“I have been a huge Jack Kerouac fan since the 10th grade. By 19 I had read just about everything he had ever written, when I found Windblown World, Kerouac’s journals from 1947—1954. I decided that any time he would mention an album he was listening to in his journal, I would go out and find the artist on vinyl and experience the music that had influenced and inspired so much of his writing.”
“I was no stranger to vinyl. My Dad introduced me to Neil Young, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, via vinyl when I was 7. I quickly learned how to handle them carefully, clean them, flip them, stow them away. I relished the process. But I had never actually bought a vinyl record of my own until I was 19, living in L.A., and on the hunt for some of Kerouac’s favorites.
That was when I discovered Counterpoint, a small second-hand music and book shop. Here is where I found everything I was looking for, and then some. My favorite part of the shop was the $1.00 record pile. For $1 an album, there was really no risk in purchasing potentially bad or potentially life-altering music.
Some of my $1 favorites: Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks, Last Train to Hicksville…the home of happy feet, Pink Floyd, Atom Heart Mother, The Tommy Dorsey & Frank Sinatra Sessions, circa 1940. And my all-time favorite album find to this day: Don Shirley, Drown In My Own Tears.
There was a time when I would wake up every morning to this scratchy record turning round and round. I’m still nostalgic for that period of my life. Being super young in a new city, living in a studio apartment with my crazy cat, drinking coffee all day, reading Kerouac, and listening to vinyl in the kitchen.
At one point I even tried taking up smoking cigarettes to be more in the “beat” vibe. (Thank god that only lasted a week!)”
—Priscilla Ahn
Priscilla Ahn’s This Is Where We Are arrives in America tomorrow, February 25th, via SQE.
