Pharis & Jason Romero, The TVD First Date

“It’s 2007 in Arcata, CA, and we’ve packed up everything Jason owns into a U-haul truck—his banjo shop tools, stacks of kiln-dried wood, a bed, a few kitchen tools, and a box of vinyl records.”

“The records were given to us as a wedding gift; the gifter was the man who introduced us. He knew both of us well enough to know that a box of carefully selected vinyl—records from Folkways, Appalshop, June Appal, Rounder, Arhoolie, County—were about as precious a gift as we could receive. This box was anxiously waiting to meet up with Pharis’ carefully stowed box of vinyl, sitting in Victoria, BC. Jason hadn’t seen her collection (they married 3 months after they met), but he knew it would be good.

She had told him early on about her mom’s original pressing of the White Album, complete with the photo inserts and a small burn from a house fire when Pharis was a kid. She had the first four Led Zeppelin albums, a collection of Joni Mitchell to envy any record store, a consecutive series of Bonnie Raitt from the start to ‘80s, and the original zipper still on the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers. If Jason had still had his own vinyl box (he lost it in a flood), he would have had many of the same.

There’s a band from the ‘30s called Hoyt Ming and His Pepsteppers. This song, “Tupelo Blues,” features Hoyt’s wife Rozelle (the “pepstepper”) tapping on the floor with her hard-bottomed shoes, keeping a righteous beat. A month after they met, Pharis sent the song to Jason to check out—he knew immediately that she was the one.

They both liked the scratch of the 78s nearly as much as they liked the music, that the art of listening to an early record was as much about finding your way to the sounds through the scratches as about recognizing the scratches as the portrait of another era, another way of creating records, another way of playing and making music.

We drive off the ferry on to Vancouver Island, backing into the driveway of an old farmhouse in a picturesque valley. We’ll convert the basement into a banjo building workshop, and hope the dog and two cats will settle in quickly. There’s apple trees and big hayfields in front, lots of trails to run on, and no neighbours to hear when we’re playing and singing (some neighbours love banjo, but it can be a delicate proposition).

We unpack the massive U-haul, putting things in rooms, trying to imagine how this big old house could be filled up with our few belongings. The nicest sounding room gets the record player, some speakers Jason has had since college, and both of our boxes of vinyl. And sitting amidst a pile of unpacked boxes, we pick out the first record for the new house. Plank Road Stringband’s “Vocal and Instrumental Blend” from 1978, a seminal record yet unknown and unfindable in digital format.

Taking our two chairs, we face the speakers, drop the needle, and disappear into a world of banjo, double fiddles, crazy-ass cello and just sheer brilliance of a Cherry River Rag and a Charleston that blow minds on every listen. That record would take 3 listens in a row some nights, and didn’t leave our record player for months.

When we’re on the road, we stop at every thrift store we have time for. Pawing through the boxes of reissues, box sets and seasonal records, the golden lights of a pristine Bill Monroe or Japanese-label Merle Haggard record shine through. The golden envy when a friend gets an amazing vinyl score shines through too.

Vinyl still feels like there’s treasure out there, somewhere, if we can only hit up the right record store on the right day. If we’re lucky we run into friends who have a new record they’ve put out too. We end the tour, get home, and put on a new gem, getting once again to know every track spacing and every low hum.

The art of letting a record take you on a journey of stillness and sound is something to revel in. In our crazy busy lives—kids, shows, banjo building, gardens, friends—we sometimes have to re-learn how to be still and just listen.”
—Pharis Romero