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I thought about putting this in "How much does XY LP / CD cost?" but my question is a little less cut & dry so:

How would you put a price on garage bands tapes?
I'm talking about those bands from your area that fucking slayed at local battle-of-the-bands and high school gigs and stuff but fizzed out before going anywhere with it.

I have the chance to acquire a bunch of demo & rehearsal tapes by old bands that jammed in my hometown c.'86-'92. I remember these things were passed around when I was at school and should definitely be classed as "turbo rare" with >10 copies of each & none of them ever having made it out of this shithole town I live in. These are the kind of tapes that, in my case, will draw a blank stare from anyone who didn't live in my town during this period and also from about 98% of people who did.

Now, since the dust was blown off these tapes another bloke has registered some interest in having them also so it has unavoidably come down to the old "how much will you give me for them" quandry.

For me watching bands like NightFire (who?!) or ThinDisguise (again, who?!) playing on the back of a truck trailer at the local festival in '87 left a bigger impression on me than any of the headliners I've seen since, the memories are priceless but when it all boils down the real question is: Shitty old tapes by a bunch of no-ones or crazy rare hidden gems - how to determine their worth?



...and while you're in here: Any memories of similar bands from your school days?

Post rips off the tapes and tell everyone about it. If it's really good there's certainly a chance that a demand for it would develop.

Where are they from? USA?

If they're tapes of US metal bands and the tapes still play (i.e., they aren't garbled up) then GJ has a good idea. Buy 'em, rip 'em, and post 'em on various forums to build up some hype, then announce the auctions and auction them off and you'll probably do well with them.
If you try to just sell them w/o circulating the music first you may still get a decent price from someone, but it will be much harder and you'll have fewer people interested. From my limited POV, most metalheads/collectors will only buy stuff if they're at least passingly familiar with the band/music; only a small number are willing to pay a decent price for totally unknown stuff without hearing it. Yes, some people will just take the d/l and not bid on the tapes, but I think you would get more bidders and higher bids if you circulate some of the music first. You could also do something like rip only Side A of each tape so that anyone really wanting to hear the entire thing would have to bid on the tapes.
Hope that helps. I really don't know what they might sell for, so I'll leave speculation to someone with more experience dealing with demo tapes

nightsblood wrote:If they're tapes of US metal bands and the tapes still play (i.e., they aren't garbled up) then GJ has a good idea. Buy 'em, rip 'em, and post 'em on various forums to build up some hype, then announce the auctions and auction them off and you'll probably do well with them.
If you try to just sell them w/o circulating the music first you may still get a decent price from someone, but it will be much harder and you'll have fewer people interested. From my limited POV, most metalheads/collectors will only buy stuff if they're at least passingly familiar with the band/music; only a small number are willing to pay a decent price for totally unknown stuff without hearing it. Yes, some people will just take the d/l and not bid on the tapes, but I think you would get more bidders and higher bids if you circulate some of the music first. You could also do something like rip only Side A of each tape so that anyone really wanting to hear the entire thing would have to bid on the tapes.
Hope that helps. I really don't know what they might sell for, so I'll leave speculation to someone with more experience dealing with demo tapes

I have sold a lot of tapes in the past and I WOULD NOT do this
Really no need!

If they are REAL demos / Not copies or live tapes someone has made / But Real demos sent out or sold by the band. You can sell them for $$$ with no hype or sound clips. IF THEY ARE USA METAL

Definitely listen to glockose, he knows much better than I about such things

glockose wrote:Where are they from? USA?

No, they will be Australian.

decibelrebel wrote:
...and while you're in here: Any memories of similar bands from your school days?

When I was in school ('83-87) the big school metal band was called Destructor (who are not the band who did an LP) they played covers only at first and their big show stoppers were "Am I Evil?" (which they played as a Metallica cover) and "Rock n Roll Crazy Nights". They later worked up a set of originals but I don't remember them ever selling a demo of it, but I know some live tapes existed back then of them but I can't find the one I had or have found anyone with a copy in my recent years of searching for old tapes.

Another band from around here called Wings of Steel who then changed their name to Deicyde (then later to Vampire Lesbos and Drop Kick) I have some live tapes of but they kind of went crossover/hardcore then into kind of college rock sound towards the end. I no longer have their demo which was quite good thrash metal (at the time anyway not having heard it in almost 20 years it could have been shitty or not aged well) and I haven't been able to track down anyone else with a copy of it. The 2 live tapes I have are of their more crossover/hardcore era, but they still have shredding solos so are definitely very metallic, I could post them somewhere if anyone is interested.

There was some other band called Axcite who I can't remember anything about at this point.

Slightly after I graduated there was a metallish crossover band called Strange Flesh who had some handmade circulated demos they used to get shows (I had one at one point can't find it now) and released a 7" here's the cover:

If they are GOOD Heavy Metal I want to hear them.

I wanna hear them too fella... Anything to reccomend (you know my tastes...)