“I had this roommate in college, and we were both crazy about music. I’m from Miami and this dude was from the cornfields of Illinois, so we had a lot to talk about and learn in terms of genres, albums, ect. Mind you, this was before streaming music so the only way to learn about music was either Napster, word of mouth, or lots of research and time spent at record stores.”
“He drove home one summer and when he came back, he brought back his small collection. He also happened to bring his dad’s MASSIVE collection of records. The first thing we did was go to the thrift store and picked up an old record player. We were hooked. There may have been about 100-200 records in there and we literally listened to every single one of them. (Remember having that much time in your hands?!)
I fell in love with the process, the sounds, the cracklings, and mostly in love with the fact that a lot of albums never made it to CD so there were so many gems that you could only listen to on vinyl. The whole time we lived together we basically just had his collection and I took full advantage of that.
Fast forward a year or so later and we moved to Jax Beach, FL and one morning while checking the surf there was this little pop up garage sale of sorts in the parking lot and we got there at the end of the event. There was this older gentleman who was disappointed with the fact that he didn’t get rid of any of his records and he didn’t want to take that box back home. I started looking through it and to my surprise there was gold in there: Gregory Isaacs, Allman Bros, Neil Young, Taj Mahal, to name a few. He ended up selling me the entire box of 50 or so records for $20! I immediately was hooked, and the search for records has continued ever since.
That was 15 years ago, and although I have attained many records along the way, I’ve also had to get rid of a lot which is part of the fun for me as well. It’s kind of rad to go to a record store and drop off 5, 10 or more records that you don’t listen to and leave with one or two solid finds. As with everything, sometimes less is more.
I can’t recall if I have a particular story of buying vinyl. There have been so many situations, but among those are when you find a great record when you least expect it. Especially when you have to sneak it in the door to hide it from certain people in your household (my wife) who claim “You already have too many records!” That to me is the best.
Funny thing about vinyl, the music I am currently crazy about, a genre I heard all of my life but didn’t pay much attention to, is Salsa music. I was at a thrift store a while back and found a copy of Willie Colon and Ruben Blades Canciones Del Solar De Los Aburridos not knowing anything about it, except for that I recognized Willie Colon’s name. From that point on, I have not stopped listening to salsa music, have too many salsa records, and I refuse to get rid of any of them. It blew my mind, and the sound of salsa through a needle is probably the best thing there is.
I’ve been very fortunate to travel a lot and one of my favorite things to do abroad is find record stores and spend as much time as possible there. Something about record shops, no matter where you are in the world, they all share a similar culture. The louder and unorganized they are, the better chance you have of finding something good.
I love digging through the music of that region and discovering new things. For example, Germany has incredible record stores, some of the best, in my opinion. Many times, they are genre specific, which is incredible. Another city that stands out for me in terms of record stores is Buenos Aires. I found a couple of my favorite records there as well. And the funny thing is, the one thing I hate travelling with the most is records! They are just too valuable to me.
These days buying records is a little different. I’d say it’s more of a treat to be honest. After all these years I’ve really dialed in what genres and styles I like to listen to at home. I’d say I definitely have a more curated approach to buying records and because of that I don’t just go for the old classics anymore. If there’s a band, new or old, that I love, I search for that particular record and snag it.
There are couple local stores here, one of the best being Tiger Records. The owner of that spot really pays a lot of attention to his collection. You pay for what you get and its incredible.”
—Juan Pablo Salvat, Percussionist
LPT’s “Los Bravos” b/w “Somos” (Papi Disco’s Manteca Remix) single is in stores now—on 7″ vinyl.
