“I own a small collection of records…”
“David Bowie – Young Americans, Otis Redding – The Soul Album, Live Aid Concert Record, Jamie xx – In Colour, Beach Boys – Endless Summer, Chaka Khan – I Feel For You, James Taylor – Gorilla, Carole King – Fantasy, Donna Summer – Bad Girls to name a few.
I grew up listening to great music—most of it my dad’s favorite records (some of my mom’s too). I heard The Rolling Stones, Queen, Beach Boys, Carole King, James Taylor, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Phish, Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles, Don Henley, Earth Wind & Fire, Billy Joel and more in the car or at home.
My parents tell me that before I spoke, I sang—The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” to be specific. We had driven to a family dinner and my parents must have played it on the way there, because on the way back I started singing the song, melody, and some of the lyrics. I was 2.
I’m 23. I grew up in the age of CDs, and then iTunes, not vinyl. In the Chicago suburb where I grew up until age 13, I used to visit a local store called CD City and look at/ pick out my generation’s vinyl. My dad tells me he had a large collection of vinyl, which my mom gave away after several years of them sitting in the basement. Needless to say, he was not happy!
I didn’t go to my first real record store until high school when I visited San Francisco on a school choir trip. It had such a different energy than the CD stores I used to visit.
In college I bought my dad a record player again, and started collecting records. I remember the first time I went to Amoeba Music in Hollywood and scanned aisles and aisles of records, old and new. I felt so happy! I have family in the Netherlands, and when I went to visit, I found a record store and bought a few records there.
I also visited a record store in Paris and Prague. It’s fun to visit record stores in different places because you can find some of your favorite albums—maybe there’s a different cover or it’s a special edition, and it’s exciting, because what you find on Spotify or iTunes—online—is uniform. Collecting records is different. Recently I bought a few records from The Record Parlour in Hollywood. What a great store.
I love how music sounds on vinyl—it’s richer, fuller. And you play the record start to finish, side A, side B. Actually, listening to vinyl influenced my most recent project. I put out EVOCAPOP Side A on March 22nd, with plans to put out Side B and Side C. I love that albums used to have sides like that—it gives you more of an arc to tell a story as the songwriter, in chapters. I’d love to make a small batch of vinyl of this record I’m putting out.”
—R E L
R E L’s EVOCAPOP Side A is in stores now.
