“Confession time: records (in the physical sense) weren’t really a part of my childhood. See, I was born in 1982, and while my folks certainly were and are music fans, they’re not really collectors of anything… besides children, maybe.”
“In fact, I only remember three records being in the house when I was growing up: an original Beatles “Let It Be” 45 (cool), a Lynyrd Skynyrd Gold & Platinum double LP (ok…), and Glenn Frey’s The Allnighter (yikes). Despite the randy title, I can’t recall ol’ Glenn getting much action, but perhaps I’ve blocked it out.
Like most teenagers in the mid-’90s, I spent much of my disposable income on CDs, and early signs of my future fetishism were apparent – I’d spend hours ogling expensive, strangely-titled imports by popular “alternative” artists of the day at the grimy Disc-Go-Round and expansive Planet Music in Memphis. I still regarded LPs as artifacts of an earlier time, though.
The vinyl bug first bit me hard 12 years ago, when my wife bought me a turntable for our first Xmas together, along with 180-gram reissues of Alex Chilton’s Like Flies on Sherbert, T. Rex’s The Slider, the Kinks’ Arthur, and handful of other classics. (I’m a lucky man.)
That was it – I was hooked. When we first visited the Pacific Northwest in 2004, we spent most of our time hunting for records at Sonic Boom, Easy Street, Bop Street, Ditch (Victoria, BC), and Zulu (Vancouver, BC) – places that would become regular haunts when we moved to Seattle soon after. I flew home clutching what must’ve been 50 LPs – stuff I never would’ve found in southeast Missouri. (Though it must be said that Vintage Vinyl and Euclid Records in St. Louis are fine establishments that have taken a great deal of my money over the years, and deserved every penny.)
Ever since I started recording under the Red Jacket Mine name back in 2003, I’ve dreamt of my songs appearing on vinyl, and our recent partnership with Fin Records has made that dream a reality.
The music on our new album, Someone Else’s Cake – lovingly recorded by Johnny Sangster – is the best we’ve ever done, and the stunning-if-I-do-say-so-myself packaging (masterfully designed by Shawn Wolfe) is the icing on the proverbial cake. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it.”
—Lincoln Barr
