“I was lucky to have been brought up in a vinyl household. I don’t think my parents had any clue how cool they were to have their giant vinyl collection, but they are to blame for my obsession.”
“The love affair started in the early eighties in Belfast, Northern Ireland. My uncle Eamon worked at some sort of record pressing plant or distributor and would get “free” records for my parents. One of my earliest memories is lying on our living room floor with Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in front of me and being fascinated by the artwork and the weird men in peculiar clothes.
The Beatles were a constant in our household but I remember staring at the inside of the album and asking my dad which one was dead. I’m guessing that John Lennon was just shot? Or, perhaps I was aware of the whole Paul is dead rumour?
By the ’90s I was living in Santa Monica, California and luckily lived in walking distance to The House of Records. My friend Naomi (who played on our album) and I used to go there all the time. I’m pretty sure I bought my first Pixies album Doolittle there.
If we were feeling like a true pilgrimage we would walk down even further to Record Surplus, which is pretty much the best record store ever. They had a great punk, glam rock, psychedelic, and R&B selection, but this nerd fell in love with their classical section. I found all of my favorite opera singers performing in all my favorite operas.
My favorite find has to be a recording of Toscanni conducting Beethoven’s 7th symphony in the 1930s. I used to put that record on, move the needle to the second movement, and weep. It captured the exact sadness I had brewing in my poor adolescent heart. I’ve seen this performed live and heard other versions, but the magic of that particular performance is definitive.
By the ’00s I was an east side dweller and Amoeba had become my main vinyl shop. This was before the huge vinyl resurgence so you could still get all kinds of gems in their dollar area. D.J. Lance Rock (before the Yo Gabba Gabba days) used to put stuff to the side for me. I got Something Else by The Kinks, the Popeye soundtrack by Harry Nilsson and Van Dyke Parks, Yodelling by Slim Whitman, and The United States of America by The United States of America. Most of my collection is from those early days of Amoeba.”
—Claire McKeown
Honey Child’s self-titled debut album arrives in stores on February 9, 2018 via Aeronaut Records—on vinyl.
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PHOTO: LAUREN WADE
