“When I was asked to do one of these columns, I wasn’t familiar with them so I checked out previous entries. With the exception of the column David Thomas wrote, it seemed most were about younger people discovering vinyl. Many seemed to be through a parent’s or older relative’s collection that had long been “put away” to a less intrusive storage area of one’s home.”
“While I fully understand and recognize the reality of the methods in which most people listen to music today, it’s still a bit hard for me to imagine. Some of it has to do with my age (56). I own a house so I have the room to have a record collection with a stereo system and I’ve always had my records at hand.
My earliest memories of music are either from the radio or the record player. In the ’60s for various reasons you had really good AM radio. And as my wife reminded me when I discussed doing this column with her, you heard a song on the radio and if you liked it, you bought the record. My earliest record player/stereo recollections are mostly from the Sears TV/record player console my family had.
I was barely tall enough to see into the record player area but I remember being fascinated with watching the records spin around. Mostly 45s since they cost less and popular music was geared more towards “hits.” I guess the first songs on 45 I remember were by Elvis (my mom is a huge fan) “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by the Tokens, “The Bristol Stomp” by The Dovells, and various Chubby Checker dance 45’s. The first 45 I remember asking my mom to buy for me (other than kiddie records) was “Bossa Nova Baby” by Elvis.
From that console it was on to my older brother’s and sister’s portable players, of which I eventually got a “kiddie” version. I mostly remember my sister playing “ I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and various British Invasion 45s on these players. Then the next big step was my father bringing home a Webcore portable from my grandparents’ house. Also around the time I started playing drums, and I got a Decca (same as the record label) “stereo” system. It was pretty inexpensive and you would have to load the tone arm with coins to play records that skipped. This was the record player that I used to teach myself as much as I could about drums without taking lessons, and then in addition to lessons when I did start with a drum teacher. The Rolling Stones’ Through The Past, Darkly and various Creedence Clearwater Revival LPs and 45s saw a lot of play time on this unit.
Jumping ahead, I got a decent Pioneer system for Christmas of 1973. This was my system up until I moved in with my wife in 1986 and we merged record collections. She had a better, newer stereo than mine so that was my primary system unit about 3 years ago. Around that time I got involved with a group called Hi Res Audio Central and they supplied me with the best system I’ve ever had. I got it to start digitally archiving my collection in the best possible way. This project is a still a work in progress mostly due to time factors and I’m not a real technical guy. And I know, I prefer vinyl, why go digital? Simply put, the new technology does a pretty accurate job of reproducing the sound.
What this current system has reinforced in my preference for vinyl is how warm and lively the sound tends to be. Sure, CDs have lots of separation and no surface noise, but in my opinion some of them sound a bit lifeless and many sound just plain cold. I do like the new digital high-resolution versions that are out there now but then I would have to go and buy a lot of records over again. Some aren’t available in that format and there’s no label to watch spin around. I’ve always preferred vinyl and I think I always will.”
—Stan Demeski
The Feelies’ brand new release, In Between is in stores now via Bar None Records—on vinyl.
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PHOTO: JOHN BAUMGARTNER
