Old Records Graveyard

I took my kid sister out to lunch for her birthday today. She works for Acoustic Sounds which deals in vintage albums, particularly the Blues. They also run a record label, Blue Heaven Studios, and host the Blues Festival I help with every fall.

Recently they have taken on pressing their own LPs so I got to spend a couple of hours today watching and learning how albums are made. It's quite an interesting process and since LPs fell out of favor in the 80s, all the machinery is vintage. The presses are mostly from the 50's-70's and a couple from the 80's - all tricked out for the new age with computer processors.

I was most intrigued by the album recycling they do. Basically they take old LPs that don't really have any value, pop one in a machine which cuts out the label section. The label is held on by the heating process so removing is out of the question. The remainder of the LP is then shredded and used in making new albums.

I picked through the label discs that were destined for the trash, nearly 2500 from the current batch. I picked out a few and then promptly chastised my sister and made her promise that no vintage Halloween albums would be harmed in this process.

I'm happy to report that I didn't come across anything fabulous but I did grab the few shown here just for fun. Apparently some people use these to make coasters.

So, grab those Halloween LPs when you can. We don't want any of them heading off to the record graveyard!

Haunt on!