Text: Nate Hopper via Esquire
In photographer and part-time DJ Eilon Paz‘s new book, Dust & Grooves, there are shelves and shelves packed with vinyl. On some, collections built through crate-digging excursions around the globe are meticulously organized by name, or by color. With others, the wood is warped and sits beside piles of records and used electronics, all covered with dust and grime. Each collection is a reflection of its owner — the cherished result of, as one DJ puts it in the book, the “self-inflicted pleasurable pain” of “a senseless and punishing neurosis.” Here, the men, and their findings.
Joe Bussard, sitting in his basement in Frederick, Maryland, with some of the rarest 78s in the world, all uniformly discolored after six decades of searching and sorting
“The original idea behind the archive was sheer hubris—to save two copies of every record ever made. Thirty years later: nemesis.” —Bob George, at the Archive of Contemporary Music, New York City
Afrika Bambaataa’s collection of 43,000-plus records, alphabetized for Cornell University Library’s Hip Hop Collection, New York City
A dubplate of Hydraulic Funk’s “Wild Style,” from Bambaataa’s collection
“The one problem with having so many records is, how do you keep them filed? I have a system based on genres, countries, and other criteria.” — Claas Brieler in Berlin, Germany
David Fox Caldwell’s collection in his Aikei Pro’s Records Shop in Holly Springs, Mississippi (it took an hour just to clear away enough boxes to get inside)
Philip Osei Kojo listening to his records for the first time in thirty years, since his record player broke, in Mampong, Ghana
