When In Rome

So I went to Rome a couple of weeks ago. I'd never been before, and was really looking forward to it. I like walking around cities without too much planning. We had a hotel that was pretty central, and we walked everywhere. The first day we did 27,000 steps, and the rest of the days were similar. Unfortunately, however, it rained every day except for one. Good job I took my umbrella with me.

Anyway, this was one holiday where I didn't even think about records. I think that before I went I made the assumption that Rome would not have record shops, and I didn't even look at the internet to check if I was right or not. In fact, records did not even enter my head once on the trip. Yet still I ended up coming home with a pretty cool little 7"...

After the first day, I posted some pics of Rome on instagram and Paolo got in touch to ask if I wanted to meet up. I'd made a trade with him a few years ago, and I follow him on instagram as he has some pretty amazing records in his collection. I knew he was italian, but I didn't remember that he lived in Rome. He's not someone I know too well, but I'm always up for meeting new people, especially fellow record nerds. So we arranged to meet one evening, and of course it rained. I thought it would be apt to post up this pic as we are both under my umbrella. It really sums up my trip.

Well, being the nice guy he is, he also brought along a record for me as a gift! This was a record that he helped to release, and he knew that I was missing this particular version, which he had a spare copy of. I was (and still am) really touched by this amazing act of kindness from a 'stranger'.

So the record in question is a split 7", featuring the band Damage Done (from California) and Day Of The Dead (from Portugal). I won't go into much detail about this, because it has been written about in far more detail than I ever could on Kyle's Blog. But suffice to say that this is a pretty cool little version of this record - the mailorder version in a limited sleeve.

I always like when limited sleeves sit on the top of the regular sleeve. Sometimes a limited sleeve is just a photocopied thing that looks great but has no information (lyrics, credits etc). So doing it this way means that you get the benefit of both.

The regular sleeve of this one is pretty cool. It has an extra fold and flap, underneath which it is numbered.

I find it kind of interesting that I got mailorder copy #9/50, yet the regular sleeve is number 59. I wonder if the mailorder copies were numbers 51-100, or whether there was no real order to the regular sleeves that got paired with the mailorder sleeves?

My Damage Done collection is now coming along nicely. I'll post a pic of it at some point when I have more time.

When I started collecting records (many years ago) it felt like there weren't many like minded people about. It was essentially a bedroom hobby. But over the years I have met so many nice people as a result of doing this. Anyone who thinks that record collecting is not a social hobby is clearly doing it wrong. This post is another great example of the social side of the international brotherhood of record nerds. Thank you kindly, Paolo. Hopefully we will get to meet again some day...