“Vinyl is a good present. The way to the heart is through the stylus.”
“When I was 4, I’d sneak downstairs and play with the phonograph before my family woke up. I’d listen to the same record over and over. It was a compilation about teddy bears. One morning I broke the needle. I thought I’d get in deep trouble so I didn’t tell anyone. My parents noticed I didn’t listen to records anymore and got rid of the phonograph.
When I was 16 I listened to New Order’s Power, Corruption & Lies and nothing else. I never took it off the turntable. It got all covered in dust. I didn’t leave my bed for weeks. My mum came in and said I didn’t have to go back to school, I could do anything or go anywhere, just not lay in bed listening to that record anymore. Sometimes I hear that record when I’m out and think about how far I am from that room.
I still listen to only one album for months. An album to me is not half an hour, it’s half a year. I was asked to write down my 10 favorite albums of last year but I could only come up with 3. I own them all on vinyl. You’d think I love them so much I decided to buy them on vinyl. But I didn’t seek them out, they were given to me. I listened to each blindly then they remained on my turntable for months.
Before I moved to New York, I visited an antique phonograph store in Manhattan. The woman told me the record we were listening to was over 100 years old. And playing on a phonograph, that one was 80 years old. It’ll play on your phonograph at home, she said.
I’m not a serious collector. I only keep records I have an emotional connection with. I hear stories of a great uncle who played the fiddle at the silent cinema, and a grandpa whose piano playing landed him a med school scholarship. But, I’ll never hear the music they listened to. My great nieces and nephews can discover my record collection. I can rediscover it when I get Alzheimer’s.”
—Eleanor Logan
Happy New Year’s debut, self-titled full length LP hit store shelves just this Tuesday, 8/21 on Crikey! Records.
