“The first records I heard growing up were vinyl. I was very young.”
“At night, my father would often light some incense, drink a few glasses of wine, and play records on the turntable. The volume was always turned way up on the large meshed speakers. It was my first introduction to Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, The Band, The Byrds, and David Bowie among others. On heavy rotation was Neil Diamond whom I’m a fan of and an acapella band called the Persuasions. Their album we owned was called Coming at Ya, still a fantastic record to this day.
I owned a little fisher price record player and would spend hours listening to my Popeye 45s with story adventures and music. I also had a really great old children’s record called Mother Goose. I still have it but it’s all scratched up. I’d like to have it restored someday.
When I was about 14 my cousin introduced me to Led Zeppelin with a live mixed cassette tape. It was my second great musical awakening.
The next was buying The Soft Bulletin after reading about it in Tower Record’s magazine that they gave out in their stores. From there I ventured off into Syd Barrett, T-Rex, Grandaddy, Mercury Rev, Big Star, Sparklehorse, The Small Faces, and many other amazing bands.
But it was definitely my strong foundation built by those vinyl records that set the course for me musically. It’s also the sound of older records that inspired me to get a reel to reel tape machine to record on. Just so nice and full sounding. Nothing like the warmth of tape.”
—James Cassidy
The Autumn Stone’s “Bee-Sides” EP and their latest full-length, Beautiful Freaks, are both in stores now.
