“Guess there’s no real way to talk about loving a Beethoven record these days without sounding obnoxious.”
“I used to stash all sorts of things in my vinyl collection. Beethoven’s Second Symphony was a main hiding spot. No one would ever put on the Second Symphony. Not in a million years.
I’d hide joints and love letters and old photos of friends and girls and postcards I’d received. I’d always forget where I stashed things though. Me and my buddy’s would be dry and would have to go rifling through the record collection in search of a roach or forgotten stash. Or I’d get in trouble when my girlfriend would be over and go to throw on a record and discover an old love letter or photograph of another girl from way back and I would have to explain that it was nothing personal I had just completely forgotten that it was there.
Thinking back on it now I should have had more of a system. You can’t keep everything in the Second Symphony – the vinyl packaging is big but not that big. All love letters should be kept in the Joni Mitchell Blue album, all drugs filed in Ziggy Stardust or under Iggy Pop.
Most conversations I have about vinyl with old people start with “You still listen to vinyl records?!” and they look at you like my dad looked at me when I wanted to wear his old army shirts or again when I wanted to wear his old bell bottoms. It all comes back around I suppose, but vinyl seems like it has never gone away really.
The conversations I have with young people are usually with other bands who talk about how they are going to release their music. “Going digital with a short vinyl run” is the general gist. Putting your album out on vinyl feels to a lot of musicians like the only true closure to the horrifically rewarding experience of making an album. Digital don’t quite cut it. Vinyl seems to be the best and most appropriate packaging for something which takes so much work to produce. It’s sort of strange dreaming up a physical entity for something people hold in such high regard but exists only out in the ether. Physically speaking you can’t do better than vinyl. So digital and vinyl it shall be. The end of history once again.
I picked up a Townes Van Zandt album up in Madison that got me and my girl through the winter in Chicago last year. We came up with an hour of the day called snuggle o clock where we would throw on For the Sake of the Song and just hide out under the covers till it was time to change sides. “None But the Rain” is our anthem of the winter of 2011.
I have no real regard for these records in a way. I don’t organize them. I get drunk and leave them out of their sleeves and allow them to get scratched. But yet vinyl and books are the only heavy boxes I move with. I have my mother’s copy of Abbey Road. She is British and was a screaming, card carrying, Ringo-loving member of Beatlemania. One of the reasons I suppose the Beatles stopped performing live. There is a scratch on “Come Together” which causes the needle to get stuck on the chorus. Because of the repetition of that line “Come together, Yeah” it takes a few repeats to realize that the record is stuck. When ever I hear that song now on the radio or where ever I expect it to stick in that spot and have to get up and fix it. I love that.
You can get all of Beethoven’s Symphonies on vinyl for about a buck fifty. My favorite is the 6th ‘Pastoral’ Symphony I picked up in Iowa City, recorded by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I spent an entire Spring 4 years ago laying around on the porch reading and listening exclusively to side two the 3rd and 4th movement Allegro finishing with the 5th movement Allegretto. I have little idea what those titles mean. I believe they signify tempo changes. Quite obnoxious. The melodies are transcendent. That is a very obnoxious word and one I almost have never used in my life.
Like I said, there’s no real way to talk about loving a Beethoven record these days without sounding obnoxious.”
—Matt Kerstein
