“My first experience with music was via the record player.”
“My dad would put on anything from Vangelis to 2nd Chapter of Acts to Yes, and I learned to tread lightly when I danced so the record wouldn’t skip. It was a fun way to feel connected with the music in the moment, like it was happening in that room for the very first time, and I was part of it. I could make it stop and start with the lift of a needle.
It was all very physical, which I like, because music is this ethereal thing that affects us underneath the skin in all sorts of ways that we can’t explain, but with vinyl you can actually see it moving. You can see it in the grooves.
My dad was a long distance truck driver and my mom didn’t play much music around the house, so I lived for those weekends when he would come home and turn the stereo up so loud the windows would vibrate.
He had a great analog system that could handle that volume and it worked well for the days when he would reach for his Black Sabbath LPs. He was a Christian struggling with his rock and roll roots, and I watched him throw away the same Uriah Heep record that he would buy again three times just for the song “July Morning.”
I started collecting vinyl in junior high, first to hang on my walls and then to actually play once I got a proper setup of my own. My first purchases (from yard sales or friends’ parents) included Aerosmith’s eponymous debut and Frampton Comes Alive. I stared at both of them on the wall long before I ever played them, but at least I had something pretty to look at.
Living in Seattle after college, I found Bop Street Records in Ballard, where I spent many a late night with friends who worked there, listening to whatever we would pull from the biggest collection of records I still have yet to see. Legend has it that Thom Yorke maxed out his credit card there.
They stayed open till midnight and we stayed up till dawn more than once. When we needed a rehearsal space, they let us set up in the basement with aisles of jazz, blues, and old country vinyl surrounding us. The album cover from my first EP was taken there.
Maybe it’s always been with me, but it still seems a dream to be releasing my very own vinyl record with the Sons of Sweden. It’s also dreamlike that we literally just walked down the street to pick up our test pressings from arguably the best vinyl record pressing plant in the United States, United Record Pressing. United has been in operation since 1949 and has pressed records for The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Jackson among others.
It was great seeing the vinyl artwork come together too, knowing that we’d have so much more space to work with. We’re very excited for the 180-gram limited edition release of The Shape The Color The Feel on 2/11/14 featuring gorgeous pull out artwork by Australian artist Jessie English.”
—Kate Tucker
Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden are featured on the limited-edition Nashville Indie Spotlight compilation, out tomorrow. If you’re in Nashville, catch them at The Stone Fox December 3rd.
