“The most mystical place for me as a little kid was Waterloo Records right next to Amy’s Ice Cream in Austin, Texas.” “I remember sitting outside waiting for my mom to get out of her hair appointment next door, eating strawberry ice cream in my plaid school uniform and looking like a complete loser watching […]
“I have had vinyl all around me from the day I was born!” “My dad had a big collection and my mum had an even larger one as she was a DJ since 1990. My favourites were Miriam Makeba—the way she was involved with the South African and African American struggle was inspiring, and I […]
“The first record I owned myself was a 45. Fittingly, I got it when my father brought home a turntable somebody gave him that only played 45s. It plugged into our radio downstairs in the rec room. The spindle on it was the size of the hole in a 45.” “While my parents considered themselves […]
“At sixteen I convinced my dad to let me buy a 1968 Volkswagen square back with $1,500 dollars I had earned as a bat boy for our local minor league baseball team.” “I think the car ignited my interest in all things retro. My friends and I got deep into thrifting. The goal was to […]
“There’s something just really soulful about vinyl. The feel, the sound.” “My first memories of vinyl are going up in the loft in our house when I was a kid and finding these old dusty boxes of records that belonged to my folks. I remember being fascinated by the album cover artwork and the dusty […]
“I remember playing with my parents’ turntable as a kid. They had boxes and boxes of old records that I’m sure they assumed they’d eventually never have any use for after all those albums gradually became available on CD, and I recall marveling at the fact that you could see, right there on the record, […]
“Some of my earliest memories of music begin with the crackle of a needle drop.” “I can distinctly remember sitting in my childhood friend’s family room at age 4 or so, around 1980, listening to Disney’s Main Street Electrical Parade and being hypnotized by the disc going around and around on the turntable, totally immersed […]
“We’ll be honest and say we’re pretty new to vinyl. We’re 18 and 21 years old and we grew up with CDs and now we live in the age of streaming.” “When we were really little, our dad had a bizarre record player called the “sound burger.” It didn’t really look at all like a […]
“My relationship to vinyl is a weird one, given the fact that I grew up with streaming services and have rarely had to buy music—let alone a hard copy.” “Growing up, I listened to CDs in my little Walkman and danced in my room while Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” blasted through the shitty speakers of […]
“At one point this year, I had hi-fis in every room of my house except the kitchen.” “Each of the four setups was meticulously pieced together by my brother and bassist, Tanner. He’s keen on Sansui stereo receivers from the seventies. I’ve accompanied him on Craigslist missions around the tri-state area to buy these solid […]
“I spent quite a bit of time thinking about what I wanted to say in this article.” “I’m embarrassed to say that my introduction to vinyl was less than romantic. If I remember correctly, the first vinyl I listened to was a compilation of Ella Fitzgerald songs. I know for certain that the record player […]
“My obsession with records dates back to when I was 5. Living in San Carlos, a suburb of San Francisco, which at that time had not left the Leave It To Beaver-era of 1950s Americana. With an older brother already in school and a younger brother still in diapers, much of my day was spent […]
“I was raised on cassette tapes, secretly borrowing my stepdad’s Toys In the Attic (Aerosmith), Hotel California (The Eagles), and any other ‘adult’ album I could sneak into my ears. And then my babysitter bought me U2’s Achtung Baby for my 10th birthday—still one of my all time prized possessions.” “I got a dual-cassette boombox […]
“One of my first musical memories was listening to my Dad’s copy of Led Zeppelin II on vinyl.” “As a little kid, that album was fascinating to me. The weird picture on the front cover where they look like old time fighter pilots. The inside of the gatefold with the giant blimp with spotlights shining […]
“I grew up in a home with records—LPs. I didn’t own any; I was far too young, but my oldest sister did, and both my parents did. They had one of those huge stereo systems that took up half our living room.” “I remember that room not only because that’s where the records were played, […]
