I’ll take us all back a wee time to my first stint in University. Year one, there’s a white dreaded dude sat next to me whist we learn the ‘tabla’ drum and I decided there and then that we would likely get on.
After speaking it transpires we both have a similar passion for music, more specifically the music of the Caribbean.
Matt is his name, and friends we became. We spent the summer exchanging ‘tune’s of the day, and discovered we both had a love for the rarer tunes, and indeed Matt was rather heavily at this point into collecting Jamaican 7’inch vinyls. Where as we could describe me as having a broader, less specific taste.
I myself had a modest collection compiled mostly of new issue African Sahara Tuareg records, mixed with various charity shop finds, a few presents here and there, and the ends of elderly families collections, whom excitingly gave me their stash of vinyls when I ‘got into them’ excited to see their trusted albums have a second life. At this point, I wasn’t too bothered in 7’s and didn’t really see to much of a point in them, why buy a tiny record for the same price you can buy a larger record?
Matt became clearer the traditionalist of the two of us, barely accepting to like a track made out the 1960’s.
This attitude made me laugh, I felt there was a conservatism that went with such a strict ideology, assuming that only a small niche in music can make you happy. Ludicrous to me this seemed.
However the more Matt showed me the way the collector world worked, I found a deeper passion in searching for the ‘originals’ pressings of beloved albums, printed in their place of origin - such as the Benin dance band music records sold and found on places such as Discogs.
