New York Blue

First of all, I don't like letting go of any record that I own. Even if I don't particularly like it. What if 25 years from now I have a change of heart, and that band suddenly becomes a favorite. The thought of having to buy a record that I already once owned would literally kill me with wave after crushing wave of regret. Nope. Best to just keep everything. Second, record trades always make me feel awkward. I'm glad I came into record collecting in the day of eBay, and I could just buy what I want. I get such anxiety if someone asks me if I'd be willing to do a trade for a record that I have. No, I don't have a trade list, or a handy list of records that I would be looking for... it is fucking random chaos in my world of collecting. No organized plan or order.

So when someone recently messaged me through Discogs asking about working a trade for a record that he wanted from me, I promptly ignored it. That worked for a month or so, until he tracked me down through Instagram and dropped me a message there. Ooof. That one was more difficult to ignore. I immediately hit up Marcus to see if this guy was legit, or if he was just a pain in the ass. Marcus vouched for him, and said that if I was interested, I should draft up a list of records that I would be willing to trade for, and see if the guy could make it happen. Now I wasn't really attached to this record, but after a lot of hand wringing, I finally got back to the intial offer to tell him that I just wasn't interested in making a trade at that point... but in reality, Marcus had mentioned that he wouldn't mind having this in his collection, and that was all that I needed to hear. I just didn't want to give it to anyone other than Marcus.

When I went to visit with Marcus this summer, I was delivering a bunch of records that he'd purchased and had shipped to my house, so that I could pack them on the plane and deliver them like the little vinyl drug mule that I am. I dropped that record into the pile for him. He knew what I was thinking of asking the original trader for, but I honestly wasn't concerned about it. I gave it to him with a "you deserve this more than anyone else, so just trade me anything that you think is fair". A couple of months later and he came through. Fair ended up being the blue vinyl for Judge's New York Crew.

I can't begin to explain how happy I am to have this record in my collection. I've never actively sought it out or given it much thought. It always just seemed to be one of those classic record pressings that was too big for my collection. It was kind of dumb thinking, because I've definitely spent more on a record than it would have taken for this one... but still it never entered my brain as a possibility until I was forced to come up with a list of possible trades for that intial message. Now that I have this Judge record, it makes me want to chase other big shit like this.