The Rescues play LA’s Hotel Cafe this Thursday, 8/23.
“I’ll never forget my very first record…a 45 of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust.” I was four and not exactly a connoisseur of anything beyond legos and stuffed animals so I can’t take credit for such a cool entry into pop music. My parents surely get credit for that.”
“When the bass line came in, my brother and sister and I would lose our minds and start dancing and acting out the lyrics. Every time the chorus came around we’d fall on the ground in high drama. It still has that effect on me, makes me want to get up and shake my booty with reckless abandon.
That was the first of many an afternoon spent listening to records with my family, some of my all time favorite memories. The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, and Stevie Wonder were in heavy rotation in our house. Later Michael Jackson’s Thriller became our favorite thing to put on together and dance and sing at the top of our lungs.
Mom even had the “Beat It” red vinyl jacket. Yup, my parents were cool. Took me a decade or so and an awful cassette collection including Tiffany and Extreme before I could admit it. But when I started writing songs as a teenager I thanked my lucky stars and my parents for the incredible soundtrack of my younger years.”
—Kyler England
“Like most 4th children, my first exposure to records came from an elder sibling, in this case my sister who returned from college with a stack of albums that had warped on her heater in Boston.”
“When she left again for school, I started listening; The Cars, Heartbeat City, The Eagles, Live, Rolling Stones, Made in the Shade. I studied piano as a kid, and the first record I bought was by Billy Joel—but it was the ’80s, so it was Glass Houses with “You May Be Right” and “It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me,” which of course couldn’t really be played reasonably on piano. But I probably listened to that album and the warped ones from my sister a few hundred times, put on headphones and played along on the piano regardless. The liner notes to Glass Houses were missing, so I typed (with a typewriter) the lyrics onto a blank white sleeve.
I seem to collect records in spurts—none of my albums are particularly valuable, but they all are informed by a particular period of my musical education—new wave, classical, classic rock, metal, pop, singer songwriters, Motown.
—Gabriel Mann
“I can still remember the way the vinyl smelled when I pulled it out of the sleeve. So shiny and black and pristine. When I put the needle down on my Fisher Price record player and the sounds came out in glorious mono, I knew my life was forever changed.”
“This album was just the beginning of an obsession that would continue the rest of my life. The sounds of the accordion, the clarinets ringing out over the violin. I knew this man had changed my life. I had never even HEARD of Lawrence Welk, much less heard his magical sounds. And the warmth of the vinyl made him sound like his orchestra was right there in my room.
It started with Polkas on Parade, then I had to buy Song of the Islands and 22 of the Greatest Waltzes; every holiday I still spend flipping the record on the masterpiece Christmas Memories. Honestly, after that I can’t remember what else I bought. But you can bet your bottom dollar that the soundtrack of my life was now full of the warm vinyl sounds of a man they called “Welk…”
—Rob Giles
“My first date with the rest of my life happened when I was 16, while also smoking weed for the first time with my best friend. I, of course, didn’t get high, especially since I still didn’t really know how to inhale, but that night changed my life in a very different way.”
The Indigo Girls had never played live in Miami. No one in in my high school even knew who they were, let alone WHAT they were. When my best friend’s sister came home with the Strange Fire tape, we were intrigued. Up to that point it had been loud grunge, offensive hip hop, and obligatory salsa for us.
We stole the tape out of her sister’s room, popped it in, opened the windows, and began our many attempts at rolling a joint. “I come to you with strange fire, I make an offering of love.” My jaw dropped. It was the most captivating and honest thing I’d ever heard. Unknowingly at the time, many questions were being answered in that moment.
I looked at my very high friend through a cloud of pungent smoke and said, “I want to do THAT.” That night, we listened to the whole album about 3 times. And about 300 times after that.”
—Adrianne Gonzalez
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The Rescues will be previewing their highly anticipated new album, Blah Blah Love And War, with a special appearance at Hotel Cafe on Thursday, 8/23. Doors open at 9 PM, 21+. Tickets can be purchased here.
