Where are all the vinyl records going?

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Where are all the vinyl records going?

Postby radiofan » Sat Aug 09, 2014 8:10 am

The Brazilian Bus Magnate Who’s Buying Up All the World’s Vinyl Records
By MONTE REELAUG. 8, 2014


Image
Zero Freitas, on the records. Credit Sebastián Liste/Noor, for The New York Times

Paul Mawhinney, a former music-store owner in Pittsburgh, spent more than 40 years amassing a collection of some three million LPs and 45s, many of them bargain-bin rejects that had been thoroughly forgotten. The world’s indifference, he believed, made even the most neglected records precious: music that hadn’t been transferred to digital files would vanish forever unless someone bought his collection and preserved it.

Mawhinney spent about two decades trying to find someone who agreed. He struck a deal for $28.5 million in the late 1990s with the Internet retailer CDNow, he says, but the sale of his collection fell through when the dot-com bubble started to quiver. He contacted the Library of Congress, but negotiations fizzled. In 2008 he auctioned the collection on eBay for $3,002,150, but the winning bidder turned out to be an unsuspecting Irishman who said his account had been hacked.

Then last year, a friend of Mawhinney’s pointed him toward a classified ad in the back of Billboard magazine:

RECORD COLLECTIONS. We BUY any record collection. Any style of music. We pay HIGHER prices than anyone else.

That fall, eight empty semitrailers, each 53 feet long, arrived outside Mawhinney’s warehouse in Pittsburgh. The convoy left, heavy with vinyl. Mawhinney never met the buyer.

“I don’t know a thing about him — nothing,” Mawhinney told me. “I just know all the records were shipped to Brazil.”

Just weeks before, Murray Gershenz, one of the most celebrated collectors on the West Coast and owner of the Music Man Murray record store in Los Angeles, died at 91. For years, he, too, had been shopping his collection around, hoping it might end up in a museum or a public library. “That hasn’t worked out,” The Los Angeles Times reported in 2010, “so his next stop could be the Dumpster.” But in his final months, Gershenz agreed to sell his entire collection to an anonymous buyer. “A man came in with money, enough money,” his son, Irving, told The New York Times. “And it seemed like he was going to give it a good home.”

Those records, too, were shipped to Brazil. So were the inventories of several iconic music stores, including Colony Records, that glorious mess of LP bins and sheet-music racks that was a Times Square landmark for 64 years. The store closed its doors for good in the fall of 2012, but every single record left in the building — about 200,000 in all — ended up with a single collector, a man driven to get his hands on all the records in the world.

In an office near the back of his 25,000-square-foot warehouse in São Paolo, Zero Freitas, 62, slipped into a chair, grabbed one of the LPs stacked on a table and examined its track list. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, khaki shorts and a Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt; his gray hair was thin on top but curled along his collar in the back. Studying the song list, he appeared vaguely professorial. In truth, Freitas is a wealthy businessman who, since he was a child, has been unable to stop buying records. “I’ve gone to therapy for 40 years to try to explain this to myself,” he said.

His compulsion to buy records, he says, is tied up in childhood memories: a hi-fi stereo his father bought when Freitas was 5 and the 200 albums the seller threw in as part of the deal. Freitas was an adolescent in December 1964 when he bought his first record, a new release: “Roberto Carlos Sings to the Children,” by a singer who would go on to become one of Brazil’s most popular recording stars. By the time he finished high school, Freitas owned roughly 3,000 records.

After studying music composition in college, he took over the family business, a private bus line that serves the São Paulo suburbs. By age 30, he had about 30,000 records. About 10 years later, his bus company expanded, making him rich. Not long after that, he split up with his wife, and the pace of his buying exploded. “Maybe it’s because I was alone,” Freitas said. “I don’t know.” He soon had a collection in the six figures; his best guess at a current total is several million albums.

Read the full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/magaz ... .html?_r=1
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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Re: Where are all the vinyl records going?

Postby radiofan » Sat Aug 09, 2014 8:29 am

I'd love to have all those boxes and containers of 45's to sort through ... it would take awhile, but it would be fun!

Ever seen a garage sale with this much stuff Cam?
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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Re: Where are all the vinyl records going?

Postby radiofan » Sat Aug 09, 2014 8:32 am

Speaking of records, our friends at Apollo Music in Port Coquitlam are having a massive blowout sale .... here's their email with the details ...

Greetings

We will be open Saturday Aug 9th from 12:00 – 5:00 pm

We are re-configuring our warehouse and need to liquidate over 50,000 LP Records and 45 RPM singles.
ALL THE RECORDS IN OUR DOWNSTAIRS WAREHOUSE MUST GO!!!
Every Genre of Music from Pop Rock, Country, Soundtracks, Jazz, Blues, World etc.

SAVE BIG ON BULK PURCHASES!!!

Buy any 1-99 Records for only .50 cents each.
Buy any 200 Records for only .40 cents each or $80 (2 Boxes Full)
Buy any 500 Records for only .30 cents each or $150 (5 Boxes Full)
Buy any 1,000 Records for only .20 cents each or $200 (10 Boxes Full)

Apollo Music
Unit #8 - 2260 Tyner Street
Port Coquitlam, BC - V3C 2Z1
phone: 778-285-9544
email apollomusic@shawbiz.ca

www.audiophilerecords.ca

Hours:
Monday 12-5 pm
Tuesday 12-5 pm
Wednesday 12-10 pm
Thursday 12-5 pm
Friday 12-5 pm
Saturday - 12-5 (we will be open this Saturday Aug 9th from 12:00 - 5:00 pm

Best Regards

Mike and Jamie

Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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Re: Where are all the vinyl records going?

Postby CubbyCam » Sat Aug 09, 2014 3:06 pm

radiofan wrote:I'd love to have all those boxes and containers of 45's to sort through ... it would take awhile, but it would be fun!

Ever seen a garage sale with this much stuff Cam?


Never even close... and never seen anyone STANDING ON HIS RECORDS! This qualifies him only as a hoarder, not a collector. :pottytrain2:
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