“When I was a kid there was always music playing in my house. My father had a record collection he was really proud of, and the songs of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, etc, could be heard by anyone passing by our house. This first contact with music probably influenced me much more that I will ever know.”
“I would look at the record covers, some of them were works of art themselves, other were nicely taken photographs. They were the faces of the music and meant much more than the lyrics to a boy who didn’t speak English. I still remember Steppenwolf Live’s cover. Man, that wolf looked cool.
Usually, meaningful music comes accompanied by meaningful images. Listening to a LP while looking at its artwork is a pleasure in itself which I doubt could ever be matched by staring at a computer screen on i-Tunes.
Also, if you want to listen to vinyl, you have to be where the record player is, you won’t take it to the gym, won’t listen in the car. You have to really stop your life for a moment in order to listen to it. There’s something really special in it which is mostly gone nowadays—listening to music.
And by that, I mean really listening to music, paying attention, turning off the computer and cell phone for a while and immersing in the song, absorbing what it has to offer. It changes your relationship with music. And the best part, your records will not be lost in one of the backups you will never do.
I hope to have my albums released on vinyl in the future.”
—Eric Taylor Escudero
Eric Taylor Escudero’s We Were Young And It Was Morning is in stores now via City Lights Produções.
