“Record shops used to give me such anxiety. They still do a little bit, even though I feel like I have a decent knowledge of music now (at least the junk I like).”
“Friday nights as a teen, my best friends and I would cram into a little pick up truck and drive to our local Phoenix shop, Zia Records. I don’t remember many of my early purchases, but it’s safe to assume they were early ’00s pop punk and ’80s classic rock. But as a timid, very plain 15-year-old girl, the best part of visiting Zia was the people you’d see. And the weekly challenge of making a purchase without the ‘too-cool-for-school’ crusty scene kid behind the cash register rolling their eyes as I excitedly purchased a Hall and Oates album
It wasn’t until college that collecting vinyl became a large part of my routine for happiness. I was a lonely kid living in Washington DC, grabbing a coffee and a new record was often my only pick me up. My collection grew during these years by the hundreds. Each one had a memory: this one was playing in the shop so I bought it, this one fell out of my bike basket on the ride home when I was hit by a car, this one was for xx break up, and so on.
After college I moved around a lot. I lived in a squat, in my car, on a friend’s couch. Moving and storing 10 boxes of records was weighing on me. Vinyl hates being in an unstable relationship. Eventually I made the move to NYC and my confirmation of commitment to this move was packing up all that vinyl once and for all.
We settled into Chinatown and we were happy. Until, through a terrible turn of events, my vinyl collection left me for another man. Steal a girl’s heart, but do not take away her record collection. I came home from tour four years ago to discover an ex lover has completely cleaned me out. Every memory, every rare find, every last album—gone. I went through the seven stages of grief. At first I was in utter shock, then miserable. My guilt grew into absolute anger and loneliness.
But then something beautiful happened. Friends who had heard about my loss starting buying me copies of their favorite records, to start my collection from a place of shared love. I had a new excitement to dig through bins all over NYC. I soon discovered a little BYOV (bring your own vinyl) night in the lower east side. It was on those Sunday nights that I met my bandmates while sharing our affinity for old surf records. We drank margaritas and danced as we listened to The Ventures, Link Wray, and Dick Dale. If I hadn’t endured such a rotten break up with my vinyl collection, I may never have found my best friends.
The cherry on top to this whole love affair is that our debut record, On Ludlow is out now on vinyl!”
—Jess
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PHOTO: JONO BERNSTEIN
