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Just for the record (no pun intended) if you're looking for rare music the best place to check is gemm.com. The site is a database of thousands of independent record stores' catalogs. I have not been let down with any oddball request I've thrown at it.

Noted. They had a bunch of old stuff I was looking for. Thanks!

Just for the record (no pun intended) if you're looking for rare music the best place to check is gemm.com. The site is a database of thousands of independent record stores' catalogs. I have not been let down with any oddball request I've thrown at it.

http://www.gemm.com/c/search.pl?field=ARTIST+OR+TITLE&wild=Z-Rock+Hawaii&Go!.x=0&Go!.y=0

Gemm.com.
great site to find any old strange records.

Or just go to http://www.gemm.com/ and enjoy 33 Million records, LPs, CDs and more from over 30,000 sellers
The sites are around, the costs can be reduced, VISA helps.
No need to fall for DRM online tracks.

"I have lists of hundreds of albums I cannot find anywhere"

I guess you have tried Soulseek? There is a linux (nicotine) and an OS X client (ssX) availible. I have found it to be the best place by far to look for obscure music. You might have to give the search some time though (days) since the user who has the music you want has to be online for it to show up.

And Gemm is a good, although sometimes a bit expensive, place to find second hand Lps and Cds.

4GB Flash drive: http://www.google.com/products?q=4gb+flash+drive&oe=utf-8&rlz=1R1GGGL_en___US315&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=39MSStyRDpThtge29JCSBA&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

about $10

Single blank DVD: http://gemm.com/q.cgi?rb=GOOGLEBASE&wild=GML1415945804

$0.50

Um?

Laugh.com

and if you want to buy used goods of out of print material, there is always GEMM

RS

http://www.isratrance.com/index.php Info / Forum
http://www.psynews.org/ Info / Forum
http://www.psyshop.com/ Online shop
http://www.saikosounds.com/english/default.asp Online shop

Now of course you have to like electronic music for those links to be useful. For used and out of print I go to Ebay obviously, or also GEMM That serves most of my needs right there. Someone else around here will post a link to CD Baby, I just did a quick search and my results made me uncertain....

So that's what I'm into, covers some fast trance, and slow downtempo chill and ethic flavor and a lot of world-wide creativity in there. Of course there's a lot more out there, but most of it doesn't interest me enough to really follow it and this grouping of stuff is enough to meet most of my needs...

And for RIAA music, I'm sure everyone know where to download their favorite stuff so that you're not supporting the evil beast (okay I kid I kid, no seriously LOL)...

That's great until you are looking for obscure, out-of-print CDs like Gold Nigga by Prince or Burning World by Swans.

That's great until you are looking for obscure, out-of-print CDs like Gold Nigga by Prince or Burning World by Swans.

Once upon a time. I supported the system. I owned HUNDREDS of cassettes. Then back in the summer of 87, someone was so nice as to break into my parents place and liberated them from me.

So now, I am in a world where the vast majority of that collection is not available. I have contacted some of the artists. They can't get the masters to even do a limited run. Contracts or money always seems to be the issue. Which as a side note sucks. The artist created the music. A profit was made for the record company. Now, they see so little money a particular album that they won't take the time to press it. So I can't do the "right" thing and pay the record company lots of money and the artist a little. It is sitting around for the day when someone uses it in a movie. Or to go on some compilation album when "clogging" or whatever becomes hot. Who knows. Someday it could be hot and make them lots of money. But until that day. It costs them almost nothing to keep it on a shelf. Unused and unheard by anybody. (not to mention calling anyone a pirate who is not willing to wait until a possible someday when they will re-release it)

Sure, they will let the artist borrow it to cut an album. If they agree to some terms that leaves no doubt they are getting screwed for touching their own material.

I often buy from Gemm where I can run down a dealer whom I can purchase the album as an LP and have them convert it to a CD for me. It gets me my music. But alas, does not support the artist.

Every time you buy a used album. A friend gives you an album they bought and decided they did not like it. Every time you record something off the radio. Every time you shift format. Or make a copy of a song for some. Or email an mp3 to a friend. You are using that music without paying the artist for it again.

Also, all of these things are covered by fair use. Just like getting screwed by a bad recording contract. It is part of the game if an artist wants to be recorded. There are a great many ways you are entitled to use, purchase or be given music where neither the artist or the industry are financially supported.

Now for the questions

1. Is p2p piracy any worse?
2. Do the artists get any money from the sale of blank CD and tapes? Or just the record company?
3. Every time a song is played, moves from person to person, or shifts format. Is a record company really entitled to be paid for it?
4. Should music by artists that are independent and not represented, have money collected by the RIAA?
5. Should the RIAA have the right to keep money and not pass it on to the artist?

Am I the only oldschool one left? I generally go to GEMM, buy vinyl or foreign pressed CDs, then convert it to MP3. I don't need these sites to recommend anything, I already know what I like!

Then I set about finding the records... I try to buy directly from the artist, but otherwise:

http://www.gemm.com/

comes in handy that way.

We all just agree on a few basics:

1. MP3 only
2. 192 or better quality

3. rip complete records, and keep it all n the drive.

It works and we all get incredible collections of tunage.

also, we ship each other DVD-Rs of tunes for perusal, same standards.

I recently culled a bunch of crap I didn't like, so now I'm down to 59.6 days of music. I can say that I have bought each record at some point in my long record buying career. I don't listen to music radio, except for a few hours a month to KUSF (a college station). So much music, so little time...

RS

I've been to several. It works and it rocks.

You go to someone's house. you turn on your file sharing and plug into a router. Everyone sees each other's drive and you share files.

I now have 112 gigs of music.

I used to have 123 gigs, but as I go through what I've "brorrowed" i find that so and so SUCKS ASS. (I still cringe when I think of how "a friend" told me that Coldplay was good. "copy this folder man- it fuckin' rocks!" Urf! no accounting for taste - but: the same friend had some early Kraftwerk that I had never heard, and within a fwe days I was on GEMM.COM and had it sent to Chez Spoilsport ultrapronto!

AND: years ago as a teenager I had spent ridiculous sums of cash on Led Zeppelin records (1 - houses of the holy) only to have them all wear out. In the 90s when I did most of my CD collecting, I neglected LZ, so now I have it all on mp3, and I don't have to bother sampling the scratchy old LPs. I paid my money

(I actually paid RETAIL at Sam Goodys. Sorry - I was young... except for LZ4 which was given to me when I turned 16... which was typical for New Jersey in the mid 1970s....)

and I deserve my onw personal mp3 versions. If digital had existed in 197x I would have done the same then (as it was I did record everything to cassette. but that was NOT a sideways move...)

I say FUCK RIAA.

Rat fucking bastards.

I also say FUCK people who don't buy the records. Sure: I have a BUTTLOAD of mp3s but guess what? I also have a VAST collect of CDs and LPs. And thanks to MP3s I trade at LAN parties, my coolectio nof CDs and LPs continues to grow...

I trust (some of) my friend's taste in music. I DON'T rtust the crap I hear on the radio. Rap is especially laughable anymore.... "Keepin' it real"... As IF you hypocritical motherfuckers.

bitterly,

RS

I haven't read the article yet. But I will mention of the several hundreds of dollars I've spent on CDs in the last couple years, most of it went overseas to European shops, most of the remainder was to ebay sellers for used, old music of interest. I doubt we're alone. I also found out about http://www.gemm.com. It's a site that catalogs music and puts you in contact with sellers and can broker the transaction for you. Pretty cool. I'm trying it out, waiting for a rare CD from 1993 being shipped by a shop in Germany.

Not to mention p2p and chatrooms which have turned me on to a lot of artists I would never have known about. All of this access to something I like is probably what sparked me to get into music at my university and start composing my own stuff. I find it more fun than programming PCs, but I still appreciate all the OSS ppl. and ps: there seems to be a bunch of pro-audio people chomping at the bit hoping the day will come when they can ditch windows in favor of linux as a pro-audio platform.

which is a cohesive front for indie retailers around the globe. You can find some great stuff, out of print, foreign or hard to find that doesn't show up on iTMS (the closest I've gotten for my tastes has been emusic.com). The last four CDs I've bought have been from the UK, Belgium and France and purchased from Canadian, French, and UK distributors respectively, all of them privately owned small shops. Several of these shops (Action Records in London and Cheapthrills in Canada) have gotten repeat business from me.

Hell, its easy to find good record stores in your home town. Just go to digitalcity.com and type it in. But there's so much great stuff that, even in this age of cheap plastic discs, is still in limited print. Hell, Pharoahe Monch Internal Affairs is out of print due to an unlicensed Godzilla sample on there. You won't find it in a Best Buy or on iTunes. If you feel like shelling out 50 clams, you can find it online, and keep the indie distribution network alive to boot.

It looks like gemm.com has several listings for Tommy Shaw's Ambition. I recommend that site for almost all of your rare CD needs.

It looks like gemm.com has several listings for Tommy Shaw's Ambition. I recommend that site for almost all of your rare CD needs.

BTW, I'd suggest gemm for that soundgarden ep screaming life/fopp. You can find most anything you're looking for there, not always the lowest prices, but many used vendors and a great resource for hard to find material. Oh also, an interesting note, I buy a lot of my import music from canada although I live in the US (seems to be cheaper!).

BTW, I'd suggest gemm for that soundgarden ep screaming life/fopp. You can find most anything you're looking for there, not always the lowest prices, but many used vendors and a great resource for hard to find material. Oh also, an interesting note, I buy a lot of my import music from canada although I live in the US (seems to be cheaper!).

Wow, Fuzzys... I thought I was one of the only people that had read those books :)

Way back in grade school, I borrowed a copy of Little Fuzzy from my dad to read on the bus. The book managed to sprout legs and walk away from me one day. For some reason the book returned to my memory after I got out of high school and I started looking for a replacement for it, and was disappointed to find it was out of print, and that none of the major (or minor) retailers in my area could find a copy.

I ended up finding a copy two years ago after a co-worker showed me gemm.com. They're like a "global electronic mall or flea market" (their words) for small retailers that carry out of print / discontinued lps / cds / books / etc, and they have an amazing range of items. (No, I don't get any kind of commision, I just think the site rocks.) I highly recommend going and having a look if you want to pick up a Piper novel, or anything else that's hard to come across.

GEMM -- 13K sellers and an audience of rabid record collectors. It is GREAT for more obscure stuff that would not be bid up in a 7-day ebay auction.

Easier to sell on than ebay, cause it is fixed price, GEMM takes care of the credit card transaction, they do all the record-keeping. The huge database makes it much easier to price your stuff than the old days.

My own GEMM site is here.

GEMM -- 13K sellers and an audience of rabid record collectors. It is GREAT for more obscure stuff that would not be bid up in a 7-day ebay auction.

Easier to sell on than ebay, cause it is fixed price, GEMM takes care of the credit card transaction, they do all the record-keeping. The huge database makes it much easier to price your stuff than the old days.

My own GEMM site is here.

Well, yeah, but I was talking about how to prevent money from going to RIAA, too, so to be consistent, I couldn't use "buy from cdnow.com" in that post. I think they had a Dorsetshire CD was available as a German import for $28ish, and I suppose as an import, RIAA wouldn't be seeing much of that $28. ;-)

But ideally, I'd just go to the band's website, find an address, and buy the CD direct from them. One interesting example of this was the late-80s sample/synth/electro-rock band Sigue Sigue Sputnik. After being dropped from EMI, they vanished for about 5 years, and as far as I can tell from their "history" pages, it looks like they saw they still had interested fans, so they re-recorded their old stuff and released it themselves.

(Side note: Thanx to the AC who pointed me to gemm.com as a link to other music resellers. Far out!)