Ottawa, The TVD First Date

“I was 7 years old the first time I ever put a record on a turntable. I have vivid memories of feverishly digging through my Dad’s old record collection in a crate, in the basement—dusty and mostly untouched since the recent appearance of cassettes and CDs.”

“It was the early ’90s and the radio was filled with Ace of Bass, Spin Doctors, Enya, and Nirvana. So I naturally gravitated towards my Dad’s record collection every night. Mostly because that was the only access to music I had at such a young age. Luckily my Dad has pretty good taste.

I was very picky and judgemental about music even at a young age, my Dad had a lot of records that I simply didn’t like. Mostly Rick Springfield, Pat Benatar ,and the local regional power pop hero Michael Stanley. But I would keep going through every side of every record, looking for songs and albums that resonated with me

I was too young to understand the concept of what a band is, or what a song is, or what a record is. I was too young to understand what Michael Jackson and Brian Wilson were really singing about, but the music still touched a nerve inside of me—Michael Jackson’s Thriller with the infectious dance grooves of “Billie Jean” and “Wanna Be Starting Something.” The infamous ending of Thriller, featuring a spoken word narration by Vincent Price, reciting a long form poem set to dissonant organ chords still creeps me out (in a good way).

The Beach Boys Endless Summer, the greatest greatest hits album of all time. So many perfectly crafted pop songs, so many catchy hooks, and the beautiful simplicity of a ballad like “In My Room”—still one of my favorite songs of all time.

As you get older and you start playing music yourself, some of that initial magic of discovering your Dad’s vinyl collection is lost forever. As I started to learn how to play other people’s songs and write my own songs, the process becomes a lot more formulaic, almost like you are trying to solve a puzzle or a math problem.

But every once in a while I stumble on a new riff or a new chord progression that takes me back to when I was first discovering the power of music hidden deep in my Dad’s long forgotten basement record collection.”
—William Hooper