My first experience with vinyl was late —I was 15. My parents had a record/tape player but didn’t have any records. I took piano lessons when I was a kid and was forced to listen to all the pieces on tape. Anyway, as a young teenager, I was dating a fella who played in a local ska band and we had a mutual love for bands like Toots and the Maytals and the Jam. He bought a record player at the re-use centre in town and I thought nothing of it. I was into CDs and sometimes tapes if the mood struck me.
The next weekend, we danced in his bedroom in his parent’s house to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust on vinyl while his parents were out. I wasn’t a good dancer by any means, but I couldn’t believe the crackles and pops and how great the guitars sounded! It solidified my love for Bowie, too. The warmth and honesty of the wax seemed to fill the space of what I had missed in music before. It sounded old and wonderful. From then on we only listened to vinyl at his place. I heard a lot of Motown, rock, power pop, and so on until we parted ways later in high school.
It would be four or five years until I bought vinyl for myself. I had loved playing LPs but didn’t have a player, so I resigned to just collect vinyl without listening to it. I know it was stupid, I was twenty. I think that explains a lot.
I had a lot of records given to me. Friends found out that I was collecting and would give me random things from their collection to appease my taste. I received Loretta Lynn’s Coal Miner’s Daughter, Simon and Garfunkel’s Bookends, and a single of one of my favorite songs ever, Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen,” among others.
My first purchase took place just as I was moving out on my own on James Street North in Hamilton about four years ago. My roommate had a record player and I was eager to test out all the records I had been collecting and also excited to buy more vinyl. I was a substitute guitar player in a band called Don Vail and was practicing with them in the tiny town of Dunnville, ON. We took a break in the downtown for breakfast and I wandered into a vintage store called “Retrospect.” It was here that I stumbled upon one of my favorite albums, T-Rex’s Electric Warrior. I bought it for five dollars along with Jethro Tull’s Heavy Horses. I went home, played it, and realized it was priceless. I used to wake up my roommate almost every morning with the guitars at the beginning of “Bang a Gong.”
Some of my favourite records are Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, T-Rex’s The Slider (which the aforementioned roommate bought for me), Glenn Miller’s A Memorial: 1944-1969 and anything that includes Hank Williams, Sr. or George Jones. I went through a brief phase where I bought a few records from my friend Jeremy and I found myself exclusively listening to those: Don Caballero’s American Don, Pedro the Lion’s It’s Hard to Find a Friend, and Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited.
These days I’ve got my record player hooked up and ready to go. I go to a lot of record swaps and shows where I’ve found two beautiful Nina Simone albums, Old Fashioned Love by John Fahey and His Orchestra (my current favorite), and I am actively looking for anything by Chet Baker or Lightnin’ Hopkins.
I haven’t been home a lot lately but I really appreciate the little time that I get to listen to records by myself. My favourite way to listen to vinyl is sitting down on the couch when no one is around and being quiet. It drives me wild when people talk through a listening session. I like to close my eyes, turn it up, and take it in. Yes, it sounds stupid. But sometimes, I’d rather listen to music than talk to anyone. I think a lot of music lovers probably feel that way.
Terra Lightfoot – Sleep Away The Winter
I’d say the most recent example of this is a record I bought from a Toronto-based all-female alt-country band called The Pining (s/t). I played a show with them and was absolutely enamored with the last song they played which I found out was called “Seed of Doubt.” I went home, threw on side B of the record and listened to the last two songs on repeat with my head almost inside the speaker. Those songs still haven’t left my conciousness and that show was over a month ago.
At any rate, I really love listening to vinyl and I’m elated that my record label was kind enough to press vinyl for me. I currently appear on two LPs, my solo record (self-titled) and my country outfit, The Dinner Belles, West Simcoe County.
Hope you are all enjoying your own favorite records.
xo,
t
