Record Buying Tips

ECM recently sent an email blast containing a link to the label's vinyl catalogue, which you can "thumb" through to see all that's available.

You can find a great deal of information online about matrix codes and their meaning. Unfortunately some of it is incorrect.

CES coverage will continue, but first this: the daughter of a west coast record producer who had amassed a large vinyl collection she'd inherited and wished to sell contacted me last year asking how best to do it.

The Princeton Record Exchange isn't what it used to be but it's still better than it once was. Of course "back in the day" the store was records and nothing but records. Then came CDs and DVDs and the emphasis shifted. After all, it's in a college town.

You say you don't want to spend hundreds on an original LSC-1806 "Living Stereo" or LSC-1817 or $1500 on the Soria box set LDS-6065? That's understandable. By the numbers: LSC-1806 is the 1954 stereo spectacular "Also Sprach Zarathustra" with Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony. Of course RCA couldn't issue it on vinyl in 1954, though it did issue it in stereo on reel to reel tape well before the vinyl, which didn't get released until 1960.

Do you own a copy of Buckingham Nicks? It was Stevi Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham's pre-Fleetwood Mac pairing featuring an icky cover both probably regret. Issued on Polydor in 1973 it's credits show that the duo and producer/engineer Keith Olsen knew what they were doing!