Patrice Caillet – Paris, France
Interview and Photos by Eilon Paz
n a recent trip to Paris, I stopped by to meet a pretty unique collector. Patrice Caillet collects records, some jazz, some rock, garage and other oddities, but this is not the reason we met. Actually, he refused to show me any of his real records. Real records? Are there any fake records involved? Not exactly, but sort of.
We walked for about 10 minutes to reach his humble apartment. 4th floor walk up. We listened to some experimental jazz as background music while drinking coffee and talking about his collection. I wanted to take a photo of his house, but he was persistent in his objection to be presented as a vinyl collector. “Let’s go to my office in the basement,” he said. “That’s where the real interesting stuff is.”
Down again, 4 stories, no elevator, we reach the stuffy basement office or study, to be more precise.
Patrice starts to pull out some albums from his collection. They are weird and freaky sometimes. I get a weird feeling while taking photos. I can’t really explain. I guess it is the extreme change of scene. From documenting serious vinyl collectors with real heavy collections, I find myself in this basement, taking serious photos of amateur, infantile record covers. But wait, this collection is serious! Patrice’s observations and comments and his endless passion and admiration to this art form slowly gets to me, persuading me that this is nothing to look down at. He mentions “Art Brut,” Outsider Art.
The Ramones
Modified Grease as a punk detournement
A red Lee “Scratch” Perry
Patrice and many other vinyl collectors are featured on the Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting book.
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… wow… it doesn’t often happen (as my customers will attest to)…I’m speechless…
Amazing.
this is also pretty great – somewhat similar to the White Album exhibit – although as a collector I am always looking for the most pristine copies, I love how others see the beauty in these defaced, worn out copies – it helps reinforce the reason why most of us collect: because vinyl will out live us all.
this is so great!
ummm…..kinda crazy. Sorry I don’t agree that this is cool or even any good. Next please…
An incredible story and collection – thanks for documenting!
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Sorry, but it’s not big and it’s definately not clever.
Uuuuuuh! Disgusting! Really makes he shiver to see all that!
Far from the “near mint obsession”, Patrice Calliet prove, in a very funny and original way, that every record tells a story.
Nice job again Eilon. Your website is definitively one of my favorites.
Whatta bunch of square uptights who don’t like this…. go crawl back into your plastic sleeves.
I met Patrice at the Utrecht fair a few years back and bought his book, “Discographisme Récréatif.” Nice guy with an interesting obsession. The book is nice to have as a weird outsider art book. Kind of fascinating. I like some of the more idiosyncratic collections you profile.
If you’re ever in Poland, look me up, I’ve got a few thousand crazy LPs shoehorned into a little Polish apartment! 🙂
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Seems like the image links are broken? Not loading for me on any browser..
Thanks for letting me know.
Will fix that soon
Eilon