“I grew up in a household with two parents, one sister, 5 cats, a Technics SL-D2 turntable (direct drive), a Sansui 2000x Amplifier, and an ungodly loud-sounding pair of Bose 901s.”
“It was less entertainment center than altar to music. On weekends my father would blast albums. The standards—Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin—being well represented. Some of my earliest memories consist of listening to The Doors’ self-titled debut.
He’d tell me about Vietnam—how this was a favorite album at the time. Heavy incense smoke in the room. “Break on Through (To the Other Side)” roaring full volume. It felt as if the world was ending; as if everything was shaking apart. How could this exist? I could anything this overwhelming exist?
I loved it.
We had a bookshelf packed with LPs. Before I could read, before I could do much else than cause trouble and be little, I’d stare at the album covers. Each one a glimpse of worlds filled with half-naked women, undecipherable symbols, animals, disasters, and near Biblical miracles. Ruling, above all, a race of seemingly wild, lawless men; demigods, kings, pirates, wizards, alchemists, criminals, saints, ghosts, and con-men. These were the artists. Maybe all this stimulation led me to pursue a career in music—I don’t know.
I’m not an overly sentimental person with regard to media—I’ll listen to a song I love on vinyl, tape, CD, Mp3, wax cylinder, whatever. It is, however, still a treat to put on an old LP.
Blows my mind thinking about how much great music was written, recorded, mixed, and mastered to meet the limitations of said format (and those of AM radio broadcasting, for that matter), and how hard people try (and fail) to recreate that sound.
It still sounds fucked up and magical to me.”
—JP Caballero
White Arrows’ sophomore album, In Bardo will hit store shelves this fall via Seattle record label Votiv.
