“I remember dancing round my parent’s coffee table to ‘I Am The One And Only’ by Chesney Hawkes. I still have it.”
“I must have been 5 or so—running around the room in my school uniform, probably after a successful day of drawing pigeons or feet or whatever I was into then. I had no concept of a record or what one even looked like. All I knew was that it came out of my dad’s all-in-one hi-fi. I miss that machine. I’ve always been drawn to record covers though. Bright and shiny bits of paper.
I really can’t recall when I encountered it again but I remember when I was at art school and I bought my friend and classmate’s first EP. (Copy Haho, Bookshelf 7”). Seeing an end result from something he talked about in class was really cool, and further piqued my interest into designing record sleeves. Not realising that I had my dads ‘Blue Monday’ at home, and the whole thing about the sleeve design was a bit of an eye opener too. I’ve since had the pleasure of working on some great records that have been pressed onto a 12”, so I finally know it feels! Bloody great.
I’ve recently acquired the rest of my dad’s collection, and thrilled to own Meat Is Murder and Songs From The Big Chair on both formats now. It’s weird to think that my dad even listened to the Smiths. Bizarre.
As this is our first vinyl release, I am in love with it and feel a sense of pride having worked on the layout and artwork with Charley and it being a vibrant YELLOW.
—Mike Chang, IndianRedLopez
“Our household was not a musical one. Vinyl existed but was never played. Record sleeves made excellent childhood doodle pads.”
“However, I remember even then being intrigued by the look, smell, and feel of them and wondering at what point my parents would ever have listened to them and why they didn’t anymore. I especially remember a gatefold LP by The Beatles with a leathery looking cover. I think it was called Love Songs and the picture inside totally drew me in at a point when The Beatles meant absolutely nothing to me. It got drawn all over with felt tip pens.
It wasn’t until my teens that I encountered vinyl again. The first vinyl record I bought was a double purchase of Monty Python’s ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life and Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ from my local Woolies in 1991. I shared a room with my brother at that time, who was a couple of years older than me and into poodle rock which I didn’t have much time for, so I moved my bed and my record player up to the uninsulated and partially floored loft to get away from him.
The one good thing he did at that time was to bring home Guns n’ Roses, Appetite for Destruction with the original banned cover of the hot girl selling toy robots. The detail on the LP was tantalizingly and gloriously naughty for a young teenager back then. The inner sleeve succumbed to graffiti once more however but this was in the form of underlining the swear words in the lyrics. “You think you’re so cool, why don’t you just FUCK OFF” got double underlined and is etched in my mind to this day. I still have the LP. The picture of the band on the other side was also a real eye opener, making them all the more attractive with their other worldliness. It seemed very distant from real life if you grew up in an insular Northern Scottish fishing town.
This was a prompt for my obsession with Metallica and collecting as much of their vinyl as I could. I had a decent collection and had some pretty cool coloured vinyl bootlegs. Alas, I recall having a bedroom vinyl sale and disposed of quite a bit of my collection for very little money, which I greatly regret. Fortunately I managed to offload a terrible interview picture disc I had with an image of singer James Hetfield backstage with his little Metallica man hanging out for all to see. Why would somebody even make that?!?
I recently inherited my granda’s Scottish country dance record collection. It’s mostly guff but some great Jimmy Shand 45s in there. ‘The Bluebell Polka’ can bring me to tears when I hear it!
As this is my first vinyl release as an artist I am totally thrilled and the resurgence in vinyl buying and collecting is fantastic news. I would love a child in 15 years’ time to find it in their parents’ collection and for it to spark some curiosity and perhaps prompt them to get their own crayons out.”
—Charley Buchan
IndianRedLopez and CS Buchan’s 7-inch split single “Any Given City” / “Leave It All Behind” arrived in stores 16th June via Fit Like Records.
IndianRedLopez Official | Facebook | Twitter
CS Buchan Official | Facebook
