Howdy folks. I meant to update this more but here I am having waited months. Funny how that works, but I genuinely do enjoy writing the blog as opposed to every other social media option. Our world just kind of pushes us away from longer form writing sometimes, or that’s the way it feels. Immediacy and shouting your one-sentence thoughts into the void are much more common. I appreciate those of you who might spend 10 minutes to read this. 10 minutes is a lot of time to read one thing on the internet now.
That’s my way of saying that this is an update that’s been too long in coming.
Newsletter News
I’ve been working hard on the next newsletter. Way harder than I planned. I got the idea to write about the song Psycho, originally released by Eddie Noack, and it’s been a real rabbithole. The second I think I’ve reached the end of one thread I find another to investigate, and so it’s coming eventually. I put together a price history of known sales going back to 2006.
The reason I’ve put it together is because I think that to really write about Psycho I want to offer the context of what it means to collectors and it’s general reputation as THEE rare country record. That’s been shown in the price over the years. In 2006 it sold for $158 which is a lot for most country records now in 2025 but was a hell of a lot back then. Accounting for inflation that’s $252 today. Just this year it has sold for a record $961 (1450 AUD), which jump started a bit of a selling frenzy. Just in the last month I’ve seen three copies listed on private groups in the $500 range, two of them selling within the day.
So that context is important to show what it means to collectors, but the most interesting thing I’ve found is that there are a few mentions of Psycho early on when it first came out. The common assumption I’ve heard is that it must have flopped when it came out because it was just too weird and immediately gone into obscurity. That doesn’t seem to be the case completely, I think that happened to some degree but there are a few notes in old magazines saying it had become a favorite at certain stations and was getting requested a lot. Not enough to make it a household name, but it’s more than nothing.
The dark spot for my research is what happens between it’s release in 1968 and it’s inclusion on compilations in the mid to late 80s. The Noack version seems to have been relatively obscure until it was put on the Wavy Gravy compilation, and the Jack Kittel version was relatively well known in that time period. So far I’ve got enough information to write a pretty decent zine if not a very small book on just this record and it’s history, which is much, much more than I was expecting.
That’s where I am now. I’ve got about 10 pages of newsletter to put together in what is normally a 4-6 page printing. All in all that makes me feel great because I’ve never really put this much work into a piece before and having it come together in a way that I think reads well is very rewarding.
Newsletter Note: I was selling newsletters as “Months” but now they’re just “Issues.” So if you bought 12 months worth of newsletter you’ll get 12 issues, I’m not gonna make you pay for three months and only get one mailing in that time.
If you’d like to get the newsletter when it comes out you can subscribe to it on the big cartel.
https://dollarcountry.bigcartel.com/product/physical-newsletter
Database News
I asked for someone who could help with some database stuff and Zach responded, which means there are some updates happening. He made a thing that puts stats at the top of certain pages that I can’t wait to utilize more. It says how many records by how many artists and labels are in the DB on certain pages.
He also made something to add all the releases by an artist to that artist’s page.
The DB is still not super polished but I’m very excited to be having this stuff done and I couldn’t have done it at all with out Zach’s help.
Browse the database and see for yourself. And feel free to suggest any improvements you’d want to see!
Cheers
Franklin