As one Jacob Martinez has thoroughly established over the last few months, high-quality music blogs are great resources for any tune junkie. The Internet hosts enough of these auditory outposts to present an amaranthine procession of new sensations in any medium, and music is no exception. Aficionados of obscure music: be at peace, assured that someone on the Internet knows more about your favorite music than you do and itches to prove it.

I collect little-known, decades-old music. Much of it was obscure even when it was new. Most is only available on vinyl, and I discover almost everything I buy via word-of-mouth. Enter my favorite music blog: Flea Market Funk. FMF advertises funk, soul, jazz, and reggae: Always diggin’.

If you follow this column, you see instantly why FMF appeals to me.

Flea Market Funk is the domain of Record Digger, DJ, Liverpool Supporter, Cereal Fanatic, Single Speed Road bike builder, husband and all around beat junkie DJ Prestige. Hailing from Asbury Park, New Jersey, Prestige is the purest purist in funk mixery today. A brilliant, unabashed love of the music and the mix shines through every post on FMF.

It’s most evident, however, in the free-for-download weekly mixes he posts. I’ve gotten through about half of them since I discovered the blog several weeks ago, and I can say with authority that this man knows what he’s about. Prestige encourages his readers to download the mixes and pass them along.

Why is a blog like this so valuable to a crate-crasher like me? When you hit the crates, ignorance is your worst enemy. I still kick myself over records that got away because I didn’t know what I was holding. Thar’s gold in them thar crates, but it doesn’t always catch the uninitiated eye.

Prestige has directly inspired me to pick up several obscure records of which I was unaware in the bare weeks since I started reading his blog. I’ve learned more about funk and soul from this Amish-bearded waxhead in 2008 than I did in my previous six years of record collecting. Today, when I hit the crates, I’m better prepared to score big than I was before I started reading Flea Market Funk. For that, DJ Prestige, I thank you.

Cross-posted to Newsvine.com

© 2008 Evan Mix for Listen In. Some rights reserved.

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