I select a lot. I have for many year; almost twenty of them. Almost exclusively in Jamaican music. In certain circles of reggae, ska, rocksteady, and roots DJs there is a requirement that all the records be original presses. Meaning that the records you play must be an original pressing from the year that the record was released.
This is great for my obsessive brain. I get to track down original records, find out which was the first release, and find that specific copy. After I have acquired a new grail I have a record that was passed from hand to hand through the years and eventually made it to me. That is very cool.
It also has a lot of downsides.
These downsides prevent the music from reaching new audiences and prevents new DJs from entering the scene.
Original press records are expensive. They’re not hard to find. I can go to Discogs right now and find a two or three thousand dollar record that I would love to own. Money should not be the gatekeeper for any scene. This is a great way to poison a scene with people think that money can buy them entitlement into a subculture.
I can find a copy of the incredible Sufferer’s Prayer by Enos McLeod for three hundred and sixty five dollars. Or I could get a repress for ten dollars. If I’m working and I’m interested in reggae music, I want (and need) to be able to build up my collection. Cheap represses are essential to being able to create deep enough crates that you can use to build a great selection.
A lot of DJs now were collecting records in the eighties when records were a lot cheaper. You could get whole shipping containers full of cheap Jamaican records straight from JA. Those days are long gone and now stored like Dub Store in Japan have thousands and thousands of records, many of which are extremely expensive.
On the other hand, Dub Store has also done a lot of represses of crucial records on high quality vinyl. They’ve made them available to a much larger audience. Keith and Tex’s ‘Tonight’ can be yours’ on a fifteen dollar repress or for several hundred dollars for an original.
Money should not let you buy your way into a scene or prevent you from engaging with one. This kind of gatekeeping is bad for the scene. Skill as a DJ comes from knowledge of music, respect for the culture, the ability to select, and skill. None of that has to do with something you can buy. It only exists as something that you create within yourself after a lot of hard work and dedication.
This is the mark of a good selector and a good human being. This spreading of knowledge, this curation and application of knowledge, is the crucial aspect of the human relationship to recorded music.
I want to see more selectors. I want to see more vinyl selector. I want to see more people digging into the history of whatever genre, sub-genre, and history speaks to you. I want to help create a welcoming scene that wants to hear from you. And reissues and represses are a way that can help ease people into this.
So the next time you’re doing a night, think about the poor kid who shows up, asks questions, shows interest. Think about making sure they can get behind that table too. Because they’re going to be the next generation to show us what we all found out ourselves: music is the lifeblood of the people.