Collector’s Corner: Johan Visser

Not many people can claim the extended love for vinyl records as Johan Visser has. A record collector originally from a small town of Schagen, who grew up listening and collecting some of the rarest records from the rock’s underground.

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Visser worked together with Meinder Drost at a distribution company called Semaphore. The duo continued to work together, opening a very successful company Clear Spot that offers worldwide sales and distribution. Visser took us down the memory lane of dollar-bin finds, underground hippie rock and being just obsessed with music. 

What was your home like when you were growing up? Was there a lot of art or music around your house? Were either of your parents or any of your close relatives musicians or artists? Or maybe just extremely interested/involved in the arts?

Johan Visser: I was born in 1950 and I grew up on a farm based in the outskirts of a small town in the north of Holland called Schagen. My parents were farmers (my father that is), so we had absolutely nothing to do with art of any kind besides keeping cows (which is an art in itself). I saw my father struggling sometimes. Other than the fact that my father sang in a Roman Catholic Church choir and sang while milking cows, there was no music to be heard in our household. 

“The rhythms and rebellious energy it spawned must have shaken my bones”

How did you first get interested in music?

We had a small distribution radio speaker hanging in the upper corner of our kitchen that was playing music only occasionally and when it was playing at such a low volume, me as a child, had to climb a chair to be able to hear anything. By the time I was 8 years old (1958), I discovered music that was different to what we were used to till then (crooners, religious stuff et cetera), it was rock and roll that grabbed me by the throat and hasn’t let go ever since. I was completely stunned and mesmerized by the music of Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, the Shadows, Buddy Holly and above all the Everly Brothers. The rhythms and rebellious energy it spawned must have shaken my bones and stirred my mind, as since then I was lost in that kind of music.

What kind of records would we find in your teenage room?

At the age of around ten (1960) I must have discovered records. Being a carrier of music, … you could buy your favorite song on a record in a record store. We had one in my hometown Schagen. There was no way to be able to hear your favorite song over and over again other than buying a vinyl record and a record player, so from that moment on I started nagging my parents to buy me a record player (for my birthday or Christmas or for whatever occasion). They didn’t feel that was necessary, so no record player for me until I was already 15 years old (1965). They finally got so fed up with my nagging, they bought themselves a sort of furniture that had a turntable stored inside. I even remember the name of that furniture record player, it was a Sylvo, and from that moment on it was full steam ahead with records. So my teenage room was full of the Rolling Stones, the Pretty Things, the Yardbirds, the Kinks, the Who, Golden Earring, the Outsiders, Q65 and many others. All on singles or EP’s! Oh, and no Beatles for me. That was for girls, haha. 

By the time I was 16-17 (1966 – 1967), I got more and more interested in albums rather than singles. My LP collection grew and grew with albums by John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, the Mothers of Invention, Pink Floyd, Love, the Shadows of Knight, Family, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band to name a few. I got even more LP’s during the last couple of years of my teen period… a lot of US psych albums like Morgen, the Stooges, MC5, Spirit, Fever Tree, Mad River and UK bands like Man, Velvett Fogg, Blossom Toes, the Deviants and of course Led Zeppelin’s debut album, which made a massive impression on me. At the end of the sixties I got rid of all my singles in favor of albums.

What was the local music scene like where you grew up? Do you feel like it played a large role in shaping your musical or artistic development?

We had a beat band in Schagen I got acquainted with called Clus ’65. I supplied them with records and songs by the above mentioned bands to cover and play live at the local and regional dancehalls. So this local music scene did not play any role in shaping my musical developments as you put it. It was the other way around. I played a role in the musical development of this local band.

“Buying records was the only way for me to be able to hear my favorite songs over and over”

What was it about music that made you start collecting records?

Buying records was the only way for me to be able to hear my favorite songs over and over. You had only a few “teenage” radio programs in Holland where, if you were lucky, you could hear a specific favorite song. Obviously if you had a tape recorder you could tape the song, but a tape recorder lacks the magic of records. I started to collect records solely to be able to play records over and over. That made me collect all the songs I liked in those days on vinyl and I must admit I did like a lot of those songs. Speaking of 1964-’67, the single market was booming! In those days I never saw myself as a record collector, I was just buying a lot of records and named it my “record collection.” It was all singles in those days with an occasional album. From 1967 on albums started to get more and more important. From that moment on it was mostly albums I bought.
“I’m actually an autodidact when it comes to record collecting”

Who have been some of your mentors in record collecting? Who have you learned the most from?

Well, I’m actually an autodidact when it comes to record collecting. But in the course of time you obviously get to know other collectors who you “learn” from and in my case that was Walter Geertsen, a friend of mine from Belgium who I initially introduced to obscure and hard to get records myself. He was employed in a record shop called Brabo in Antwerp, but started his own mailorder for rare and collectable records at a later stage. Being the fanatic collector he was, he got to learn about a lot of obscure records from around the planet, which he recommended to me (or not). Furthermore, starting from the mid-eighties, I bought myself all those lexicons and books about obscure records and their values by Hans Pokora, Vernon Joynson and the likes. Collectors who made it their objective to dive deep in the issue of obscure records, the original first pressings, the matrix numbers, the original inner sleeves et cetera. In other words, some people made deep and thorough studies, which they published as if they were writing a thesis to get a university degree.

Is there an album that has profoundly affected you more than others?

That’s difficult to pinpoint for me, but obviously during the 60’s and early 70’s when pop and rock music was developing rapidly there were certainly debut albums by bands that had a big impact on me. For instance in 1966, ‘Freak Out!’ by the Mothers Of Invention (‘Who Are the Brain Police?,’ ‘Trouble Every Day,’ ‘Help, I’m a Rock’), then Jimi Hendrix of course in 1967 with ‘Are You Experienced,’ Pink Floyd’s ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,’ ‘Fresh Cream’ by Cream. Then in 1968 I really started to enjoy bands from the US, Spirit, Fever Tree, SRC, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band et cetera. The debut album by Led Zeppelin blew me away, Black Sabbath aroused the devil in me, Gentle Giant with its inimitable refined progressive rock style got me stunned. I think those are the basics for me, but what affected me the most and can be viewed as the red line through the whole of my collection is the guitar and the developments of it’s palette of possibilities in sounds (fuzz, reverb, Leslie box, wah-wah pedal and so on). 

Unlikeliest places you’ve found records? Memorable dollar-bin finds?

That would be a movie theater in Minneapolis! During my Boudisque days (Amsterdam’s most famous record store at the time, I was employed in) we (me and my boss Ruud Jacobs) undertook record buying trips to the USA, visiting so called cut-out dealers to buy box-lots of record titles for 25 cents to ship to Holland and sell in our store. One of those trips in 1980 was a memorable one, because we ended up in front of this dump store that had a record bin inside where we found a couple of interesting records you don’t see that often, so we asked the owner if he had more records like the ones we saw in his bin. He did … and told us the theater next to his store was filled with household artifacts from stores that went bankrupt among which a couple of from record stores that had gone out of business, The stage of this theatre was filled to the ceiling with boxes full of records.

It was the find of a lifetime with many rarities like first two the Litter albums, Hunger, the Chocolate Watchband, the 13th Floor Elevators, the Golden Dawn, Music Emporium and the likes. A collector’s dream comes true. Thousands of records we found there that were shipped to Holland for our store, so believe me it was a madhouse in Amsterdam where we stored our finds for people to buy.

One of the most memorable dollar-bin finds I can recall was a mint copy of the first album by Raw Material on a flea market for 1 guilder. And in the late 70’s before the collecting market was exploding the Open Mind for 2,50, Arcadium for 6 et cetera.

Funny when I think back, most of the rarest records were to be found in the bins with the cheapest offers. Another one would be finding a copy of ultra-rare 7” single, ‘Garden of My Mind’ by the Mickey Finn. It was a Dutch issue with picture sleeve for 1 guilder at a flea market as well.

Can you describe what you like to collect the most?

I like to collect the most singles of 60’s beat music, freakbeat, psych, pop, rock, Nederbeat, Scandinavian beat, sixties singles from around the world with alternative picture sleeves. French, Spanish, German, Swedish, Portuguese, UK’s EP’s. And 60’s and early-mid 70’s psych, prog, folk and hard rock albums. These I have and still am collecting with a certain degree of fanaticism you might say. Besides this I still buy records from today within the genre of psychedelic rock, doom metal, stoner et cetera, but that’s not collecting, that’s just buying.

“The amount of unheard albums released lately is incredible”

Do you own anything else which is widely unheard by others?

Not that I know, but I might… I remember I once bought an acetate of an US band called Lyd from Funhouse mailorder in the UK, a long long time ago. It was an album only released for promotion as acetate, but even that one is issued officially now it seems. There is a lot of digging in old studios, label’s offices and band’s archives going on lately. The amount of unheard albums released lately is incredible and very interesting of course for us, old folks. 

Now while thinking of it, I just bought myself a copy of an highly obscure Dutch beat single no-one seems to know about. It’s a total mystery called the Fake Band released on Polydor in the Netherland in 1967. It was produced by Freddy Haayen. I suspect it to be a recording by studio musicians from those days and released for friends and relatives, because if you consult Discogs on this item you can see it has never been offered and never been sold and no-one has it.

Furthermore I have an acetate single on the Stable label (the Deviants, Sam Gopal, et cetera) with catalogue number S600. It’s an unreleased studio recording by an unknown band presumably consisting of Alvin Lee (Ten Years After), John Whitney (Family) , John Lodge (Junior’s Eyes), Jake Milton (Quintessence) and Simon Stable himself.

As to rarity, what are your 5 rarest records?
‘Swaddling Songs’ by Mellow Candle
‘Music Emporium’ by Music Emporium
‘The Open Mind’ by The Open Mind
‘Led Zeppelin’ by Led Zeppelin (turquoise lettering)
‘Hunger!’ by Hunger!

I don’t know if these are the rarest I own, as there are a lot more. These just come to mind when you ask.

How about gracing us with a trip down memory lane and describing a day of record shopping back in the days? Where did you get all the information about particular records?

Ok, I’ll take you down on two random occasions. One in the 60’s and one in the 70’s. Times when record collecting was non-existent other than just buying lots of records and calling the result a “record collection.” In those days records had no value other than new records costing around 20 guilders and second hand records 10 guilders or less.

Me and my brother, we shared the same bedroom in our domestic farm, so we both played records in our bedroom from our mutual record stack. Me being the student with hardly any money to spend and my brother being the worker with money to spend. Twice a year we went to Amsterdam to buy records. Just picture yourself in 1968 when we leave the Amsterdam Central train station and turn left to go to the leading Amsterdam youth center called Fantasio. It was Amsterdam’s number one hippie center together with Paradiso and they had this little basement store where you could buy all kinds of hippy trippy stuff including records. They had well counted two bins of records all imports from the USA, all blues, soul, folk and underground (that’s what psych music was called in those days). The Mothers Of Invention, the Fugs, Pearls Before Swine, the Shadows of Knight, the Chocolate Watchband, Gandalf, you name it… After our visit to Fantasio we went on further into Amsterdam to continue our record buying trip with only 100 guilders each left to spend, so we had to be picky with what to buy and what not.

Speaking of that takes me to record buying during my student time in Amsterdam when I was frequenting the town’s no. 1 secondhand store, Concerto. There you could find a lot of weird albums no-one ever heard off and no-one was interested in. These were stored on the floor in the 2,50 – 4,00 guilders bins. My finds there were Open Mind, Sam Gopal, Red Dirt, Room, you name it. For example there was a copy of Arcadium sitting in the normal record bin for 6,00 guilders. Its cover intrigued me but I was not convinced yet of its musical quality, so I left it sitting there. And during my visits to the store in the weeks thereafter it was still sitting there for the same 6.00 guilders. So after a couple of visits when there at one point was less stuff of my taste to buy, I thought well I might as well buy this one, so I finally bought the Arcadium for the 6.00 guilders. If you think of it now with the knowledge of today it was what heaven would look like for a record collector. And with this knowledge of today I probably would hire a truck and buy all Concerto’s stock leaving the shop empty.

Do you have records you can’t have enough of, even after you’ve heard them a thousand times before.

Yes, there are certainly albums I never get enough of that leave me stunned every time I listen to them like, ‘Music in a Doll’s House’ by Family, ‘Mr. Fantasy’ by Traffic, ‘Led Zeppelin’ by Led Zeppelin, ‘Freak Out!’ by the Mothers Of Invention, ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ by Pink Floyd, and probably a couple of hundred more that will stay with me for the rest of my earthly days. It happens on many occasions that whenever I come across one of these albums in a store or record fair I just buy them again. Silly of course, but still…

Are there 10, what you might call “essential albums” to own?

Yes, I guess so, but that’s everybody’s own choice of course. Mine would be:

‘Are You Experienced,’ ‘Axis: Bold As Love,’ ‘Electric Ladyland,’ by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, any of the three.
‘Music in a Doll’s House’ by Family
‘Disraeli Gears’ by Cream
‘Spirit’ by Spirit
‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ by Pink Floyd
‘Volume 1’ by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
‘Freak Out!’ by the Mothers Of Invention
‘Led Zeppelin’ by Led Zeppelin
‘The Stooges’ by the Stooges
‘Black Sabbath’ by Black Sabbath

Reserves would be:
‘Acquiring The Taste’ by Gentle Giant
‘Quatermass’ by Quatermass
‘Hogwash’ by the Groundhogs

In the ’80s and early ’90s you worked together with Meinder Drost at a distribution company called Semaphore, which was located in the town of Schagen. How did that transfer into you two forming Clear Spot?

Semaphore went bankrupt at the end of 1995, so Meindert and I decided to continue the business using the expertise and connections we had developed over the years and started Clear Spot in May 1996 in Alkmaar.

Was the love for 60s psych/garage the main reason behind it?

Not specifically, but during my days at Boudisque and our days at Semaphore we built ourselves a reputation for being a distributor of the growing reissue market that developed from the early 80’s on. I mean, being a collector of obscure psych, prog, folk, hard rock et cetera I’m familiar with a lot of these obscure reissue titles, so that for us was a market we were well known for. But obviously we still distributed and imported a lot of indie labels and alternative rock titles from around the world, reselling them and exporting again to around the world.

Tell us about the beginning of the company and what did you do there all those years?

As said, we rose from the ashes of Semaphore in early 1996 and developed the company bit by bit, not growing too fast, but working with specific loyal customers and clients who appreciated very much the activity we developed. My work mainly concerned with searching for products, buying and selling, Meindert was more involved with the logistics and administration/banks et cetera at the time. Decisions were made together and/or together with the staff.

Would you like to share some further insight into Clear Spot and its concept?

There is not really a framed concept other than the love and hunger for independent alternative rock music from all decades, so to speak.

Clear Spot also has a label specialized in releasing psych/stoner/space records. What can you tell us about Headspin Records?

Well, Headspin Records was actually founded when we had the opportunity to rerelease the early Delerium back catalogue of Porcupine Tree. So that was a good kick for the label. After we finished re-releasing the Porcupine Tree back catalogue, we got the opportunity to license some stoner stuff from a label called MeteorCity Records which was part of a very interesting and leading mail order company called All That Is Heavy from the US. There we learned a lot of new interesting heavy psychedelic/stoner bands and records. So bit by bit the label developed in the heavy psych direction issuing vinyl of bands like Black Pyramid, Elder, Eternal Elysium, Dozer and the likes.

My personal label highlight for that matter was the issue of a 4LP box set by psychedelic master Al Simones (RIP). A beautiful box set if I may say so myself, containing all four albums he released. It was released back in 2013 as a 20th anniversary edition celebrating his 20 years career since he started recording in 1992/93.

You might have a completely different perspective than an average listener; what lies in your opinion in the near future for the vinyl industry?

Well the only pressing plant in Holland Record Industry has made a move to being a 24/7 pressing plant with night shifts et cetera. It seems that vinyl is still booming, but now with the war in Ukraine and the consequent energy crisis, we see prices of materials rising, prices of manufacturing rising and therefore prices of vinyl in stores rising to an extent people rather buy CD’s again. So at this point with the war still going on I would say it’s anybody’s guess how the vinyl industry will develop.

There are many concerns from factories about the potential new ecology laws in the EU and across the globe. New regulations will have an impact on how the vinyl is produced. Do you think we will be able to overcome and adapt to the new regulations in the upcoming years?

I’m sure we will, as we did with all the changes.

I noticed a slight drop in vinyl interest at the very beginning of the pandemic that lasted only a few days. After that, purchase interest grew daily and I think today we are almost close to the peak. Do you think that Covid and consequently lack of concerts and live events helped the industry grow?

It might have, but now with the war going on all has changed, all is very uncertain and nobody knows where it’ll end I’m afraid.

What currently occupies your life?

What do you think? Records of course, I mean having gained and bought so many records over the years, I felt it time to start selling off the records from some parts of my collection. Records that I have lost interest in. It’s great that Discogs is a patient and user friendly platform for selling records. Look under my username “mechanicalworld” and you’ll find out what I’m selling. Other than being busy with records we have three grandchildren, so they also eat my time in a very pleasant way.

Thank you for taking your time. Last word is yours.

Well I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell you something about myself and Clear Spot International and also many thanks to your readers for reading what I had to say.

Rock ‘n roll music grabbed me by the throat when I was 8 years old and hasn’t let go since. Even though I sell parts of my collection, I still buy records old and new and obviously follow what Clear Spot is bringing to the attention of music lovers around the world.

Klemen Breznikar

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Headline photo: Johan Visser in the old Boudisque store

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