Digging for Gold: Collectors peruse music archive sale

By Matt Dunning
POSTED JUNE 12, 2008

Surrounded by countless classic albums by every artist from Chuck Berry to Chaka Khan, Brooklyn resident Shota Iyobe said his prized score for the day was a 12-inch single by Florida thug rapper T-Pain.

“It’s a guilty pleasure,” he said.

It was Saturday Morning, June 7, and Iyobe was among the first of thousands of discophiles who would dig through box after box of vinyl albums and singles at the ARChive of Contemporary Music nine-day sale. The semi-annual event ends June 15.

For 23 years, the ARChive has been busy building a master anthology; a Noah’s Ark of music. Its continuing aim is to find and retain two copies of every piece of recorded music released in the world since 1950. Twice a year, founder, curator and long-time Tribeca resident Bob George combs through the two million-plus recordings on file at the ARChive, weeds out the extras and puts them up for sale on the cheap. On average, LPs sell for between $2 and $5, with scores of miscellaneous albums and singles at just a dollar a piece.

“The way we get so much material is that we don’t say no to anything, so people tend to give us everything,” George said. “We get a lot of junk, but we also get a lot of great stuff, but we already have two copies of it, so we have to get rid of it.”

About 30,000 recordings, most of them vinyl records but a good number of CDs and tapes as well, make it onto the shelves, and supply is updated each day as space becomes available. Near the back of the space, a small menagerie of appliances, books and other assorted wares – dubbed the corner for “record widows” – is also for sale.

Thumbing through a trough of 12-inch singles, one collector, a 30-something who identified himself only as “Mackie,” said he loathed the digital age of music. In a world that demands its music be as portable as possible, vinyl, he said, is more organic.

“Anyone putting out CDs or MP3s can go to hell,” Mackie fumed. “I feel like I’m either a fossil or I’m privileged, and that sucks. I think we all feel that, and it’s a shame that that’s the way it is now.”

Though most collectors, regardless of age, will tell you that vinyl has a certain, irreplaceable sonic quality to it, not all share Mackie’s resistance to the new order. With a smattering of records and CDs in tow, Iyobe described himself as a casual buyer.

“I’m just looking for anything good and cheap,” Iyobe said. “I DJ a little too, so I’m looking for stuff I can use with that, too.”

Later this year, George said he plans to move the ARChive uptown, as the collection will merge with a “major educational institution” that he says he is not yet free to name. Ironic, considering George once tried to give away his collection of about 50,000 records to the Library of Congress and to some of the city’s public libraries before he founded the ARChive.

“They were mostly punk, hip-hop and reggae records, and [the libraries] said that it wasn’t music and that no one cared about them,” George said, “...they were wrong.”

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