philbeard

I am a contributor to Dig!, and previously wrote for Record Collector magazine, uDiscover, Headpress, Palgrave and The Tip Sheet.

I have had regular shows on four radio stations (most recently Cowbell Radio) and was a resident DJ for The Perfumed Garden tent at the Beat-Herder festival. I have DJ'd on line-ups with Jerry Dammers, Don Letts, Norman Jay, System 7, Richard Norris, Deadly Avenger, DJ Derek, Fat City All Stars, and Gideon Conn, among many others.

I previously played in Heffalump Trap, Blowjangles & Poco Loco, contributed music to Astral Social Club releases, was part of The Termite Club committee in Leeds, have occasionally released other people's stuff on a small scale and have spent much of the rest of the last 30+ years doing other bits & pieces to do with music.

Since the death of Simon Morris from the Ceramic Hobs in December 2019, I am spending a lot of time dealing with his 'archive', arranging release and distribution of his work, etc. Other areas of immediate interest at the moment include the 90s Stoke tape label scene and proto-reggaeton dancehall reggae, but it is ever-changing.
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I have been collecting an extremely wide variety of music, especially from the outer edges, since 1989. Myself, my girlf & my olds now have c. 14,500 records, CDs, pre-recorded tapes, music DVDs and VHSs, etc (increasingly including official promo MP3s tbf), collectable & otherwise, between us, nearly 2000 of which I've added here as new entries. I'm not too bothered about format & will happily just have most things on MP3 if they're hard to get, but I found like many people that my sound files got in a tangle & I ended up not listening to new ones consistently, so I went back to collecting physical items en masse! I will also confess to a love affair with vinyl though, particularly 7"s & 10"s (3" CDs are pretty smart as well).

I am mainly here because of my (as of late 2023, 2000-strong) Discogs wants list, which is the very tip of the iceberg in terms of records I'm interested in, but which is basically the stuff I am hunting with vigour & which I have generally been after for quite some time now, or have recently found on here & never previously knew about. Having said that, despite what people will tell you, most things crop up at a sensible price if you look for them long enough, so I don't believe in paying obscene amounts. Hence, feel free to offer me things from my wants list, but keep the prices sensible if you are going to do that. Also, my collection is deliberately kept private, so unless I've listed it for sale, I'm not planning on selling it. Hence, you're welcome to ask questions but you're probably not going to twist my arm (well, if you're offering three figures on an item, maybe we can talk, y'know, but otherwise...).

Rating system...

1 - Pretty terrible. The sort of thing I wouldn't touch with a barge-pole (ie really limp boy bands / girl bands etc). Also, Neo-Nazi music, homophobic ragga, really badly pressed records, etc.
2 - Very unoriginal or fails to do what it by rights should (ie the better end of boy band/girl band stuff, the limper end of RnB, bandwagon-jumping generic stuff, very poor releases by bands I usually like etc).
3 - Nice enough & I'll support anyone getting a 3, but not spectacular (ie standard releases in genres I like).
4 - Great music (all styles).
5 - Amongst my (long list of) favourites (all styles). Plenty of stuff gets a 5, but usually because its very exciting, very beautiful or very original.

I've pretty much decided that...
God Is My Co-Pilot & The Ceramic Hobs are my favourite bands,
Aphex Twin my favourite solo artist,
The Only Ones' "Another Girl Another Planet" is my all-time favourite song,
De La Soul's "3 Feet High & Rising" is my favourite album,
and R&S '90-'94 and Shut Up & Dance '89-'91 are possibly my favourite labels...
but these aren't necessarily representative of my taste...

Genres of particular interest to me include
dancehall reggae/ragga jungle (see my lists on here);
gabba/hardcore techno/hard acid/speedcore/etc;
noise/experimental/noise rock/avantgarde;
the UK Garage-derived scene (all styles from speed garage through grime to nu UK garage);
Washington DC go go;
music hall novelties;
music from the Fylde & from the English fens (see my lists on here) &
playlists from classic clubs & scenes (from pre-reggae Jamaica through various northern soul clubs & the Loft and Paradise Garage, to Rage & Parkzicht...
...but then I've also got more indie, hip hop, drum n bass etc etc etc than you can shake a stick at...

I'm also interested in strange vinyl pressing ideas that affect the audio (as opposed to cosmetics like picture discs or concentric grooves, all of which are nice but which I'm not looking to go out of my way to obtain any more of), ie; locked grooves, multiple centre holes, playable etchings & new records pressed into old records...
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As of Dec 2023, the items listed below are the ones NOT on Discogs that I'm also very much after & would be very keen to pay/trade for...

While Discogs was always very helpful to me even before I became a member, I am now VERY impressed with how encyclopedic it has become, at the point at which there are only five recordings in the world that I'm this keen to get hold of & aren't listed on here, nearly half of them being releases by a guy who sang at an obscure flea market in the US & probably largely just sold his records there! Well done everyone...I hope it never disappears into the ether...

Buddy Max - Gold Record Award Winning and Orange Blossom Special (1990) CDs - country.
America's woefully obscure "Flea Market Cowboy"...I STILL only have a coupla MP3s plus one great CD that came via Theme Park Records in the mid-nineties.

Jah Scouse - RAP/Bombay Mix 7" (051)

Space Records SPAC 7 (as yet unidentified item)

Stormed - New Revolution tape (1989) - indie ska.
An old favourite band from Cambridge...onto the bits & bats now I've got one single & a dub of the other.
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A Handful of Books/Mags I’m Also After (at reasonable prices), PDFs would do…

Martin Barker - Action-The Story of A Violent Comic (Titan, 1990, hbk)

Black Giantess zine issues 1 (1995)-7+ (c.2003)

Albert Goldman – Disco (Hawthorn, 1978)

Diz Willis - The Terrible Funeral & After (Wild Pigeon Press, 1968)
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...And finally, a mere two FILMS I cannot track down in UK-appropriate formats...

Lying (Chloe Sevigny, 2006), and

Rockets Redglare! (doc, 2003)