Jon Green!

Jon was directed to my site from Andy "Bug" Campbell (See Bug's interview here) and he was kind enough to do an interview. He has a great collection and some interesting pieces including homemade concert posters.

Jon writes his own blog at http://www.shortwavemediaredux.blogspot.ca/ Check it out!

Here we go!

Introduce yourself!

Name: Jon Green

City/Town: Fredericton

Job:

Maritime Vinyl (MV) - What do you collect? Vinyl; CD’s; Cassettes; 8 tracks; bootlegs; music memorabilia; magazine; etc..

Jon Green (JG) - I’ve collected a lot of different things related to music in the past including vinyl, CDs, cassettes, box sets, music DVDs, and a lot of magazines. I have a pretty substantial digital collection as well.

MV - Do you prefer one audio format more than others? (example: vinyl more than cd’s)

JG - I prefer vinyl for a lot of reasons. It does have a great sound (although I’m not totally convinced it sounds better than CDs) but more importantly every album is a real artifact. If you want to display your interest in a piece of music, there is no better way than sharing an album cover with your friends as you listen to the music. 

MV - What is your favourite genre of music? Some of your favourite artists?

JG - I’m pretty eclectic in my tastes. I’m probably considered an indie fan but I like a lot of different music. At the moment I’m playing some French trip hop and I played the new Beach House album on the way in to work. If you thumb through my collection you’ll see multiple albums from The Pogues, The Clash, Lou Reed/Velvet Underground, Beach House, Nirvana, Iggy Pop, Pulp, Supergrass, Beck, The Shins, Tom Waits, Janes’s Addiction, Tricky, The Flaming Lips, Billy Bragg, Pavement, Inbreds, Sonic Youth, Portishead, New Order, Joy Division, Sloan, Folk Implosion, REM, Beastie Boys, The Pixies, Frank Black, The Dears, Belle & Sebastian, Oasis, The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, The Smiths, The Specials, Hayden, Replacements, Luna, Radiohead, Mercury Rev, Jon Spencer Blue Explosion,Wilco, Neil Young, Broken Social Scene, Nick Cave, Dandy Warhols…I’m running out of space here.

MV - How big is your collection?

JG - I have about 600 CDs, about 120 LPs, 500 cassettes, and a lot of digital tracks. I also have 15 or so music DVDs.

 

Other things that I’ve accumulated over the years includes a large collection of Rolling Stone magazines from the mid to late 80’s and a large collection of British music mags including Q (my favourite), Word, and NME. I hope that some day my kids will enjoy thumbing through them.

MV - Do you concentrate your collection on one or more artists in particular?

JG - Not really. I will go through periods where I want to collect certain albums by an artist. But typically there are no artists worthy of having every album collected with few exceptions.

MV - What is the first album you remember purchasing? Do you still have it?

JG - I had a few K-Tel compilations early on (LP & 8 Track) which I still have but I believe the first proper album that I bought was Synchronicity by The Police. It was on cassette and wore out many years ago thanks to a very poor quality Walkman knockoff. I’ve hung on to almost everything I’ve bought since then however.

MV - What is your favourite item in your collection?

MV - I don’t get too sentimental about things I picked up a long time ago. Most of my favourite items are albums that I’ve picked up in the past year or so. One of my favourites is an original 12” pressing of “Blue Monday” by New Order that I picked up on eBay. I’ve always loved the song but I’ve also loved the artwork and the story behind it (the floppy disk-like packaging was so expensive to produce that it cost the label 5 cents every time they sold one. And it became the biggest selling 12” single of all time).

Other favourite items are box sets by Lou Reed and The Pogues.

I created some posters for various concerts that I attended as well including The Police, Radiohead, The Flaming Lips, and Pulp. I’m pretty happy with those even though they were a DIY project.

 

MV - Do you still actively collect or was this something you concentrated on in the past?

JG - It comes and goes but I’ve been pretty active for the past year and a half.

MV - What is your preferred way of adding to your collection? Shopping online? Flea Markets? Independent music stores? Etc… Any favourite store or websites?

JG - I split my time between stores and online. Online I typically hit Amazon (which has a huge vinyl section) and eBay. In terms of stores, I frequent Backstreet Records in Fredericton (nice selection of vinyl). I also seek out record stores when I’m travelling. There’s a really cool store in Greenwich Village (NYC) called Rebel Rebel that I hit a couple of times in the past year. It’s crammed with teetering towers of boxes full of new and used LPs and CDs.

MV - How do you store your collection? Shelves? Boxes? Your attic?

JG - I’m lucky enough to have a man cave on the main floor of my house where I store about half of my collection on shelves. The rest is in boxes in my basement.

I also have a lot of memorabilia from past concerts and my days as editor of my former website, Shortwave Media. I had a chance to interview a number of cool acts back then so I have some of that stuff on display around my office.

 

MV - Does your significant other support your collection? Did you have to convince him/her?

JG - I don’t get much commentary either way as long as I keep it in my office. My kids love it when I play records for them though and were really the ones that got me back into vinyl. They were so curious about the boxes of records in our basement that I decided to break them out and start playing them again. And the rest is history.

MV - What is on your “wish list” at the moment?

JG - Nothing long term. I just got the new Beach House LP and Oberhofer LP recently so my cravings are satisfied for a  while. I probably want to get more Luna albums on vinyl in the long term.

MV - Do you know any other collectors?

JG - Not really anymore aside from Andy. Most of my friends are music fans however so everything is good.