For whatever reason, I called my record collecting posts "Vinyl Hunter" back in 2016. I had just gotten back into collecting vinyl records , and at the time I didn't really think about the possibility of adding 78 rpm records to my collection. That all changed a couple years ago, when I shared my copy of Uncle Bunt Stephens, "Sail Away Lady" / "Louisburg Blues" (Columbia, 1926), which I got off eBay. However, that wasn't even the first piece of shellac I bought. But, we'll get to that. First, I wanted talk about my most recent 78 haul. Earlier this year, I stopped into an antique store in South Carolina while traveling for work and walked out with four shellac records. Awhile back, I joined a 78 rpm collecting group on Facebook, and someone posted some records that had just been put on the store floor at Catnip Antiques in Simpsonville, S.C. It just so happened that the store was on my way back to the airport, so I decided to check it out. ...
July 2 is exactly the midpoint of the year, with 182 days preceding and 182 days to follow. It seems like a good time to reassess my goals for 2025. In years past, I would post my goals in January. This year, I didn't even bother doing that. I figured you probably get tired of constantly hearing how I'm behind on my playing goals, so guess what? I'm behind on my playing goals this year. I totally missed two months of playing, not playing at all in March and May. However, I started to get back into a groove in June. I'm hoping to use that momentum for second half push to get back to playing music regularly. I typically set three playing time goals each year: a primary goal, a minimum goal and a stretch goal. I was hoping to reach 100 hours of combined playing this year, with a minimum goal of beating last year's total of 85 hours and a stretch goal of 124 hours. Having missed two whole months and topping out at a combined 5.5 hours in February, the only goal ...