I can remember my first CD: Weird Al’s Bad Hair Day. My first tape: the post Peter Gabriel-Genesis “I Can’t Walk” single. My first VHS: Apollo 13. I can’t recall buying that first vinyl record, even though I only started collecting recently, but I certainly can remember the first batch of records I ruined.
I am generally a late comer to things I like. I remember hearing Weezer’s Pinkerton some time in 1999, convinced that the fuzzy pop bliss blaring in my headphones was indeed their “new” record. (A kind and compassionate friend would later correct me). Vinyl collecting was the same way. By the time my friends had milk crates full of wax prints of Bowie’s Berlin records, Neil Young discographies, and Japanese pressings of Kinks albums I had yet to buy a record player.
Photo by Elizabeth LaPointe
Some time after college, I bought a cheap 1980’s Japanese turntable and set about buying like a fiend. I loved being able to thumb through musty record sleeves, talk to my band mates about finds, and track down old favorites with album art fully realized on 12 inches of card stock. We don’t have a record shop in Lafayette, so my first tour after getting a record player, I set out to buy the world. On that trip I picked up a reissue of Big Star’s Third, Silver Jews’ American Water, a pink vinyl reissue of a Flaming Lips record, some Steely Dan, some Simon and Garfunkel, various Beatles solo records, Buffalo Springfield, so on and so on.
My greed was my undoing. I kept the records in a brown paper bag, tucked between the side of the middle bench seat in the van and the window. I was so proud of my little hiding place protecting my new treasure, keeping them upright and away from stomping feet and spilling drink that would surely be their ruin. We toured for 2 weeks in an unseasonably hot Southeastern fall. By the end of the trip I filled up the slot to the point that I could hardly slide more records down there.
I got home, tore open the bag, and popped on Third on my new player. “That’s weird,” I thought “I don’t remember that much of a pitch bend at the beginning of ‘Thank You Friends’”. I skipped forward. Warped. I put on Bridge Over Troubled Water. Warped. Aja warped. Every last one was warped. I had a king’s ransom in wax and not a one of them played right.
That stack of records stayed under my bed for a couple years. In a vain attempt to fix them, I put a copy of The Beatles Anthology book, the Bible, and a dictionary on top. They still don’t work. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, and don’t pack too much vinyl in your hidey hole.
Christiaan Mader is a singer/guitarist/songwriter in Louisiana based psychedelic power-pop outfit Brass Bed. He is currently recording Brass Bed’s 3rd LP in Austin, Texas.
See Also: The Warm Up with Brass Bed, 5 Questions with Brass Bed
