Tracking & Hunting Stories by request (Dan)

[Glockose]

First time to "Last Chance"

Woke up at 4am drove 5 hours to Little Rock so I was there when they opened at 9. Looked through the warehouse until they closed at 5pm.

All LP's $2 all EP's $1 (NEW old store stock)

Left with close to 1000 records. 2-5 copies of every Neat, Ebony & Guardian record(no 7"'s) 10 copies of the Vemon box set, SA Slayer, first 3 pentera LP's, almost very mausolom and metal blade record, Vixen blue vinyl.......................................

Got in my car and drove 5 hours home (Had to work the next day)

[nightsblood]

Yeah, I got some decent stuff from Allinson over the years. I can't remember the guy in ENgland that he was tight with; I used to be on both their mailing lists but the guy in England had relatively high prices; I don't think I ever ordered anything from him. Don't know the one from Germany you mentioned.

Shop in Roanoke VA that my dad and I used to frequent when I was a kid was run by this strange guy who ended up murdering his wife.

[DaN]

Shop in Roanoke VA that my dad and I used to frequent when I was a kid was run by this strange guy who ended up murdering his wife.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH OLD 2nd HAND RECORD STORE OWNERS?!?! Really??

Seriously, old washed up bandmembers of long forgotten Metal bands never got shit on this ilk as far as flakyness goes. Got so many twisted experiences in that field, but they're kinda hard to retell. Guess you just had to be there..

[nightsblood]

Shop in Roanoke VA that my dad and I used to frequent when I was a kid was run by this strange guy who ended up murdering his wife.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH OLD 2nd HAND RECORD STORE OWNERS?!?! Really??

Seriously, old washed up bandmembers of long forgotten Metal bands never got shit on this ilk as far as flakyness goes. Got so many twisted experiences in that field, but they're kinda hard to retell. Guess you just had to be there..

Yeah I don't remember the details of the case- too young at the time- but I remember it being a big story in the local news for quite awhile. Apparently it was pretty cold-blooded and he showed little/no remorse during the trial. I guess he's still in prison. I remember my dad being pretty disturbed by the whole thing; the last time we went to his store was pretty close to the murder date.

[Fils Du Metal]

Just know of two second hand store owners that are dead now and died for strange reasons and by fate, both stores were killer in their own kind....in the last 6 months

Another nice hunting story: I purchased 200 standard European LPs: Celtic Frost and friends from a guy very cheap. You always recognize lifestyle of the pre-owner.....Do you remember opening those parcels making your whole appartment stink like a bar where people smoked for years inside?
Or those animals coming out?

Here the fine print was that I was lucky enough to check all record conditions and inlays and found some envelopes with porn pics he made of himself and his girlfriend(s) even a gang bang, funny find as private pics outta the 80'S have their charm. Especially the hair of the grils...

When tracking down SIDINEX the guy said "Yes Peter I will pack well don't worry"..The records arrived here WELL packed. No Joke: They were packed in old bedclothes where you stil lcould see the piss and shit spots and the bedclothes smelled like that....this was bllluuurgh...

Fine story not fitting hunting but receiving a record: Bought an LP by mail and when LP arived the seller just had taped the LP cover and closed record opening and put adress sticker on front cover... THIS IS CRAZY!

[doomedplanet]

Peter, do you know which of the photos on the back of HELLBREATH LP "Slave of God" is the deceased guy? I love how on the back cover it says "No thanks to SPV"!! You should share some of those sleazy girlfriend(s) photos with us from those lps too.

[The Sentinel]

Shop in Roanoke VA that my dad and I used to frequent when I was a kid was run by this strange guy who ended up murdering his wife.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH OLD 2nd HAND RECORD STORE OWNERS?!?! Really??

Seriously, old washed up bandmembers of long forgotten Metal bands never got shit on this ilk as far as flakyness goes. Got so many twisted experiences in that field, but they're kinda hard to retell. Guess you just had to be there..

Same here. 2nd Hand record shop owners seem to be very different, telling weird stories, smelling LP's, etc. It seems that this only counts for 2nd Hand record shop owners. Never had this with other shop owners (comic sellers, book sellers etc).

I remember one record store owner who also played guitar. I also play(ed) guitar and asked him if he could teach me some stuff. I ended up there playing guitar, listening records and drinking beer. I had to go to the toilet for a piss and opened a wrong door, the place was filled with drugs, he was running a profesional lab. He was not that happy that I discoverd his huge lab. He told me to tell nobody about this. I never saw him again, completey vaporized, even the store was closed forever

[Korgüll]

I was in Melbourne a few years ago in this (I'm sure Korgull and decibelrebel) store known as Rare Records in St. Kilda. The suburb that it's in is quite a 'seedy' place at night but we went during the day.

Yeah, I know Rare Records, the most expensive record store in the world!
The suburb of St. Kilda used to be a lot worse than it is now, but you still see something different every time you go there!

[xr2m]

I love this thread! Please keep the stories coming.

[Astaroth]

I was in Melbourne a few years ago in this (I'm sure Korgull and decibelrebel) store known as Rare Records in St. Kilda. The suburb that it's in is quite a 'seedy' place at night but we went during the day.

Yeah, I know Rare Records, the most expensive record store in the world!
The suburb of St. Kilda used to be a lot worse than it is now, but you still see something different every time you go there!

That's because the owner checks every item on the internet and then slams a $30 markup. He needs to eat a hollow point.

A few friends from Canberra went to his store and found some killer LP's, they kept annoying Doug and making fun him, saying they were in a hurry so he couldn't check the LP's on the net. Got away with some killer stuff like original Satan's Host etc. Apparently it was a deceased estate where some guy played the LP's once and taped them and then put them on the shelf for 20 years.

That Rare Records owner got some prank phone calls as well. /In gay voice "hey Dougie want to be my Bear tonight?"

I'll be in Melbourne next weekend so I'll see how I go - is there anything worthwhile other than Missing Link, Heartland, Rare Records and Dixons (which are all over the place)?

[jman]

not the best story compared to some of these, but strange nonetheless:
my landlord/best friend/roomate does subcontracting for a company that
renovates low income housing. Last summer at one of the houses he was working on, the homeowner's daughter's boyfriend showed up, looked at the Discharge sticker on his van and said "I haven't heard of Discharge in 10 years", turns out he was an old metalhead guy. The next day he brought a box of LP's to the house, sold them to my roomate for .50 each and was never heard from again. Nothing too wild in that box, some Neat records stuffs and some valuable Slapaham records stuffs, but cool nonetheless!

[Korgüll]

Apparently it was a deceased estate where some guy played the LP's once and taped them and then put them on the shelf for 20 years.

Missing Link, Heartland, Rare Records and Dixons (which are all over the place)?

I heard this guy died from eating too much KFC, then his sister when to Rare Records to see if he'd buy the lot (paid fuck all, from what I heard) then prices them all at (over) top dollar!
The guy that runs that store has no idea, whenever I've been in & he's just got some cool stuff in he never has a price, he has to "look it up, and see what it sold for last time" (in other words, check finished ebay auction prices )

Those record stores are about it mate!!!!

[Keir]

This is an awesome thread. I've been listening to metal for 20 years but I'm afraid I don't have any interesting stories like these.

[MassOfKthulu]

I was a student in Portsmouth,UK for a few years,and the first month i was there i was told from a fellow greek student into metal about this little corner shop where he found metal LPs and apparently got em all.knowing he wasnt too much into obscure stuff i give it a try
the second i got in i see a copy of an original private Exxplorer symphonies of steel
stone cold mint,insert,for 2 pounds
i buy it,then i tell him 'this goes for hundreds of dollars u know'
looks at me,sighs'this is portsmouth mate..'
i just left.

[OmenOfSteel]

A few years ago (before Ebay took over) I often had „wanna buy records“-announcements in metal mags here in germany. One day I got a letter with a list with oddly priced records, some usual Maiden/Metallica/Slayer stuff for 10 – 15 DM (5 – 7,5 Euro), some WARLORD/RAZOR etc records for 5 DM (2,50 Euro), the whole list just looked like prices were given randomly. There were only around 20 – 30 records on the list, but the guy mentioned he has thousands of LPs and CDs for sale.
There was no phone-number on the list and only a first name (Toni). Address was given, but under this address I couldn’t find out the phone-number.
The sender was from Klagenfurt, Austria, about 3 – 4 hours drive for me. It was Friday afternoon, I had no important plans for the weekend, so I called up a friend and asked if he wanna join me on a spontaneous metal-crusade. He said “sure lets go!” so I picked him up with my old rusty camping van and we were on our way.

We arrived in the evening around 17:30 o Clock, and after a little search we found the address given on the sales-list. I still remember it was “Gartenweg 4”.
We rang the doorbell and some old lady opened. “Hello, we come for the Metal records!”. She looked at us without understanding, and said “You are wrong, goodbye”.

DAMN!

I was much too excited about that possibly great collection, so no thought about giving up yet. We went to the nearest mail-office, but that damn thing was just closing when we found it. So we waited 15 min until the postman finally came out, we showed him the address and the name, hoping he could solve the mystery. But he said he never heard the name, no help.
I said: Ok, I’ll not drive home without trying everything we can, lets ring on every fucking door in this bloody street and ask for a guy called “Toni”.
So we started ringing at “Gartenweg 1”. No luck. It was already getting dark and after ringing up EVERY house in the whole damn street without finding the right one or even anyone knowing a guy called “Toni”, we were about to give up finally.

We were at the last house in the street (Gartenweg 44), rang, and some woman opened the window. We said our text “Hello, we are looking for a guy called Toni selling his records”. We already turned our backs expecting the usual “no idea, sorry”-Answer, but she said “Oh, yeah, he lives in the flat right below me. But he’s not home. His name is Anton XXX”. YEAH!!
We asked if she could tell us how to reach him. She said he is working as Taxi driver and just started his nightshift, but she has no phone-number.
We thanked her and got to the next phone-cell, calling up all taxi-companies in Klagenfurt, until we found the right one. The lady at the central connected us, and we finally got him on the phone, ha! We told him how it was a mess to find him, cos he had written Gartenweg 4 instead of 44. He said “why didn’t you just ask, everyone in Klagenfurt knows me”. Haha, yeah exactly...
However, he agreed to meet us after his nightshift at 7:00 in the morning. So we went out to get drunk for the rest of the night, happy we finally found him and that we were about to see his mysterious record collection the next morning.

He met us as agreed, we were dizzy and had a real bad hangover, he took us to some taxi-driver-pub for a morning coffee, than told us we should follow his car, because its not his own collection but the one from a friend.
After a little drive thru Klagenfurt he stopped at some house. It was around 8 or 9 in the morning, summer, and already freaking hot.
We followed him inside the house, 1st floor, and he rang up his friend. The door opened, and we were not sure what we were seeing. It was a guy dressed and styled like a girl, wearing pink plastic gloves, long blond hair, lipstick…
Outside it was hot and sunny, but all curtains in the smelly room were closed. And the room was FULL of metal records! Not sorted in shelves, but on the floor, in piles along the walls, totally chaotic. On the walls hung some record covers (I remember RAZOR and CIRITH UNGOL) and lots of porn-pics. One wardrobe was also full of ugly privately looking pornvideos (“want some? I can sell them too!”). Toni said goodbye and left. The girly-guy with the pink gloves told us too many strange stories to remember, for example that he was playing drums in an “all-girl-band” in Switzerland.

I asked about the record collection, and why he is selling it. He said “it’s the collection from my brother. He is soldier and had to go to some foreign country to serve. I am selling the records in his name cos he don’t need them anymore”. Hmm, okay…

Record-wise, he obviously had NO idea about what he was talking about. He praised the Roadrunner pressing of BONDED BY BLOOD as some mega-rarity, and didn’t give a 2nd look at the original MAYHEM “Deathcrush” on Posercorpse.
We were sweating in the room, it must have had 40° Celcius, and it took us hours to look thru the piles and piles of records.
My friend searched thru the CDs, I focused on the vinyls ofc. I found around 400 records, no super-rarities, but still some obscure private pressings, semi-rare Speed/Thrash LPs, US Metal, lots of brazil imports (hard to get before the internet-times) it was amazing! He asked 2000 DM (1000 Euro) for everything we had chosen. (no, there were none of the private porn videos included).

When we were finally done and ready to go, he said:
“Okay I will open the door, you go down quietly, and come back in to get the next bunch of records you can carry. Remember, be QUIET on the stairway.”. So we did. Every time we left his flat, we heard the sound of the key turning in the lock.
After we had all 400 records and the CDs carried to the car, we sat there for a few minutes and talked about his strange behaviour. I wanted to go back in maybe 5 minutes later to get some paper signed confirming I paid for the records. But he didn’t open again….

When we thought about everything on our way home, and after the brain started working again more properly after the bad hangover and strange experience, an uneasy feeling was setting in: He had all curtains closed in brightest summersunshine, he wore gloves all the time (“I wear gloves cos I burned my hands while cooking”), he locked the door everytime we left the flat for 2 min to go to the car and back, and he asked us to be silent in the stairway.

In my soon 20 years of collecting records, that was by far my most mysterious experience.