“As long as I can remember, vinyl has played a big role in my life. As a toddler, our dad would put on Zeppelin and The Who records while the family hung around the living room, which continued through much of our childhood.”
“As I got a little bit older and started exploring my own interest in music, I would pull out my dad’s record player in the basement and spend hours studying records from his collection, like Quadrophenia, or Cheap Trick At Budokan. This early exploration led to my lifelong fascination with vinyl and my love of the album as a physical medium.
At 15, my family moved to Charleston, SC, and for a couple of years we lived down the street from my favorite record store, Monster Music, which became like a second home to me. I’d ride my bike over to Monster and spend hours digging through the bins, spending the little money I had on as much music as I could possibly afford. It was no coincidence that the records I made an effort to get into my hands are the ones that still stick with me today.
My love of records has taken me to parts of the world I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. In just about every city we pass through on tour, I make it my mission to find a local record store and pick something out. The music I’ve found in various record stores around the world, from Can to Slowdive, and Devo to Funkadelic, has quite literally changed my life, serving as direct inspiration for the music we make today.
In Tel Aviv, we stumbled into a tiny, hidden record shop, where the owner, who spoke very little English, saw my David Bowie shirt and sat us down on his couch to show us something. He pulled out an original pressing of Hunky Dory and played “Andy Warhol” on a 1960s hi-fi system that he had just restored.
We all sat with this man we’d just met and listened to the record in a way we’d never heard before. Before we left, he showed us his secret stock of Bowie records and I left with a copy of Low, which has since become my favorite Bowie album, and one of my favorite albums of all time.
I guess all of this is to say that the love of vinyl is about so much more than nostalgia—it’s about having a connection to art and to other humans. There’s nothing quite like pulling your favorite record off the shelf and sitting back to listen while you hold it in your hands, examining the artwork and reading the liner notes.”
—Brendan Kelly
A Fragile Tomorrow’s full length release, Generation Loss is in stores now.
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A Fragile Tomorrow Tour Dates
Mar 13 – Bourbon & Branch – Philadelphia, PA
Mar 14 – Rockwood Music Hall – New York, NY
Mar 15 – The Way Station – Brooklyn, NY
May 10 – State Street Pub – Columbia, SC
