“Vinyl is great until you move.”
“When we came back to Cleveland from Brooklyn last year, I had over 40 boxes of records from my personal collection, in addition to the dozen or so boxes of stock from the label I help run. We lived on the fourth floor of a walkup. I wasn’t there when the movers came to load up the truck but my wife said that on multiple occasions, the moving guys asked her, “Hasn’t your husband ever heard of mp3s?” Of course! In actuality, I still have a functioning 2nd generation / LED backlit iPod that remarkably still works…but you can’t go to an mp3 store or mp3 fair!
I started collecting records in my mid-teens, back in the early to mid-’90s. In retrospect, it was really cool to experience one of the last eras when you found out about records primarily through reading ‘zines, listening to college radio, reading liner notes, using mail-order catalogs, and of course, going to the record store. The further you got into what you enjoyed, the more you felt like you were part of an “exclusive club” that you worked really hard to find out even existed. Sometimes the fates aligned and you got turned onto some truly memorable albums.
When you are lucky enough to find an album that resonates so perfectly, it instantly becomes like a friend and family member that stays with you forever. The inability to part with records is one of the things that I both love and hate about record collecting—sometimes even if you just got your tax return and you want to drop the $300 to buy the self-titled Blaze Foley LP—you can’t find anyone willing to sell it to you! The records mean something to the owners and embody some intense memories, feelings, and times—you don’t sell or part with those things lightly!
I guess it is that scarcity that what keeps me going to record stores, flea markets, record fairs, estate sales, etc. Knowing that somewhere out there is a record that I either haven’t heard and will love, or a record that I have dreamed about that might be in the next crate, or at that next store.
Hopefully I won’t be doing much more moving in the near future because every trip to the store or the delivery of the mail adds more boxes to an already wonderfully heavy load…”
—Brandon Stevens
Great Father’s debut full-length release, Bicentennial Blue arrives in stores today, September 25, 2015 via Exit Stencil Recordings. On vinyl.
