Tuesday 29 May 2012

Headfirst LP Test

eBay lesson time. How to score a bargain. Bit of a risky strategy this one. It involves NOT bidding on an item you want in an effort to score it at a reduced price. Here's how it works...

First up, you find an item on eBay that you want, but at a price you feel is perhaps a shade too optimistic. Next, you watch it, but do not bid. If you are lucky, everyone else who wants it will also think it is priced too high, and the item will end without a bid. At this point you may wish to email the seller and ask about buying it. But if you're confident then you'll wait for them to relist it and then you'll go through the same process again of watching the item at the high price and not bidding. Then you email the seller and (this is the key) tell them you have seen it end twice with no bids, and you then make an offer for the price you feel is reasonable. Having listed it twice without success, any seller with half a brain will realise that they priced it too high. But before the get a change to relist for a lower price that may encourage several people to bid, you storm on in & scoop it. Simple.

I've successfully applied this tactic a few times in the past. Here's the fruits of my latest attempt - a test press of the Headfirst LP 'The Enemy'. This was listed on eBay twice for $39.99. I paid a little less.

Since some readers may not know the record in question, I dug out my white vinyl copy mainly to show the sleeve.

This band was active circa 1990 and had both a 7" and an LP on Dan O'Mahoney's label Workshed Records. The 7", from what I can tell, was quite highly regarded at the time, whereas the LP represented a change of sound and was seen by many as a metal record, or a rock record. Not really hardcore. Although despite this change of sound, it's quite a good record when you get into it. This band also featured Kevin Murphy, who also went on to play in 411 and, later, Farside. If you like any of these bands then you should give Headfirst a go.

5 comments:

Mike said...

Love this band. I believe I saw them play with Billingsgate and Killing Time in the early 90's, but old age has faded that memory, so I can't say for sure. Either way, yeah, the 7 inch was great, and while I really liked the LP, it did seem "different" and didn't grab me as much at the time. Nowadays though, I would have loved a shot at that test...nice score.

Mike said...

I think that part of the reason why I was a little turned off was the Hendrix cover bonus track from the CD. It confused my young Hardcore mind.

mcs said...

Completely agree. I totally HATE that Hendrix cover. I guess that was the days when CDs always had extra songs on the end. Back then it seemed that CDs had extra songs because they could store so much more than records, so extra songs were seen as a 'bonus'. However, looking back it seems possible that perhaps they felt the need to add something else as some kind of justification for the fact that CDs used to cost twice as much as records.

Seems crazy now doesn't it, that CDs used to cost more than records.

Mike said...

Okay, the Hendrix cover was a dud, but how did you feel about the Beatles cover from the Intervention 7 inch. I remember loving it at the time.

mcs said...

I have zero memory of the Beatles cover. Can't have made much of an impression I guess. And to be honest, the thought of listening to Headfirst play a Beatles cover doesn't even provide me with the motivation to dig the 7" out of a box so i can play it now. Ha!