“Records are responsible for some of the most significant emotions I’ve experienced. From a very young age, my interest in music grew year by year and by the time I was a teenager, vinyl had taken over my life and set me on a path I would follow forever.”
“To this day, I consider acetate extremely wonderful, almost mystical objects, with so much room for expression inherent to the format—from the cover and inner sleeves, to the labels, the two-sides split, the secret messages carved in at the run-out groove—a true feast for the senses! In short, vinyl is an artist’s world of ideas, beautifully packaged for your consumption. Not a bad way to get an education of sorts!
Cutting records is a craft which is being lost; day by day fewer technicians can do it as well as it used to be done, and I am proud to have had my first two cut so beautifully well done. It’s a challenge too—so much can go wrong along the chain. Many bands, in an attempt to fulfil their vinyl dream, go to the cheapest pressing plants, knock out quick artwork, terrible mastering, and on that by the time you’re handed the product it feels, looks, and sounds cheap and soulless, and it all becomes a pointless exercise.
I buy vinyl wherever I go, and whenever I can, but have become increasingly weary of re-issues, where bogus manufacturers re-press hard to find originals, from a CD, copy the artwork and distribute it to record shops! Or re-issues where it’s all remastered from the original tapes when, in effect, it sounded great first time around—why touch it again?
Nothing beats the experience of record buying, be it at a tiny independent store on some back street somewhere or at one of those gigantic places, like Amoeba in Los Angeles—just what the Doctor ordered.
In my humble opinion, everybody should own a record player. I don’t yet own an iPod myself and the day I do, it’ll be like having a ‘Walkman’—convenient on-the-go. But never a substitute to the real thing.”
—Angel Rivers, Yeah Saint Paul
Yeah Saint Paul aka Angel Rivers, releases his debut album Women Are Stoned via Loyal Artistes Recording Co. on 4th November 2013.
