Dispossessed
How I Lost Most of My Music Collection—and Nearly My Mind
James Yamasaki
Tools
T his past August, I moved back to Seattle from Orange County. An ordeal for anyone, moving for me means shipping about 2,500 pieces of vinyl and thrice as many CDs, which took about a week of long days to pack. For this trip, I arranged for the Los Angeles moving company Eagle Express to haul my belongings up from Costa Mesa, a decision that ranks as my biggest regret of this—or maybe any—year.
Eagle Express's supervisor, David Gomez, assured me that the delivery would take two weeks max. In fact, it took almost a month, and when the slack mothertruckers finally arrived at my Capitol Hill storage facility, it was clear something had gone horribly awry: Expecting around 60 boxes full of my music collection, there were instead only 15.
Stranger Personals
One of the movers, Adam—who, I later discovered, was actually an employee of West Coast Van Lines—initially expressed confusion about the missing boxes. After much agitated questioning, he said he'd had to unload some of his cargo due to weight issues. Incredulous, I demanded he call Eagle Express to find out where my goods were. He made a call, speaking to Gomez in Spanish; during the short conversation, Adam became increasingly angry and then he hung up. Adam said something vague about a warehouse in the L.A. area. I called Gomez but couldn't get a straight answer from him. Their stories weren't jibing, and my records were gone. I cursed Gomez in a vicious tone I hadn't used since George W. Bush became president in 2001.
I felt as if I'd gone in for a routine chiropractic visit and left the office with three of my limbs amputated.
T hat's the thing about collectors, according to Seattle psychotherapist Gaelen Billingsley: "Many collectors feel synonymous with the objects they collect and use them to derive or define a sense of self. Though they may not have any objective value, objects collected are seen as uniquely interesting or valuable to the individual collector. Thus as collectors accumulate large numbers of valuable items, they construct the sense that they, too, are valuable by association, i.e., 'The more of this great stuff I accumulate, the more I matter.'"
Obsessive collecting, she explains, "tends to arise out of one (or a combination) of the following three basic human needs: the need for a personal self- definition of worth, the need for a sense of life purpose (or meaning), and the desire for immortality."
Damn, Ms. Billingsley. It's like you peered directly into my mind.
I'm as guilty of this dubious behavior as anyone. It's neurotic. But my excuses go far beyond the identity aggrandizing, the phallic substitution and surrogate dick-waving. I actually do have legitimate reasons for accumulating so many records: One is for DJing, which I've done with some frequency on radio and in clubs since 1996 (and I will always prefer to spin vinyl for such gigs). In fact, I had to turn down a juicy DJ opportunity soon after I returned to Seattle because I lacked the crucial weapons from my vinyl arsenal.
Another reason is research/reference. As a music journalist, I regularly relied on my extensive library to help me to write reviews and features. My collection also served as a resource for friends looking to expand their knowledge. As I've told my friends many times, my collection and my knowledge are here to be used. So, like Bill Withers sang, use me. (Sadly, a huge music collection does not always work as an aphrodisiac.) Fourthly, a megalomaniacal urge to know almost everything about almost every worthwhile musician can be a dangerous thing, I've discovered—especially when it comes time to move. Fifthly, almost every record and CD has a complicated network of memories and associations attached to it. Losing as many items as I did feels like having several key scenes excised from my autobiography.
A s the weeks passed with no sighting of my precious cargo, I became increasingly ill with anger and toxic vengefulness every time I pondered Eagle Express's botched job. For a while, I was phoning Gomez every day, furious over my enormous loss (fuck a 401[k]; those records were my pension!). When he did pick up, Gomez would profusely apologize in heavily accented English and vow to try to find out what happened to my stuff. Rinse, repeat, rage.
Over the next four months and dozens of (mostly unanswered) calls and many empty promises later, I still can't get a satisfactory response from Gomez. At one point, Gomez said that Adam had tried to escape into Canada to avoid the law on some charge, and that a truck with my boxes was somewhere near the border. My calls to West Coast Van Lines went unreturned.
I've pretty much resigned myself to never seeing those lost records and CDs (and the dresser I'd owned since I was 9 and some other less important items) again. Now I just want monetary compensation—and Gomez's head on a pike. Trouble is, I don't know any lawyers in L.A., and even if I did, I have no stomach for dealing with them. And, foolishly, I didn't insure my belongings—after moving five times in as many years without incident, I'd become complacent. (This, too, ranks in the top five of my Regrets Hall of Shame.)
Y ou should have seen my friends'—especially fellow collectors'—responses to my situation. Their faces would slacken with a mixture of disgust and disbelief, and they'd gasp for a bit until they could utter words of pity and consolation. It felt like I was witnessing my own funeral every time I broke the news to somebody.
After I told Jason Pettigrew, an ex– Alternative Press magazine coworker and fellow music obsessive, about my travails, he said, "I would be getting background checks on the individual movers and start brutally murdering their family members at random."
Obviously, a loss of this magnitude prompts much reflection (and many nights spent dreaming of flying to L.A. to seek revenge). After the shock, disbelief, and the barely suppressible rage had (mostly) subsided, I began to ponder the significance of music—and its physical manifestations—in my life. Maybe my obsession with it wasn't that healthy. Certainly, even after my moving disaster, I still possess more recorded music than, oh, 97 percent of the population. I am definitely not wanting for things to listen to. By any "normal" standard, I owned way too many CDs and LPs.
And yet the knowledge of all those rare records (how will I ever find those Bernard Parmegiani and M. Frog Labat LPs?) and obscure, limited-edition CDs and boxed sets that I'd gathered over the last 29 years and that are now dispersed to who knows where continues to gnaw at me—every hour, every day. "Normal" is boring and mediocre. I didn't get where I am today—for better or worse—through sensible moderation in my listening/collecting habits. When music is your religion, as it is mine, losing reliquaries of it can damage your soul and threaten your sanity.
Among the items missing from my collection: my entire stash of hiphop vinyl and two-thirds of my hiphop CDs; all of my world-music CDs (including 16 Fela Kuti and all of my Sublime Frequencies discs); all of my highbrow, 20th-century composer stuff; my cherished Soul Jazz Records CDs; my soundtracks; rare psych-rock LPs by Friendsound (the LSD-inspired side project by some Paul Revere and the Raiders members); little-known Kraut-rock classics by Exmagma and Et Cetera; Bernard Szajner's imaginary soundtrack to Dune done under the moniker Zed; Kraftwerk's first three amazing albums, all of which they stubbornly, foolishly refuse to officially reissue; TONTO's Expanding Head Band's Zero Time, with two separate covers; that sweet 100 Proof (Aged in Soul) LP on the Motown composers Holland-Dozier-Holland's Hot Wax label.... Someone could open a decent music shop with those fugitive goods—and then promptly go out of business.
Yes, I can get back a lot of the AWOL titles, provided I devote considerable time and money to the endeavor. Hell, I've already begun to replenish my collection as thriftily as possible. I've been rifling through the used bins at Jive Time, Everyday Music, Wall of Sound, Sonic Boom, and Easy Street with the kind of diligence that would impress DJ Premier. Also, friends have come through with loans, burns, MP3s, gifts, condolences, and sympathy.
Y ou'd think this would be the opportune time to switch to a more digital approach to music consumption. It should be, but my analog por vida attitude dies hard. I can't help thinking that vinyl is the ultimate musical format, with CDs second, and MP3s a distant third. Daily, hourly, megabytes of great, obscure audio get uploaded to YouTube, the torrent sites, and blogs like Mutant Sounds (mutant-sounds.blogspot.com). And that's great for everyone, except maybe for copyright holders. But I'm not clever enough to DJ with a YouTube video, and torrent sites often misidentify releases (which often sound shitty, anyway), and, honestly, I don't want to rip off musicians. That and the whole physical-artifact factor: I don't think I'm alone in thinking that the gatefold double-LP version of Miles Davis's Bitches Brew will always hold more allure and aesthetic value than that album reduced to 1s and 0s in an iPod.
That being said, I now have over 2,500 songs on my iTunes at work, but they don't seem like they're mine so much as my computer's. And that somehow bothers me. Were some benefactor to replace all of my missing songs on the planet's biggest hard drive, I would be grateful, but still would not feel as fulfilled as if I could regain the actual releases. I'm firmly in the rearguard with regard to Serato/iPod "upgrading," and my tragedy hasn't nudged me into the 21st century. Not yet, anyway.
Besides, I've become addicted to the thrill of the hunt for music. So much of my life's been spent in record stores, digging through bins, swapping info with clerks and fellow music nerds; to stop now would be as hard as a lifelong smoker ditching his cigs in middle age.
So I continue to obsess over musical products, compulsively. While most people in my circle scheme about getting drunk, high, laid, or by with the least amount of effort, I spend my idle moments figuring out the most efficient way to rebuild my shelves-full of Acid Mothers Temple and Muslimgauze releases—and hundreds of other treasures without which my life seems terribly diminished. Most (straight) guys in my circle try to score pussy; I strive to re-score Pussy Galore's Sugarshit Sharp 12-inch (okay, and some pussy; I may be a geek, but I have other needs, too).
If anything, my obsession with record collecting has only intensified following this catastrophe. It's as if I need to be physically immersed not only in the sounds, but also in the vessels from which they emanate. I crave the totems that announce to my visitors (and the world) that my taste is impeccable. Sorry, but your thousands of MP3s on your hard drive can't compete with an entire room jammed floor to ceiling with wax. Anybody can say he digs Nurse with Wound; but if you show me a shelf in your pad groaning with their releases, you've earned more respect in my eyes.
S cott Giampino—who books shows at Seattle supper club the Triple Door and DJs soul, funk, and R&B under the name Self- Administered Beatdown—also recently lost the bulk of his long-accruing collection. In 2004, his house burned to the ground, and he and his family lost almost everything they owned. Giampino estimates 2,500 out of 3,000 records were damaged in the blaze. (Although he notes, "Oddly, virtually all the CDs in the house survived. Irony!")
Eventually, Giampino's sense of loss diminished, so maybe there's hope for me. "I tried and still try to be rather 'Zen' about the entire owning-objects thing now," he says. I dunno: It's hard to be Zen when I want to get all Bruce Lee on the mugs responsible for decimating my collection.
"My attitude has changed in the fact that I am much easier to let things go," Giampino observes. "I sell way more records now than I used to. I used to hoard stuff, like any compulsive collector, but now I have a much mellower attitude toward it. It's twofold, with one part being, 'Hey, it's just stuff, easy come easy go,' and the other part is, 'Hey, if I really need this copy of "insert album title here," I can pony up the dough and buy it.' I'll find it again, the philosophy being: Sure, I have to pay more, but it's (usually) obtainable, somewhere."
I f anything positive has resulted from my tragic loss, it's that I've become more appreciative of what I do have now. While I will agonize for years over several vanished gems, others will not be mourned, as my memory's not flawless. Hell, I've forgotten about more music than most people have heard or will hear. That's not braggadocio, but simply factual reportage of an obsessive-compulsive music critic's life. It's a curse wrapped up in a blessing.
Like many of my ilk, maybe I do view my collection as a bulwark
against mortality—or at least a tangible legacy of my existence
on earth. Forget leaving a good-looking corpse; I want my survivors to
gape in awe at shelf upon shelf, crate upon crate of my music
stash—a monument to monomania. It would be nice if they listened
to the things, too. 
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(On a side note, as much as I enjoy listening to my iPods on the noisy-ass buses, the line " ...I now have over 2,500 songs on my iTunes at work, but they don't seem like they're mine so much as my computer's" rings entirely true. They're not quite a bird in the hand, are they? I always thought it was just about the song, not the format, and you're mature enough to defend that concept against collecting ... but we know what we feel.
I know a wounded nurse who hired a private dick and some thugs to try and find your vinyl and when that failed offered to try and replenish your collection. You sound very hurt on a lot of levels. I hope your friends and fans continue support and comfort you.
With all my heart. L
Basically, a large portion of 30 years of rare and not-so-rare music collecting is gone (after dragging that shit around with me on many moves to many locations. Sad, but oddly liberating. I still miss my music, but I keep what's left on hard drive (backed up, of course). I'm too old now to schlep that stuff around with everywhere life takes me.
I've a feeling that Dave will come to that point, too, in a few years.
And yeah forget karma- GO AFTER THOSE BASTARDS. Seattle's got your back.
Or, wait until next May when all the rummage sales by all the cakensniffing hipster yuppies on CH are desperately trying to make their mortgages and rent. Good times for collectors ahead!
It hurts, especially when one considers how much cash one is out in replacing (if one can) all of those recordings, but it gets better with time. Especially considering that most anything is better than 8' of water in your home.
I've probably bought some of your stuff over the last few months. Thanks!
Also, thanks to everyone who's wished me well, offered sympathy, etc. It means a lot.
6 months later my mom died and I had to move back to the Twin Cities. I went to my friend's house to pick up all my boxes. Naturally I had no idea how many boxes they had stored for me, I hadn't kept inventory, but it didn't take long to find out half my LP collection was gone. I contacted her family and her mother said I had picked up everything they had. Months later when I friend moved back and I contineud my questioning, it was discovered her younger brother had sold my LPs at record stores - back when there were so many stores which would buy them. Slowly, I replaced some of my collection and years later I was still doing that when CDs came out so I was replacing many items in the CD format. Of course many of the LPs had gone out of print. One LP I can remember is Greg Brown/DIck Pinney's first album. I always remembered there was one song on that album I loved. It was never released on CD because Brown hated it and I don't think the LP was in print long. I started looking for it on ebay but it was going for hundreds of dollars. I finally got one in poor condition at a cheap price and converted it to CD. A couple years later I sold it on ebay for a higher price and donated 100% of the profits to elephants.com.
I've never let go of my anger and disappointment of thinking of that kid and him selling off box by box of my records. I wonder if he would have sold them all eventually. Now I can't remember if there were any LPs I didn't get replaced as my music taste changed a bit and also I couldn't recall the LPs I had as there were so many and I didn't have a list. I can't think of that kid and his family with good thoughts. Nowadays I have suddenly become a recovering packrat and I have lost all my sentimentality, which means I'm giving away or throwing my LPs. If I have them on CD or convert them, away they go. LPs given to me which I never liked, gone. Others it's harder to say goodbe to, especially to the wonderful cover graphics which the CDs lack, but my goal is to be rid of them all someday. I used to write my name on the LPs along with the date I bought them. So if anyone sees "Cindy Martin" written on an LP...
It's a lesson in loss. It's bad but also good. It lets me accept death a little bit--because something I'd wanted to hold on to has already escaped me. Nothing is permanent.
And who knows -- all or part of your missing collection may yet show up, espeically if you can figure out a way to put some legal heat on the moving company.
Cheers,
Bill Tilland
Music is one of the things that makes life worth living.
My heart goes out to you.
Good luck!
First. Digital music does not need to be sampled the same way that CDs are.
Second, to think of MP3s as the best digital format is simply stupid. WAV contains the actual sounds, FLAC (and others) are lossless. So nearly all of those uploads at the moment to the web are crap (at least Trent Reznor seems to have a clue).
Third, if the record companies took digital seriously, you wouldn't *have to* rip off the artists. If you're not a 19-year-old dickhead, you prefer to pay *reasonable* sums for your unencumbered music.
Finally, if you want to carry around a bit of cardboard that can disintegrate or go up in flames at any time, fine. I'd rather have the actual *music*. Not to mention the fact that the digital format is not being fully used at present - we've barely got album art and lyrics. How about a full multimedia schwag with images, lyrics, posters to print, bios...? It's not as if the technology doesn't exist.
There is also www.movingscam.com which may be able to help with advice.
Also, see if Angieslist.com has a neighborhood in your area. If you are a member, they will act on your behalf to resolve service issues that you experience.
Best wishes for a less negative outcome.
"But I don't know any lawyers in Los Angeles"
*THAT* is your excuse? What, did you secretly order a hit on them or something? I honestly doubt that with the amount of crap you've had to put up with, that you *really* just let it drop. Noone is that spineless.
And I just filed a complaint with FMCSA.
Ultimately, it's not a matter of spinelessness; it's more of a financial issue.
The lowlifes that moved me stole audio equipment by opening the bottom of the boxes and resealing them, then brought them into the house empty and put the boxes in a pile...as if I wouldn't find out!?! I ripped BEKINS a new one big time and got all I had lost back money wise and more.
SHOW THEM NO MERCY!
You have my most heartfelt condolences. Trust me if that was me they would not still be walking.
You should get legal advice - sue them for every last penny.
However, all this "vinyl is the ultimate music format" & "I respect you more for owning things rather than actually appreciating the music" stuff is very shallow and silly. I know vinyl purism is almost a religion now, but come on...
This totally suuuuuucks. I wish you luck in re-finding all the rare items you lost.
You really should be doing more about this. They have all the records (sorry) of who moved what. Just follow the chain of names and bear in mind that much of what they tell you will be a lie. Don't stop until you get what you want.
SHOW THEM NO MERCY!
I urge you not to give up on this. Pursue those MFer's to the ends of the earth! As you mention, it was not only your personal collection but a precious resource for the community and even posterity.
How about a PayPal fund for Dave's legal expenses? If every Stranger reader donated even $1....little enough payback for all the goodness the Stranger brings us each and every week. C'mon, ppl !
(Written by one who is attempting to jettison as many material objects as possible to "lighten the journey".)
....police, border stations, FBI, all want any information they can get regarding crimes.... pieces are more likely to fall together if all involved have seen what you wrote.... you gotta do your part to assist the next victims....
I'm not sure where to start, but authorities usually ask, "Have you contacted ....?" Cosa Mesa (or whoever) Police should probably be first.
Also: the local used bins have been going my way lately.
Also also: let me know if you need a grip of boring ass 90s hiphop singles, any weak shit, and/or generally TEPID records...looking to lose half these thanks.
Thanks to some of my friends, I have started to rebuild my collection. Yes, there are precious, one of a kind discs that can never be replaced, but I'm trying to look at it with a fresh perspective. I've now been give the opportunity to create the ultimate, super collection. I will replace the blues, the punk, the classic rock and yes, I will replace Prince. I will replace Morrisey but not Alanis Morissette.
Regardless of this new perspective, there are days when I still imagine that dick kicking back with a Miller Lite and sorting through the soundtrack of my life. And then I remember that karma is a bitch. Those bastards will pay for their incompetence. Maybe Adam's plan to seek refuge in Canada will be foiled and he will be forced to listen to nothing but Celine Dion for the rest of his days.
One can dream...
oh well
If you are worried about 1's and 0's not having as "warm a sound" or some other bs you had better ditch your cd's because they are all digital too.
I've been giving the movers a chance to retrieve the lost goods (as they promised they would), but my patience has run out and I'm now seeking legal recourse.
This is the most pathetic thing I have ever read. Hipster materialism at its finest! Do you honestly expect anyone to care about you getting a bunch of stuff stolen? It happens all the time buddy.
You needed to take savage, rip-roaring action immediately.
You needed to make their lives hell until they would rather commit suicide than talk to you on the phone.
You needed to make a barrage of calls and letters to all the people in their circle.
Too late now.
All you can hope for is $$$ compensation and you can be glad that you are freed from the burden of physical goods.
sorry.
So, I bite the bullet & say that at the very least, considering I had to move no matter what, that I would agree to insure them for an agreed value........... "No, sorry we can't do that, we will only try to replace them".......... *ROAAAAAR!!*
In the 2 weeks it took for my records to make it back, I was waking up in a cold sweat panicing. It was a very stressfull & sleepless time for me to say the least.
Now I don't mean to rain on your progress, but, in my opinion, you are trying to trick yourself into "letting go". Just like if you lose a girlfriend you really love, and you try to block it out and not deal with it. In reality, people like us can't change out souls that have been built over, in your case, almost 30 years.
It's like they say, it takes half as long to get over someone, as the time you were together. In your case, 15 years...
Quick question, have you thought of employing a private investigating firm to look into it for you? Or lodge it with the authorities? It does sound criminal to me.
Much of the moving industry appears to be as corrupt as the worst government you can imagine.
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/enth47.htm
And I don't really feel bad about it. I, too, collected vinyl. Not as a DJ. But I'd started feeling like I was chained by it. I couldn't really go anywhere without wondering how I could get it to where I was. FInally, I said "fuck it."
I have enough crap now after 3 years. I will get rid of that stuff in a heartbeat. All I care about is my cat, my husband, and MAYBE a small yet valuable collection of antique Christmas ornaments.
We can't all be perfect.
What percentage of their record collections do people with Massive Record Collections return to, I wonder? A while back I realised that I was accumulating Stuff at an alarming rate and that I'd be better off without the physical trappings, taking advantage of modern rental models instead. (Certainly it seems insane to me that anyone would own shelves and shelves of popular DVDs, but I know people who do.) The John-Cusack-in-High-Fidelity living space crammed with physical music is very cool, but I think it's superficially cool - in the long run I'd rather have the sum of human artistic endeavor stored in a database the size of Switzerland, available to anyone for download at the touch of a computer key.
"I crave the totems that announce to my visitors (and the world) that my taste is impeccable."
Fuck. You. You absolutely deserve what happened to you AND MORE because while you're crying about your SUPER RARE AND REALLY REALLY AUTHENTIC records, people around the world were being gang-raped by soldiers in front of their families... Among other things.
I truly hope worse things than this continue to happen to you until you gain some fucking perspective.
I don't know you but my sympathies are with you.
I feel for you Dave.
(in no way related to this article, I am way more hip than that)
I was the CJ at a large New Years party and my 80 gig Ipod was stolen. I dont drive, so my bus rides across town are now painfully long and unpleasant.
My music collection (8,000-ish songs) is virtually all digital at this point, and thus theoretically easily replaceable, and I'd STILL be heartbroken to lose it. I can't even imagine having my collection be on vinyl and then having a bunch of it be *gone* all of a sudden. That's just nauseating.
Sorry, man.
I've traveled the world now and don't spend most of my time collecting objects I know will never make me happy. I don't think one can ever really own things anyway in a sense. It's more like you just get to spend time being around them and worst yet, when you define yourself and your value by them, they end up owning you.
I talked to a couple of lawyers who refused the case. They said that an interstate moving and trucking theft case was near impossible to win. They both told me to file an insurance claim and call it a lesson learned.
I'm still not sure what the lesson to be learned is but my advice to anyone moving precious cargo is to only use the absolute *best* moving company with the squeakiest clean reputation you can find. It just doesn't pay to shop around based on price...
If you're serious about recovering money damages, though, you should definitely hire an attorney. Don't be afraid of that. He won't bite!
About 3 years, I was moving so much that I sold my record collection before they could get damaged in storage or natural causes. I had nowhere near the number of records you had, but I still felt like I had gone through a huge break-up, thinking of all the good times I had with each record, everything that we had been through together over the years. The endless montage playing over and over for weeks.
Then I heard the radio DJ that I sold my record collection to put on the first press of the White Album that used to be mine, and it was like the DJ was the new relationship and that I wanted my records back, my relationship back with those records.
That was three years ago. I've moved about 3 times since. I miss having them every now and then, but I don't miss being responsible for them, worrying about them, having nightmares about fires or floods.
Sorry for your loss. I salute you and your journey and for sharing it so brilliantly.
Quoth an an old friend: "Next time I have to move, I'm burning my shit and starting over."
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