Pauline Andres, The TVD First Date

“I was a kid in the ’90s and vinyl was absolutely not a thing at the time. Especially in the little coal mining town I grew up in. There were no record stores. There wasn’t any cultural space of any kind. I remember my parents always had some CDs lying around the house, very mainstream things that just didn’t do it for me even when I was 10 or 11. And that was it.”

“One day, after we recently moved to our second apartment in town (in a really big house for two large families) I was sent to find something in the cellar. I was 10 and I didn’t like it. The cellar was huge, dark and terrifying. But I got over myself and dived into the darkness, downstairs where the monsters were waiting for me. Little did I know actual Rock monsters were waiting. I have no idea what I was originally sent to find. But I will always remember what I accidentally stumbled upon, vinyl.

When he was younger, my dad used to have pretty decent taste in music. Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, AC/DC. He liked hard rock. At the time I had no clue what hard rock was, or prog rock, or whatever label you put on those things. But I found several records in the cellar, and even though they were just random objects at the time, I fell in love with them. These “things” contained music. They looked cool. Different and wild. Some of them still had posters folded in them. The lyrics were in there too: “Hotel California,” “Highway to Hell.” Holding them in my tiny hands and trying to make sense of the lyrics was a major event in my life. I knew I loved rock & roll.

There was a turntable in the cellar too. But I was never allowed to bring it upstairs. For a couple of years I simply had those records to hold on to, I couldn’t listen to them. But they meant a lot to me (my dad did redirect me to some of his CDs in the meantime) and when I finally got to play them, it was a whole little festival on my own.

I never turned into a hard rock fan. But I still have a certain fondness for those bands and I’m thankful they introduced me to vinyl by complete accident. And to this day, knowing the amount of work, time and effort put into one EP or LP, I can’t help but think vinyl is absolutely necessary to remind us that music is indeed something that is made by people: it’s a tangible thing you can hold in your hands.”
—Pauline Andres