First post: the Austin Record Convention haul that started this site
Two days, 300 dealers, the biggest record show in the country happening twice a year in my backyard. What I pulled, what I left behind, and why I finally built this place.
The Austin Record Convention has been running since 1981, which means it's exactly as old as the era of music I can't stop collecting. Twice a year, the Palmer Events Center fills with three hundred dealers and several million records, and twice a year I tell myself I'm just going to look.
This spring's haul: a Japanese 'Avalon' that tested my rule about not buying what I already own (I own three now, I have a problem, we've established this). A first-press 'Remain in Light' with the deadwax to prove it. A stack of Tejano and border-radio 45s from a dealer out of San Benito who knew the story behind every single one. That conversation was worth the admission alone.
What I left behind haunts me more: a UK 'Unknown Pleasures' I talked myself out of at $180. It'll be $260 by the fall show. This hobby teaches you about regret with unusual efficiency.
Which is why this site exists. Friends have asked me for years to text them when I find things, to recommend pressings, to explain why one copy costs $12 and another $120. Now it lives here instead of in forty scattered iMessage threads. Vinyl is my zen — the digging, the cleaning, the first play of something that spent forty years in someone's garage. Welcome in. Bring your want list.
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