score. You don’t expect it to land on your credit report.”

Source [NYTimes]

Similar story was posted last year on MSNBC