This Week: 317X

Collectors of oddball records love the Internet for two reasons: 1. They can locate rare albums much faster and easier than ever before, and 2. They can show off their collections to more people than just their typically annoyed friends. (See PopCult's own humble effort at showing off.) But most online galleries of odd album art are rather haphazard, lumping the surprisingly good and the horrendously bad together in a jumbled layout. One exception is 26-year-old Mark's (just "Mark") 317X, a fine collection of some 350 album covers. Rather than post whatever goofy covers he comes across, the Washington D.C. analyst has opted to collect esthetically appealing weird records that he also actually listens to. The result is a great online gallery of primo cover art, complete with liner notes and song lists.

Did you grow up with LPs, or did you discover them later?

I grew up with them, although I think my generation was the last to know the LP as a mass marketed format. By the time I was 12 or 13 CDs had surpassed LPs in sales. When my parents bought a CD player, I remember being fascinated by the sliding drawer and digital display but I never really considered the record player obsolete–it was just another thing in the stereo cabinet to play music on.

When did you first start collecting LPs?

Shortly after graduating from college I decided to try to find the album by Perez Prado that contained the song "Guaglione." I had heard the song on a Guinness TV commercial while studying in London and owned a CD with the track but I was interested in hearing more of Prado's music. Although I didn't immediately find the album with the song, I found another Prado album at a local flea market and that's how it started.

Why are you fixated on collecting them–what do you get out of it?

Sometimes weeks or months go by between my record purchases so perhaps fixated isn't the best way to describe my level of interest in collecting. The thrill of the hunt is certainly part of it, but I mainly like finding new music to listen to and covers to enjoy.

Do you collect LPs just for the art, or do you also listen to them?

What fun is owning a record if you don't listen to it? I know that some people only collect old records for the artwork and I think they are doing themselves a disservice by not exploring the content inside the cover. I often spend hours in front of my stereo with headphones on staring at the cover or reading the liner notes while the music plays. That‚s not to say that every piece of music is a masterpiece but the cover and music (good or bad) are two halves of the whole experience. As much as I would like to put sound clips on my site, time, storage, bandwidth and other limitations prevent me from doing so.

Why is this artwork important enough to post online?

It's too good not to share with others.

Do you ever get a similar excitement over CD art–or is it a lost cause?

I don't think I've ever gotten excited over the artwork on a CD but I have seen some great product packaging, especially for box sets. Perhaps that's how designers are getting around the size limitations inherent to CD jewel cases.

Describe your typical album-hunting expedition.

When I get it in my mind that I want a particular album I usually start my search on the Internet to get an idea of how common it is and what prices people are asking. Depending on what I find, my search may end there. I buy a lot of records from Internet and so far I haven‚t had any bad experiences with online record stores or eBay vendors. If the timing is right I will also try to find albums at local record fairs but I enjoy browsing the bins and often lose track of what I'm looking for (maybe I should write these things down). The number of used record stores in the DC area has dwindled considerably over the past few years and the ones that remain are somewhat out of the way but I try to visit them when I can. I haven‚t had much luck at yard sales and thrift stores. Depending on what my money situation is like I try to go up to New York to the WFMU record show once a year. With the exception of the WFMU show, I try not to spend more than $50 on my record hunts. Most times I spend less than $30.

What was your best "score"?

The soundtrack to Murderer's Row by Lalo Schifrin. I found it by doing a search on Google.

Any particularly interesting record-buying stories?

Shortly after I started collecting records I stumbled upon a TV repair store in Virginia that had a huge back room full of records. For whatever reason I was in a hurry and only spent a few minutes there. When I went back a couple weeks later to do some browsing I found out that the owner had died suddenly and the records were going to be sold off in bulk later that day. The owner‚s daughter told me I could go back and flip through the records and take pretty much anything I wanted for $10. It was a great deal but I was so new to collecting that I didn't have a good idea of what I was looking for. I left the store with 15 or 20 fairly common albums and later discovered that some of the records I had passed up were pretty rare. Missed opportunities.

Why did you name your site "317X"?

317X was a special ingredient that RCA Victor supposedly added to their records to reduce surface noise. Whether or not 317X actually existed or was just a marketing ploy I don't know, but it is touted on the covers of several RCA records I own. When I was thinking of a name for the site I wanted something that directly related to the covers but was not too recognizable. Although 317X only appeared on RCA covers, virtually every other label at the time touted some technical aspect of their records on the covers. 317X appealed to me and seemed to work best because of its relative obscurity and short length.

What makes for an album cover worthy of inclusion at 317X?

The requirements are pretty simple: I have to own the album and be able to scan it. I don‚t love every single cover that‚s posted but I think it's interesting to show the variety of styles used by the designers.

How many albums do you own vs. post on your site?

My collection is pretty small compared to other record collectors. I think I have about 600 records and there are around 350 displayed on the site.

What's your favorite cover?

Jim Flora's cover for Mambo for Cats is my favorite. It has so much energy, with the jagged lines filling in every space and the objects unevenly sliced into different colors. I especially like the green cat on his back holding the trumpet with all four paws. I don't really have the vocabulary to describe why I like it so much but I never get tired of seeing it. Other people must like it too because I've seen the image on a number of sites and copies of the album usually fetch high prices on eBay.

Incidentally, there's a great site at http://www.inhi-fi.com/flora/ that features Mambo for Cats and dozens of other fantastic Flora covers.

Have you got any holy grails–an album you most want to find?

I have been interested in an album by Ozzie Torrens called Boogaloo in Apartment 41 for a while. The one time I saw it in person was at a record store in London where it was on sale for about $250.

What kinds of responses do you get from visitors to your site?

I am always interested in who visits my site and I really appreciate it when someone writes to let me know they stopped by. Overall the feedback has been very positive. I get a lot of messages from people who are trying to find an album their parents owned and they grew up listening to. DJs and musicians write fairly often, as do fans of lounge/exotica/easy-listening music.

What else would you like to do with your site?

I would like to add some interactivity to the site so that people can post comments about the covers. For my own convenience I would like to redo the programming to make it easier to add and change pages. Aside from those things I don't have any grand plans for the site. Its only purpose is to display record covers and I don't see a need to change that.

(Other interesting online galleries of album art include Show and Tell, Bizarre Records, Frank's Vinyl Museum, and When LPs Roamed the Earth. A good general resource on odd records is Cool and Strange Music Magazine.)

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