“I was born in 1984 so by the time I was old enough to have my own taste in music, the vinyl record was long gone and the CD was in full force. These were the years that CD’ were still $17 -$20 and the golden age for musicians or labels to make any kind of money of record sales. I remember having my parents drive me to the music store in downtown Huntsville, Alabama in 4th grade to buy my first CDs (Green Day, Dookie and Oasis, What’s the Story Morning Glory?).”
“First off, I don’t know why my mother would even allow me to buy to an album called Dookie with a parental advisory sticker on it at the age of 9, but she must have trusted my musical taste. I went home and opened those CDs. I spent the entire night reading through the liner notes and listening to the music on repeat.I didn’t know what any of it meant, but I underlined my favorite lines and new every word of every song on those albums by the next day. I remember hanging out in my neighbors attic and we would listen to those CD’s on repeat.
Throughout my middle school years I always prided myself in having one of the best CD collections of all my friends—it was mostly what was popular at the time (311, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Beck, Blur) but I wanted to have it all. With any money I earned from the ages of 11-13, I would always buy new music.
Although, It wasn’t really until high school that my true love for music, vinyl, and exploring my parents record collection really started. My parents had very eclectic taste in music, but they also listened to all the classics—Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, etc. I grew up listening to all of this stuff but never really appreciated it until my later years.
My parents had a huge record collection and an old record player that had been replaced by the “new and improved” CD machine. I remember the birthday that my dad decided to give me his treasured record player (meaning I could move it from the closet downstairs up into my bedroom) and listen to all his old records. He gave me a speech about how that record player was the vehicle to the soundtrack to his college years and he wanted me to experience the exact same thing.
That night we set it up in my room. It was an old silver console with a light up AM/FM radio and attached were some large woodgrain JBL speakers (that still sit in my childhood room today). I remember picking out my favorite albums based on the art but the first album we played was Bob Dylan, Blood On The Tracks—this was my dad’s favorite Dylan album. Listening to the vinyl crackle and Dylan sing through these old speakers was a sound unlike anything I had heard from my CDs.
Throughout high school, I listened to all those records and it changed my whole taste and energy towards music. This was around the time I decided to pick up a guitar and start writing my own songs. It was a critical junction in my life.”
—Paul McDonald
Paul McDonald’s upcoming full length release For You, funded via a highly successful Kickstarter campaign, arrives on store shelves in 2015.
