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Mikal Gilmore has written about music and pop culture, among other things, since the 1970s. A frequent contributor to Rolling Stone magazine, he’s interviewed and written about hundreds of music notables over the ensuing decades. During that time, Gilmore accumulated a collection of about 20,000 LPs and another 20,000 CDs — and that collection goes up for sale via the Discogs online marketplace tomorrow, Friday, July 17, 2026, at 12pm Pacific time (PDT) / 3pm Eastern time (EDT).

Permanent Records, which is owned by Lance Barresi and is based in Los Angeles, acquired Gilmore’s collection last year. They will be selling the collection in batches, or “drops,” on Discogs, starting at the appointed time noted above.

An official Discogs press release tells us what’s being offered first: “The first drop showcases some of the collection's most coveted pieces, including test pressings of Bad Brains’ Rock for Light and New Order’s Movement [shown above]; a promotional copy of Alice In Chains’ We Die Young; first pressings of Joni Mitchell’s Blue and Descendents’ Milo Goes to College; and David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars alongside a copy of [Bowie’s] Low, complete with original promotional materials.”

The press release continued, “Many of the artists represented are the very musicians Gilmore profiled throughout his career, giving collectors the rare opportunity to own records connected not only to the artists themselves, but to one of the journalists who helped shape how generations experienced their work.”

The massive Gilmore collection sell-off comes on the heels of Discogs’ successful sale of 1,000 items from the late Television frontman Tom Verlaine’s record collection. That entire lot sold out in less than 6 hours. (Footnote 1)

Permanent Records’ Barresi (seen above with some of the offerings at hand) said that the Gilmore collection is “one of the largest and best collections we’ve ever had the privilege to handle. The condition is immaculate, and the amount of ephemera included is mind-blowing. There are more promos and press kits in these 17,000-plus records than we’ve ever seen before in one collection. The personalized notes from some of the people that sent these records to Mikal are beautifully heartwarming too. Mikal took great care of his records, and we’re honored to help find them new homes.”

These days, Gilmore (above right) writes a Substack blog called “Night Beat,” and in a post there that dropped today (#146), he wrote, “My wife Elaine [Schock; above middle] helped find [Barresi; above left]. I don’t think it would have been possible to come across and trust a buyer we felt better about — somebody who would help the collection find others who love music as much as I have since age 16.”

Aside from his decades of music criticism and journalism, Gilmore’s acclaimed 1994 book Shot in the Heart was about his brother Gary Gilmore, a confessed murderer who was killed by a firing squad in Utah in 1977 (a death he requested). The book won a National Book Critics Circle Award, and was made into an HBO movie starring Giovanni Ribisi as Mikal and Elias Koteas as Gary.

The Adverts’ 1977 punk single “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes” (seen above), used in the movie’s soundtrack, was written from “the point of view of a hospital patient who has received the eyes of Gary Gilmore in a transplant,” according to a Boston Globe review of the 2003 punk box set No Thanks! The ’70s Punk Rebellion, which includes the song.

In a January 2026 “Night Beat” post (#3) titled “How the Collection Became a Problem,” Gilmore wrote that his records played such a pivotal role in his life — and indeed, his enjoyment of life — that he allowed the ever-growing collection to sour some relationships and dominate his living spaces.

Without offering details, he said he lost possession of the collection in 2001 and eventually got it back, but he endured a series of “greater perils of loss . . . deadly illness and broken heart” in recent times, which caused him to “weigh what you value.” The post infers, without saying directly, that different priorities — and a massive 32TB digital music library — led him to part with his physical music media.

As for Barresi, he started Permanent Records in Chicago in 2006, and it moved to Los Angeles in 2011. Today, the L.A. record store is part of the Permanent Records Roadhouse complex, along with a bar and a live music venue. See the YouTube clip above for a recent video tour.

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Footnote 1: Go here for more on the Verlaine collection sale, but note that this story may appear behind a paywall for some readers.