“It’s hard to remember the first album I listened to since Laszlo Von Glitz always had the stereo going in the mid-to-late eighties.”
“I remember a lot of Talking Heads, Bob Marley, Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, Los Lobos, and Lou Reed. Eclectic fathers. However, I remember the first record I bought for myself was the self-titled album The Velvet Underground, like father/like daughter. It was the third released by the band I believe, but the first in my possession. My love grew quickly, and remains steadfast.
It’s been a hard week with Lou’s passing. I didn’t know the guy, but I know we would have had a love affair to end all love affairs had we ever met. This was before I knew anything about the Factory, or Warhol, or anything. It was a $4 record I bought because I liked the look of it. I think Billy Name took the photos, which would explain my fascination.
Fast forward to finding TVU & Nico in a discount bin, and to my first real visceral/physical reaction to a record. Nico’s voice coming through my speakers was unlike anything I had ever heard. Haunting Nico was a band name I wanted once.
To this day, records still warm my spirit, that’s why I put together these lists below. May vinyl save you as it saved me.
Top 5 Places to Buy Records (for lost souls):
1. High Fidelity in Los Angeles (also an apropos movie to point out.)
2. Earwax in Williamsburg
3. The Street (cheap! but check for scratches!)
4. Your parents’ basement/attic (I swear they had better taste than you.)
5. Tiger Blanket Records always has a few gems in a basket at the front. I recommend because they are handpicked by store owner and rocknroll princess Emmy Wildwood (who happens to be the guitarist in my all-girl tribute band Guns ‘n Hoses.)
Top 5 Albums for Different Moods:
1. When I feel the most like me: Dead Weather, Horehound. And I don’t know how to explain it.
2. Chillin out, maxin’, relaxin’ all cool: Patti Smith, Because the Night. (Bonus tip: if you play it on the slowest speed, it sounds like a Gregorian chant, and makes the regular speed–when it finally catches up to you–feel like that much more of a party). I think a since-lost art film of me pouring Black paint all over myself was set to this tune, not sure, ask Photog/Artist Alli Coates.
3. Bumtown: Joni Mitchell, Blue (My mom’s tip, who also, as it turns out, is like the happiest and most rad person alive.)
4. Nostalgic: Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires, takes me back to some of my earliest love for rock, this one’s Southern, and the vinyl is PURPLE!
5. On in my house just all the time: The Stone Lonesome, Words and Whiskey
—Mia Von Glitz
