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Fall 2025: 14,000 Records, Volunteers, Sale Lists and Nick Shoulders

Posted on by Frank The Drifter

Hello, hello, hello. I wrote a reminder for myself to make a blog post every weekend to keep the internet updated on Dollar Country, but of course when the reminder bell went off I was pretty tired so I put it off and put it off. Many things have happened this Autumn in the world of DC.

Nick Shoulders

On November 18th and 20th I had the pleasure of playing records at the Nick Shoulders shows in Detroit and Cleveland respectively. I’ve done this a handful of times before, all of the gigs he’s done in Cleveland since 2021, and a few elsewhere. It’s always fun because Nick is a buddy and it’s great to see him, but I also love his music. The crowd at his shows are just about the perfect crowd for Dollar Country too. I met a ton of nice folks who seemed interested in what DC does and a bunch of people who already knew about DC. Opening the Detroit show was Jackson & The Janks, and Clover Lynn at the Cleveland gig, both were acts I’d never seen before and both were excellent.

Tour poster signed by all the folks who played in Cleveland.
Someone’s guitar case.
The marquee in Detroit.

Playing with Nick is a perfect storm because we’re both admirers of what each other does, so the admiration ends up going both ways. It makes me feel good.

A Truck Full Of Records

In early November my buddy Brian contacted me saying there was a guy on the east side of Cleveland who had boxes and boxes of LPs, 45s, and 78s and that I should get over there and look them over. Well, I couldn’t make it there that weekend and before I knew it Brian had texted saying the guy wanted $1000 for all the 45s and would I like to go in on the collection with him. The answer was Yes and a day later we were the proud owners of 100+ white boxes of 45s. I told him I just wanted the country stuff, and so we got to work looking through all these records. Buying that many 45s at a time is something that is always exciting because anything could be in there, but then a week later you’re surrounded by boxes and asking yourself what the hell you were thinking. Fast forward another week and those feelings have gone back and forth so many times that you don’t even know how you feel about it, but now you have a few boxes of cool records you didn’t have before.

A truck full of records!
A long time want that I found in this collection.
Boxes on the back porch.
The desk of a man who is asking himself “what the hell am I doing?”

All in all I found about two boxes of keepers for myself, 5 or 6 boxes of country stuff I’m going to add to the sale list, and most of the rest went back to Brian for him to sell.

Sale List

I stashed many boxes of stuff to sell over the years and finally started putting it all together recently. I’ve sent out the sale list twice so far, if you wanna be on the email list then let me know at host at dollarcountry dot org. I’ll be adding a TON of solid country to the list from the recent buy.

Dollar Country Volunteers

In the last couple months I’ve come to the realization that the amount of work I’ve set out to do can’t be done by one person, so I’ve been trying to take advice from other folks by understanding that to really have Dollar Country do all the great archiving it can do then I will need help from others and have to let go of some of my control to allow for more to happen.

KMC and Zach have been helping with computer stuff. KMC hosts the website and I’ve been working with him for a few years now, Zach has been writing code to make the database a lot better. Zach and Glen are helping me with digitization. Zach digitizes LPs and posts them and things from his own collection at The Vinyl Archive on youtube. Glen will be digitizing 45s. DJ is going to be helping with database submissions and editing starting next month.

If you’d like to help with the database then please drop me a line. I’m looking for folks who are interested in editing the database (adding records and editing record information) as well as research.

My First Dig Trip As A Parent

Posted on by Frank The Drifter
The look of a man who had 6 hours of sleep and then drove 8 hours

Well I finally did it, I left the house. When my wife and I found out we were having a baby I made plans to not make plans for all of 2024. Normally I go out digging for a week once every couple months, but with a newborn I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that, so I didn’t. And then I felt like I couldn’t even after we got the hang of everything around the house. The problem was inside myself and didn’t have to do with my wife or kid, I just felt weird about leaving, I put a lot of pressure on myself. So last friday I dipped my toes in to see what happened.

I had been speaking with Steve Foehner about buying some records and since it’s within a half days drive it was the perfect test trip. The night before I got the feeling I always get, the same feeling I used to get as a kid on christmas eve, excitement in my belly about what’s coming. I woke up early and headed south to West Virginia, stopping at Waffled House for breakfast and a couple goodwills along the way.

It turned out to be a nice day, the weather hit the high 50s and the sky was clear. I ended up at Steve’s around midday and had a great time. He had some boxes picked for me to look through and I ended up buying all of them, as usual. He’s always looking to move things along and I’m always looking to get more, so it’s a good pairing. Visiting other collectors and dealers is one of my favorite things about collecting because we all have different things we like and something to say. Steve is a real music lover, he listens to every record he prices and can recall the song if you ask him about it. I can’t even recall some of the songs I’ve played on my show.

The real prize of the day was the most well known rare country record. Steve had a copy of Psycho by Eddie Noack he had mentioned to me online and I wasn’t really looking for it. I have some bootlegs and the price it usually goes for is enough for me to buy a few boxes of unknown country singles. However when he offered it for what I thought was a very reasonable price I decided to go for it, I wanted to have a copy someday anyway, so now I do.

Another exciting thing I got there was a box of instantaneous discs Steve had been holding onto for quite a while. Like many collectors out there, he had them because they were unique and thought someone should save them eventually, which is my exact plan with my acetate project coming up soon. So now I have another 75 or so discs for that.

After buying 5 boxes of records there I hit the road for Huntington. Steve told me about a record store there that would have more country gospel LPs than I could shake a stick at. Unfortunately when I got to town I found the store being cleared out by a number of people with trucks. The owner had sold the contents via auction and I just showed up on pick up day. So I went down the road to the Peddlers Mall, an antique mall I’d gone to in 2023.

It was the regular stalls of stuff until I got near the end and I found a few boxes of records on the floor. From there I ended up with a dozen or two country things from the area and a couple 45s. Nothing amazing, but for a dollar each they were well worth it. After being gone for over 12 hours I decided it was time to head back.

I hit a goodwill on the Ohio side of the river and found a really great bunch of bluegrass and gospel LPs for a dollar each before heading out of Huntington for Cleveland. Waffle House was my stop for dinner and at about 11pm I landed home with some cool records and a nice day under my belt.

It felt great to be out again although it’s different now because even though it was only one day I missed my family a lot, and I doubt it will get easier, but I also love digging so I’m going to have to do it.

Cheers
Franklin