Giving up food for funk

[Hadrian Elephant]

How much of your life is devoted to music - either posting and reading on websites, buying and listening to it, reading books and magazines about it etc?

I'm beginning to feel my life is a little unbalanced.

I was up in Manchester the other week and one of my friends remarked 'you like that t-shirt don't you? You wear it a lot'

Yoinks. It got me thinking about the money I spent on records compared to clothes.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not from the Compo school of personal hygene, but I spend a helluva lot more on records than say shirts or jeans.

Also, I got to thinking about the last booK/magazines I read.

I came up with:
Books - Bass Culture + Love Saves The Day
Magazines - Manifesto + Togetherness + Grand Slam + Mojo

Do you see a pattern developing here?

Do any of the rest of you have this problem, or are you all multi-faceted renaissance men/women, with a wide range of different interests?

Board members with more than 500 posts who reply to the latter will have a hard time convincing me!

[LDJB]

Quote[/b] ]Do any of the rest of you have this problem

Yes

Now lets talk about records again

[Rich Hero]

Quote[/b] (Hadrian Elephant @ June 22 2004,12:49)]Board members with more than 500 posts who reply to the latter will have a hard time convincing me!

Yep, I spend loads of my day trawling the web for vinyl, chatting on here (no shit   ), lurking on Fryer's Funk 45 forum and DJ History (I've been clean of Soulstrut since Christmas), the only mags I read are music mags (Wax Poetics and Grand Slam) and I read a lot of music oriented books...

But, I also try and get to the climbing wall at least once a week (a bit slack at the moment, admittedly) and get outside on proper rock when I can, have mates with no interest in music, I can read books with no music angle, and I do spend money on clothes and shoes as well as records. I'm never accused of wearing the same thing too often. And when I can fit it in, I do some work.  

So yes, I have a problem but I can handle it...  

[wayne]

Quote[/b] (Hadrian Elephant @ June 21 2004,13:49)]Do any of the rest of you have this problem, or are you all multi-faceted renaissance men/women, with a wide range of different interests?

Board members with more than 500 posts who reply to the latter will have a hard time convincing me!

Hmmm...well, a wide range of interests, all pursued through the same medium (ie: bootsales, charity shops, markets etc) so probably somewhere between the two.

I mean, you can pick up your Ozwald Boeteng dress shirt and your Paul Smith ties from the rack just above the records, then scope out the books and bric-a-brac and pictures all at the same time.

But the order of expediture (excluding bills, mortgage, vets fees etc) is probably:

1 - food/booze/fags (in that order)
2 - music (records/cds/the odd magazine)
3 - books (fiction, poetry, art/photography/graphics)
4 - paintings, ceramics, lamps, rugs etc
5 - garden stuff/plants/compost/tools etc (will fall, since we're currently setting up a new allotment)
6 - videos/movies etc
7 - (a long way down) clothes

But music pays mostly for itself, through selling on ebay, and books are low because I tend to use remainder shops & charities for the bulk of those I pick up: bought full ticket in Waterstone's I'd need a bloody vast salary to get through the same amount. So, maybe not too well-rounded, but at least nerdy and obsessive in several areas.

Isn't that what well-rounded means, then??

And in attempting to deny nerdiness, I made a list.

[emperor tomato ketchup]

Look at the state of my garden if you need any further proof.

[Rich Hero]

Quote[/b] (wayne @ June 22 2004,13:19)]I mean, you can pick up your Ozwald Boeteng dress shirt and your Paul Smith ties from the rack just above the records, then scope out the books and bric-a-brac and pictures all at the same time.

See, I'm hopeless at spotting anything in charities or at the boots apart from vinyl. Maybe I am a little lopsided...

[Martin Lovegrove]

With my wife being made redundant last year and deciding to 'go it alone', this has had a remarkable effect on how much I spend on records... I live a life at the moment whereby I probably can afford to buy no more than a couple of CD's a month, but I usually end up spending this at Car Boots and charities, and then selling them on for more funds... the usual story I guess. I'm slowly trawling through my rap collection on cassette and burning them to CD which also keeps the hunger at bay. I'd love to read more about music, I tried to read 'Bass Culture' a couple of months ago but I must say I struggled a little and got bored almost half way through. I try and read Straight No Chaser when I can and I always read Grandslam, but with both of these I always feel a little deflated afterwards as I get through them at breakneck speed.

Clothes are always on the bottom of my list, I tend to have a mad day clothes shopping every once in a while just to 'get it over and done with' as no shopping experience can beat that of shopping for tunes.

[emperor tomato ketchup]

Quote[/b] (Martin Lovegrove @ June 22 2004,13:39)]Clothes are always on the bottom of my list, I tend to have a mad day clothes shopping every once in a while just to 'get it over and done with' as no shopping experience can beat that of shopping for tunes.

I find the total opposite because I rarely buy cloths - if I manage to get some cool threads I feel much more satisfied than if I find another record.

[Mumbles]

These days I seem to buy clothes in 2 year bursts. When I was younger I used to spend most of my money on clobber and booze. Now it's daughter and booze , well going out on Saturday night for a couple

All the books I've been reading recently are like my records , second hand.The best one has been Hear Me Talkin' To Ya by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff (as discussed recently in Wax Poetics). Absolutely facinating insight into the early development of jazz through to the 50's.Highly recommended!

[Nick Cope]

I owe two months rent and last week had to finally buy some new jeans cos the old ones fell off me. This all due to overspending on records.

[sermad]

I'm deffo in the camp of buying a splurge of clothes about once a year and thats me done! My winter jacket I bought 4 years ago and my summer one about 2 years ago! Records are sooooo much higher up the priority list.

[son of stan]

Never really given this much thought.

If I see something I like the look of, I buy it. But if I'm a bit skint, I try to avoid looking.

[bongolia]

Quote[/b] (Mumbles @ June 22 2004,15:00)]The best one has been Hear Me Talkin' To Ya by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff (as discussed recently in Wax Poetics). Absolutely facinating insight into the early development of jazz through to the 50's.Highly recommended!

was in a book shop in York i think a few years back which had loads of the 60s Penguin copy of this for a pound each. bought one, but wish i'd bought them all to give out to people now!

second the recommendation - the entire thing is just paragraphs from interviews with jazzmen/women arranged into a very readable book. so it really is 'in their own words'. reminds me to reclaim my copy from someone i leant it to about 3 years ago.

also read the first George Melly autobiography (Owning Up) which was interesting about the various trad and revival scenes, but not as interesting as the real New Orleans deal you get from the Hentoff/Shapiro one. definitely among music fans there's a real lack of knowledge about pre-bop jazz which is sad

[Col Wolfe]

I used to have a terrible habit with buying vinyl - it was serious - I'd blow all my money as soon as I got paid on, like, one rare-as freakbeat 45. In retrospect it cost me my marriage.

Nowadays I have a directdebit from the joint account to a seperate bank account purely for vinyl. I buy until I run out of money & have to wait until the next month until I can buy again. My girlfriend has put me a sensible track concerning this & I am extremely grateful to her! I also flog a few bits on ebay & have an 'emergency floater' in the ethereal world of Paypal...

I read a lot too - currently Umberto Eco's 'Foucault's Pendulum' - this is never a strain on the wallett thankfully.

[vinylism]

have to admit that, whilst i do have the usual interests outside of finding records - books, films, etc - it's vinyl that is topper most of the list by a mile.  i'll buy other things such as clothes when i can yet buying records is the hungriest of  habits to keep. oh, and beer, too.

we need an obsessive collecting icon i think... or are these sufficient?