I was forwarded news about quite old habit, but constantly trending one, within USA comic book scene. It was about professional graders, who would look at your comic books, give them official grading and pack them into heavy transparent plastic box and seal it. Never to be opened again. People would trade and make business with these sealed boxes, but nobody would actually read those comics ever again. They would merely sit in stiff boxes like all those unopened toys sitting on shelves of sad sad "mancaves", you should probably really call "boy cages"?
Anyways pulled from Playlist:
QuoteTalking of "collectibles", there is this thing, that some release in noise have "reputation". items that seemingly everybody want. Items that may have been listet in classic mailorder catalogues.. Nowadays hunted desperately. But entirely different category of noise is this... "DIY noise". Barely was available in distros. Or sold for bargain prices. Tapes often traded by artist to other artist. This meant that you needed to be in touch to get it, or care enough to discover yourself, since there was no praise in any 'zines...
Hermit for example. Style varies greatly. Some stuff is just imprv, some pretty harsh, some kind of DIY industrial-noise. On flipside you got Armenia, Napalmed,... and stuff is kind of unique. It far from the shining aura of cult names (haha), but this hand made noisy dirt, has charm. Of course some classic noise album is phenomenal to listen to, but there is something *else*, something quite different in listening 2usd bargain bin singles nobody seems to care about. Out of these 4 Hermit 7"s, especially good here is the total no-tech harsh blast of Amenia and Hermit's anti-capitalist regurgitations on "bizarre rituals in honour of capitalist machine" 7". Or first few minute of Napalmed broken damage.
Note: This is not meaning that mentioning bands in this topic makes them somehow super inferior. It just means that I (or someone) perceives their nature different.
As example, I can not believe there would be anyone, who actually pays big bucks for SONIC DISORDER LP. There would be people ready to donate internal organs for getting missing Gerogerigegege tape, but they would not bother to listen best works of band that has 7" available for 1usd.
(It is observation. Thing that is becoming more visible in some other music genres. You got hardcore 7", and people pay thousands. You got pretty damn good hardcore 7" and nobody gives a fuck. 20 years ago in metal, gap between sales on UG band and bigger band started to be closer and closer. Big bands no longer sold hellish amounts and smaller bands were getting popular. Now we're like back in old situation. The names people appreciate, sell shitloads and notch smaller bands barely anything. Regardless of how good or shitty. )
Like I mentioned above, I think there is vastly different spirit in bands that are or became "collectibles". There could be high prices to begin with. Neat packaging. Interesting concepts. These days, even pretty clear "PR", so to say. Releases you can only buy. Perhaps even for a notch higher prices than most of stuff. And most would be ready to celebrate and appreciate this type of title, which is of course fully approved. Yet there is this
other noise, which is different.
There may not be limited edition. Perhaps no neat packaging. Nothing utterly stylish. You didn't and don't find it from distributions. Most oftem sold to seemingly random buyer. Not to "devoted followers" who wait mailinglist updates and announcements.
I find myself often sort of elitist stand, seeing all that "bandcamp noise", "youtube noise" and not finding anything what would interest me about it. All those many facebook groups with hundreds of people posting links, and everything you check out with fairly open mind is sort of... sucky? There is something about the physical medium and willingness to participate on
certain type of DIY, as opposed to kind of lazy uploads of seemingly
whatever.Chaotic rant I know, but lets sum it up. Categories always have crossover, but: Between the "collectibles", "cult objects to buy" and the neverending stream of noise waste, there is the other kind of noise scene. Where people trade stuff, sell cheap stuff, collaborate, (used to)maintain micro distro lists etc. And there is good stuff among all that. Often you had to be involved to get things, as they didn't make it to "bigger" mailorders.
That would have slightly different spirit than releases that were really made to be sold, but eventually... there was no big enough interest compared to edition, hah. As drawing line is very hard, it could be better to just talk of "non-collectibles".
Was it 200 copies edition of Sonic Disorder – Travelers' Companion Volume III LP (Les Disques Bruitistes)? After 20+ years you can grab it for 10 euro. Discogs and discount lists are/were often filled with brilliant titles you would not necessarily go look for, but if being exposed to, they would be good.
To return to opening theme of post. A lot of "collectibles" appear to serve other purposes than listening. Many would probably like to own things like Gerogerigegege "showa" LP, but... would you listen to it? After paying XXX amount, and then just filing it to shelves in plastic wrap? Perhaps. Instead, there would be things you casually pop into cd player, turntable and tape deck, like what you hear and actually USE it for purpose it was made to. In case of true DIY noise, there could be also little story and experience of doing it yourself, what lead to having the particular item.
Favorites? Recommendations of things?
