Sep242011
How One Record Came Back To Life In The Eyes Of Vinylsearcher.com
Here’s an article written by Mark over at VinylSearcher:
It’s 2011 and vinyl is still alive, no longer in small shops but mainly on the Internet. Rare tunes are hard to come by.
So let me tell you a story about a very famous dnb/rave record from many moons ago. In 2010 Ram Records shot to fame with Chase and Status and other headlining names. Tracks from Ram were appearing on BBC soap operas like Eastenders. Hard to believe, dnb with the extension of dub step has gone mainstream.
This happened to house in the early nineties with funky house and the whole Ibiza thing, now funky house is as dead as garage, not totally dead just minimal. Dnb however continues to grow. The youth seem to like it.
One of the pioneers of the drum and bass scene and top man at Ram is Andy C. A very understated person, not pushed in the limelight, just living the dream playing dnb all over the globe. If there is a dnb event you expect to see the distinctive Ram logo followed by Andy C. Anyway back to the record…
One of the earliest Ram whites was Origin Unknown Eastern Promise, Google it for loads of history and YouTube clips. Cool tune, not the best tune ever but a very good older rave sounding track. Copies were sold on discogs and eBay for around £300 to £600 a piece. Maybe one every three or four months.
Around September 2011 a copy popped up on gumtree in london for £250, sounded like a cracking deal until two days later one appeared on eBay for around £40, then on discogs another for £50. At this point it seemed pretty strange. How were records that were sought after so much suddenly appearing for sale on the Internet? Obviously you can work out what was assumed, I mean people had been burning CDs for years.
But this is a sad story, because the value of this piece is now unknown and over time the other copies will age and it will need a very careful eye to tell the real from the not. What I wondered is what does an “unofficial release” actually mean? It seems to be accepted by people as a perfectly correct thing to put on a record description. A record that was a collectors dream is now soiled by a small turn of events. Is it coincidence that Origin Unknown produce a track that is now really “origin unknown”?
Now the saga will continue. It’s perfectly reasonable that vinylsearcher.com may end up selling one of these either knowingly or unknowingly, people can submit collections and sell them. But is it right, I don’t know, it’s not up to me to judge. It’s a great tune, more people get copies…..but what about Ram? They own the tune, why didn’t they re-release it? Well because it was what it was, a early rare tune. A classic.
As a closing note, I don’t own a copy, I would love to. I could have one for £30 right now. But I won’t buy it, call me stupid or say I respect the music….probably stupid 
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