Egon’s mixtape for Dust & Grooves by Dust & Grooves on Mixcloud

Eothen Alapatt, also known as Egon from the fantastic label Now-Again Records, with a mixtape of his influential records from his vinyl collection. Read the full interview and see his collection here.

Tracklist:

Universouls – New Generation
Paul Ngozi – Can’t You Hear Me
Amanaz – History
Damon – Song of a Gypsy
Shabah – I Need Somebody To Love
Luis Visconde – Chofer de Praca
Lula Cortes and Ze Ramalho – Trilha De Sume
Mulatu Astatke – Yègellé Tezeta
Question Mark – Scram Out
Stephen David Heitkotter – Cadillac Woman

Just came back from a visit to a small record fair in Amsterdam, where I met Alex Figueira, a collector and vinyl dealer, who together with Edo Bouman, runs a nice little record shop at the heart of the red light district in Amsterdam called Vintage Voudou.

At the end of the fair, I saw him packing up his records into a huge moving tricycle, and I thought it was just awesome.

Alex, on the other hand, thought it was hard work!

Here are some shots while we both biked back to his shop.

Sam Shepherd – Floating Points

A small and tight vinyl collection, with strong influences of classical music.

Kevin Foakes – DJ Food

Kev, who also goes by the name Strictly Kev, currently holds and maintain Ninja Tunes’ DJ Food collaborative. As a graphic designer, he is responsible for the majority of Ninja Tunes’ album designs and the legendary Ninja logo.
We spent hours going thru his amazing collection, concentrating on graphic design and album covers.

Jonny Trunk

Can you have too many library records and obscure movie soundtracks? not if your name is Jonny Trunk!!

Ollie Teeba – The Herbaliser

I’ve been a fan of  The Herbaliser since they released their debut album.
Meeting Ollie and spending over 5 hours together was a real treat.

Colleen Murphy – Classic Album Sundays

I got to know Colleen thru her monthly vinyl listening gatherings called “Classic Album Sundays” which celebrate vinyl and high end Hi-Fi systems.

I have also been trying to get Gilles Peterson on board, but it hasn’t been easy to schedule a shoot with him due to his super busy schedule. On my last night I received an email from him asking if I could come over the next evening. Unfortunately, since I already had some family obligations in Israel, I had to say no. Hopefully, we could schedule something really soon.

I’ll be visiting the UK once again in May and will be profiling Four-Tet, Andy Votel and hopefully Gilles Peterson.

Till then, keep digging.

Eilon

Egon’s mixtape for Dust & Grooves by Dust & Grooves on Mixcloud

Q: What was your first album? How did you get it? At what age? Can you describe that feeling?
A: My first album – i.e. album that I went out and purchased on my own – was either  George Harrison “Cloud Nine,” Beastie Boys “Licensed To Ill,” The Police “Synchronicity,” or DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince’s “He’s The DJ, I’m The Rapper.” But I remember singles – “Wipeout” by the Fat Boys; “Mony Mony” by Billy Idol; “Pump Up The Volume” by MARRS.  I remember, back then, as I do now, I felt overwhelmed by one aspect of each of those records – as corny as most of them are – and I remember listening to specific songs over, and over, and over again. The first 12” single that I remember searching out was “Mr. Scarface.” That was on MLK Day, 1991. I remember the day as Metro North ran this “free train fare from New Haven to Manhattan” special, and I convinced my Dad to take me from Manhattan to Brooklyn to seek out that 12” at a store I’d found that stocked it. I also got him to take me to Spike Lee’s store where I dutifully bought a Malcom X hat and did my bit to market his forthcoming movie.

The first hip hop 12” I bought – also the first record I bought with my own money. Mr. Scarface’s “Mr Scarface.”

Q: Where did your initial interest in music originate? Family? Friends?
A: My family, of course. I come from a family of musicians and music lovers: my mother is a trained pianist; her father was a violinist; my father played guitar and dabbled in song writing with my mother; my late uncle was in a garage rock band in Connecticut and cut a cool acetate which I’m still trying to buy from the drummer of the band. My dad was – and still is – a record collector, and he, being from India, but having settled in America in the late 60s, was into all kinds of music and my mother was too. Early musical loves, which came directly from my parents: Sly and the Family Stone, Miles Davis, Tom Paxton, The Clancy Brothers, Tom Waits, Walter/Wendy Carlos, Galt MacDermot, Mikis Theodorakis, Ali Akhbar Khan and Ravi Shankar and those types of progressive Indian folks.

My favorite Galt MacDermot album. “Coffee Cold” is about as timeless as it gets.

Q: You have a bit of a personal history with Galt McDermont. Can you tell me more about it?
A: I reached out to Galt while I was in college – mainly to find out if I could buy some copies of his Kilmarnock Records releases and to interview him for my college radio show. I must have done something right in those first few conversations – he and his son Vince offered me a job at Kilmarnock the summer of 1999. I happily accepted and put together a small distribution network for their reissues, sorted through all of his unreleased music, assembled some anthologies and got his music out to whomever I could. That started a relationship which has lasted years – in fact, I just helped the family clear the sample on J.Dilla’s “Donuts” – I hand delivered Dilla the record he sampled in Manhattan that summer of 1999. And that was a pivotal year for me – I saw how a maverick like Galt could struggle and work hard and then hit it big – huge in fact – with something that followed his coda perfectly. And I saw how he could keep that spirit to create beautiful, timeless music even in the face of great success: rather than try to replicate HAIR after it blew up, Galt just did whatever he felt best doing in the coming years and, while he couldn’t have known it then, those records he created – like “Woman Is Sweeter” – would go on to pay him back handsomely when they were sampled in the 90s.

Q: Why vinyl?
A: I was just intrigued by the appearance of records – and the process of listening to them –  that early on. I remember the turntable in my folks’ first house, I remember the putting on the record and moving the needle onto the record, and I remember the record shelves that the turntable and speakers sat atop of. I remember holding the records, and looking at the covers. I just loved the entire package. The fact that it also held music was like this amazing bonus.

Q: Can you tell us about your college days?  You hosted a radio show in Nashville at WRVU with Count Bass D.  How did that experience shape your love and quest for vinyl?
A: Well, I chose my university because of three factors: 1) they offered me a great financial aid package 2) they had a well funded, progressive – and large – college radio station and 3) there were record stores in walking distance and I knew after my first visit there that I was going to have very little competition for the stuff I was looking for. I met Count Bass D in one of those record stores, the Great Escape, and he saw I was buying an Iron Butterfly album with “Get Out Of My Life Woman” on it and we struck up a conversation. Turned out he knew one of my mentors from New Haven, and we just became friends from there. Count was, and is, a special cat – and he loved just how deep I threw myself into finding the most obscure records I could. But he was more pragmatic – the kind of guy who was just as excited to flip the drums from a Floyd Cramer record as some track from “Songs of Innocence,” the latter of which was like “the” record to collect (in our circle) at the time. He never thought once as to what some other record collector might think of his collection, say – he just thought about what he could make with the records in it. I always dug that about him and we had a good yin/yang thing going on there – he certainly always drilled into my head that some of the best records weren’t the rarest.

Q: Tell me how your passion for vinyl has affected your professional life.
A: I got my job at Stones Throw due to my record collecting – it’s how I met up with Peanut Butter Wolf, how I impressed him (well, partially how I impressed him) into giving me a job, it’s how I befriended Madlib, DOOM and Dilla (initially) and how I was able to start Now-Again. It made everything possible for me, and I never forget that – which is why I never, ever, stop looking for new (old) records. I’m very conscious of this passion of mine which has given me everything that I’ve ever wanted.

Q: So it seems like you’re some kind of a musicologist trying to trace the roots of music and connect the dots between different genres.
A: Yes, but it’s a natural and not an academic thing. I’m more about human stories, the inter-relatedness of us all, and how race, creed, and age are no barriers to like minded people coming together, fostering creative movements, supporting themselves, their peers, their families. So I search out the roots of the music I love, I see where those roots spread, and I try to find stories that back up my belief in those things.

Two Zamrock masterpieces, my copies of Amanaz and Paul Ngozi and the Ngozi Family’s first album.

Thanks to Madlib for hipping me to this amazing Spanish psych funk masterwork.

One of about six or seven known copies of the Stephen David Heitkotter demo (thanks Madeline Glenn….) 

Q: I challenge you to connect all your dots for these records….
A: That’s a rather personal tree that charts my record collecting habits from the time I left my parents’ home and starts at the top with the deepest record I ever thought I would find – when I was 18 that is –  The Stark Reality’s sole album. Amazing psychedelic, funky jazz all based on music written by Hoagy Carmichael for children. On the left of that record is another record which fit that unobtainable mold a bit later – this time in the soul/funk mode –  the East of Underground’s only release, a beautiful album recorded by US Army musicians stationed in Germany in 1970. Under that record, again to the left, is Damon’s  “Song of a Gypsy,” which I discovered after East of Underground, after I moved to LA. One of the top psychedelic albums of all time; certainly the best to spring from Los Angeles’ indie scene. And then, further down that psychedelic rabbit hole is Stephen David Heitkotter’s demo, another Californian rarity – this time, with less than thirty copies manufactured – that I found out about after Damon’s album. That little tree just focuses some key records which spoke to me, which I said to myself I would search out, and I did.

On the right of the Stark Reality is a divergent stream, and one that started around the same time that I heard the Stark Reality’s music and then heard the Ethiopiques anthologies. I never, for a moment, thought I would ever source some of my favorite instrumental albums from that country, but I did find two of the four main ones that I’m after. And the latter two are all by Mulatu, and I’m familiar enough with those that missing the actual artifacts isn’t a big deal.

Spreading out from the right of East of Underground are a series of Brasilian records that I threw myself into after marooning myself in Sao Paulo for a month in 2002 after The Red Bull Music Academy. The Os Mutantes lead me to Rogerio Duprat (thanks to a tip from Madlib) who lead me to Marconi Notaro’s indie release and then finally to “Paebiru,” the epitome of Brazilian psychedelia, to me.

Outwards, and then back up again, towards the Ethiopian albums, are two Angolan albums that I bought in Portugal. I’m married to a Portuguese/Angolan woman and, as you probably know, there is quite the triangle running between Portugal, Angola and Brazil due to the imperial aims of the old-school Portuguese monarchy.

Delving out from Rogerio Duprat, to the left, are the psychedelic African records that have taken me to my latest obsession – Zambia’s 70s “Zamrock.” We start in Nigeria with the standard, if great, Question Mark album, hit Edzayawa’s progressive album, and then head first into Zambia with Amanaz, the first band I heard from the country, WITCH’s third album, which convinced me I must start looking into music to reissue in Zambia, their first album (in both the commercial and private press) and, lastly, Paul Ngozi and the Ngozi Family’s first album, “Day of Judgement,” which is the most punk rock record I’ve ever heard – and it was recorded by a landlocked Zambian band in 1975.

Q: How do you lay your hands on such obscure records from remote places? like Iran for example.
A: I meet people who introduce me to people who introduce me to other people: eventually I find people “on the ground” who trust me and either start selling me records they  have or find records for me. Sometimes that person is a collector – in which case perhaps I can swap – or a dealer (likewise) –  but sometimes that person is a musician from the era who wants to help me on my quest, and make some spare money. Well, more than spare. I’ve sent bucket full of cash, literally, to Zambia, via Western Union.

A smattering of interesting 60s and 70s Iranian rock 7”s ranging from garage to progressive.

Q: Have you ever been to Iran? Are you a world traveler?
A: No, never Iran, never any country in Africa, never Indonesia. I’m a world traveler, but mainly in America, Europe and Northern Asia. I find myself in other interesting places, Russia, Australia, Brazil, but I mainly travel for the business that I do with Madlib, the producer I’m partners with, so we go to where he’s demanded. Or where my wife’s family is. My closest family is in the States. Though I have lots of relatives in India, I don’t know them well – and there haven’t been any offers to come over there (yet!).

My play copy of Marconi Notaro’s album. Hate to say it, but this is one of those records I bought twice, so I would have a mint one to play thirty years down the line. I’ve about worn this copy out.

Lula Cortes and Ze Ramalho’s “Paebiru” album, a logical progression from the Marconi Notaro album, as they’re both from the same scene in Recife, Brasil.
Q: Can you tell me about your partnership with Madlib?
A: Well, it started at Stones Throw, where, over time, I became the one who handled most of his business affairs. We formalized the partnership in 2008 and kickstarted Madlib Invazion as a label, touring entity and production company with the Madlib Medicine Show, which issued thirteen albums, a series of tee shirts, and produced a series of international tours over the past four years. It’s the entity through which we run all of our business together at this point: we’re currently finishing up an album with the rapper Freddie Gibbs, are building out a retail webstore at rappcats.com and are doing too many other things to list in a short space. Most importantly, though, my partnership with Madlib outlasted by tenure at Stones Throw – and I always thought that both would always go hand in hand. Honestly, I’m happier where I am now and wouldn’t for an instant consider what things might have been like the other way around. It’s too miserable of a thought: as difficult as it can be to keep things going in the music industry, it’s always a joy to work with Madlib. Any small frustrations we might have in working together disappear the moment I hear new music he’s created, and that’s been the case for over thirteen years now.

Q: Tell me about the most unlikely place where you found records?
A: One time, a friend and I found an incredible assortment of records in the balcony of an old opera house in a small town in between Nashville and Chattanooga. That was about as bizarre as the records in Mr. T’s Barber Shop in Chattanooga, a spot we hit right afterwards.

Love the hat, Rob! And you’ll never guess it, but this guy Madlib will wear one just like twenty-five years, and about six thousand miles, apart from you. Unfortunately, he won’t wear the bell bottom corduroys.

Q: What do you look for in a record?
A: At the moment, I look for records that just strike a chord in me, for whatever reason. I think that, after a certain point, an enthusiast starts looking less and less for words to describe what he’s feeling and more starts reflecting on that the feeling. The connoisseur does the opposite. I firmly consider myself an enthusiast.

Q: Seems like mainstream music has no place at your record shelves. It struck me when you referred to Mulatu’s albums as mainstream ones. how rare could it get?
A: Well, by “mainstream” I don’t necessarily mean “bad.” I just mean: at a certain point, I can listen to all of the Curtis Mayfield and Jimi Hendrix that I want without having to have all of those records around my house. Rather, I’d like to surround myself with the alternatives to those albums – albums that I can only listen to by seeking them out myself. Mind you, I really have to want to listen to these albums, so they can’t be super avante garde weirdo stuff – but, at a certain point, if you put me in front of a Mulatu album and a Getachew Mekuria album, I’ll take the Getachew. It’s just a different experience.

“Musical Silt,” a killer Ethiopian funk instrumental, is on this album.

A friend of mine once said “compared to Getachew Mekuria, Mulatu might as well be Madonna.”

Mulatu might be like Madonna compared to Getachew Mekuria, but “Yegella Tezeta” is essential.

Q: How do you organize your collection? Can you give me a useful shelving tip?
A: Ha. I organize by genre or, when it’s appropriate, country. Useful shelving tip? Build yourself some custom shelves – the best you can afford – and say “I’ll only keep this many records in my house as this is the most I can actually listen to” and then stick to that rule. Nothing worse, in my opinion, than a record collector who doesn’t actively listen to his records.

Q: Do you think collecting vinyl helps preserve our musical heritage and culture?
A: Yes, in a lot of ways – but it’s a cyclical thing: music hasn’t moved on from the innovations of the late 60s and early 70s, so what we’re really doing is keeping the flame that was first lit then burning, even as it looks as it it might go out. Why? Well, that’s a good question. Maybe because nothing has come around in the past forty years to supplant the innovations from that revolutionary time.

Q: Does it really? or maybe we are just flooded with so much music that we just can’t really keep up. The paradox of choice you know…
A: Yes, that’s possible. But to myself, I hear what most people hear as innovation nowadays as derivative novelty. I really don’t think that the revolutions of the late 60s through early 70s have been bettered – I just think they’ve been divided, simplified, combined and recombined to the point that most have forgotten about their singular starting point.

Q: Do you think music can still change the world?
A: No, not in the way my parents’ generation did –  but I think good music makes life better, in the same way good wine and food does.

Q: Vinyl sales are steadily increasing in the past few years. Why in your opinion people are going back to vinyl?
A: Well, my vinyl sales aren’t increasing, they’re decreasing – and markedly. People who buy vinyl because they just bought some crappy portable turntable in Urban Outfitters and want to have some 180 gram deluxe reissue of the Velvet Underground and Nico’s album sitting on their coffee table because it looks cool might be temporarily driving some portion of the market up, but I can safely say, from vantage point, that it’s harder and harder to sell the same amount of records, year after year. And most of my peers are in the same boat.

Q: Your label Now-Again specializes in re-issues and compilations on beautiful vinyl and some special packaging. Do you think you would have the same passion to pursue this solely on CDs?
A: No. If not for the vinyl portion of it, I’d just do books full time and offer the music as a free download or something.

Like I said, I’d rather have records like Stone Coal White’s “You Know” 7” in my collection than some first state, UK press Jimi Hendrix album. I know one begot the other, and I love Hendrix, but while he’s perfect, Stone Coal White is just too damn irresistable. It’s kind of similar to the way that any top Burgundy lover will tell you that his secret wine passion is Vin Jaune.

Q: What’s your partner’s reaction to this obsession? Have you ever kept a particular purchase secret from your her?
A: Well, she loves music, and loves all kinds of music, and she knows that I have to do this not only stay connected to the things that I love, but for the things that keep a roof over our heads. And no, I’ve never hidden a purchase from her – in fact, I’ve told her exactly what my collection is appraised for, and where the rarer records are located, so if I die unexpectedly she knows what to sell  first and through whom. I hate the stories of a collector dying and his spouse selling his rare records at a pittance to so called friends. This is an opportunistic sport for most, after all – and the idea of getting over on someone figures high in most collectors’ agendas – at least, many of those that I’ve encountered.

Q: Do you still go digging in flea markets, record stores?
A: When I have the time. Largely, at this point, I like buying or trading through specific people who understand what I’m looking for. But if I’m around records, I search.

Q: What’s your comfort record, the one you could always go back to?? What makes it so special for you?
A: Baden Powell and Vinicius De Moraes’ “Afro Sambas,” Arthur Verocai’s album, Amanaz’s “Africa,” Damon “Song of a Gypsy – ” those records are all different but are marvelous, varied listens all the way through.

Damon gave me this album as a gift when my son was born. My only condition to accept it was that he personalize the album to me, thus taking its resale value down, significantly. No matter how bad things get, I never, ever, want to sell this album.

Q: Show me a hilarious album cover
A:  The He 5’s “Merry Christmas Psychedelic Sound”

The He 5’s “Merry Christmas Psychedelic Sound.” It contains an amazing 12 minute version of “Jingle Bells” that morphs into “Inna Gadda Da Vida” and “Paint It Black.” 

This is a damn good South Korean psych record, but Vol. 1 is even better. The fact that they called something so heavy “Go Go Sound” is hilarious to me.

To my ears, the two best Indian psychedelic rock records. “Simla Beat 70/71,” released by the Simla Cigarettes Company. Note the rodent damage to the cover of “71.”

The year – 1970. The pitch – “Hey kids, smoke our Simla cigarettes. They’re good for your health, they probably cure cancer, and we put out the best psychedelic rock records in India. We promise to put out an album every year… Or at least for two years. But the habit you develop will be a bear to kick.”

Q: Can you pick an album that has incredible music inside a terrible cover?
A:Dennis The Fox’s “Mother Trucker.” This guy really had it all and is one of the nicest, most normal guys you’ll ever meet. He just happened to make an album that sounds as if some seedy weirdo Northwestern biker dreg made it on his way to the pen.

Dennis The Fox’s “Mother Trucker.”

Q: Tell me about a dollar bin record you would never part with!
A: The HAIR soundtrack. One of the most important records in my life.

Q: Is there an artist or a label you’re trying to complete?
A: To be honest, I would like to have every test press made from Stones Throw’s inception to the point I left. I have like 95% but there are some I’m missing. It’s not like I’d do anything with them. It’s just that it was part of my job – well, I made it part of my job – to archive them over the 11 years I was there, and I had many from before I started working there.

Q: What about digging buddies? Do you share or you go solo?
A: I used to dig with Cut Chemist a lot. Prior to my missions with him I used to dig with my pals Ben Nichols and Jon Doe, while I was in Nashville. They were up for WHATEVER, and we found ourselves in all types of places, but then again so was I – I was young and broke, but without real responsibilities or bills.  But, over the past ten years the only person I really dig with is Madlib – and J.Rocc, if he’s around when we are. But even Madlib has gone out less and less when we’re on the road – probably because he has so many records (he probably has a thousand times what I do). So I find myself meeting new people in every city I’m in. It doesn’t matter how tired I am or how little sleep I have or how difficult it is – if I’m in a new city, I simply must search out the folks that have the knowledge, if only to glean a bit of that knowledge.

Q: Tell me a particularly sad record story!
A: Well, I’ve certainly lost friends over records – found out how greedy or self-centered they were through their dealings with these small, plastic things. Beautiful, intriguing things – but things none the less. I guess it doesn’t get sadder than that.

Q: Tell me about a record that has healed heartbreaks! Name one that made them worse!
A: Universouls “New Generation” is one that has the power to heal. I would say The Group’s “Feedback” would probably make any problem worse. It’s a hectic album – awesome, but hectic.

Universouls “New Generation”

One song to heal heartbreak, this one from Nigeria.

Q: Regrets! Tell me about a record you still regret not picking up?
A: Too many to name – mainly collections, or warehouses, I wish I’d bought lock, stock and barrel early on, so I could have taken my time going through them rather than rushing and cherry picking. I’m sure I missed some marvelous things at Eddie 3 Way, for example – and I probably could have bought the whole place for 20 grand, if I’d had access to that kind of cash back in 1998 or whatever it was. It pains me to think of, for instance, the hundreds of copies of Eddie Bo’s “Lover and a Friend” I just left sitting there. They would have made for great gifts now!

Q: Mentor. Has there been a person in your life that inspired you to collect records and has been a role model, a guide in the art of record collecting?
A: Yup. First, my father. For reasons already stated, and also because he showed me how patience and persistence in collecting – returning to the same haunts, looking anew through what looks like the same pile of stuff – might lead to something unexpected.  Secondly, the New Haven rapper and producer Dooley O. He was the first person to bring me into the hip hop fold, when I was about 16 or so, and show me how all of the music that was around me as I was growing up could be part of this amazing music I was so in love with.

Kieran, my son, was really, really into “Mother Sky” last Christmas. He grooved to the bass line so readily. Now, not so much. He’s into “Penguin Music” as I mentioned above. 

Q: What do you wish will happen to your collection when you check out?
A: I hope my kids get a record or two out of it that they use to remind me of them, and I hope the rest of it puts some good money in their pockets. And I hope that the next person who gets the one of kind records currently sitting in my shelves does so because he or she appreciates them and not because they’re valuable or an investment or whatever.

Q: Who would you like to see next on Dust & Grooves?
A: Madlib.

Kieran’s favorite thing – “Bichos” (“bugs”) – and a Caetano Veloso album of the same name (with the song “O Leaozinho” on it, a lullaby my wife’s father used to play to her, which we now play to Kieran.)

“Don’t let records take over your life, but make them an enjoyable part of your life. I always say that I try to keep my drinking of wine in check because I don’t want to become an alcoholic and have to give it up – I dig wine too much to do that. Same thing with records.”

Now-Again Records – www.nowagainrecords.com

Elegant Truths – A mix tape by Zach Cowie for Dust & Grooves by Dust & Grooves on Mixcloud

Tracklist:

Elegant Truths – A mix tape by Zach Cowie for Dust & Grooves by Dust & Grooves on Mixcloud

Q: What’s playing right now on your turntable?
A: It’s February 23rd, 2013 and these are the records that are sitting in the NOW PLAYING bin that I keep next to my desk: Justin Hines And The Dominoe’s “Jezebel” (thanks Barker), David Behrman “On The Other Ocean”, Tommy Awards EP and Brenda Ray’s “Naffi Years” comp (thanks to Andy Cabic for turning me on to these), Michael Chapman “Rainmaker” and the upcoming Big Boys reissue– both grabbed on a recent visit to the Light in the Attic office, two Suzanne Kraft 12”s (Hi Diego!), Psychemagik’s 12” of their Fleetwood Mac “Dreams” edit, the “Brand New Wayo” compilation, Wicked Witch “Chaos”, The Kiwi Animal “Music Media” and a Would Be Goods 45 (recommendations from one of my favorite shops in the UK called Kristina), Theo Parrish/Andrew Ashong “Flowers” 12” (thanks to Aaron from Peaking Lights), Primal Scream “Screamadelica” (back in heavy rotation lately after watching the “Classic Albums” special on Netflix), the Lee “Scratch” Perry and Orb LP, Shabazz Palaces ”Black Up” (still one of my favorite ‘new’ things of recent years), Yo La Tengo “Fade”, Cocteau Twins and Harold Budd “Moon Melodies”, Carroll Thompson “Hopelessly In Love”, Larry Heard “Missing You” 12”, the three blues reissues Third Man Records is about to release in collaboration with Document Records (thanks Swank), and some of the jams I grabbed at Mt Analog a bit ago: Goblin’s “Tenebre” score, the new Burial 12”, Go Betweens “Tallulah”, and a couple 12”s on L.I.E.S. that I was missing.

Q: When I stepped in to the room, there was an Alice Coltrane album playing. Tell me more about it?
A: Alice Coltrane will always be my GO TO spin when I’m in between ideas/directions, a palette-cleanser if you will. Her arrangements are borderline extra-terrestrial and I find constant inspiration in their limitlessness.

One of my most listened-to records of the past few years.

Peter Max’d gatefold.

Q: Who sparked your love for music?
A: My grandma was the heaviest early influences as far as the way my ears work (Hi Nana! she’s a Google’r so she might see this). She’s a lover of many types of traditional folk music, which were the first sounds I really responded to as a kid. She’s also one of the most truly far out people I’ve ever spent time with– her love of mythology, nature, and the cosmos has been just as big of an influence on my listening habits as the actual music she exposed me to. She’s always been a constant supporter of my general curiosity, a factor that plays a massive role in the way I seek out and absorb music.

Q: Can you drop a few names from your grandma’s record box?
A: Ha! She loves a lot of the traditional Irish and English folk balladry, which I connected with instantly because it’s basically the D&D of music (fair maidens, knights, dragons, questing, etc)!

Q: Why vinyl?
A: I like to be able to hold the things I spend money on.

Q: Do you focus on a specific musical genre?
A: I try my hardest to be as genre-less of a record collector as possible (which anyone who’s heard me DJ at a club and then also heard what I’ve been spinning at home can attest to!). I’m soooooo down to explore just about anything. Sure there are sounds which I spend more time researching/buying than others (psych/folk/early electronics/etc), but the older I get, the more I truly believe there are only really two types of music — good and bad. I feel that the quicker you’re able to wrap your mind around that concept and drop the often restrictive genre card out of the equation– the more exciting your life as a collector (and more importantly, as a listener) will become.

My feet next to a few piles of stuff I’ve been spinning at parties lately.

Q: How did your passion for vinyl affected the rest of your life — friends, life partners, lifestyle, jobs?
A: My entire life presented itself to me the moment I started buying records as a teen! I’ve always loved music but I honestly have no idea where the idea to get a turntable and start collecting came from. There was no vinyl around when I was growing up and there certainly wasn’t a turntable. I was fairly, umm, “indoor” as a kid and kept to myself while thinking about things like the world of Jim Henson and science fiction; especially Star Wars (ps- why do we record dudes all love Star Wars so much!?). My love of Star Wars lead me to an early appreciation of general mythology, specifically the studies of Joseph Campbell (one of Nana’s favorites). I can’t stop thinking about Bill Moyer’s interview with Campbell from the “Power Of Myth” series when trying to answer this question. Campbell is a massive advocate of “following your bliss” and believes that once you do so you’ll be guided by “hidden hands” down a path that’s always been there waiting for you. It’s a little far out, but in my case it’s totally fucking true! Sure there have been a number of missteps along the way, but without much premeditation– I managed to jump from a record store job as a teen straight into my 20’s where I worked for 4 different record labels while touring the world with loads of my favorite bands, and now I’ve entered my 30’s as a music supervisor & consultant for film, television and fashion while consistently traveling as a DJ (and I’m just now dipping my toes into some production ideas). I’ve truly done nothing more to get here but follow the music.

Q: Where do you acquire your vinyl these days: flea markets, record shops, personal dealers, ebay, other online stores?
A: I’ll get it wherever I can find it. I do quite a bit of online buying (dealers and auctions) for more specific “want list” kind of stuff but still I’m digging thru the shops at least 2 or 3 times a week (so many killer spots in LA but specific shouts to Ian at Wombleton in Highland Park, Scott Craig and his Records LA bins at the Last Bookstore Downtown, and Zane & Mahssa at Mt Analog in Highland Park).

Q: What other goodies have you found while looking for records?
A: I LOVE finding old notes inside of records. A couple of my favorites show up in the photo shoot.

A note from Dr Demento that I found in a Serge Gainsbourg 45.

A note found inside my copy of “Stormcock”. Pro tip!

Q: How do you organize your collection?
A: I’m a bit OCD and keep my shit sleeved and super alphabetized. I keep a separate 2 cube by 4 cube Ikea shelf full of the things I’ve been spinning out lately (still alphabetized, duh) to make pulling/re-filing records for DJ nights a bit easier. I guess you’d call that my “now sound” section as I’m constantly moving things from there back to the main record walls when I’m getting sick of them and throwing things from the main walls into the “now” shelves when they jump back into my mind.

Q: I see you have a record shelf right next to your bed. What’s there?
A: Oh yeah! That’s a chunk of the jazz and avant-garde section that wouldn’t fit with the other stuff. I sleep next to jazz, is that weird?

Records in bed.

Q: What do you look for in a record?
A: So many different things! I write a lot of notes in my Phone about stuff I’ve come across in research or records suggested to me by bros. Those notes are definitely where my digging begins, but I also love looking for connections between seemingly unrelated records ie: noticing a session player or producer on something unfamiliar and taking a chance on that record due to their contribution on another record I like. Sometimes it’s just the right year on the right label. Sometimes the dudes on the cover just look like they knew what they’re doing! What I’m getting at here is it’s either a purchase that’s super-calculated (ie: straight from my notes section with loads of research to back it) or it’s just a record I have a gut feeling about!

Roy Harper’s “Stormcock” will definitely be coming with me to the desert island.

Q: So what about a record you were totally wrong about, and turned out to be a gem? Can you name one?
A: The Link Wray 3-track records (“Link Wray”, “Beans and Fatback” and the Mordecai Jones album) were total revelations to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love “Rumble” era Link Wray but I would have never known this totally other vibe of his existed unless I chose to trust my gut and drop a needle on these things instead of passing based on an assumption of what a “too late era” Link Wray album would sound like. The rootsy/rural but grooving as fuck feeling found on these records became the initial blueprints for the sound Light In The attic and I comp’d together for the “Country Funk” record. Definitely a huge lesson in “dude, you have to check every record”.

A little something my bros at Light In The Attic and I put together last year.

Q: Do you think collecting vinyl helps preserve our musical heritage and culture?
A: Definitely. I’m a huge Carl Sagan fan and think the ultimate (and literal!) example of this idea is that of the Gold Record on the Voyager Spacecraft. Rather than type out the details, I’ve used excerpts from a piece on the Gold Record that WNYC’s Radiolab produced as the intro/outro of my mixtape. Hearing Ann Druyan (Sagan’s widow and fellow collaborator on the project) tell this tale is one of my favorite things of all time and I think everyone should get the story straight from her!

Q: You tattooed it on your arm. When did that happen?
A: I have so many dorky music tattoos which I’ve been getting since I was a teen (thank god I had “decent” taste back then!). When I became aware of the “Gold Record” story about five years ago I was totally obsessed with it and figured I should add it to the arms. I really do think it’s one of the heaviest musical ideas of all time and I’m proud to carry around a constant reminder of its existence.

NERD ALERT: A tattoo of the etching that’s on the Voyager gold record.

Q: Vinyl sales have steadily increased during the past few years. In your opinion, why do people go back to vinyl?
A: As a dude who spent his late teenage years working at a record shop and his 20’s working at record labels, I never knew that vinyl left because I’ve been selling it to people quite consistently for the better half of my life! This “increase” has been everyone’s favorite thing to talk about in recent years– I’ve always been a big believer in the “Say something once, why say it again?” lyric from “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads: Meaning, I’m kinda over this topic (…and don’t even get me started on Record Store Day!) and would much rather spend my energy looking for killer records than add anything more to a conversation that already has plenty of voices and opinions…

Obsessed with Terry Riley, especially these two soundtracks.

Q: Tell me about those Terry Riley records
A: I’m a massive Riley fan. He was one of my first introductions to a whole world of avant-garde/minimal composers who shaped the later half of my 20′s (Steve Reich, John Cage, David Behrman, La Monte Young, Harold Budd, etc). The two records I zero’d in on during our session were a few soundtracks he did that I’ve spent an insane amount of time spinning at home. I especially love the tune “In The Summer” off the Lifespan soundtrack. I think I first heard it on an Animal Collective tour and it’s been a late-night summer bummer staple ever since I was able to track down a copy (I put it on my mixtape…)
Q: What’s your partner’s reaction to this obsession? Have you ever kept a particular purchase secret from your partner?
A: My obsession runs so deep that I wouldn’t even know how to keep it a secret if I tried! Music is all I think about (with a bit of film thrown in for good measure). Even when I have non-musical ideas, or interactions I’m relating it all back to music in my head. I wake up with it already spinning through my brain and it’s still there swirling around ‘til the moment I fall asleep. A certain girl once jokingly called me Mu-Zach when we were young and that’s just the way it was (and still is).

J Penry is a genius for combining both ‘Deads (in the frame behind me). Endless thanks to Jess Rotter for that print– best Christmas present of all time.

Q: Do you have a record collecting philosophy? Any special routines when you enter a store?
A: I’ve definitely developed a specific method for stores I visit regularly, but when I’m travelling or on tour and visiting shops I don’t hit regularly (or have never hit), I always start with the new arrivals bins and move on over to the big dawg wall records. After that, if I’ve got the time—I hit just about every bin in the whole store (see my comments above about being a “genre-less” collector)! Of course I close out the dig by doing my best to creep into any stacks of recent acquisitions that haven’t been priced yet or a possible “back room”. I also love getting recommendations from employees whos taste I have grown to trust—my favorite question to ask these folks when hitting the counter with a stack is “what did I miss?”.

SilverApples4Life.

Meeting the ‘Croz was pretty huge for me. This one will also be coming with to the desert island.

Q: What about the $1 bins?
A: I spent most of my teens and early 20’s ripping them apart, but I’ve found that the internet has kinda killed off the glory days of finding completely insane shit in there (it’s so easy for anyone to know exactly what everything’s worth), so it’s definitely lower on the list these days. That said, there are totally still some secret spots that will always produce $1 gold….but I’ll be keeping quiet on those!

Q: Can you name a few ones which you’ll never part with?
A: There are two types of dollar bin records– the one that’s worth a shit-load more than a dollar which you find in a dollar bin (and pray nobody behind the counter gets curious and dials it up on Collectors Frenzy before they cash you out) and the one that’s in the dollar bin because it’s only worth a dollar. My favorite dollar bin record that’s only worth a dollar is probably a beater copy of Led Zep IV. “Battle Of Evermore” will always be one of my favorite jams ever and repeated childhood listening of “Going To California” is probably why I’m e-speaking to you from there and loving every moment of it.

Q: What’s your favorite comfort record, the one you can always go back to? What makes it so special?
A: I’m a massive advocate of music as therapy and more than half the records in my collection are there for some kind of comfort factor! My dad wasn’t in the picture when I was a kid and I had a step-dad later in life that didn’t exactly work out either. These past few years since trading in the bottle for running & cycling (and moving to the beach—all of these factors lend themselves to heavy reflection!), I’ve come to realize that I may have subconsciously pieced together a father figure out of the words and wisdom found on a lot of these records– which could also possibly explain the mysterious start of my collecting as a teenager? Dunno. It’s definitely a heavy idea and one I’m still sorting out, but I can think of handfuls of major decisions that were guided primarily by the lyrics of a stranger and there have been endless situations where I’ve leaned on ideas found in these records for courage—and I’ll continue to lean on them.

Q: Where is this Robert Wyatt illustration from? I think I recognize the language from another artwork I’ve seen.
A: That’s a watercolor painting by Jess Rotter, who many record-buying people know from her Rotter & Friends T-shirt company. Jess and I met a million years ago when I was working at Drag City and she was working at Girlie Action. We hired Girlie to help work a Smog album and we’ve been pretty much inseparable since that moment. She’s one of my dearest friends and the owner of my most trusted brain to filter any ideas/decisions thru.

My security blanket.

My heart will always belong to the ladies of the British Folk revival.

Go your way, my love.

My favorite bummer record.

Judee holding it down in the gatefold.
As far as specifics go, there are a few singers whos voices always seem to take care of me whenever I’m off point. I could listen to certain people sing about anything and the tonality of their voices and delivery alone makes me feel like everything’s going to be okay. Here are a handful of those folks off the top of my head: Robert Wyatt, Jerry Garcia, all three members of Yo La Tengo, Bert Jansch, Arthur Russell, Gil Scott-Heron, Townes Van Zandt, Waylon Jennings, Bob Dylan, Judee Sill, Neil Young, Mark Hollis, Nick Drake, Curtis Mayfield, Sandy Denny, Liz Fraser, John Martyn, Vashti Bunyan, Gene Clark, Christine McVie, etc.
On the instrumental comfort tip, I tend to play A LOT of Eno’s ambient records, Terry Riley, and a ton of both John and Alice Coltrane.
A major comfort provider that hit me much later in life was J Dilla. Brian from Animal Collective told me about “Donuts” when it was released but it took me a while for it to fully click in. I probably would have given up if it wasn’t for the album being passed my way by a friend. I knew that if he was loving this thing so much and I wasn’t feeling it, I was probably just missing something and needed to give it more time. I always liked hip-hop growing up but would have never considered myself anything but a casual fan with a few essential records. That moment when “Donuts” clicked it truly changed my life. I’m not sure what happened but I suddenly stopped trying to ‘listen’ to it and just gave into the whole thing as pure waves of emotion and purity. Knowing that such feeling could exist from just a crate of records, an MPC, and capable hands (and heart!) changed the way I heard a lot of things and sent me straight out of ‘casual hip hop fan’ into a full-fledged head (which breathed a much-needed new life into my record buying!). To this day, whenever I’m feeling a bit lost, I just load up Dilla beats into a playlist and go for a long walk until things sort themselves out.

Maybe it’s cliche to say after the infamous T-shirt but J Dilla did indeed change my life.

Q: You can’t always judge a record by its cover.Can you list an album or two that boasts great music inside a terrible cover?
A: Terry Reid “Seed Of Memory” and Terry Melcher’s self titled album—apparently I have a deep hesitation when it comes to dudes named Terry who shop at the same white turtle-neck store and ice you down with creep stares on their record covers.

Q: Is there an artist or a label you’re trying to complete?
A: I’ve never been one to keep anything that I don’t actually want to listen to “just to have it”, so that pretty much eliminates the idea of completing any person or label’s whole run (if they existed for more than 15 or so releases) as there are VERY few of either that batted 1000.

Q: What about the Brian Eno catalogue?
A: Yeah, I guess I do have A TON of Eno and Eno-related stuff, but the above statement still rings true– there are plenty of things he’s touched in some way or another that I’ve heard but have no desire to acquire (that rhymed!) for the sake of completion because I would never listen to them.

My favorite record of all time and a heavy arm full of the Obscure series.

Eno’s deck of Oblique Strategies. I swear by ‘em.

Q: Eno’s deck of Oblique Strategies. Where and when did you get it?
A: I read about this deck years ago when I first started getting into Eno and I thought it was the coolest idea in the world. I realized much later that it’s constantly being reprinted and available for purchase thru Eno’s website. I sent my mom the link and she bought me the deck for my 25th birthday. Been using them quite consistently to inform decisions (musical and otherwise!) ever since.

Q: What about digging buddies? Do you share or go solo?
A: Most of my closest musical bros come from connections that were made from the various jobs I’ve had, especially all the touring I did in my 20’s. That said, everybody is scattered all over the place and while I LOVE the chance to link with them for a dig whenever we’re in the same city, I tend to do most of my damage solo.

Q: What’s the unlikeliest place/occasion you’ve ever found a record?
A: This seems to happen to me quite a bit and it gets freaky if I really sit and think about it—there is a mystical force about records and I feel like they find you just as much as you find them. Here’s an example–I’ll spare you all the exact details but I took a crazy trip up to Montana about 3 years ago that involved some heavy questing. A few nights before leaving a friend of a friend named Cedric asked me if I’d heard of the Blue Nile (I think we had been talking about Prefab Sprout? Can’t remember…). I said I hadn’t and his face dropped with one of those “dude, you’re gonna lose your mind when you hear this shit!” expressions. I hit a few bins before splitting town and couldn’t find any of their records so I downloaded their first two (arguably all you really need!) and listened to them non-stop on the entire drive to Montana. It was exactly what I wanted (and NEEDED!) to hear. I arrived in Missoula ahead of schedule and popped into a shop up there that I’d been to before on tour to kill some time and what’s the first album sitting in the new arrivals bin? “A Walk Across The Rooftops” by the Blue Nile.

My production partner Sunny Levine and I are sooooo deep in Blue Nile.

Q: Your friend Sunny just popped in. You mention him as your production partner. Can you tell me more about it?
A: Sunny Levine is a record producer and songwriter who I met right when I moved to LA thru mutual friends. We hit it off pretty quickly and would always talk about linking up to work on something whenever we ran into each other. Sunny is a true & deep West-sider and doesn’t drive, it literally took me moving to the beach for us to be able to hang and jam regularly. We spent the better part of 2012 in the studio together and many things came out of the partnership (with the help of many other collaborators, of course) — most notably a record by Alakasam, the Celeste & Jesse Forever score/soundtrack, and a big batch of beats and edits under our shared “Biggest Crush” moniker.

12 inches that Swirl.Vertigo!!

Keep it heavy.

John & Beverley Martyn’s “Stormbringer”– a favorite album cover of mine (the music rules too, duh).

Q: What’s in that 7″ magic box? Is that your DJ’ing box?
A: This is the flight case I bring my 45′s in for DJ gigs. I try and change things up at least once a week depending on how much I have going on. I guess I treat this box the same way as I treat my 2nd record wall by rotating jams in & out of the mix as I’m feelin’ em (or finding them!).

Obviously

I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. One of the greatest productions ever.

John Peel and I have the same favorite single of all time.

A pair of Dutch sure-shots.

Please give this dude directions to Electric Avenue…there is a huge pile of money waiting there for him.

My favorite Can jam to rock at parties that I had to acquire with assistance from the Goethe Institute (thanks Stefan!).

Some Valle sickness given to me by the great Joel Stones of Tropicalia In Furs fame.

Q: Regrets! Tell us about a great record or two that got away from you.
A: I try not to think about regret in the record game. I have a very visual memory and tend to remember just about every record cover I take more than a second to look at (if that’s my secret power, I’m officially the most worthless mutant in X-Men history) — I’d go totally crazy if I spent too much time regretting how I’d once seen something at a shop long before I had learned thru research (or a friend’s suggestion) that it might be something I’d be interested in. You’ll find it again when you’re supposed to.

Pentangle’ing

I really miss Bert.

The blueprints. A few of my favorite records from high school that taught my ears how to work.

Q: Mentor. Was there a particular person who inspired you to collect records, a role model in the art of record collecting?
A: There have been so many and for that I’ll always be extremely grateful! One of the earliest after leaving the house and entering my adult life was a dude in Chicago named John Ciba. John managed the record store I worked at when I was a kid called Laurie’s Planet Of Sound and to this day I rank him in the top ten as far as musical appreciation and knowledge across the genres goes. Shadowing him definitely fast-tracked me into honing in my ‘sound’ and finding the records that fit well with it. Two other big ones back then were Troy Authement and Steve “Plastic Crimewave” Krakow, I received a few mixtapes from each of them that I studied like bibles. (Mixtape exchanges were so crucial in my late teens and early 20’s and it’s something I’m truly sad about losing, sharing MP3’s or playlists never does much for me.) A few other hugely influential friendships built on early mixtape exchanges were with Kevin Barker and Devendra Banhart (both of whom I went on to tour with in various capacities), Ben Swank, and Jess Rotter (who I have been in constant collaboration with since we met). Another big one has been Andy Cabic who I’ll talk about more specifically in a bit.
I started DJ’ing when I was fairly young and I’d consider everyone I’ve ever DJ’d with more than a couple times to be an inspiration and that’s a LONG list of people! Once I made it out of the record store and over to record labels there have been countless colleagues at each spot that were kind enough to share their brilliance with me. After I split the label world, it’s been Jeff Gold (formerly of A&M and Warner Bros, now owner of recordmecca.com) who’s really stepped into the role of “mentor” (whether he knew it or not! Heh heh!). As I hope you’ve gathered by this whole interview– I’ve always been lucky enough to be surrounded by very talented peers, roughly from my generation, who’ve taught me so much about music– but I think mentoring is less about the specifics within a field and more about the field’s application to the bigger picture of LIFE. This requires the wisdom that can only come from another generation, someone who’s already lived through it and can use the outcomes (both good and bad) of their experiences to help inform yours. Jeff is just as good at teaching me about variations in matrix numbers as he is with helping me to make major (non-musical) life decisions. For this I will be forever indebted and I very much look forward to the day when I can do the same for someone else a generation below me.

7″ shelf

Q: What do you want to happen to your collection when you check out?
A: I’d love to someday be able to pass my collection on to a child of my own but I’m a loooooong ways away from having one of those (!), so if I were to check out tomorrow I’d like my collection to be moved to the Dublab.com studio. I’ve been a resident DJ on Dublab for about 7 years now and all these dudes have supported me through just about everything! I love the idea of all my fellow lab-rats continuing to pull life and ideas out of the records I’ve collected long after I’m able to.

Q: Who would you like to see profiled next on Dust & Grooves?
A: You’ve already hit on a lot of winners so far but one of my favorite record collectors (and friends!) is kind of a deep cut! His name is Andy Cabic and he’s often overlooked as a collector because most folks associate him more with the music he makes with his band called Vetiver. Andy is one of the most adventurous music listeners I’ve ever known and by far one of my biggest inspirations as far as exploring every corner of the record store goes. We’ve been bros for close to ten years and he’s always been my first call when I’m out of ideas and looking for new directions to explore. The “new arrivals” bin at his home in San Francisco is constantly brimming with things you’ve never heard of and one of my favorite things ever is sitting on the hot carpet (his living room has heated carpeting, which is pretty much legendary amongst our circle of friends) while Andy goes through the bin and plays you the few tracks off each record that he’s gravitated towards while explaining to you the paths and information chains he’s travelled to learn about and obtain said album.

“Record collecting is an infinite journey backwards.”

Turquoise Wisdom on Dublab: http://dublab.com/turquoise-wisdom/

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/turquoise-wisdom

Tweeeeeet: https://twitter.com/turquoisewisdom

Website: playitasitlathes.com

Just a quick update from the great kingdom. Keeping it super busy here, shooting every day. Here is what I was up to in the past 2 days

Dom Servini – Wah Wah 45 

Andrew “Mr.Scruff” Carthy - Manchester

Andrea Trout – Manchester

Coming up… Kevin Foakes (DJ Food), Ollie Teeba (The Herbaliser), Colleen Murphy, Floating Points and Johnny Trunk!!!

Stay tuned.

In Kyoto, I met with Shuya Okino, half of the production recording duo Kyoto Jazz Massive.

He welcomed me in his traditional Japanese house in the heart of Kyoto. He had just got back from a DJ tour and digging trip in Europe and showed me a few of his latest Czech Jazz albums.

Back in Tokyo, on my last day, just before I had to leave to the airport, I got lucky enough to visit the one and only, DJ Muro!

It took a lot of co-ordinating and contacts to schedule this photo shoot, but finally it happened, and I had 2 good hours to spend with a legendary vinyl digger.

These 2 profiles will represent the Japanese digging scene in the upcoming book.

Thanks to Natasha Diggs, Miyoshi Hisahi, Kohji Maruyama, Kamui Sumida, Jamison Harvey, King Britt and Julia Rodionova who helped me get in touch with Muro and Shuya.

Next Stop… LONDON AND MANCHESTER

Greeting from Tokyo, Japan.

I have started a 2 month trip in order to collect more material for the upcoming Dust & Grooves book.

During the 4 years of working on Dust & Grooves, I kept hearing crazy things about the vinyl culture in Japan, so now it’s time to see it in my own eyes, and share it with all of you.

I rather see this visit as an introduction to Japan, first visit to be followed by additional ones in the future. There’s so much to see, and so little time.

Junich Miyaji - Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

I got to know Junichi thru Sheila Burgel, a NY friend whom I photographed for D&G a few months ago. Thank you Sheila for this great introduction.

Junichi lives in a small beach town, about an hour train ride from Tokyo. His house is of course full of records. The first floor is converted into a bar where he stores all his LPs and uses it as a hanging spot for him and his vinyl loving friends.

In the second floor, lies the 7 inch room, which he uses as his office.

Tokyo’s Jazz vinyl cafes & bars

Thanks to our reader Lander Lenaerts, I’ve discovered www.tokyojazzsite.com , a website about vinyl cafes and bars in Tokyo, run by James Catchpole, a Brooklynite who’s been living in Tokyo for the past 15 years.

On my second day in Tokyo, we met in this terrific Jazz bar JBS ( Jazz, Blues, Soul). We had a few drinks, listened to a few records took some photos of the owner Kobayashi.

We then continued to his favorite bar Samurai, in Shinjuku. Once again, so much to see, so little time.

Stay tuned for some more updates. Tomorrow I’ll be heading to Kyoto to profile Shuya Okino of Kyoto Jazz Massive.

Wednesday, hopefully, I’ll be profiling DJ Muro and then hop on a plane straight to London.

Until then, keep digging,

Eilon

Ben “Scribe” Goldfarb with an all vinyl mix for Dust & Grooves. Read his interview and take a look at his vinyl collection at: 

http://www.dustandgrooves.com/ben-dj-scribe-goldfarb-new-york-ny/

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