“My family immigrated to Australia in the early 80s, so I spent the first few years of my life in Panama, where I was born. When we moved to Australia, mum and dad brought their entire vinyl collection with them.”
“My dad is from Chile and grew up on a diet of folk music, so he had an amazing collection of early Joan Baez and Bob Dylan records as well as original pressings of Chilean folk artists like Victor Jara and Violeta Parra. Amongst dad’s folk and mum’s treasured Celia Cruz collection, they also had a copy of The Beatles’ Help and Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall.
I remember dad teaching me how to use the record player when I was about five and I would spend hours and hours sitting cross-legged in front of the turntable, switching between the different records in their collection.
On my sixth birthday, my dad took me to the record store and for the first time, let me pick any record from the store that I wanted. I chose Banarama’s WOW, naturally. I also picked up a 12” of Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” single. I would go to sleep with both records, along with some of my faves from my parent’s collection under my pillow, because I was scared someone would break into my house and steal them.
By around the age of 12 my personal collection of two had grown to about 30 records including Kiss’s Unmasked, The Ramones’s Subterranean Jungle, Violent Femmes’ Violent Femmes and a bunch of other “classics” I’d picked up along the way at markets or gotten as gifts (I was pretty easy to shop for.)
I remember when I was in high school I’d save my pocket-money and when I had enough money, I’d skip school to go into the city and spend all day going between record stores, trying to find a new treasure to take home with me. Beastie Boys’ Aglio E Olio and Sleater Kinney’s Dig Me Out records both made their way home with me on two separate adventures in vinyl.
What I love about vinyl is the journey it takes you on from the second you pick it up. You can hold it in your hands, you can really stare at the cover and obsess over the track list and liner notes, you pull it out of its cover and it’s heavy (sometimes) and you really have to work to hear your favourite track. You can’t go too crazy around it or it skips, you can’t leave it in the sun or it’ll warp, you gotta keep it safe or it’ll scratch. You really have to love and respect them, which in turn feels like you’re loving and respecting the artist and the music. I really believe that the best things in life are usually hard work and vinyl exemplifies this theory perfectly.
For Bloods, everything we’ve ever put out has been issued in vinyl format and that’s not about to change. Our first ever single “Goodnight/All The Things You Say Are Wrong” was released on multi coloured, recycled vinyl. We have a four-track EP coming out in August through Whooping Crane Records in Seattle that’s transparent blood red vinyl, and our debut six-track Australian EP is coming out on 12.”
For us, having our music out on vinyl makes us feel like our music is really out in the world, you know what I mean? Guess we’re just romantic like that.”
—MC
“Into My Arms” and “Back To You” can be found on the Bloods’ forthcoming six-track debut EP, “Golden Fang” out on Friday 9th of August on limited edition 12”. Whooping Crane Records will also be releasing a special US issue four-track 7” EP “We Are Bloods” on the 20th of August, which features “Into My Arms” and four other previously unreleased tracks.
