The Flea market @ Amcorp Mall.
Despite increasing prices of collectible vinyl & Cds, me still feels its a great place to find affordable music.
Just last Sunday me managed to find a CD copy of Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic. Remastered edition no less fer just RM25. Also found Mahavishnu Ochestra's Birds of Fire LP fer RM35.
Bargain me thinks.
How come me don't see very many youngsters there browsing fer sounds? has shopping fer music become an old codger's hobby?
15 comments:
Well, admittedly. Lars Ulrich and Dr Dre were in a way correct all along for taking legal action against Napster in a move to curb free music download. And admittedly too, its daylight robbery as far musicians are concerned. MP3 is very much the culprit that slowly kills the hobby. To be honest it has been ages since i last bought any CDs and i have plenty in the must-buy list but still I'd rather listen to them on an ori CD than to download the MP3 version. Music collectors are dying breed I know and although me has not that big of a collection, i'm still proud to be part of the minority.
kerp: yer collection is pretty good.
Perhaps ye need to check out the flea market on Sundays & see if ye can snaggle a bargain or two.
Yea I've bought some stuff from down there. And they actually have quite an impressive collection that are not even available in many local music stores.
In fact i managed to get back Ramones' Road To Ruin CD from the flea market (Cant believe someone actually tried to get rid of it!).
Some bastard borrowed it years ago and never returned it.
I went there only once somewhere around june but most of the LP's that i chckd out i think police was priced more than 80 bucks...
by thway balaji birds od fire is one mighty album...
regarding lost cd's i think one of the gems that i had the first CD pressing of Queens of the Stone first album was stolen together with my brothers cars early last year...damn sui!!!
last i checked on net the original was selling around usd 75
anba: Yeah. A lot of the stuff is outrageously priced.
Metal LPs can cost up to RM150 onwards.
The old Led Zep vinyl which me traded in was later re-sold @ RM80-RM180 (doubles like Physical Graffitti).
Kerp: The bigger yer collection, the easier it is to lose shit.
I actually tried to "buat harta" Mozz's Velvet Underground CD but every time we plan to meet up he'll keep reminding me to bring it along...hahahaha...
kerp: cheeky basterd . . .
kerp: mwhahahhahaha...if i had borrowed any one of your classic ramones's gems....will not only try to "buat harta".....but "buat atuk" to seal the deal completely. :)....
natural killer instincts of the morbid pseudo cassette/cd/record hunter gleefully grinding his grubby hands.. kidding...kidding.
speaking of huntin'...there was a time...when every saturday came...it was rewang-the-cassette-shop day, must be around mid-97 and 98. got ma first proper job at this nice quaint (but seriously dingy) little office behind the intersection of raja laut and ipoh road. chowkit central babyee. was an pretty interesting time. had this really close friend at time who was equally of interesting demeneaour. diverting between totally placidness and all out rollins-band type vent-your-anger-muthafarka mood swings....he was into h.rollins / minor threat in a big way at that time, post black flag. even worked out with the body and 6-packs in tacks. half indian half malay, and a vegetarian. SxEx giler wa cakap lu. it was from his collection of records that i got into the whole NOOYAWK / dC hC side of things. loved most of it. but he used to give me a royal lecture...when i told him i couldn't tahan bands like helmet..or even biohazard. siap gua. one of those things you know. just tak masuk telinga. rohan has since passed on. *sigh*
anyway. this was the time around when 6-day working weeks of fading from the norm....it was rearing his head smack back in the transitional stage to a 5-day working week. but us, being the tight ship we were on...still had the usual saturday 1/2 day routine going on. So rohan would catch the bus from semenyih rival hood to the kajang clan...(tryin' to make it sound all straight outta compton / south central here alright...bare with me..hahaha). so where was i, yeap..rohand would catch the afternoon bus. 2 exchanges..and walk up straight to the office. yeap, we would walk straight in and wait at this family type worn out leather couch they had out on the reception. was taken aback a wee bit, cause he was not really much of a people type person who actually started the fist wave of conversation. then i figured it out.
there was hot receptionist in the equation. turns out dude was a smooth operator after all. all busy wrenching his nuts, without any noise. *ahem*
so again, to cut a long ramble about to gather storm clouds short...rohan used to come over...cursing at me in the process for making him wait up to 3.30 in the afternoon (he even walked out once and told me to go and fark maself :) ).start to menapak to the pertama area. for some reason...every other saturday afternoon we did decide do to do that..it had to be supa, beladhi hot. good enough to leave "sun-bands" around the crown of the head...once he took out our NYHC styled remodelled petrol-station free giveaway caps.
erhm. yeah.so we walk and we do more walking. first stop pertama...acoustic, this big tall huge chinese dude. for the life of me can't remember his name. but he used to do this..service of dubbing those rare stuff into tdk-60/90 tapes in his back office (for RM 10 and the rare-r the LP...can go up to RM 25 a pop.). think the fellas name was kenny or vinnie or something remotely marcopoloish. rohan though affectionately addressed him as the "con-man" and acoustic as the "con-bastard's shop". in the long run, he happened to be right.
and i think there was another victoria somewhere there. some chick was jagaing there. then of course there was the other shup in campbell. or was the campbell one victoria. hang on there was one in the old pukibintang plaza right? scrambled eggs, brain is dead. but at each location, we use to spend an average of 2 hours each. just loooking..and looking...observing artworks on covers...and flipping. doing absolutely nothing producive and end up buying maybe ...erh..
get this.
one tape each. or none at all. me being a stingy cunt an all. rohan used to dub quite a bit though..and then have an all out rollin's type shouting match with the above mentioned con-bastard for half an hour to give a discount. (the half an hour is in addition to the average 2 hours). we would sometimes cut through jalan alor / imbi to this row of vegetarian shops he used to frequent. eat like a pig. literally. grovelling. because it was there was this nice old aunty there who really charged us cheap...seeing us "you young growing boys..must eat nicelY".
then most of the time, because we couldn't walk after that. will decided to frequent the get this...more "UPMARKET" and "MAJOR LABEL CORPORATE" record stores around the hifi posh (at that time) lot 10 areas...looking back. we were really silly. but back then there was this new tower record store..the first to open in lot 10. used to be the salem power station or something. so for the first time..you could buy actual cd's of stuff like the smiths / the cure...at well..cheaper prices..than what bloody con-bastard used to sell at acoustic. hang on i remember his name now...TOMmmyyyy.
we used to call him mr.page. as in tommy page. to which he ardently reply tiuuuuuuu.
hours bro. and to this day. i still have that nasty habit. dunno why. to me its equivalent to getting lost in a library. just couldn't seem to give a fark about anything else around yet. weirder for me, cause i get a a weird sense of comfort. like no one can touch me in that zone of rummaging. some hunts paid out better than usual. found this 2nd hand lp (records) in kuantan. i especially love store shutdowns. especially when the owner didn't seem to know the value of such gems as
the beastie's "paul's boutique" on cassette; and
cure's lesser known unsuccessful stuff like the "faith" EP.
suckaaaaa.
yours appreciatively,
moz.
p.s. nice to know i an actually not retarded chief. :)
Yes Moz, that con-bastard guy is Tommy. Can never forget his name, as i've been his victim a few times back then.
Looking back i thought Tower Records actually had plenty to offer. Bought most of my earlier collections there in fact, the first branch to open it's store here. At least i know all the stuff purchased are genuine, unlike a few CDs i bought at Accoustic which i found out later to be pirated.
Yeah, fuck Tommy man!
Ha ha Tommy!
That bloke still around & running his shop in Pertama.
Tower - great shoppe, pity the prices were fooking killer.
Walked into the sealed off jazz section & carressed the special edition tin box anniversary edition of Bitches Brew.
Then saw the eye watering price tag. Nearly dropped the damn thing.
Wonder if record shops will ever make a return?
If MP3 suffers the same fate as cassettes, then they might just have hopes...haha
Eh, heard Metallica will be hitting our shore this December. Fingers all crossed, peeps!
@Kerp: True. Lars and Dre had a point - after all musicians need to cari makan also right? Having said that though the free music download revolution that is file sharing and mp3s has been both a boon and the bane to the industry and music lovers alike. Giants like EMI and Sony have suffered huge losses and have had to restucture because the power is now at the hands of the consumers. This has given a healthy boost to the smaller guy - the homemade indie label, and therefore more avenue for unsigned acts to be heard. But there's adownside to all this as mentioned earlier - the dying art of appreciating a concept album. People have forgotten the joys of peeling open an album they bought with their hard earned money, poring over every lyric and artwork while listening to very last track. Who wants to anymore when you can wait for less than a minute to download a whole digital album complete with DVD movie. You want fries with that sir?
@Moz: Loved your article bro. Brings back memories :) I think the store in Pukibintang was called Music Exchange. And of course who can forget KOMTAR and Kotaraya in JB!
@AD: I lost all my uncles pricless vinyl when my dear granny decided to get rid of it one day cos it was just sitting around collecting dust. There goes Hendrix, Zep, Sabbath, Skynrd etc...
The only thing I bought frm Tommy Page's shop were 2 dubbed cassettes that I still own till this day: LARD's The Power of LARD and Kill Rockstars Compilation Vol.7! Never really bought much frm Music Exchange - liked hanging out there better than actually buying shit! Another place worth checking out back in the day in S'pore was Far East Plaza and the record shop at Funan Plaza. Bought my first Fugazi album there: steady diet of nothing together with a copy of Big-o Magazine :))
Premo: Me has Power of Lard on disc. Can burn ye a fresh copy if ye wants.
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