Music Room full yet?
Almost [smile]
Can I check it out?
Er… Sure [Are you lint free? Dandruff free? Dusted? Scrubbed? Fully prepped?]
New shelves! Neat.
All the better to file you in, my dears.
Alphabetical order, of course.
[covert sigh] A, top left. Z round there, low. No system, no find it.
Compilations? You, know, Various Artists.
More than necessary, for sure. At the end, with Western Art music.
Classical.
And Romantic, and 20th Century, and Early Music…
The oldest ones.
[huh?] Even older than us.
Err… Any other sections?
Jazz. Seems to be a separate mood. Or need.
[Pause for browsing]
You look focussed.
Tull. Jethro Tull. I used to like him a lot but you don’t seem to have any.
A dozen or so. Under J.
Huh? Do you file Dylan under Bob? Or T for The Beatles! Ha Ha Ha. Your ‘John’ section must be long!
Jethro Tull is a band name, not an individual artist.
Sounds like a person to me.
Indeed, he was an eighteenth century agriculturalist. Perfected the horse-drawn seed drill.
Really?
I have some CDs by the Seed Drills if you’re interested. Under ‘D’. [Pause for laughter. Silence]
[More browsing. ‘T’ section]
Ha! You have Taj Mahal under ‘T’ not ‘M’.
Yes.
[Audible sigh] Because it’s a building not a person?
More-or-less. It’s a made-up name, like having a band name for an individual; a popular 21st Century ploy, I believe.
You have all these rules written down, I suppose. Got to be consistent! [Locating ‘M’ section] Muddy Waters…
Ah. [Beat] Under ‘W’.
But you said–
I know. [Surrenders] Yer got me. Didn’t think it through when I got the first Muddy Waters album in the 70s and never changed the location.
The exception that makes the rule, eh?
Or laziness.
[Pause]
All the records have plastic covers.
Hmm?
To stop them breeding I guess.
[Animated] Oh I wouldn’t mind if they bred. Might get some interesting offspring from disparate neighbours.
Sorry?
Here—Pete Townshend adjoins Tortoise. Could germinate a post-rock album with bitter literate vocals and windmill guitar.
Um…
Or this. [Levering out LPs] Gentle Giant and Bobbie Gentry give birth to contrapuntal progressive country ballads…
[Spins] …The Seekers snog the Sex Pistols! Snotty harmony-driven MOR.
[Cackles] Steely Dan inseminate Steeleye Span yielding highbrow jazz inflected English folk…
[Maniacal] Jeff Wayne jumps Weather Report begetting grandiose fusion concept-album…
Er, I’ll just, um, top up my drink.
*
[More to come. Be afraid.]
vinylconnection.com.au 
Although Armageddon won’t be mistaken for a timeless classic, I did quite like Owen Wilson’s pet peeve of Jethro Tull being mistaken for a band member! No mention of horse drawn seed drills alas
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Well, I hope Vinyl Connection is your first stop for all that’s important in vintage agricultural implements.
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“All the records have plastic covers. Hmm? To stop them breeding I guess.”
This one got my full-throated, Bruce. Well done. 🙂 – Marty
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Thanks Marty 🙂
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Brilliant. Absolutely loved this. Some humour while being completely serious.
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That’s great James. Thank you. Whenever I shake things up a bit I wonder how it will be received, so I appreciate the feedback.
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My random placement system has Miles Davis laying rather cosily with Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Did he do that already?
Thanks Bruce.
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Your “random” filing system? Gasp! Double Gasp!
(Tune in next week…)
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Brilliant and then some!! As J said above, most funny because we all know it to be so true.
So many questions: How do you handle numbers (78 Saab, 10,000 Maniacs)? What’s your position on “The Jimi Hendrix Experience” and Jimi Hendrix, “Jeff Beck Group” and Jeff Beck, Frank Zappa and “The Mothers of Invention” (where’s the transition?)?
And one you probably will not be able to help me with (your loss, dude): Do the 1978 KISS members’ solo albums get filed with the KISS albums or separately under Frehley, Stanley, Criss, and Simmons?
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Fine questions, all. The Oracle will now type…
1. Numbers first
2. All bands with an existing solo artist in the name go with that artist.
3. Zappa / Mothers tricky. I go Zappa for simplicity but would probably argue against that.
4. Kiss easy. Unless, of course, you file Harrison, Starr, et al under Bea…
You’re gonna enjoy the next post (I hope). I had not realised this would be such a perfect warm up.
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Oh mighty oracle, turns out I was already complying with your guidance on all counts! I’m still not fully comfortable with the KISS one though. The spine on those ’78 solo albums read “KISS Ace Frehley,” etc, a problem not faced with the Fab Four.
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Ah. (Stares pensively into middle distance without blinking for several minutes, then, with a minuscule nod, oracles thusly…)
The spine… A Kiss, not on anyone’s list, but on the spine… Might have to consult with Deep Thought…
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Oddball. Everybody knows compilations get filed alphabetically under the compilation’s name (Nuggets under ‘N’ etc) and numbers get filed under their alpha equivalent (808 State under E).
Apart from that glaring whimsy from you, brilliant.
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Individualist.
(All hell might well break loose after the next post. Stand by.)
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Agreed on point one, but numbered band names (like 54-40) go before A in the shelves.
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Which puts you ahead of that Aussie chap, but you’re still not doing it totally right.
Where do you stand on the Sinatra, Frank vs Frank Sinatra debate?
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If you don’t behave yourself, I’ll turn off Comments.
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YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH.
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YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE ALPHABET!
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Please feel free to file this under Off!, Bugger.
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Fantastic post! Real High Fidelity moments here. Definitely a big issue, how to sort things and store them.
Better: looooooove the shelfies. Makes me wanna move in and listen to records all day.
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Are ‘shelfies’ a thing? If not, congratulations on coining a perfect ‘social media for music nerds’ term.
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[…] If you have an awful lot of music, the question inevitably arises, ‘How should I file it?’ The debate has been raging forever, or at least since Thomas Edison kicked off music collecting. In fact these pages have recently seen some lively Commentary. […]
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You mean Jethro Tull is not..thats not his real…they dont…???
Damn I have to re-evaluate my filing system and my entire life now!!!
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It’s shocking, isn’t it, how these existential crises just appear out of nowhere?
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You see, I said I was looking forward to your particular brand of humour in 2017 and this is a corker! Those breeding experiments just creased me up.
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Pushed the plastic boat out a little on this one; glad it found a humorous birth. Thanks a lot.
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I like to keep a random pile so I can get into a frenzy looking for something I want to hear. Why change now. Sometimes it takes days but I usually find it. I’m having a hard time finding John Zorn’s ‘Big Gundown’ right now. I didn’t lend it too you did I?
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My lips are sealed. Though I did recently double my Zorn holding…
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I’ll bite because I’m curious. What did you score?
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Oh I get it. Clued in after I sent my first response. Sometimes it takes me a while.
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Though I think you may have recently seen the only Zorn vinyl post…
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Yes yes. I didn’t comment because I have been drifting away from that particular music. The Zorn take did catch my interest. I’ll still pop on some jazz takes that I have just to catch a bit of the vibe.
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