“Music was my first true friend and my longest running.”
“I was always a little kid who felt different and had a lot of trouble getting along at school. Maybe first grade I found my friend in a stack of wooden fruit crates that held a collection of what looked like a whole library of little golden books showing their worn spines to curious eyes. I pulled them out one at a time and looked at how they were made. Some opened and even had pages, just like the little books I knew. Some had bizarre images, some were just pictures of people.
The black disc was obvious, I’d seen them in old Betty Boop cartoons. I put one on I was sure was a kids record. The band had bright-colored coats, there were flowers all over the cover. It was Sgt. Pepper. I found all the power buttons and put the needle on the album. It sounded like madness. There was screaming, words that confused me and weird different things coming from each side of the headphones.
It scared me but I had questions. I wanted to know how things work and had a history of taking things apart and this music thing was no different. I tried to imagine how they made these sounds, what instruments could possibly sound like this. I kept pulling records and trying to figure out what made the music tick. I’d do this anytime I thought I could get away with it.
Eventually I grew older and I would share what I found on these records with my parents, as if they had never heard their own records before. I felt like this music belonged to me. I didn’t hear it at school and I didn’t hear it on the radio. I’d go to thrift stores and record shops and buy things if I recognized a label or band member’s name, or if it had a cool cover and go home and discover something new all over again. Tapes were not cool at school anymore. I needed a CD player to avoid peer ridicule, but at least there were a lot of cool re-releases I could find easier now.
Fast forward and eventually MP3.com comes out. I began scouring through bunches of awful stuff and getting that same excitement when I’d find that indie rock gem no one but me knew about. MySpace took that over. After a while the world got smaller and all of a sudden lots of my friends had tons of unheard of music that they championed from their computer speakers. It was kind of a cool time.
Then the world got smaller again and all of a sudden people we’re promoting themselves like crazy and there was almost too much music. It got harder to find really great stuff because there was just too much to search for anymore. It was like realizing you were far from home and missed things that used to make you smile when you were growing up. I started bringing my records out and got a decent turntable again and realized that putting on a record gave me a feeling that my friend was there with me once again—music in a way that felt so much more real to my soul.
I started buying at thrift stores again and the search continued for great music that I had never heard of, but something was different. I noticed that these records really stuck with me—the sound of the artist, the mood of the track order, and the melodies and words. All of it was so much more fun without a computer screen because I was hearing music and appreciating it for what it sounded like, not what some website told me about it. Two real speakers that sounded good with good music and minimal distraction until you had to flip the record. You could just concentrate on how the music made you feel and the machinery did the rest. No clicking, no shitty computer speakers, no ads, no bullshit.
And when new music came out on vinyl that I liked, I’d buy it and be amazed at how different it sounded on vinyl. It sounded better and I was happier listening to it a side at a time rather than skimming tracks and looking at a glowing screen.
It’s a story that couldn’t possibly make sense to some. Music can be streamed endlessly without repeat through a party without having to leave your conversation and change the track from a playlist carved to perfection. It’s so much easier. But maybe to some like myself, music is important enough to get up and change the side, thumb through and see what album is going to be good enough to play in its entirety to fit the mood.
Vinyl is not for people who want to control their music intake to the point that they can put it on autopilot and ignore it—it’s for people who are engaged with their listening experience.”
—Chazz Bessette
Silver Ships’ debut album, Songs From a Room That Never Moves arrives in stores September 30th. On vinyl.
