“My first connection to vinyl was a Muppets record when I was five. It was the only time I got to use my dad’s record player. Shortly after, my brother and I started scratching the records, Run DMC-inspired. My dad eventually caught us and shut down our operation. I always had a reverence for records, the large physical aspect coupled with the fact that they were off limits was mystical to me.”
“I guess when you are young; you just listen to what your folks are playing around you.
My dad was in the Safaris when I was a kid, growing up in Southern California, and they use to rehearse in my garage, so I was always around surf music. I remember being influenced by The Mermen’s album Songs of the Cow. My mother’s father was a jazz musician from Sweden who played with Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Chet Baker. My grandmother gave me a couple of records, which was my introduction to jazz. His name was Rolf Ericson.
I’d like to release this upcoming EP on vinyl. There is still something so nostalgic about laying around a record player with albums strewn across the floor. I’d like to contribute to that.”
—Tom Pritchard
“My mother is a jazz singer/pianist, so there were always jazz records playing (unless my father was at the helm, channeling AM radio classical). But my first real memory of a record was Michael Jackson’s Thriller.“
“I’d sneak over to my neighbor’s house to watch the epic video, but when I was home, I’d play that record over and over, studying the double spread of Michael lounging with a tiger cub.
My mom use to run the annual ‘Cake Walk’ at our elementary school. She’d conduct the musical chairs and the last kid ‘sitting,’ took home the cake of their choice. So she’d bring her record player and piles of vinyl. One year, Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ came to a slow halt and as kids rushed for a chair and a chance at a cake, I noticed the record had melted right there, on the player in the hot Florida sun. I was 4 and I cried.
When I was in high school I got really into collecting 7-inches. I think my favorite was Archers of Loaf ‘Telepathic Traffic.’ Records that still stand out to me are Sebadoh’s Bubble and Scrape, Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs and both Synchronicity albums.”
—Emily Wilder
“I would listen to my parents’ Beach Boys record when I was four or so.”
“Looking at the album art always made me want to go surfing. I was living in Vermont but thinking of California girls. An album that influenced me was The Dukes of Statopshear. At the time, the albums were only available on vinyl…”
—Wyatt Glodell
