The House of Records Part 2

THE BINGE

Since recieving his first record, Elvis' Rock & Roll #1 on the H.M.V. label for his fifth birthday in 1957, James Holdenfield has been an avid record collector.  When his grandmother died, James and his wife Joanne inherited a thirty acre parcel. The estate also included quite a bit of money, which the Holdenfields determined to use to construct a house.

Waiting for contractor's bids, contemplating death and deciding with Joanne what type of "dream house" they would build, proved too strenuous for James.  He had always found relief and comfort in record buying.  Negating to inform his wife, James went on a shopping spree that even the conservative Canadian journals could not write enough about.  

It seems James went a bit loony. On his first day out he bought some of the most rare 78 records in existence.   In 1931, 78 rpm records wholesaled at 21¢ and here, in a small shoppe outside of Montreal, James found three top selling labels, Decca, Bluebird (RCA) and Harmony (Columbia) selling for a fraction of the original price. James bought 462 of the most pristine recordings.

Later that day, James haphazard into a store that had just acquired a substantial quantity of back inventory from Mercury records.  Mercury and MGM had dominated the independent scene until 1952 and this lot was supposed to include a substantial quantity of early cuts.

James went into the store's back room to inspect the cache.  There were boxes that contained thousands of 78's.  He pried the lid off a wooden box and peered at visions of vinyl heaven.

The owner of the store told James that in 1947, a year before Columbia came out with the 33 1/3 rpm album and one year after Mercury opened its doors, the company offered to give one brand new 78 for three of any competitors.  The records in the crates were the ones Mercury's new customers had sent in.  It would be sacrilege to deny this opportunity.  James bought the lot.

Next Mr. H. drove towards Montreal.  There he found a gentleman who had a warehouse full of classical and blue grass music. These were two genres that struck James' fancy.  He implored the man to let him scavenge about. The gentleman demurred and informed James that unless he found a buyer for all the records within a fortnight, he was going to ship the entire lot to the states. James Holdenfield, just recently naturalized as a Canadian citizen,  could not let that happen.  He felt this rare collection should remain in the country that the Maple Leaf Rag was named after.  Once again, he bought the lot.

The madness continued.  Within two weeks the Toronto Star was running articles about "Shellac Holmes, the man who in record time was sniffing out and buying every piece of vinyl in sight."  Joanne, who was  living in a motor home on the inherited land, was frantic.  She hadn't heard from her husband in twelve days.  She was sure he was pissing away the house fund.  She hired a car and headed towards the city.

Hours later, Joanne found her temporally estranged husband in a third floor flat on Lattimer Street.  She thought she knew what she'd find but was unprepared as she pushed back the door to room 464.

Inside James, fatigued and pale, was sitting cross legged on the floor with his head bobbing up and down. Headphones seemed to be the only thing keeping his head from falling off.  Joanne took the arm of the record player, pressed it down into the fourth groove of Mahler's 9th and skated it across the lacquer finish of the 7 inch pressing.

James looked up horrified.  

 Next: The Recovery