Discogs and Academy Records Present Public Sale of Tom Verlaine's Personal Vinyl Collection

Discogs , the world's largest music discovery and record collecting platform, and NYC's stalwart independent shop Academy Records today announced a special public sale of records from the personal vinyl collection of Tom Verlaine, musician, poet and founding frontman of the influential New York band Television. Beginning June 26, collectors and music fans worldwide will have the opportunity to purchase records from Verlaine's archive through Discogs, while a selection of titles will also be available in person at Academy Records in New York City. Read more at Rolling Stone .

Verlaine's collection offers a rare window into the listening habits and musical influences of one of the most distinctive artists to emerge from New York's downtown music scene. Spanning jazz, avant-garde, psychedelic rock, garage, experimental music, international releases, and underground classics, it traces the sounds that informed Verlaine's singular creative vision and the broader cultural ecosystem from which Television emerged. The sale of the Verlaine collection follows an announcement earlier this year that his archive was acquired by the New York Public Library.

The sale offers collectors a rare opportunity to explore records drawn directly from the artist's personal library. Highlights from the collection include a wide-ranging selection of vintage pressings and notable rarities from Verlaine's shelves, including his personal copies of Television's debut single Little Johnny Jewel and masterpiece debut LP Marquee Moon, the 13th Floor Elevators' Easter Everywhere, Nico's Chelsea Girl, Albert Ayler's Bells, The Sonics' Introducing..., Love's self-titled debut, Slint's Spiderland, and many others. The first drop of the collection will be available beginning June 26 online at Discogs. Then in person at Academy Records at their Banker street location in Brooklyn on July 10th and 11th before finishing back on Discogs on July 31st. Each purchase on Discogs will include a certificate of authenticity verifying that the record originated from Tom Verlaine's personal collection.

"The records came to Academy because Tom trusted the shop. He'd known Mike and Cory for twenty years, turning each other on to records the whole time, and when it came to it he wanted his collection with them. That's how record culture has always worked, through trust and the ear that comes with it. And Verlaine's ear was something else. A lifetime of his digging is in these 4,000 records, and our job is to keep them in circulation rather than let them vanish into a vault. Whether they go to a collector in Tokyo or someone walking into Academy, the music stays in the world the way it always has, passing from one set of hands to the ne xt." - R uss Ryan, Discogs

"What's interesting to me about Verlaine's collection is how much more of an X-Ray it is than a mirror image, how much it maps a constant and active engagement with music rather than being filled with easily comparable or alike things to his own output. Tom seemed to approach his buying in more of a spirit of adventure and discovery than to knock down his own holy grails." - Cory Feierman, Academy Records

"I knew Tom for over 20 years. I was able see one of Tom's first solo shows around 1979. Years later we met in the store and started hitting it off, turning each other on to countless records new to each other. He had asked me to go to his storage space and buy records from him in the early 2000's. I thought it would be some things out of his personal collection, but it turned out he was talking about dozens of copies of his solo LPs! Before he passed, he specified that he wanted and trusted the records to go to Academy, and then we got the call." - Mike Davis, Academy Records