Ep510: Matt Pinfield - Record Collector
The Vinyl Guide - Artist Interviews for Record Collectors and Music Nerds
Nate Goyer
4.7 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 1 August 2025
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Obsessive vinyl collector and radio & MTV legend Matt Pinfield discusses his music collection, holy grails, music industry stories, his recent health scares and sharing stories at the Punk Rock Museum.
The Punk Rock Museum info and tickets are here
Matt's book "My Insane Improbable Rock Life" is here
Topics Include:
- Matt discusses his post-stroke meal plan after months without solid food
- Friends like Mike Ness from Social Distortion visited him in hospital
- Stroke happened at drummer John Tempesta's house, remembers calling EMS
- Had both stroke and meningeal pneumonia with 85% mortality rate
- Daughters told he would die, was touch and go situation
- Lost feeling on right side, still numb but walking with cane
- Previous near-death experiences: aneurysm at 15, car accident, sobriety struggles
- Recovery includes acupuncture from former punk drummer and intense physical therapy
- Currently doing tours at the Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas
- Favorite museum artifact is rare Germs concert footage never released
- Stories of interviewing Iggy Pop who once knocked microphone from hands
- Hosted Wayne Kramer tribute concert at Sing Sing prison for inmates
- Getting punk acts on MTV 120 Minutes easier than expected
- Started in college radio at Rutgers, only 13 alternative stations existed
- CBGBs regular, Athens Georgia born with B-52s/R.E.M. connections there
- Kevin Bacon joked there's only two degrees of separation with Matt
- Neil Young remains his interview "holy grail"
- Matt is a serious 45 RPM collector
- Lived in Paul Kantner's old apartment with psychedelic laser showerhead
- DJed at clubs where James Gandolfini was regular
- Friends with Don Bolles from Germs, both love 70s glam records
- Personal rule: must buy something from every record store visited
- Also supports opening bands by buying their vinyl and t-shirts
- Postal service recently stole entire box of rare 45s shipment
- Still searching for holy grail records like Panic Squad 12-inch single
- Tom Petty acetate test pressing gift from friend Chuck Rocha
- Found rare Cherry Slush single that climbed charts before label folded
- Optimistic about vinyl's future as young people discover physical music
- Believes vinyl offers irreplaceable warmth and "whole other world" experience
- Plans Vegas record shopping and Australian record exchange with Nate
High resolution version of this podcast is available at: www.Patreon.com/VinylGuide
- Apple: https://tinyurl.com/tvg-ios
- Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/tvg-spot
- Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/tvg-amazon
- Support the show at Patreon.com/VinylGuide
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Vinyl Guide, the podcast for record collectors and music nerds. |
| 0:10.1 | Here's your host, the biggest record nerd of them all, Nate Goyer. |
| 0:13.5 | Ah, well, hey, everyone, it's Nate. |
| 0:15.4 | Welcome to episode 5, 10 of the Final Guide, the podcast for record collectors and music nerds. And ladies and |
| 0:23.0 | gentlemen, today we have with us, very stoked on this one, music historian and record maniac, |
| 0:29.4 | Mr. Matt Pinfield. You guys know Matt. Matt, he's such a lovely guy, and it'll come as |
| 0:34.9 | no surprise that he's also a record collector, which we thoroughly talk about |
| 0:39.4 | today. You may not know this, though. Matt had a stroke earlier this year. He was in a coma |
| 0:45.1 | for several months and has made a tremendous recovery. And you'll hear what energy this guy has. |
| 0:52.3 | He's like shot out of a can in the morning. |
| 0:57.0 | This interview was conducted at like 8 a.m. his time. |
| 1:03.6 | He's in a room in Las Vegas where he's doing tours of the punk rock museum this weekend. |
| 1:05.9 | August 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. If you're anywhere near Las Vegas, make sure to catch one of his tours. |
| 1:10.1 | You'll walk away, I'm sure, |
| 1:11.1 | with a full education, and be fully entertained the whole way through. Now, aside from Matt's |
| 1:16.7 | tours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, he's doing a show on Friday night with Chuck Roka |
| 1:21.0 | and that summer. And again, that's at the Punk Rock Museum. On Saturday, August 2nd, there will |
| 1:27.3 | be a Home Street Home Listening Party hosted |
| 1:30.6 | by none other than Fat Mike. So again, that's Saturday night, 8 p.m. at the Punkrock |
| 1:37.1 | Museum. And of course, Sunday, August 3rd, again, we'll have more Matt Pinfield guided tours, |
| 1:42.8 | but it's also a free admission day to Nevada residents. |
| 1:47.0 | That's Sunday, August 3rd. You could rock up to the Punk Rock Museum, and Nevada residents will get in free. |
... |
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