For The Record

There are a lot anti-vinyl sentiments being scattered around the the web these days. From the concept that record collectors are doing nothing more than collecting a tsunami of toxic waste to the reports that the record industry has one foot in the grave; I am here to set the record straight on these two topics and toss my opinion in regarding a few bits of mis-information being thrown around.

1. The Record Industry Is In Decline.

And no I won't provide a link to the WSJ article as it is simply a fabrication from start to finish, used to feed a slanted narrative to generate ad revenue from clicks.

But, I will say that if you believed the WSJ article, you would be believing a series manufactured statistics, taken out of context, that indicated a "small dip" in vinyl sales spells the end of the world for the record industry. Much in the same the phrase "Blood is thicker than water." is today taken to mean family is more important than friends. When in reality, the context of the original phrase was "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." which is a reference to the bond of soldiers shedding blood together being more important and stronger than the bonds of families.

The fact is, the record industry is healthy and growing.

All industries experience swings, both up and down, in sales; from automobiles to food to diapers. The WSJ did not report that there was lack of growth in sales, but rather that the growth in 2016 had not been as high as it was the previous years and that this decline in growth was cause for us to throw in the towel.

It a commonly observed and respected that in any given industry, healthy growth is considered to be between 2% and 3% year to year. There is a boom of growth in any industry's growth as adoption is high, meaning consumers are clamoring for the product and this typically happens with new products showing a 10% or more growth during this boom. Vinyl sales experienced that as the number of millennials discovered vinyl and older generations found the love of the medium again. Depending on the size of the industry, this number can, of course, fluctuate, but a mature, large industry growth at a rate of 2% to 3% is considered good, especially in an industry as old as music. So 12% growth is far from the "death of vinyl' as the WSJ article would like you to think.

Now I did write a post a few weeks back regarding the possibility of the vinyl bubble bursting, but my post had more do with over-saturation in the manufacturing industry, repressings and the impact this could have in arena of used record sales (which sales numbers are not tracked). What my post did not analyze was market reports. It was focused on manufacturing saturation.

The fact remains: Records sales were still reporting 12% growth in 2016; way above the average for an industry of this size and maturity. This is considered in good health. Sony recently announced they were reopening their record pressing plants in Japan because of the success of records in the marketplace. Sony may screw a lot of things up, but Sony doesn't usually make a decision like this if the market is on a downward slide. There is a great retort to the WSJ article by the guy named Daniel Sanchez. I would suggest you check it out.

2. Your Record Collection Is Bad For The Environment

Well this is both true and false, but I am here to set the record straight on this subject.

It is cool today to shame anything that is popular. Be it body-shaming, salary-shaming or green-shaming. If it s popular, it appears to be shame worthy. Hell, I am openly opinion-shaming in this article and even admitted it, but at least I am admitting it.

The general nature of the current debate is that records are worse for the environment than digital or CD formats. This is being widely spread online. From articles claiming the environmental impacts being devastating to an essay from an artist claiming he would never release another album on vinyl because of the impact of the environment.

The environmental hysterics all stem from one little toxic compound...

Polyvinyl chloride, PVC, which is the material most records are made from, is a plastic compound that requires a stabilizer like barium, zinc and calcium carboxylates (and until recently, Lead). PVC is commonly regarded as the most toxic of the plastics in the family of plastics because one of the main ingredients; vinyl chloride as it is a known human carcinogen (cancer causing agent).

But what you may not hear in these doomsday articles is that PVC is also commonly found in the following products;  Pipes (including pipes delivering drinking water, approved in 2007 by California), electrical cables, siding for houses, decals, automobiles, clothing (Goth, Punk, fetish and other alternative fashion wear) as well as waterproof sportswear (ski gear, shoes, aprons and handbags), flooring materials and even in our healthcare (tubing used for blood work, catheters, heart-lung bypass sets, hemodialysis and even as an alternative to latex gloves)... and so much more... like greenhouses, home playgrounds, foam and other toys (action and inaction figures), custom truck toppers (tarpaulins), ceiling tiles... the list literally goes on and on and on.

Our lives are basically surrounded with PVC. So records are no worse for you than eating a burger, potato salad and chips off a reusable plastic plate at a BBQ, or reheating your lunch contained in a PVC plastic container in the microwave. Seriously.

But what many of these anti-vinyl stories aren't telling you is that the chemicals used in making your phone, MP3 player or other digital music device aren't any less toxic. Most electronics made today contain some, if not all of the following ingredients, or use them during the manufacturing process; Berylium, Cadmium, Chromium Hexavalent, Lead, Mercury, Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs), and yes, even polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

And if you use a device that has a rechargeable battery, well let me tell you something about these things. Lithium batteries contain electrolytes called super-halogens, and majority of these super-halogens also happen to be toxic halogens. Oh and while we are on the topic of super-halogens, breathing some toxic super-halogens gases at a concentration of 0.1% for several minutes is actually lethal.

And the reality is, lithium-ion battery technology is not safe. Short circuits, overcharging, over-discharging, crushing, and high temperatures can lead to what is known as a thermal runaway; a fire that leads to an explosion. Even if your battery doesn't experience thermal runaway, one study found that Lithium batteries when heated up, during normal use of a device, leaked more than 100 toxic gases including carbon monoxide.

Have you ever heard of a record leaking toxic gases during normal use? Better yet, have you ever heard of a record experiencing thermal runaway? I mean Van Halen's 1984 was hot and all, but it never spontaneously burst into flames and exploded on me during playback. Has a record ever released a gas so toxic that exposure to even the smallest concentration of it for a mere few minutes could prove lethal?

And CDs aren't much better in the plastics toxicity arena. CDs are... plastic. Duh Dun Duuuuun. Their cases are... you guessed it, plastic. All plastics come from petroleum. Guess what petroleum is; toxic.

Another argument is that records weigh more than CDs and therefore use more fuel in the shipping process. You know what weighs as much or more than records that gets shipped? Cars, turkeys, hams, canned foods, frozen vegetables, Cards Against Humanity.

There is no perfectly green solution when it comes living. The worst thing to happen to this planet is humans. Sorry... that just happens to be a true statement.

And yes, the making of music has an environmental impact. Hell the music making process is filled with plastics; instruments have plastics, including PVC. Amps, tuners, guitar picks, mixing boards, microphones, cables, speakers... all have toxic materials used in their manufacturing process. A tree or two are cut down to make a single guitar. A baby llama is scarified every time Justin Beiber releases a new album. Just so we have full disclosure, the llama/Beiber reference was just a joke.

My point is, humans can't get away from having an environmental impact. And while I am not condoning the slash-burning millions of acres of rain forest, you know because I recycle, I am asking you to not let the uninformed chicken littles of the world tell you the sky is falling just because they have their own trend they're following. Be responsible, but enjoy life as much as you can, because life is too short to not enjoy it.

In Conclusion

Let's face it folks, nothing in this world is worse for the environment than humans.

But records are no more dangerous to us or the environment than CDs, digital music players or anything else for that matter. Yes there are risks. Yes, there are costs, but these can be and are being mitigated through the most modern green manufacturing processes. And as we learn more, the manufacturing processes get greener and safer every year.

I would argue that a good record collector, one that looks for a used pressing instead of buying a newly pressed reissue, which keeps the old pressing out of the landfills, is probably more environmentally friendly than the person that buys a digital music player/streamer that has to be disposed of after two years because the lithium battery doesn't hold a charge anymore and isn't replaceable by the consumer; that's right Apple I am calling you out for that starting that money grabbing trend called disposable consumer electronics.

See, just I just apple-shamed.

My turntable has been around since 1973 and it still works great. Show me any digital player (iPhone, iPod, Zune, Galaxy or other device) that can even come close to experiencing that much longevity; 44 years. Show me a CD that was made in the mid to late 80s that is still playable. I have a record that was pressed in 1923 that plays like it was new. When compared to the two to three year life span of a cellphone, or Black Friday television, old music formats and vintage electronics used to play them far better on the environment than anything made today.

Furthermore the record industry remains in good health; for the time being. If you're gonna have a heart attack every time you look at record sales numbers, I strongly recommend you don't ever track your weight or the stock market on a weekly basis, let along daily; the ups and downs on those measures would likely cause you the clutch your chest and fall over.

My advice, stop letting the fear mongering media scare you away from your passion. Quit clicking on the links that are obviously click-bait titles. I'm not saying that the toxic components used the manufacturing process of records haven't caused harm in this world, there is plenty of evidence that would contradict any claim like that. What I am saying though is that records have been relatively safe and around for longer than any of us have been alive; and I'm old, so that's saying a lot. And more importantly, records will likely remain around for decades to come and they will only become safer to manufacture in the future.

Coming Home

In July 1988, in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum an eighteen year old kid who enlisted in the military right out of high school, attended a nearby event called The Monsters of Rock. As a result, my life was absolutely changed during a short little one hour performance. That kid saw, for the first time, what a live performance could be like. He knew for the first time what it felt like to be a part of something bigger than himself. He went the event to see the Scorpions but when it was over, he loved somebody else and more than anything he knew what he wanted.

I wanted nothing more than to experience it again: to experience Metallica.

I had seen other bands live before the Monsters of Rock event, hell as a part of the Monster's of Rock, I saw Van Hagar, Scorpions and Dokken. Since that event I have seen many other bands live, but the experience was never the same. None of the bands connected with the audience. They didn't connected the audience with each other quite like Metallica did.

There is just something about Metallica that makes you feel like you are with family; family you love and more importantly, family that loves you. And I wanted so bad to feel the love I felt back in 1988 again. It was a true bucket list dream for me. And it wasn't one of those hipster-type bucket list items, like eating a gallon of ice cream in one sitting or doing the thirty-pub-crawl-challenge and remain standing at the end of the night. No, this was true life goal for me, one that took 29 years to see come true. To see Metallica live, one more time, before I die; this was truly a dream, a dream I had spent nearly three decades hoping would come true; decades.

And on August 9th, 2017, 29 years later, it happened.

Where our original tickets would have seated us... way up there

I bought tickets for my wife and I on February 16th. And the six months between when the tickets were purchased and the event actually happened, there were many challenges that threatened our ability to go; even to the point that I put the tickets up on Craigslist, but us (my wife and I) attending the show was truly meant to be.

My wife found a way. She found a way for us to get there 438 miles round trip. She found a way for us to stay overnight in an area that had been booked for months. She was determined that this life goal was going to be achieved and when my wife sets her mind to something, she can move mountains to make it happen.

We didn't have the best seats, hell, we didn't even have good seats, but we were going to be there and that's all that mattered to us.

Our seats were Row BB of section 317 of CenturyLink Stadium. If you don't know the stadium, Row BB is four rows from the top, at the end of the end zone... meaning even the people in the nose bleed section are looking up and saying, "That's a bad seat." (See the photo on the left for an idea of where we would have been seated)

But we were going to be there and that was all that mattered because the alternative was not an option.

We started our journey by train, took a cab to our hotel, checked in, freshened up, took a cab back to CenturyLink Field and began our journey to find our seats. Wife had to check her purse (apparent no bags are allowed in the Stadium unless they are clear plastic bags), we lost our drinks at the first of two security check points (because they were opened). We get into the stadium and pick up our concert tees, pick up a couple bottles of water and begin our trek to the top of Mt. Everest (yes it felt that high up).

It was so high up that I had to look directly at the ground as vertigo was overwhelming me if I looked anywhere around me. We emerge into the stadium from a doorway leading out to Section 318, and a kind, older gentleman asked us if we wanted help finding out seats. We obviously had "LOST" written all over our faces.

We said "Yes, please".

Our view from our free graded seats...

He looked at our tickets, looked up, pointed up and said, "You are up there, four rows from the top." I looked up and nearly fell over from vertigo.

He quickly said, "Would you be interested in upgrading your seats?"

I quickly responded with "We would definitely be interested, but how much are we talking?"

"Free," he said as he dug through a small stack of tickets.

He dug for a little bit and produced two tickets; Section 207, Row S, seats 3 and 4. We were just moved from the seats that were four rows away from be the furthest point away from the stage a person could get to about 5 degrees from Stage Right and within shouting distance of the security people.

We may as well have won the lottery.

It changed our entire concert going experience. We were now sitting with people that paid upwards to $400 for their seats, so yes, it was a lot like winning the lottery.

We listened to Mike D of Beastie Boys fame doing some DJ work on the stage for about an hour and then the first of two opening acts started, Gojira. They played an energetic 45 minute long set to a stadium that was only half full, if that. The crowd loved them and even though I had never heard anything from them before, both my wife and I enjoyed them.

There was a fifteen minute break as gear was swapped out and then Avenged Sevenfold took the stage. They put on an energetic show that engaged the crowd and had people out of their seats dancing and signing. In the hour and half that Avenged Sevenfold was on the stage, the stadium filled up fast.

Once Avenged Sevenfold finished their set, Mike D came back out on stage and entertained the crowd while gear was swapped out again in preparation for Metallica taking the stage. Mike D was entertaining and engaging. He played a lot of good tunes from bands like the Beatles and AC/DC and even played some Beastie's; Sabotage and Intergalactic.

Then came the big event:

This is what a Metallica show looks like from the free-upgraded-cheap-seats, but this photo does not capture what it feels like

Metallica entered the stadium to the all to familiar Metallica theme song, 'The Ecstasy of Gold' and knowing they didn't need any introduction went right into a two song set with two songs from the latest album;

• Hardwired
• Atlas, Rise!

James then welcomes the crowd to the Metallica family.

"It’s different out there in the world, we don’t care who you voted for, what color you are or what sex you choose to call yourself. You are all Metallica family, you are all welcome here."

The crowd roared to life with even more energy... and we got...

• For Whom the Bell Tolls
• The Memory Remains
• The Unforgiven
• Now That We're Dead

James took the time to poll the crowd about whether this was their first Metallica concert or not... it was surprising, at least until you thought about it, the number of people that had never been to Metallica concert before. The crowd was a 50/50 split between first time attendees and veteran attendees. For a band that has been around for 36 years, you would think more people would have had their Metallica cherry popped, but when you think about it, it had been nearly a decade since they were last in Seattle, so maybe it isn't so shocking.

At this point James took time to make a joke regarding the Grammy Awards Show microphone fiasco, and getting a laugh from the crowd when he said, "Lady Gaga isn’t here, but we will do a song related to her." And we got...

• Moth Into Flame
• Wherever I May Roam
• Halo on Fire

 At this point the crowd was on fire and Kirk and Rob did this awesome duet which led to Rob's spectacular rendition of...

• Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth) 

This amazing bass solo by Rob fed into the frenzied crowd and led right to an aggressive rendition of...

• Whiplash

Then Metallica slowed thing down a bit...

• Sad but True
• One

Before ramping the energy back up with blister-inducing live performances of 

• Master of Puppets
• Fade to Black

And the masters of metal ended the set the only way they could...

• Seek & Destroy

They thanked the crowd for their love and support over the years and left the stage.... only to return to the stage for an encore a few minutes later to bring the show to a close in the best possible way...

• Battery
• Nothing Else Matters
• Enter Sandman

At some point in the night the entire band did this fantastic drum circle thing that was mesmerizing to watch and listen to.

As far a how they sounded, well, they sounded great. They are true seasoned professionals and it shows in the thundering drums, ripping guitar solos, roaring bass and that signature growl in James' voice. The music was crisp, clean, well articulated; just an amazing performance from the entire band. The crowd loved the songs from their latest album, Hardwired, just as much as the performances from earlier works.

In conclusion, I have to say, to feel that level of connection with 60,000 plus people, all strangers yet all family, during that collection of singular moments; everyone singing, every single word, everyone moving, everyone answering, everyone acknowledging our oneness; it gave me a little faith that humanity may be a able to make it after all.

I know that you might be judging these words as sentimental bullshit, or overstating the experience. And I don't blame you for thinking that. As a matter of fact I don't care that you might think that, because I know that much like a paranormal experience or a religious experience; until you experience it for yourself, you will never know just how powerful and moving a Metallica concert is. My wife didn't, but now she understands. I hope someday you can experience, because it is a experience like no other I have ever had.

I Want It All, I Want It All, I Want It All, And I Want It Now

The mental health status of this collector... yeah that's the subtitle. This is a self analysis essay.

With the exception of my mom, who lives in a house that feels like a cross between a Class 10000 clean room and a museum, most of every single human being on the planet, are hoarders to some degree.

And you know what, it's okay. You're a hoarder. He's a hoarder. She's a hoarder. It is normal. Just because you keep some stuff, it doesn't mean you're going live on a property that looks like the one above or that you are going to be on a future episode of an exploitative television show.

There will be no judgments cast here, we are of the same ilk.

And yes, there a difference between a hoarder and a collector, but it may be difficult to see the differences at times, especially when you look at the psychology of collecting and hoarding; the line becomes very blurred, a true neutral gray region. And while I'm not a psychologist, I can share some basic definitions I use.

A collector is someone who collects things of a specific type or theme. Comic books, records, movies, plates, glassware, antiques, vintage cars; we all have our reason's or as I like to call it, passions for collecting these things. But typically a collector collects one, two or maybe three of these types of things.

A hoarder is someone who has a hard time letting go of things; with a deep neurological need to "save" them. Usually, but not always, these things a hoarder "saves" can have very little real world value (read garbage); but again not always, as the value of many things hoarders "save" could be shockingly high.

This means that a collector that "collects" more than one specific type of thing, could, technically speaking, be a clinical hoarder, especially if the "collecting" is impulsive.
 
Some record collectors are known as completion-ists. Completion-ists can be mild; must have all the songs from their senior year of high school, as an example. Or, Completion-ists can be extreme; must have every version of every record from a certain musician/band (including imports from various countries). Even though we, as record collectors, all have some form of completion-ist in us, the person who needs every version (imports, misprints, reissues, etc) of every album may be a step closer to being classified as a hoarder.

For me, I will give Van Halen as my personal example. I needed to have all of the Van Halen records in my collection, but that did not include the Van Hagar era starting with 5150 (I have taste, though you may think it is poor taste, we won't get into that argument here, as poor taste is still taste.)

So let's talk a little bit about records as a type of thing to collect versus hoard. You are a collector if you collect music you like and listen to. You might be a hoarder if your "collection" contains music that you don't like or music you have never and will never listened to.

For me in this instance, if my collection had one or more Van Hagar albums, it would be likely that my collection would contain albums I didn't like from other bands I otherwise liked, or even albums I didn't like from bands that I didn't like.

This alone could check off one the markers identifying me as a hoarder.

And this scenario can get really exaggerated. I know of people, ahem, a "friend", who takes car loads of records home with them regularly. I actually wrote a posting back in February, that talks a little bit about one man's obsession that led him to buy enough records over a 20+ year period to fill a single-car storage unit, front to back, top to bottom, with boxes and boxes and boxes of records. I don't know what his motivation was during that time, all I know is that I gained access to so much vinyl that I didn't know where to begin.

Record collectors, and collectors in general, tend to have mild versions of ICD. Not all collectors have ICD, Impulse Control Disorder, is very common in people with ADHD, but many collectors do suffer from it. ICD is characterized by a failure to resist a temptation, urge or impulse that may harm oneself or others.

Addicts of all types tend to have ICD; drugs, alcohol, sex, shoppers (shop-aholics), porn or Facebook. Addictions are two parts, a need to "feel good" or more than likely, the need to not "feel bad" and an inability to resist temptation when the opportunity to not feel bad presents itself.

When ICD becomes a problem for collectors is when we purchase or otherwise acquire records you don't have room for or don't have money to spend on... e.g. buying a new record or batch of records with your grocery money. If you are spending your grocery money on vinyl, you would be failing to resist a temptation, an urge or an impulse even if it may harm oneself or others.

And the funniest thing about ICD, it is often accompanied with feelings of guilt and remorse. So once you make the decision, you will feel guilty about it or regret that you did it. In the world of collectors, just as it is with addicts; remorse and guilt can lead to hiding purchases or having hiding places to conceal just how big your collection/problem is.

So, in my mind, my Van Halen collection was complete when I purchased Van Halen, Van Halen II, Women and Children First, Fair Warning, Diver Down and 1984. I didn't care if they were original pressing or reissues, I just needed them in my collection. When I saw one, and it was in my budget (meaning I could find a way to justify buying it when I saw it; and I always found that justification, even if I didn't have the spare cash to do so), I purchased it, usually making a small sacrifice in some other financial area of my life; some times this was accompanied with remorse, but rarely with guilt.

But once my Van Halen collection was complete, my record collection remained incomplete. So... I moved on to another; for me it was Led Zeppelin and then on to Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I realize that earlier I wrote that this posting was to be free from judgment, and it still is, I am not here to judge anyone for any mental health issues they may have, but I am using this image (right) of Henry Rollins to express my judgment of people who allow their collections to be damaged. I just don't understand that mentality.

If you collect something, you typically have a love of the thing you are collecting.

Regardless if it is comics, records, mugs, beanie babies, dashboard hula girls or bottle caps; if you aren't taking care of the collection, it shows a disconnect, a lack of love for the objects being collected; and that is not who a collector is at their core, typically.

This is a key sign of trouble as a collector; if you don't have room for the things you are bringing home and these things stack up, are disorganized and sometimes it gets to the point that things are getting damaged as a result. If your collection is causing problems with your marriage, relationship and/or finances, you may need to take some to evaluate some your priorities.

My ex-wife, along with so many other undesirable traits, was a hoarder/shop-aholic and remains one to this day. As an example of her hoarding, we would park $35,000 worth of cars in the driveway because she had so many things in the garage, floor to ceiling, things that were never-ever-ever used, we could barely walk around the garage, let alone park one or both of our cars in there. So she would literally put $35,000 worth of automobiles at risk of break in or outright theft to store things that were not used, ever and probably weren't worth five hundred dollars.

Whenever I attempted to talk to her about getting rid of much of the stuff, she would recite the emotional value of the items; "This was my grandpa's homemade shelf," or "We can't get rid of that, it was given to me by 'so-in-so'" or "priceless family heirloom. We would have "garage" sales once a year, that actually took place in our drive way, because our garage was still so full of junk.

Each sale would be full of brand new kids clothes, most of which still had the department store price tags on them. We would sell the clothes for twenty-five cents each, or five for a dollar. And each year we made nearly $1000 at our garage sales. That should give you a sense of the true scale of the issue.

Then after the divorce her hoarding got worse. She now has two single car garage sized storage units, across town from one another, in addition to her single car garage, all of which is filled to the brim.

And again, I am not throwing stones here. I have my things I hoard. I have two boxes filled with cables; chargers for old phones, power cords for computers, audio cables, coaxial cables, CAT-5 cables, speaker wire... and so on. It is something I can't let go of, but then again, my cable boxes are accessed multiple times a month to complete various projects I am working on.

Now I am not saying that if each and every little thing isn't in its rightful place, you are hoarder. I too have periods of acquisition where I come into a large quantity of stuff that I have to make room for. Like the time I was gifted over a thousand albums, which I culled down to three hundred albums.

Even after the culling, I was not prepared for an influx of three hundred albums into my collection. I didn't have storage, nor did have money to buy storage at that given moment. But again I didn't go out and buy three hundred albums. I couldn't say no to the opportunity.

But rather than store them in my garage for years on end, I culled the thousand albums down to three hundred must keeps and made a plan to expand my storage to accommodate the fact that I just tripled my album collection. The other seven hundred records, well I gave them all away.

And within a month, my plan was executed and my albums were all safely stored away in their permanent place in my home.

I never want my collection(s) to take over my life. I simply to enjoy the simple pleasures I find in this little insignificant life I have been blessed with. When will my collecting be done, probably the same time I retire from working; when I'm dead.

In conclusion, don't take anything I wrote here personal. This, as much of writing is, is more of an essay to myself; putting my own life in perspective. When you (read this as first person narrative as I am talking to you the reader at this time) read the word you, I am generally talking to myself in second person narrative. Nothing more.

Being a collector with a mental health condition like ICD or a tendency for hoarding can be a real challenge, especially from an outsiders perspective. While my wife asks from time to time, "So when is your record collection going to be complete?" My wife understands that my love of music runs deep and is very broad. But my wife is truly my reality check, for without my wife, I would likely have my garage filled with records, electronics, hulks and comics and would be very unhappy about all the clutter as I am minimalist regarding the world around me. But the minimalist in me can't suppress the fact that, deep down inside, I want it all, and I want it now.