Since I ran a feature on what could possibly be the world’s most ridiculously expensive record needles, it was only fitting that the world’s most expensive vinyl also get a look–after all, what do you play with a record needle that cost 20 thousand dollars? How about this acetate of The Velvet Underground And Nico, which sold on eBay for more than $25,000?

An acetate, for those who don’t know about the record production process, is pressed before the master is created so vinyl records can be mass produced. It’s used as a reference so an engineer can tell how all the duplicated vinyl records will sound once they roll out of the pressing plant.

According to the fascinating Popspike.com, this acetate of The Velvet Underground And Nico was successfully auctioned on ebay for $25,200 back in 2006, making this one of THE most expensive record sales ever, right next to a rare copy of Pink Floyd’s Meddle album pressed on blue vinyl for $12K and a “SEX PISTOLS – God Save the Queen – GENUINE A&M AMS7284!” for over 12,000 British pounds.

This Velvet Underground acetate looks to be the most likely candidate to be played with the most expensive record needle in the world.

And since a DJ can write off the expense of high-end record needles as a legitimate business expense, why not?

Replacement needles are essential for any vinyl junkie, but even more so for the people who spin for a living. What some like about this one, aside from the gold plated connectors or the forward mass design made for better center-of-gravity conditions for playing and scratching, is the color scheme. It’s kinda hard to see a black phono cartridge against the black vinyl in the dim light of a club.

Some record lovers thing a record needle is a record needle. Others are quite picky. We fall somewhere in the middle. It’s enough to be able to spin the LPs at home with decent sound quality from a typical, well-designed phono cartridge…but anybody who wants to play for hours on end three or four nights a week? A rugged design plus the Shure Whitelabel cartridge’s adjustable overhang (50mm – 54mm to help maintain the forward and backward adjustment of a standard-mount headshell, letting you tweak the adjustment whether you’ve got an S-arm or a straight-arm turntable) means you should probably take a look at a couple of these.

Some vinyl uber-purists might cringe at the idea that record albums are being used to create original works of art rather than take another spin on a turntable somewhere, but let’s face it–there are millions of records everywhere, and not all of them are in pristine condition, know what I mean?

That’s why I love the idea of using vinyl records in art–there’s a landill somewhere that will be lighter as a result, and those of us who love vinyl above and beyond what’s contained in those grooves the needle hits tend to be fans of this stuff.

Daniel Edlen paints on vinyl–portraits that incorporate both the album itself and the cover too, depending on the composition. He paints on commission, for charity, for art showings….there’s quite a body of work on display at Edlen’s site Vinyl Art, these pieces really should be seen to be believed. The level of detail and accuracy in the portraits of Tom Waits, Frank Zappa and many other musical luminaries is pretty impressive.

The weekend was full of interesting diversions–I took a side journey into the world of flea markets–the Texas vinyl collector’s old reliable alternative to the indie record shop. People who collect vinyl in Texas know flea markets very well and there are many bargains and rarities to be found. I’ll post a report on that soonest. I still have two excellent Austin record shops to write up and a look into the San Antonio market, too.

A good deal of Saturday was spent combing the flea markets, but the nighttime was spent watching Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, which I can’t find ANYWHERE as an LP and while Amazon was offering downloads of the soundtrack when the DVD remaster came out, a rights dispute forced the tracks offline.

You can find some of them–the reggae tracks are on an album featuring Barry “Lawnboy”Ford (good stuff, that) and it is quite interesting to note that Barry Ford also wrote the Fabulous Stains track “Waste of Time” that the trio plays in their on-stage debut in the movie.

The Looters tracks were recorded by the Steve Jones/Paul Cook/Paul Simonon outfit The Professionals. Some of that was on the re-issue of The Professionals CD a while back.

Black Randy and the Metrosquad show up in this as well, doing “I Slept in an Arcade”. Goofy fun.

Sunday had me back on the road, a fairly uneventful trip. No truck nuts or pee crystal-crazed cell phone conversations–just miles and miles of road, highway cops, and Big Youth’s Screaming Target blasting at top volume. Stay tuned for reviews of Antoine’s, Waterloo Records and the Texas Flea Market report…

The Zerostat, according to the marketing hype, removes the electrostatic charge that attracts the dust. Zap the album, clean it off, and play away! So sayeth the hype. Does this actually work? I’d love to get a first-person report. At a triple-digit price tag, this one looks like it’s a collector-only gadget, but I’d love to see it in action and hear the results.