skip diving

[babycart]

I often glimpse into open rubbish containers and skips as I pass them to see if someone has tossed out loads of records.

Luckily i haven't spotted any yet, because then I'd have to go after them. If I didn't go after them I'd worry about what i'd missed for ages, but if I did start burrowing in the rubbish someone might see me and I would have to say I chucked my birth certificate out by accident, but they might not believe me.

The best thing to do is not look in bins in the first place, I think.

[Col Wolfe]

am sure this is how Sermad first got into library records

[eric-adams]

i nicked a quite nice side cabinet out of a skip up the street.
its in my front room now and looks quite nice.

i did wait till it was dark though before i nicked it, just incase someone saw me.

[TOWNY]

am sure this is how Sermad first got into library records

Don't know about Sermad but i dragged 150 Chappell, KPM, and Bosworth LP's out of a skip in the mid 90's

[seldon plan]

I took a Raleigh Super Burner out of a skip about 2 years ago - rode it home too

[Knitwearfan]

A few years back I was working in Bush House in London in a wing adjacent to the Beeb. The BBC had obviously saved enough from years of cheap, rubbish Saturday evening telly to have some sort of refurbishment in the building.
One day, on returning from a meeting I spotted a skip in the courtyard with a few 'interested parties' rumaging through piles of records. Seemingly, a load of discs of live recordings, interviews etc pressed up for the BBC (in bright yellow and green sleeves, if my memory serves) had been slung out
With very little time I quickly rumaged through the records and rubble but could see nothing to spark my imagination
I still occasionally wonder if some of those people wandering across the courtyard clutching their skip pickings had something rather special from that day at work.

[Col Wolfe]

Don't know about Sermad but i dragged 150 Chappell, KPM, and Bosworth LP's out of a skip in the mid 90's

skips seem to be the way to go

[eclectiktronik]

I regularly go skip diving as that is partly what I do for a living. mostly find tapes though!

I've found a few records in skips. Over here, most people live in fairly high-rise blocks. Fortunately the bins are placed at regular intervals down the streets, totally accessible, rather than hidden at the back somewhere.
I found a haul of hundreds of singles in my own street 4 years ago, looked like a tv station worker had ditched them judging from the stickers. most were shite 80s pop but there was some bowie and other nice 70s bits.

another time after the rastro market cleared up and the police had chased away a few unoffical sellers I found a load of nice afro carribbean jazz LPs.

not had anything like the haul of kpms in a skip though! ...yet.

[barky redwood]

I found a Victorian 3 piece suite in a skip once which looked pretty nice and borrowed a mate's van to drag it home and haul it up to our 1st floor flat. However, it needed re-upholstering and sat there for 2 years until my girlfriend got sick of waiting for me to do something to it and I returned it to the Camden Furniture Recycling centre. As I left, I could see another guy grabbing it as the whole cycle began again.

My brother grabbed a load of LPs from outside the old record shop in Leather Lane. When they closed they put the entire contents of the basement on the pavement for people to pick through.

In the early 80s, it was possible to fit out your entire flat if you had a van and drove around the skips in Kensington and Chelsea on a Sunday afternoon.

[emperor tomato ketchup]

In the early 80s, it was possible to fit out your entire flat if you had a van and drove around the skips in Kensington and Chelsea on a Sunday afternoon.

Some friends and I loved ina couple of squats in hoxton in 1989 (when it was a very different world) and we got all our furniture out of skips.

Apparantly the stuff in a skip is still technically your property till its taken away so in theory you are stealing from that person if you take stuff out. One time a copper tried to arrest one of my mates for taking a chair out of a skip and was urging the shopkeeper whose skip it was to press charges. The shopkeeper was (sensibly enough) saying he was welcome to it and was happy to see it get a new life.

I still keep and eye out but never see anything decent.

[medlar]

Some friends and I loved ina couple of squats in hoxton in 1989

Shepherdess Walk?

[emperor tomato ketchup]

Shepherdess Walk?

That's not ringing any bells but there were a lot of squats around Stoke Newington/Old Street back then. It was all council flats where we were and there was a pub at the end of the road that had lunchtime strippers. That wasa culture shock. We never went though.

[seldon plan]

And nowadays, of course, we have the middle class version of skip-diving.......Freecycle

Actually Freecycle is a bloody good idea, my g'friend got a 2 year old Ikea 3 piece suite - the guy even delivered it to her. I score some nice 70's wooden bar stools the other day, and offloaded some old rat cages that I'd had lying about for ages.

Been wondering if it's worth putting a wanted email for vinyl on there.

[Lord Thames]

One day, on returning from a meeting I spotted a skip in the courtyard with a few 'interested parties' rumaging through piles of records. Seemingly, a load of discs of live recordings, interviews etc pressed up for the BBC (in bright yellow and green sleeves, if my memory serves) had been slung out

BBC Transcription Service discs - considering how snotty the Beeb get when they end up in the public domain, it's surprisingly lax to leave them lying around like that. When the former Foreign Recordings unit had a clear out they apparently smashed a load of Radioplay LPs with a hammer, or chucked them out of a second storey window!

[LDJB]

When one of the branches of Avalanche closed up here they had a skip full of records outside the shop which was adjacent to the main Student thorough fair - apparantly there were up to 10 students at a time in it and emerging with arms full of indie and 80s dross. I think it would have been a wonderful sight!

Mr Divine told me about a great skip haul too.

[Knitwearfan]

Today 11:19 AM
Lord Thames

BBC Transcription Service discs - considering how snotty the Beeb get when they end up in the public domain, it's surprisingly lax to leave them lying around like that. When the former Foreign Recordings unit had a clear out they apparently smashed a load of Radioplay LPs with a hammer, or chucked them out of a second storey window!

Yeah, that's them. They certainly hadn't been disposed of carefully . Many were broken or smashed but some definately escaped the cull.

[ladyboygrimsby]

And nowadays, of course, we have the middle class version of skip-diving.......Freecycle

Actually Freecycle is a bloody good idea, my g'friend got a 2 year old Ikea 3 piece suite - the guy even delivered it to her. I score some nice 70's wooden bar stools the other day, and offloaded some old rat cages that I'd had lying about for ages.

Been wondering if it's worth putting a wanted email for vinyl on there.

One of the guys in Brent Freecycle was a record producer. He put a notice up that he was getting rid of some records and I got them, including a few nice acetates of early British hip hop productions.

[Dr Rubberfunk]

I had some records from a skip outside our school in about 1989. John Handy - 'Hard Work' and a Hamilton Bohannon LP. I was electric blues mad at the time so I taped the John Handy and gave them both to a mate who had lots of Parliament albums and was generally known for 'having the funk'

The derelict house my parents bought in the late 70's had been used as a warehouse and so had all the original doors ripped out - we were forever pulling up outside other people's houses and waiting in the car whilst dad went and knocked on doors offering to buy them a drink if he could have the door(s) he'd just spotted in their skip.

Freecycle's been pretty good to me, had a keyboard ('electric piano' - please be rhodes or a wurli - sadly not, a rather terrible Italian electronic piano ), some Wharfdale speakers and a tape deck over last summer. More importantly got rid of a washing machine, a cooker and a tumble dryer that I didn't want to take to the tip

We should have a forum freecycle page
I know people give away records on the regular, but it could include other stuff - music gear, victorian 3 piece suites, rat cages ....

[benjamin hatton]

One of the guys in Brent Freecycle was a record producer. He put a notice up that he was getting rid of some records and I got them, including a few nice acetates of early British hip hop productions.

What kind of stuff did you get on the acetates? Sounds interesting!

[mike sondek]

Been wondering if it's worth putting a wanted email for vinyl on there.

Lots of peeps try that, I don't think it works.

[seldon plan]

Lots of peeps try that, I don't think it works.

Yeah, I figured as much.

Actually, it's starting to annoy me a bit as the amount of 'Wanted' are overtaking the 'Offered', which negates the point a little bit. Someone was asking for a motorbike on the Exeter one the other day!

[emperor tomato ketchup]

There's a similar thing here in Ireland and it consists of nothing but wanted ads, in both the items wanted and items being given away sections.

Or it did the 2 times I looked last year.

[eclectiktronik]

Actually, it's starting to annoy me a bit as the amount of 'Wanted' are overtaking the 'Offered', which negates the point a little bit.

I know what you mean. some of the freecycles are well moderated to avoid that kind of abuse (wirral for example) others are a free for all (madrid!). it varies enormously.

on the same note here's a recent extract from the posting etiquette guidelines for wirral :

2) Can i remind you that justification for your wanted posts is not
required and stories of dire need/poverty/ disablement/ distress will
be edited, words like `urgently` and ` desperatley` are not allowed,
if you are in that situation you need to be consulting someone other
than a recycling group.

...I thought that was fair enough (despite the poor spelling!)

[sermad]

skips seem to be the way to go

Gutted about the farfisa but yeah got a few shopping bags of kpms out of there which was amazing.

I've been doing up my place and had a skip outside and you would not believe the amount of people having a nose in taking stuff out - Its been great actually cos loads of gear is gone and now I've got more room.

[brentford nylon]

Years ago worked at Hull's evening paper and when they moved offices they chucked out their library into a skip. I picked a couple of hundred books from the 20s/30s about the docks/fishing industry/local guides - some with great maps inside. I thought it was important to keep the collection intact at the time but then I opened a book shop and flogged them. Happy days.

[eric-adams]

on the birmingham freecycle today someone asked for a small car!
now thats a bit cheeky. ive been trying to get rid of a few old pc monitos on there but no one ever comes to pick them up.
had some records of there once... worse than charity shop records! all the other ones that come up im to late to get them.

im gonna be putting my get rid of crate on there soon.

[beebskipper]

Hi,

Are some of you skipdivers? I am from the BBC and we are doing a trimedia documentary on skipdiving in London during the credit crunch. We are looking to talk to skipdivers – anonymously, if they wish.

Please get in touch as soon as you can, if you would like to contribute to our doc.

Here is my email:
Connect.Create7@bbc.co.uk

I look forward to hearing from you,

Ulli

[SARGE]

I've had some skip success duckies.....a few early Belfast punk indie gems.
in fact i found the biggest records ever in a skip, they're about 50" early jazz jobs that were used to decorate a jazz cafe. keep meaning to dig em out of the garage and make one into a boss table or something, they're quite enormous ducky

[Rockwell]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gg7ZyyvPKY

[Cantthinkofagoodname]

Do I get makeup?

I think you've already got a bit too much on.