Chris Maxwell, The TVD First Date

“When I think about the importance of records in my life, I see black vinyl signposts at some of the most important crossroads.”

“The first being my uncle Steve’s bedroom in my grandparents’ house is Morrilton, Arkansas. My mom and I lived next door to my grandparents. She was a single working mom so I spent a lot of time next door with Mamaw and Papaw. Boredom figured heavily into my routine. My Uncle Steve was a young uncle and played organ in a local band.

When he wasn’t around I would sneak into his room and flick the long switch on his massive Pioneer stereo. The light glowed bluish-green and a miniature party would begin. One of the records that stands out in my mind is the Cheech & Chong record Los Cochinos. I would put that record on and start working my way through my Uncles’s Playboys he had hidden in his closet.

This was pre-masturbation so I would just flit through, curious about the female form while the sound of Cheech & Chong inhaling deeply on cartoon sized joints played in the background. No one had really explained sex and drugs to me but from what I could tell from the die cut cover that revealed pot hidden in the door when you opened it and the way Steve’s Playboys were buried in the closet, sex and drugs were suppose to be naughty fun—I was all in.

The first record I bought was with lawn-mowing money around the age of nine. It was a K-Tel record called Believe In Music, 22 original hits by the original artists. The album opens up with “Brandy” by Looking Glass. The other songs that still rank high in the songs-that-age-well category are “Maggie May,” “Hold Your Head High” and “Backstabbers.” I did suffer, however, from not one but two Donny Osmond songs.

Building a collection was a slow process. I had to first earn the money to buy the record and once that was accomplished then I had to slowly savor it by first devouring side one before moving onto side two. Every song had to be understood before moving on (otherwise I wasn’t getting my money’s worth). It was a way of rationing the music while earning money for the next one.

The gift of that process was getting to know the music really well. One of the things that would happen over and over again would be a song I didn’t like at first would slowly become my favorite. I think that’s one of the things that later informed my songwriting—challenging the listener ultimately makes the music more satisfying.

My first record deal with my band the Gunbunnies was in 1989. Around that time they had started phasing out vinyl altogether. I my pushed Virgin, my label, hard for that record to be printed on a black shiny disc. They relented and test pressings were sent to my home in Little Rock. I wasn’t home when the postman delivered the package, but I knew they were suppose to arrive that day.

When I got home and didn’t see them at the door, I was surprised. Unfortunately, Hannah, my trusty Airedale, had decided to deliver them to me herself. I found her trotting around the yard with my delicious music in her jaws. I still have the half chewed pressings. In spite of being produced by the legendary Jim Dickinson, I wasn’t happy with how the record turned out, so in hindsight, she may have derived more pleasure from it than me.

I left my records when I moved from Arkansas to New York. Landing in the big city was incredible. So much amazing music. I got on my feet quickly. In fact, my first job was as a talent buyer for the Knitting Factory. Through those connections I met Erik Sanko and formed Skeleton Key. The band was signed to Capitol Records and before long we were touring with bands like the Melvins, Helmet, Girls and Against Boys, and Brainiac.

At some point early on, I realized that our on stage banter was not one of our fortes. I picked up a vintage record player, the old portable kind that comes in a suitcase and a bunch of 78s. I gave that and my Casio SK-1, the little toy sampler from the ’80s, to our junk percussionist, Rick Lee. And asked if he could figure out a way to kill time when I was tuning. He would run the 78s into the sampler and create these demented loops. Our dead air problem was solved. You can hear the results on the opening track on our debut album on Capitol, Fantastic Spikes Through Balloon.

After Skelton Key, I partnered up with Phil Hernandez to form Elegant Too. We became a strange musical beast; band, remixers, producers, and eventually freelance composers. We hit the vinyl motherlode when we rented a small studio in midtown Manhattan. The space had previously been a post production house for broadcast, so there were hundreds of library and sound effects records from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. It was a sampling goldmine, especially the Southern Library of Recorded Music. They were weird and funky and to my knowledge under the radar. I still use those records today when I’m looking for inspiration for original songs or even scoring for Bob’s Burgers.

The full circle for me and vinyl was around the time my son was born. It had been a long time since I had played records at home. I brought the whole kit and caboodle up from Arkansas to our house in Woodstock. I think I realized that I didn’t want him growing up thinking that music existed only on “clouds.” That people sometimes spend years making records and the result of that artistry should be something you can hold. And if you wanted to know more about who was playing the music or where it was recorded you could just look on the thing you were holding and it would tell you the story—sometimes it was just basic info, but sometimes you would find the long story like the liner notes on the back of Kind of Blue. You could do all this while listening to the music.

That experience brought me back to my roots with music and inspired me to make Arkansas Summer, my first solo album. I’m releasing album two in February, New Store No. 2 and my son is 12. He’ll never have the same experience with records that I’ve had, but that’s OK. He does enjoy pulling them out randomly and playing them. I’ll watch him digging through, studying the covers, and making his choice. It’s always a good record—every time.”
—Chris Maxwell