Some days I feel like a low stakes “Indiana Jones” here in Burlington.
Very much so this summer, but probably throughout my entire stint at The Hawk Eye, now going on my third year in B-Town.
Obviously the “Indiana Jones” movies franchise is a popular one, and anyone with access to basic cable can watch those films all day long at least two or three weekends out of the month (it feels like it’s required by law).
For the unfamiliar, the “Indiana Jones” films follow an adventurous archeologist in the 1930’s/40’s played by Harrison Ford as he searches the planet for historical artifacts of powerful significance from civilizations long ago.
I can’t say I’ve chopped loose a rope bridge I was crossing to escape an ambush by Thugee cultists trying to murder me, but some days not answering the phone for an unknown number seems just as necessary.
But I have spent quite a bit of money since coming to work for The Hawk Eye on a wide range of records, DVDs, books, comics, old magazines, posters, old toys and video games, and VHS tapes.
I’m not 100% certain why. It’s a bit of a mix of nostalgia, boredom, too much disposable income (and no kids, unless you count my cats), impulsiveness, fandom, curiosity, creative inspiration, enslavement to capitalism, and a little bit of simply being a collector.
During these last few months, I’ve been sent on several reporting assignments, ended up spending a hundred dollars or more on stuff for myself, and each time I’ve let my boss know how much “doing my job” has cost me.
But the truth is I’ve been doing it the entire time I’ve been in Burlington, just on a smaller scale until recently.
These objects have definitely catapulted me down memory lane, and this lovely town I now call home has unquestionably enabled these unchecked impulses and supplied me with these treasures.
So last week my boss told me I should do a story on all this stuff I’ve been “collecting.”
But I wasn’t sure there was a story. Or is there? It got me thinking about why I’ve been spending all this money on all this stuff and what the point of it all is.
So it goes a little something like this…
You’re Never Too Grownup
When I moved to Burlington to work for The Hawk Eye in 2021, I came down with just the bare essentials.
Most of my belongings (family heirlooms and other stuff I wanted to save) are tucked away in storage in the Quad Cities.
But I did come down with a few bins containing my old CDs (mostly from when I was in high school and my early 20’s), DVDs, some VHS tapes, a vinyl collection and some books and comic books.
Like many other kids who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, I liked reading comic books, playing video games, watching horror and other crazy movies, and listening to heavy metal, alternative, punk, rap, some electronica, and classic/psychedelic rock.
I’m not sure I’d call any of that a hobby, because, in my mind, a hobby is something you work on in your spare time. In reality, it’s just consuming media for entertainment purposes.
At various points over the years, I cut back on reading comics and playing video games and then stopped reading and playing them altogether. But I still enjoy them when I have time to dig into them.
And I never stopped watching horror and other weird/extreme genres of cinema, nor do I think I’ll ever tire of the music I enjoy listening to.
But as you get older, other things in life take priority (work, family, career, etc.).
Some people dread growing up, but I’ve mostly embraced it. Life’s never perfect. And I actually enjoyed my 30’s more than my 20’s.
These last few years, whenever someone asks me what my hobbies are, I tell them “Driving myself to the brink of madness in pursuit of life goals.”
It’s sort of a joke, but also sort of true. It’s harder when you’re older and you have less free time (let alone time on this earth).
But that’s not to say you can’t indulge in childish things every now and then.
And I learned a few years ago some of my fellow millennials have been taking these indulgences to a whole new level.
The Media Crypt
Sometime in 2018, I started following an Instagram account called “Media Crypt.”
The account is run by a guy named Nate Phillips, 42, from Des Moines.
From 1998-2011, Phillips was the singer for Black Market Fetus, a crusty grindcore band from Des Moines, and currently sings for the thrash/crossover band Traffic Death.
But his “Media Crypt” account is dedicated to his massive collection of VHS horror, slasher, exploitation, B-movies, and more, along with his collection of DVDs, Blu Rays, CDs, vinyl, old toys and video games, and other rad nostalgia he collects.
Phillips also runs an online screen-printing business, selling horror movie and distributor designs on hats, shirts, and more through his website.
In February 2019, I contacted Phillips and asked if he’d grant me an interview and allow me to shoot video of his collection for a journalism class I was taking at University of Iowa and he agreed to do it.
So on a random, snowy Wednesday morning, I drove about two hours from Coralville to Des Moines, met Phillips at his house, and laid my eyes on one of the most amazing collections I’ve ever seen.
Literally thousands of horror, slasher, gore, exploitation/grindhouse, raunchy comedies, action, B-movies and more from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and beyond stacked the shelves in this makeshift video library he had set up in his basement.
Phillips’ collection was mostly VHS, but he also had tons of Betamax tapes, video discs, laserdiscs, DVDs, Blu Rays, along with a huge collection of old video games, toys, books, comic books, cassettes, CDs, records, posters, old TVs, and more.
According to Phillips, his collection was worth well over an estimated $80,000. All in the basement of a nice, unassuming little home in the middle of Des Moines.
And it became clear very quickly during our conversation that Phillips’ love for his collection came from a place of great reverence and passion for the types of movies many either turned their noses at or never took seriously.
“I like when people get roundhouse-kicked to the face for no reason. I like when strollers get pushed into oncoming traffic. I like when (expletive) machine guns manage to make a semi blow up going down the highway,” Phillips said. “I like that, and I think that that’s a good movie.”
And Phillips’ library leaves a lot to the imagination.
At the time, most of his collection was organized by the tapes’ distributors (including: Vestron Video, Cannon, Lightening Video, CBS/FOX Video, Orion Home Video, New World Video, and Wizard Video, just to name a few), and his method of categorizing the films is similar to that of a public library or those who collect entire catalogs of music released by certain metal and punk record labels.
Growing up, as a young kid, going through the horror section at the video rental stores was almost more fun than watching the actual movies because, when you’d look at the menacing cover art and the still pictures from those movies on the back of the cases, it drove one’s imagination through the roof.
“When you’re that age, you just really have no idea. There’s no context for it,” Phillips said of horror movie-VHS-cover-gazing when we were kids. “And I’m sure in some cases what you’re imaging is almost crazier than what’s actually on there…I think I was always just curious because I read comic books at the time, and some of the artwork isn’t too far off from (the VHS horror movie cases).”
While not all the movies in Phillips’ collection can be streamed today, a good majority of them can. But Phillips believes certain films are better served being shown on older TVs on their original formats.
“This VCR was made just a couple years before this monitor, and it was made to project that quality of image,” he said. “I think it makes it look better, and I think it’s a warmer picture. And I think that it’s a more organic picture.
“I don’t need to see little tiny spots on your chin. I don’t need to see that much definition.
“And with some movies, (higher definition) ruins them. There’s movies like ‘City of the Walking Dead’ where you can see how (expletive) fake the makeup is (when you watch it in high-def). It looks like (expletive).
“But if you watch the VHS tape, it’s kind of scary…You can’t see where the makeup stops and the face begins…When they were filming it, they couldn’t see that.
“(When the distributors later increased the picture quality of some of these films) it kind of ruined some of the stuff in the corners (on the screen). The darkness that’s there, it kind of lends itself to fear and other certain things (seen in these movies).”
And regardless of what you might think of Phillips’ collection or the quality of the movies in his basement, Phillips was quick to explain his genuine love for these works of art and did so in a way that should be inspiring to all filmmakers.
“My favorite movies are probably the ones where it’s one guy who does the soundtrack, he’s the star, he’s the director somehow, and he writes it, and there’s just like no quality control. It’s just one guy, his dream, (the movie) happens, and no one ever stops him and says, ‘This is ridiculous, you shouldn’t do this part,’” Phillips said.
“(But) they did the best they could, and it was something they always wanted to do… And you can look (some of these movies) up on IMDB and it was the only movie that they managed to get funding for. But it doesn’t mean it was the only thing they ever wanted to do…
“Maybe the acting is not all there, but there’s something charming and very punk rock about these movies that were made on a shoestring budget, and that was their dream.”
“Spreading the Disease”
Phillips is just one of many “tapeheads” you’ll find on the social medias or in the real world.
Whether it’s VHS, or horror movies specifically, records, old band t-shirts, etc., there is an untold number of “adults” collecting different types of toys and old media these days either because of nostalgia, fandom, curiosity, or trends. And quite a few of them have Instagram and other social media accounts dedicated to showing the world their collections.
There are also plenty of social media accounts run by owners of physical stores and websites that sell nostalgia for a living.
A few months after I met Phillips, I found a vintage clothing store called Vice Iowa City and sold them a few dozen old heavy metal band, sports, professional wrestling, and movie t-shirts for a little over $500. I was sad to see so many awesome shirts go (even though I hadn’t worn them in a long time), but it was also very satisfying to get a check that big written out to me. It was like vindication: I knew those shirts were awesome when I bought them, it was a wise investment (despite what my mother would say), and it was great to see that the kids today think the stuff I thought was cool 20 years ago is still cool today.
Phillips had quite a few old horror movies that I’d seen and loved over the years, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to watch all the movies that make up his collection (though I’ll certainly spend the rest of my life trying). And there’s no way I could ever build a library like his (not enough space, time, money, and a lot of his tapes are probably impossible to find today).
But the experience of meeting Phillips and visiting his library inspired me to do some of my own collecting (although on a much smaller level).
After I graduated from University of Iowa in December 2019, I was so burned out from the grind that I thought I’d treat myself to a new hobby: collecting CDs. Partially, this was supposed to be a joke aimed at record collector nerds. But when it comes down to it, they sound better than all other formats (even streaming). And being a big music fan, I’ve come to appreciate being able to listen to the music I love through the highest audio quality possible.
And as a metalhead, being able to listen to harsh, fast, abrasive music with the right mix through the right set of headphones and speakers not only allows you to hear the full range of the recordings, but also catch beats and grooves in ways that could otherwise get drowned out in the mix and just sound like a bunch of garbled noise (even if that’s the point to begin with).
So I made a list of all the bands I loved from my high school years, post-Y2K (i.e. my 20’s) and all the punk, hardcore, hardcore punk, classic rock, nu metal, doom metal, sludge metal, stoner metal, death metal, black metal, industrial, goth, new wave, post-punk, post-metal, grindcore, power violence, and other bands that I’ve fell in love over the years, and I vowed to buy up their entire discographies on CD (and with new, unsealed copies, if possible).
The goal was to have it all. The best quality of audio, the artwork, the whole package.
And truth-be-told, I never stopped buying CDs over the years to begin with. But this new hobby was to be an intentional effort at collecting everything from my bands like Pantera, Nine Inch Nails, Sepultura, Anthrax, Pig Destroyer, High on Fire, Converge, Rollins Band, Isis, Morbid Angel, Today is the Day, Butthole Surfers, and many, many more.
Then the pandemic hit, the world got a little crazy, I found a full-time news gig, and later quit that gig to come to Burlington to work for The Hawk Eye to dive even deeper into the journalism world, and collecting CDs had to take a backseat along with all my other childhood indulgences.
It also dawned on me that, between many bands pressing fewer and fewer compact discs these days to save money and digital streaming being the primary format for music today, it might either be too expensive or impossible to find new (or even used) copies of the CDs on my list.
But slowly over the last three years I’ve picked off titles on my “CD Collection List” with a little help from some local and regional shops that still make a living off of rock n’ roll.
Discs Go Round
Anytime I’ve gone to a record store within the last few years, I’ve struggled to leave without spending less than $50.
Record Collector in Iowa City, CoOp Records in Moline and Ragged Records in Davenport have all taken plenty of my money.
But Weird Harold’s quickly became my go-to for my music impulse buys, and I’ve found some great finds at Burlington’s Coolest Store (and probably more so recently).
My first week at The Hawk Eye, as I was wandering around the downtown farmer’s market, I walked inside the store, browsed around and found a used copy of “Overload: A Tribute to Metallica,” which is a fairly obscure Metallica cover album released in 1998 that featured 12 covers by D-list metal bands (only two of whom that I’d ever heard of).
But the album was pretty decent, had some interesting interpretations of old Metallica songs and the purchase was the first of many to come from Weird Harold’s.
Since that warm day in July 2021, I’ve bought dozens and dozens of CDs from Weird Harold’s.
Some of the CDs I’ve picked up have been copies of albums I had when I was younger but lost along the way, like Korn’s self-titled debut and “Life is Peachy,” or Deftones “Around the Fur.”
Others were titles I always wanted but had neglected to buy, like Ozzy Osbourne’s “Speak of the Devil,” an awesome live album featuring nothing by Black Sabbath covers performed by Ozzy’s solo band at the time, which featured Night Ranger guitarist Brad Gillis; “Tribute,” Ozzy’s live album featuring the legendary Randy Rhoads on guitar that absolutely slays; “Terrifyer,” the first album I ever heard by the Kings of Grindcore: Pig Destroyer (one of my all-time favorites); and Massive Attack’s “Mezzanine,” possibly the best trip hop album of all time.
And along the way, I’ve found plenty of used CDs at Weird Harold’s that were never at the top of my list but have been a pleasure to blast in my car just the same, including Anthrax’s “Live: The Island Years,” recorded in 1991-92 at the band’s peak; and Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell’s excellent second solo album “Degradation Trip.”
I even bought Rod Stewart’s MTV Unplugged live acoustic album “Unplugged...and Seated” just for the hell of it.
But it hasn’t only been CDs.
Some of the sickest posters I’ve bought in my entire life have come from Weird Harold’s, including an early 80’s Ozzy Osbourne poster with the OzzMan dressed like a vampire, as well as a Nine Inch Nails “Downward Spiral” and Mudvayne “L.D. 50” promotional posters and a Metallica “Load” poster featuring photo of the band at their most excessive and egotistical.
I also managed to pick up a copy of Slayer’s “The Unholy Alliance Chapter II: Preaching To The Perverted” live DVD (which is no longer in print) from 2007, which also features live sets from Thine Eyes Bleed, Children of Bodom, Mastodon, and Lamb of God.
And all of that was before I bought my new record player.
Turning the Tables
Despite already having a decent-sized record collection (consisting mostly of metal, punk, college/alternative rock, and early-to-mid 90’s hip hop and gangster rap) for years now, I went four years without a record player.
My previous record player was old and needed some work, so I donated it to a shop in 2020.
But I didn’t get around to replacing it until this past May when the good folks at Weird Harold’s hooked me up with a brand-new Jensen stereo system complete with a turntable, CD and cassette players, AM/FM radio, and two little speakers for a reasonable price.
And I knew right away that I had made the right choice.
While some people did an excessive (if not prolific) amount of impulse Amazon shopping as a way to cope with the pandemic in 2020, the only excessive purchase I made was a vinyl copy of Weezer’s iconic “Blue Album” for $100 that was supposedly pressed from the “Original Master Recordings.” I have no idea if this is even true or significantly different from albums NOT making such a claim on the front of the cover. BUT it’s the band’s best album, one of my all-time favorites, supposedly they were one of the hundreds of artists whose master recording tapes were destroyed during the Universal Studios fire in Hollywood in 2008 (making an “original master recording” seem all the more valuable), and I’m happy I got it. But despite owning the record for the last four years, I didn’t hear it for the first time until I bought that stereo system from Weird Harold’s.
Even though I believe CDs sound better, I’ve always thought certain albums sound better on vinyl, and this stereo system confirmed this belief.
I then went on to buy Smashing Pumpkins’ “Siamese Dreams,” The Cure’s “Pornography,” L7’s “Hungry for Stink,” The Melvins’ “Joe Preston” E.P., and Tool’s “Undertow” all on vinyl from Weird Harold’s.
I also decided I was going to be one of those middle-aged men who collects Melvins albums on vinyl and ordered “Eggnog” and “Lysol” from eBay.
When Interscope Records announced they were going to release a special, limited, 30th anniversary edition of Helmet’s “Betty” (another of my all-time favorites) on vinyl, I couldn’t pass and ordered it A.S.A.P.
Being a big fan of Nine Inch Nails for most of my life, only having a couple of their CDs, being intrigued by the madness that produced the “Broken” E.P. and “Downward Spiral” album (both of which were written and recorded in the house Sharon Tate and others were killed in by members of the Manson Family in 1969), and being endlessly fascinated by Trent Reznor’s years of isolation and weirdness during his ten years living in New Orleans while he still ran Nothing Records, I decided to order CD copies of “Pretty Hate Machine,” “Fixed” (the “Broken” remix album, and possibly their best remix album), a fresh, new copy of “The Downward Spiral,” “Further Down the Spiral” (another great remix album), the “Perfect Drug” remix E.P. (featuring a drum-n-bass sound I wish he would have embraced further), a copy of the “Recoiled” (an album of previously unreleased remixes by industrial artist Coil that came out in 2014), “Bad Witch” (on both CD and vinyl; their last proper, if not short, album that sounds like was recorded in 1996, not 2018), and a copy the “Downward Spiral” 10th anniversary edition (with all the B-sides, remixes, and special surround sound mix).
All of these albums (both the CDs and the records) are all ones that were on my “CD Collection List” and ones I’ve enjoyed over the years, but they’re also albums that, sonically, sound amazing in the performances and studio tricks and recording techniques used to make them.
Some of them thrash, some of them rock, some of them groove. All of them contain music I’ve been listening to for decades with sounds that have been ringing in my dome ever since and still spark the same joy today as they did back then.
Sure, they would sound good through a pair of earbuds off a music streaming app. But you’re not getting the artwork or the lyrics or the overall total packages that these albums were originally presented to the world by doing it that way.
And the experience of hearing it on my new stereo system brings the music to life in ways that are just bigger and louder. My home’s been much more fun ever since.
Just (Can’t) Say No
My excessive spending on stuff that would have entertained me in my youth hasn’t been limited to Weird Harold’s purchases.
Back in June, while covering the Burlington Comic & Toy Show at Westland Mall, I only made it about five minutes before I bought a copy of “Joe Montana Football” for Sega Genesis (I’ve got an emulator that plays the old cartridges) and damn near an entire collection of the “Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire” action figures.
I managed to calm myself down just enough to finish working on the story.
But as soon as I got done doing interviews and taking photos, I ended up spending nearly $300 on comic books (including old issues of “Evil Ernie” and the comic book adaptation of the “Transformers” movie from 1986), old trading cards, and posters (“Space Invaders,” “G.I. Joe.,” and “The Empire Strikes Back”).
I almost bought an old Sega CD and Super Nintendo console, but I knew if I did that I was going to end up buying a bunch of games and spending WAY too much money.
But just being able to see all those toys and comics and games in a mall, like I did frequently when I was younger, but this time having more than enough money to buy whatever I wanted and not have anyone tell me “no” did something to my brain. It was pure consumer madness and suddenly I understood why tyrants invade countries.
Then there was A Very Vintage Market in downtown Burlington a few weekends ago.
Same scenario, except I think I made it about 20 minutes before I found a “Harry Caray Appreciation Day: September 24, 1989” poster sponsored by Budweiser that I immediately snatched up and bought.
Not long after, I shelled out around $40 for some old issues of Sports Illustrated (including the issue that came out right after Walter Payton died) and an old, framed Michael Jordan poster from 1996.
Then it was back to Weird Harold’s again for their “A Very Vintage Market” upstairs sale, this time picking up some of the records previously mentioned along with several used VHS tapes (each for $2), including David Lynch’s “Lost Highway,” a trippy 1997 fever dream meditation on O.J. Simpson’s alleged killing of Nicole Brown Simpson, apparently, a handful of old Playboy tapes, a documentary on the Vietnam War, and a Lee Trevino instructional golf video because I thought it was funny.
That was another $200-plus day.
A World That No Longer Exists?
So why do I keep doing all of this?
What’s the point of listing off all this stuff I’ve been spending more money than I should on?
And why does possessing physical media even matter? All of these things I’ve mentioned are all images, videos, and sounds you can access on a computer or phone screen these days with much ease and little-to-no cost.
But then I think back to one of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits from almost ten years ago when Chris Rock hosted.
I forget all the details of the sketch, but Rock and Leslie Jones played an old married couple arguing as they were about to leave the home, one of their kids makes a gag about Rock’s character still having his CD collection to which he replies: “Say what you want, but when the Government shuts down the Cloud, I’ma have my Luther (Vandross)!”
Fast-forward to July 2024, after the faulty CrowdStrike update shut down an estimated 8.5 million computers systems, shut down airports and airlines worldwide, and is now being called the largest outage in the history of information technology, hanging onto a CD or some vinyl seems pretty smart.
Several of the attendees I spoke with during A Very Vintage Market said they believed the appeal in shopping for vintage stuff lies not only in the nostalgia it triggers but also memories of childhood and does so in ways that can feel like a time machine.
Matt Robbins, owner Thunder Cards and Games of Muscatine, told me during the Burlington Comic & Toy show being able to tape into peoples’ fond memories can be profitable.
“(There’s) been lots of people really excited to see stuff that they owned as a kid or wanted to own as a kid,” he said at the time. “The nostalgia is real and we love to be able to supply (it) and see the smiles and memories come back when you stop in.”
Weird Harold’s owner Andrea Fritz had a slightly different take on why music fans still want physical media.
“I think when you can see it and touch it and hold it, you know it’s yours,” she said. “There’s music listeners that download random songs, but then there’s music lovers that want the vinyl, they want the CD, they want all the formats.
“There’s someone who casually listens to music, and then there’s someone who loves music.”
My time in Burlington, and especially this Summer of 2024 A.D., has definitely enabled those urges and impulses, and, ultimately, brought forth the satisfaction of being able to own so much cool stuff that I would’ve loved to own as a kid AND as an adult.
But I think Phillips best explained my impulse buying and quests seeking the tangible most elegantly during our 2019 interview:
“There’s something about the era that we grew up in where it was the last era of real innocence,” Phillips said. “We rode out bikes around, and we could sneak into the nudy room at the video store.
“There was a mystery to the world that we lived in. And now, everything is so accessible at the click of a button that there’s no more mystery anymore.
“I think the nostalgia for us older people is remembering that…But if you look at that time period, there’s a mystery to it.
“There’s something intriguing about living in a world where not everything is just available at the click of a button, and I feel like that has ruined a lot of the magic of the world we live in. So, I feel like that has a lot to do with my interest in these old things.
“And stuff was just made better back then. Movies, toys, games. Everything was just made better, in my opinion…I like stuff, and I’m going to keep collecting it as long as I can find ways to afford it.”
