ARCA will have its 26th annual record and CD show Friday April 13 and Saturday April 14 at the Bessemer Civic Center. Hours are 3:00 pm to 9:00 pm Friday and 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Saturday. BRC members are admitted FREE by showing BRC membership card. Earlybird admission available for $10 to non-ARCA members at 2:00 pm Friday. Regular admission is $3.

Hello, just want to let everyone know about a great website where you can find all types of display frames for your records. The site is www.hobbyframes.com and they have a large selection of frames for vinyls & covers. They also have display frames for other types of collectibles. Prices are good and they ship fast.

Hi all, this is an announcement of a site I just launched. I built http://squirl.info to house my own collection of 3,000 45s, and I would really love to see more record collectors on the site. Here's an example of what a Squirl record collection looks like:

http://squirl.info/collection/show/2

Here's our standard spiel:

The Spring 2006 Austin Record Convention was held last weekend. The University Star has a recap in an article titled Tables turned on record collecting at Austin Record Convention. There was also early coverage from Kilgore News Herald and News 8 Austin.

Here's some (five to be exact) interesting record collecting related articles that I've come across in the last few weeks.

• Every record collection has its roots in a moment of complicated joy. We hear a song, and it makes us happy. We want to hear it again; we want to feel the same feeling as the first time we heard it. The easy solution is to acquire a copy of the song, so we can bring back that feeling or something like that feeling whenever we want. (The feeling is never exactly the same. Sometimes it degrades, at one rate or another, over time and repeated experience. But sometimes it stays very similar.) Read the full article from Seattle Weekly.

Here are a some articles that I've recently come across involving record collecting.

1) The News Journal interviews Michael Ace, host of WVUD's "Cruisin' America," in a story called "Passion spins at 45 rpm: The soundtrack of his youth thrums a steady backbeat to Newark collector's life."

2) In an interview published back in December, Asbury Park Press talks with Garry Tallent of the E Street Band about his record collecting history and a few of his prized possessions. "I set out a long time ago to try to collect all five Buddy Holly Deccas and all five Elvis Suns. 45s. I like 78s, but they just are so breakable. I had four of 'em for the longest time and getting that last one was just hard to find." The full story is still available online here.

3) From The News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington, "Music collection connection" covers a local record collectors convention.

A friend of mine who does record shows in Europe told me that dealers there can never leave their tables even for a short while because of theft. He was amazed that dealers at our shows can visit with each other and leave their tables with little risk. But there is risk anywhere there is something of value left unattended.

I did an out of town show last year and a buddy of mine went with me. He took four 45s he wanted to sell and we put them in my box. They were all local records that were worth about $50 each. One dealer who has been at shows in Birmingham showed some interest. I'll call this dealer Scum. He asked if he could take one of the records back to his table and listen to it. My buddy, who I'll call Phil, said OK. He walked off with what looked like one record to play. At the end of the show, there were two records missing. We checked all the boxes and finally confronted Scum, who said he only took one and brought it back. His word against ours, right? So he got away with $100 worth of records. But that's not the whole story. Scum sometimes travels with another dealer I'll call Dundee. We told Dundee what happened and he said he couldn't vouch for Scum, that Scum lived close to the edge all the time. Dundee said he would keep his eyes open. And when Dundee and Scum got back home, Scum starts shopping these 2 45s aroung town. One of them was in a sleeve with some distinctive writing on it. Scum wasn't even smart enough to switch sleeves. Dundee, being a stand-up, honest dealer got the records back to Phil in a short while and said Scum would not be traveling with him anymore.

Federal Computer Week has a report about the Library of Congress and their use of the sound restoration system called IRENE, designed by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory “to help preservationists restore at-risk recordings and improve audio quality.”

"A Long-Playing Love Affair" is an article about the annual record convention in Eugene, Oregon.

Vince Staten, columnist for Kingsport Times-News, talks about buying his first record and Dan Aykroyd's response when asked about the first record he had purchased. The full column is available here. He also posted an entry in his personal blog.