Deep Dive - Private Press Records
Private Press
This type of music is commonly referred to as Private Press Records or Vanity Records. I have included a mix I have worked on for about six years that covers a lot of ground. I have also included two main books that are the bibles of this kind of collection.
Paul Major Private Press Historian and His Collection
Psychedelia supremo Paul Major is the undisputed father of record collectingFeel The MusicPaul Major's obsession with psychedelic and rare records began as an escape from the mundanity of the everyday, but ended up becoming his livelihood. Now his unusual life and musical recommendations are chronicled in a new book.
Speaking to Paul Major is like flocking through a super chilled out encyclopaedia of alternative music. When I call him to talk about a new book chronicling his life’s work, it’s midday back in New York. He’s only just picked up his first cup of coffee, and is getting ready to turn on the news and get what he calls his “daily jolt of absurdity”.
If you’re not into psychedelia or rare records, you might not have heard of Paul before – but the way we understand music today has his hands all over it. He is the original sound scavenger and vinyl collector, having spent the golden decades of rock music with his hands deep in the bargain bins of record stores all across the United States, looking for every odd sound that was yet to be shared with the world back in the 70s.
Today he is recognised as an expert in music made on the fringes of culture, from private pressings to one-song bands. When we start talking, Paul lists off names of obscure records and artists like it’s nobody’s business, telling me enough stories to make it clear that we’re not really just conducting an interview, this is a chance for me to hear firsthand about a part of history.
Starting out as a coin collector in rural Kentucky, 12-year-old Paul was oblivious to music as a kid, instead obsessed with UFOs, maths and monster movies. All that changed by the end of 1966, when the fuzzy guitars of Psychotic Reaction by The Count Five first graced his ears. From that moment on, a spark was ignited, Paul sucked into a whole new alternative universe: Rock’n’roll.
From the get-go the records that attracted him were those which offered a gateway to the unusual – sounds that allowed him to escape the humdrum into a world of LSD, psychedelia and hippies.
As a teenager, weekends were spent in record shops, carefully flicking through the titles of songs on the back of albums, in search of the surreal. When something seemed interesting enough, he would invest what little money he had. The first album Paul ever owned was Revolver by The Beatles.
I discovered soon that there were some used record shops near my house, which were cheap. I just started buying every record I couldn’t before – every single one that looked psychedelic and was part of this counterculture movement, this underground world of hippies and radical freaks that I, at the age of fifteen, desperately wanted to be a part of.”
His record collection started expanding rapidly, but it was still just a personal pursuit at the time – Paul would listen to records with his college friends at parties and embrace his passion. Then in 1977 Paul moved to New York, in search of the newest musical phenomenon of the time: punk rock. He did end up finding punk, but that wasn’t all. In New York, Paul found a scene of record collectors, and that’s when his life’s work truly started coming together.
After noticing the rare records he’d been gathering were worth a bit of cash, Paul started going to stores looking for every copy of every pressing that might be able to turn him a profit. He would re-sell them to make his $99 rent, and spent the rest of his waking hours dedicating himself to music and his band.
Paul soon started selling the vinyls he found via the post, first through an ad, later getting in touch with his buyers through homemade catalogues, becoming a point of reference for other psychedelia aficionados all over the world. Paul back then was being sent hundreds of records from bargain bins all over the country, building a secret community with other collectors, spending hours on the phone being played songs by folk in all corners of the United States.
He became a channel, a catalyser. The thrill was no longer in owning the records himself, but in finding them, finding out what the people behind them were like, and then exchanging them for something new.
It was while falling deeper and deeper into the world of these musical outsiders that Paul found out about private pressings – long-forgotten albums recorded by everyday people, hidden away from the eyes of the music industry.
“There was no watering down, no attempt to be commercial, no one telling these people what to do when they make their records,” Paul tells me, “it wasn’t about making money. The actual music of the artist is coming across without filters. I started noticing that, the less influenced by the music industry, the better chance a record was going to speak to me.”
Although his attraction to the outsiders and the oddities of the music world came from gut instinct, Paul unwittingly came across a way to dodge the mainstream music press, at a time – long before the internet – when that was no mean feat......
More below in the article link
https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2017/09/feel-music-interview-with-paul-major.html
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qv3875/paul-major-digs-deep-for-the-rare-and-strange-on-feel-the-music-vol-1
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/feel-the-music-the-psychedelic-worlds-of-paul-major-publication-140617
https://thevinylfactory.com/news/paul-major-discovers-weirdest-records-of-all-time-new-compilation/
https://thequietus.com/articles/23577-various-artists-paul-major-endless-boogie-feel-the-music-vol-1-album-review
https://shop.mexicansummer.com/merch/197449-paul-major-feel-the-music-deluxe-edition
My Mix
Close to 24 hours of the best of Private Press Music.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5LEY01XX5wrXxhDLE57EsJ?si=9pUi9DZaSrqHyACQBRTNiA
Youtube Playlists
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZNVwWo8WbZ1e48jp5505ci61bI8ewwKg
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjrhOijqyB3YYHbZO4I_mZ2Ao6MDqVnx3
Books
Enjoy The Experience
https://pitchfork.com/features/paper-trail/9136-enjoy-the-experience/
http://www.bluefat.com/1306/Enjoy_the_Experience.html
Feel The Music - Paul Major
https://tidal.com/magazine/article/read-an-excerpt-from-paul-majors-feel-the-music/1-39825
David Gebroe and Paul Major's Private Press Podcast
Major ($20/month) - Discograffiti’s Private Press with Paul Major. This is our flagship bonus show, and it’s
comin’ atcha weekly—every Tuesday. The ultimate value for your music dollar--period, end of story. The greatest private press record collector of all time—and leader of the thunderously awesome band Endless Boogie—introduces you to a brand new incredible record you’ve almost definitely never heard of every single week, along with personal stories that rocket his recommendations into another category entirely. Not to be missed. You can sample an epidose on the Podcast page.
I highly recommend you subscribing to the Patreon if you like Private Press Music. I do and I love it!
Show can her found here
https://www.patreon.com/rss/discograffiti?auth=vmYtrG86QThqMj7kbWj6JUVRz3C7vlPi
and PATREON here
https://discograffiti.com/podcast/48-discograffitis-the-private-press-with-paul-major-premiere-episode/
Articles
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wdpmw4/unearthing-a-treasure-trove-of-obscure-private-press-vinyl
https://thevinylfactory.com/features/history-of-private-press-record-releases/
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/yerblues/notable-private-press-albums/
https://tidal.com/magazine/article/read-an-excerpt-from-paul-majors-feel-the-music/1-39825
https://chicagoreader.com/music/what-musics-outsiders-and-oddballs-got-up-to-before-the-internet/
This type of music is commonly referred to as Private Press Records or Vanity Records. I have included a mix I have worked on for about six years that covers a lot of ground. I have also included two main books that are the bibles of this kind of collection.
Paul Major Private Press Historian and His Collection
Psychedelia supremo Paul Major is the undisputed father of record collectingFeel The MusicPaul Major's obsession with psychedelic and rare records began as an escape from the mundanity of the everyday, but ended up becoming his livelihood. Now his unusual life and musical recommendations are chronicled in a new book.
Speaking to Paul Major is like flocking through a super chilled out encyclopaedia of alternative music. When I call him to talk about a new book chronicling his life’s work, it’s midday back in New York. He’s only just picked up his first cup of coffee, and is getting ready to turn on the news and get what he calls his “daily jolt of absurdity”.
If you’re not into psychedelia or rare records, you might not have heard of Paul before – but the way we understand music today has his hands all over it. He is the original sound scavenger and vinyl collector, having spent the golden decades of rock music with his hands deep in the bargain bins of record stores all across the United States, looking for every odd sound that was yet to be shared with the world back in the 70s.
Today he is recognised as an expert in music made on the fringes of culture, from private pressings to one-song bands. When we start talking, Paul lists off names of obscure records and artists like it’s nobody’s business, telling me enough stories to make it clear that we’re not really just conducting an interview, this is a chance for me to hear firsthand about a part of history.
Starting out as a coin collector in rural Kentucky, 12-year-old Paul was oblivious to music as a kid, instead obsessed with UFOs, maths and monster movies. All that changed by the end of 1966, when the fuzzy guitars of Psychotic Reaction by The Count Five first graced his ears. From that moment on, a spark was ignited, Paul sucked into a whole new alternative universe: Rock’n’roll.
From the get-go the records that attracted him were those which offered a gateway to the unusual – sounds that allowed him to escape the humdrum into a world of LSD, psychedelia and hippies.
As a teenager, weekends were spent in record shops, carefully flicking through the titles of songs on the back of albums, in search of the surreal. When something seemed interesting enough, he would invest what little money he had. The first album Paul ever owned was Revolver by The Beatles.
I discovered soon that there were some used record shops near my house, which were cheap. I just started buying every record I couldn’t before – every single one that looked psychedelic and was part of this counterculture movement, this underground world of hippies and radical freaks that I, at the age of fifteen, desperately wanted to be a part of.”
His record collection started expanding rapidly, but it was still just a personal pursuit at the time – Paul would listen to records with his college friends at parties and embrace his passion. Then in 1977 Paul moved to New York, in search of the newest musical phenomenon of the time: punk rock. He did end up finding punk, but that wasn’t all. In New York, Paul found a scene of record collectors, and that’s when his life’s work truly started coming together.
After noticing the rare records he’d been gathering were worth a bit of cash, Paul started going to stores looking for every copy of every pressing that might be able to turn him a profit. He would re-sell them to make his $99 rent, and spent the rest of his waking hours dedicating himself to music and his band.
Paul soon started selling the vinyls he found via the post, first through an ad, later getting in touch with his buyers through homemade catalogues, becoming a point of reference for other psychedelia aficionados all over the world. Paul back then was being sent hundreds of records from bargain bins all over the country, building a secret community with other collectors, spending hours on the phone being played songs by folk in all corners of the United States.
He became a channel, a catalyser. The thrill was no longer in owning the records himself, but in finding them, finding out what the people behind them were like, and then exchanging them for something new.
It was while falling deeper and deeper into the world of these musical outsiders that Paul found out about private pressings – long-forgotten albums recorded by everyday people, hidden away from the eyes of the music industry.
“There was no watering down, no attempt to be commercial, no one telling these people what to do when they make their records,” Paul tells me, “it wasn’t about making money. The actual music of the artist is coming across without filters. I started noticing that, the less influenced by the music industry, the better chance a record was going to speak to me.”
Although his attraction to the outsiders and the oddities of the music world came from gut instinct, Paul unwittingly came across a way to dodge the mainstream music press, at a time – long before the internet – when that was no mean feat......
More below in the article link
https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2017/09/feel-music-interview-with-paul-major.html
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qv3875/paul-major-digs-deep-for-the-rare-and-strange-on-feel-the-music-vol-1
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/feel-the-music-the-psychedelic-worlds-of-paul-major-publication-140617
https://thevinylfactory.com/news/paul-major-discovers-weirdest-records-of-all-time-new-compilation/
https://thequietus.com/articles/23577-various-artists-paul-major-endless-boogie-feel-the-music-vol-1-album-review
https://shop.mexicansummer.com/merch/197449-paul-major-feel-the-music-deluxe-edition
My Mix
Close to 24 hours of the best of Private Press Music.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5LEY01XX5wrXxhDLE57EsJ?si=9pUi9DZaSrqHyACQBRTNiA
Youtube Playlists
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZNVwWo8WbZ1e48jp5505ci61bI8ewwKg
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjrhOijqyB3YYHbZO4I_mZ2Ao6MDqVnx3
Books
Enjoy The Experience
https://pitchfork.com/features/paper-trail/9136-enjoy-the-experience/
http://www.bluefat.com/1306/Enjoy_the_Experience.html
Feel The Music - Paul Major
https://tidal.com/magazine/article/read-an-excerpt-from-paul-majors-feel-the-music/1-39825
David Gebroe and Paul Major's Private Press Podcast
Major ($20/month) - Discograffiti’s Private Press with Paul Major. This is our flagship bonus show, and it’s
comin’ atcha weekly—every Tuesday. The ultimate value for your music dollar--period, end of story. The greatest private press record collector of all time—and leader of the thunderously awesome band Endless Boogie—introduces you to a brand new incredible record you’ve almost definitely never heard of every single week, along with personal stories that rocket his recommendations into another category entirely. Not to be missed. You can sample an epidose on the Podcast page.
I highly recommend you subscribing to the Patreon if you like Private Press Music. I do and I love it!
Show can her found here
https://www.patreon.com/rss/discograffiti?auth=vmYtrG86QThqMj7kbWj6JUVRz3C7vlPi
and PATREON here
https://discograffiti.com/podcast/48-discograffitis-the-private-press-with-paul-major-premiere-episode/
Articles
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wdpmw4/unearthing-a-treasure-trove-of-obscure-private-press-vinyl
https://thevinylfactory.com/features/history-of-private-press-record-releases/
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/yerblues/notable-private-press-albums/
https://tidal.com/magazine/article/read-an-excerpt-from-paul-majors-feel-the-music/1-39825
https://chicagoreader.com/music/what-musics-outsiders-and-oddballs-got-up-to-before-the-internet/