mergers of acquisitions

With South Florida cowering before tropical storm Noel (could they not have given it a more aggressive name?), I thought I ought to post some kind of valedictory message before I'm blown in to the mid-Atlantic. Now, the reason things on here have been a bit quiet is that I've been - brace yourselves - working hard, very hard, and so have all the other grads. This means that I've been spending enough time in front of computers already, and also that I've been doing very little fun to report about.

The hard work seems set to continue for at least the next fortnight, but I have a new and welcome distraction. I managed, finally, a couple of weeks ago, to get a second hand mixer and pair of decks for a decent price. [Warning: slightly geeky tech speak for next 50 wds). Technics 1200M3D, Allen and Heath Xone32. The decks are in sparkly condition, even the 45 adaptors are there. The mixer is a handsome beastie, and has a built-in filter unit - so I can add LFO wobble to anything insufficiently squelchy. Only complaint: would it have been so hard to put a sharp cut on the crossfader curve control, given that they've put one on at all? Makes scratching a little less easy than it might be.

Anyway, those secured, the next task was to get some records, and here's how I've done:

70-odd 7" singles by completely obscure American artists on utterly recherche labels. Bought for buttons from Ebay. Still going through them: about half country of various degrees of nuttiness, one quarter sixties-style surf-pop, and one quarter soul gems.

20 assorted jazz LPS. Ebay, again. who doesn't need 8 Herbie Hancock albums? How did I manage without? I bought 14 records from the same guy, again for buttons, and he kindly threw in six extra. I'm grateful for the Billy Cobham, and slightly scared of the John Klemmer. Never heard of him, but it looks awful. Mind, Joe Zawinul's hardly less alarming on the sleeve of 'Heavy Weather'.

The cherry-picked highlights of a massive collection I rifled through on Saturday. I answered a classified ad that mentioned a record collection for sale and a few artists from the mid-90s Rawkus golden age, secured the necessary lift, and on arrival, was greeted with 20 crates of vinyl. Deep breath, send my chauffeur to read a book in the car ('this could take me a while'), dive in. I was very restrained and selective, and resisted the temptation to get copies of things I already had in the UK, but still came away with two boxes, mostly of hip hop 12"s and LPs, a few other bits and pieces mixed in - couple of Portishead LPs, some Femi Kuti, and so on. The crates were a goldmine of hip hop from the mid 90s to the present, a mix of the indie and the commercial, and I got loads of good stuff, including some things I've tried in vain to track down ( in a slightly obsessive manner) in the past - like a 12" of the original version of 'Grindin'', rather than the easy-to-find-but-rubbish 12" with the Sean Paul remix. Yes, it was released back in the days when the coolest thing to do with your remix was to get SP to phone in 16 bars of priapic patois-lite.

So I'm now all set up to distract myself mixing all my new purchases into a tasty musical stew. Of course, all this is a bit stupid, for two reasons. First, the tentative offers I've had for DJ work have been for dubstep mixing; so really, my record budget should be going on dubstep records, not Kool Keith LPs. Second, a few years from now, I'm going to have to face a horrible decision: bankrupt myself shipping my US collection back to Britain, or wave goodbye to all my precious acquisitions? I'm dreading that day already.