“Vinyl records are the first tactile objects that I can remember connecting with on a spiritual, cerebral, and physical level simultaneously.”
“Music reproduced from vinyl records being played at floor rumbling volumes are the most distinct memories I have of childhood. My entire family collected records and played records. My Dad was a HiFi enthusiast, and I spent many hours with him as a small boy in late ’70s in audiophile stereo demo rooms absorbing analog frequencies coming from vinyl records.
Once a week, we took a family trip to the record store and we could pick any 45 RPM we wanted, I remember my first 45, it was “I Believe In Music” by Mac Davis. I didn’t know the song, but the title was an affirmation of my deeply held belief that music was the most important thing on Earth!
My siblings were collecting Rock and Pop records, my parents were spinning Jazz, Blues, and Pop from bygone eras that held magic and mystery, and still do. By the time I was in my early teens I had an extensive record collection of ’60s and and ’70s Rock that included all the usual suspects, Doors, Stones, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin and a few edgier records my brother turned me on to, like Velvet Underground, Neil Young, Iggy Pop and Bowie.
These records prepped me for my next phase, when in the ’80s new records became the center of my teenage universe. Punk, Post-Punk, Synth-Pop, new music, new records, and a music revolution that elevated the vinyl record back to the level of fine art. The trips to Hollywood and Westwood to the iconic records stores in Los Angeles in the ’80s and ’90s were thrilling!
Ten bucks would get you a record and lunch, you could stare at the covers that had again become standalone art from import labels like 4AD, Rough Trade, Creation, and Factory and US labels like SST, Merge, and Sub Pop. These indie labels, along with many more, revived the value and importance of vinyl records and gave them the weight and meaning as the most important cultural artform in the world, in the tradition of past golden decades for vinyl records.
This continued with labels like Ruthless Records, who released NWA, and many other Hip-Hop indie labels throughout the ’80s and ’90s. There were also some great major label releases on vinyl during this golden period for vinyl. I collect and listen to vinyl to this day and have a pretty dope set-up for listening including a Pro-Ject turntable, Devialet amplifier, and Focal speakers—a system the HiFi geeks I grew up with would approve of, running at the volumes I grew up with.
I am glad vinyl is back in the rightful place where it belongs for the discerning listeners—it never had to make a comeback in my life—and I rarely become close with people who prefer digital. That being said, I always give them a chance to understand with a demo of a vinyl copy of The Smiths Meat Is Murder on my system!
The excitement of holding, looking, and listening to a vinyl copy of a record I have recorded or played on, brings me back to those childhood and teenage days and nights, laying on the floor hearing and feeling to the music, and then getting up to flip the record over… repeat!”
—Terry Borden
“Time Is A Crime,” the new EP from Blesson Roy is in stores now via Slow Start Records.
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PHOTO: ANKHURR CHAWAAK
