Unauthorised item in the bagging area

Monday, 11 February 2013

Glen Campbell Saved My Record Collection


He did too.

I was watching the Glen Campbell documentary on BBC4 a few Fridays ago and I moved over to the alcove where my records are stored on purpose built shelves (built by my own fair hands eight or nine years ago). Pulling two Glen Campbell records off of the shelf I realised to my horror the sleeves on the opening side were ever so slightly damp and smelt musty. Stacked up against the wall (an outside wall which takes the brunt of the weather rain) they were suffering from our especially wet year. A couple of shelves down Talking Head's Fear Of Music had- you know what's coming- mould on the sleeve. Mould. On the fucking sleeve. I had a meltdown. I began to pull records off the shelves and stack them up on the floor.

On Saturday we went to Ikea and bought an eight cube Expedit shelving unit. Yesterday I put the unit together and moved all the records from the front room into the backroom, filled the Expedit and another set of shelves with records and then moved all the books from the back room to the record shelves in the front room (the thinking being that books won't fill the shelves as records did or touch the wall, thereby allowing warm air to circulate, so preventing the damp and mould that built up around my record collection). The record collection looked bigger in the front room somehow- but size (or even the impression of size) isn't everything. This re-arrangement has led to various other changes to the downstairs rooms. And there are some unresolved issues with cd storage. I could go on but you're probably bored already.

The new record room looks great. I may need another Ikea Expedit but I think it's going to work better as well as keep the records safe, as I can now sit and listen to records in the back room while wife and daughter watch TV in the front room.

Thanks Glen.

Sadly Beautiful

11 comments:

hsd said...

Good ol' Glen

Anonymous said...

phew

drew said...

Sounds like you averted a catastrophe and came up with an even better situation than you had before. Well done that man.

btw I have ordered a new chair, it won't be the same but still.

George said...

Re-inspecting your entire record collection. The most fun you can have without taking your clothes off.

Swiss Adam said...

Do it naked for absolute ecstacy.


(I didn't btw. It was cold and broad daylight).

Happy wedding day as well George. Hope it was all lovely.

ally. said...

i had a disasterous go out leave the window open sudden out of nowhere torrential rain storm horrorshow a year or two ago. came home to all the singles that live under the window drenched. lots and lots of singles.

ps
glen is good for most things i find
x

Charity Chic said...

The Glen Campbell programme was good
I've got a snatch of him playing some stonking guitar (Beau Brummel?) if anyone can shed light on this
As well as some good early vinyl I've got a dodgy best of from his Cocaine years which features him playing bagpipes on Mull of Kintyre -one you can indeed do without

Echorich said...

I had a section of my collection in a storage unit for a short time in the early 00's and got an alarming call one day that there was a flood... I arrived to find that I had only lost about a dozen album covers, most of which have been replaced in the time since, but when I was reading this post I just began to shudder!

Max said...

Crikey. Nightmare, particularly the Talking Heads FOM, an outstanding album, and nice embossed effect sleeve. I hope it is dry now.

londonlee said...

I once went away for the weekend leaving a record on the turntable by the window (Streetsounds Anthems Vol. 4 if you're interested) and came back to find the hot summer sun had turned it into something more useful as an ashtray.

I soon moved the record player to a different spot.

Swiss Adam said...

I once left a Future Sound of London record on the floor, don't know why. Went out. When I returned several hours of direct sunlight had warped it all over the place.