With Jools off air, there are no music programmes on TV. I can’t be *rs*d to sit through a chat show just to hear a new track performed, and I don’t listen to music radio, Jonathan Ross on Saturday morning excepted. That said, I’m never short of new music to enjoy. Where are the stimuli? Firstly there’s the undying affection for the pop end of Nashville and I get enough email invites to keep me up-to-date there. Then there are the cover mount CD’s with The Word (brilliant) and American version Paste (more esoteric). Rarely a month goes by without something on the Word CD prompting a full album purchase (CD or download depending on whether I really want the accompanying booklet or not, and B0n Iver is just one artist “discovered” via Paste.

There’s the weekly i-Tunes freebie, which, once down (or up – what’s the difference?) loaded,  prompts a purchase, though usually not until it’s come round on the random play a few times. And lastly there are today’s music writers whose enthusing in the national media that crosses my radar, can prompt interest. Oh, and not to forget your children, who are also a good stimulus

What’s the point of this post? Just to reassure those of a certain age and not immersed in the minutiae of the latest Leonard Cohen reissue or Band box set, that it’s not that difficult to expose yourself to enough new music to not only maintain that childhood enthusiasm, but to hold your head up around the family dining table.

And who are the artists getting me going at the moment? That’s an admission in itself, for another day!

However, there is one music journalist asset that’s still holding up against the credit crunch – your collections of records, books, magazines, ephemera etc.  Having been bullied by my wife in the mid 70′s to sell the batch of singles kept in a tea chest in the garage – memories of the days when I was privileged to follow the late and much missed Penny Valentine as singles reviewer on the also missed (by me at any rate) Disc & Music Echo. That innocent pastime has led to a 33-year hobby of auctioning such items on behalf of a now huge number of ex-collectors, ex-journalists or just people who have stuff they don’t want any more.

One truism is – the rare records get rarer but the junk remains worthless. If I can help you then just check out the web site, collectorsvinyl.co.uk or contact me at collectorsvinyl@aol.com.

Plug over!