Seth Kessel, The TVD First Date and Premiere, Ride on Through

“Vinyl holds a special place in my heart and is largely responsible for the influence on most of the music I play. My collection started with 7″ records of punk and hardcore bands such as The Templars, Dropkick Murphys, and Crimpshine. The best spot in NYC was Generation Records, on Thompson Street. They used to be open until 1am or so and had a great selection of local and obscure bands.”

“It wasn’t until college that my musical tastes broadened. A big reason for this was my mother gave me her vinyl collection to take with me. It was there that I fell in love with early American recordings: Mississippi John Hurt, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Skip James, Jim Kweskin’s Jug Band, and many more. My favorite was Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. He traveled with Woody Guthrie and was the predecessor to Bob Dylan. It was because of these records, I picked up the guitar and started in on fingerpicking blues and folk songs.

I was obsessed and the search for vinyl continued. In the beginning, nine out of ten times, the artist wasn’t one I’d heard of. I know they say don’t judge a book by its cover… does that apply to music as well? I would say it’s hit or miss and the hits have stayed with me to this day.

What I love most is the ritual that comes with a new record. I have one of those furniture pieces from the 1960s with the turntable and speaker built in. I listen to the record while reading the liner notes and looking at the musicians on each track. There’s a warm feeling of having music in tangible form. There’s something personal about when it goes through a turntable. For one thing, you don’t have to listen to a 15 second ad on YouTube and your personal information isn’t being shared. There’s no number that tells you how many plays it’s gotten either. None of that matters.

One of the greater additions was a record called A Josh White Program that a friend had given me. I’d never heard of Josh White before, even though I was familiar with many of the Depression-era blues players and the folk singers of the ’60s. This guy was both, and AMAZING in my opinion—he was as good as they come. After some research I’d learned he was blacklisted during the McCarthy era and when his career regained strength, rock ‘n’ roll was in full swing so unfortunately he never became a household name.

There are a lot of gems buried deep within crates of a record store, basement and on the sidewalk in a bun labeled “take what you want.” These are records your friends don’t know about, that haven’t been digitized. They only exist in tangible form and in obscurity.”
—Seth Kessel