“I’ve been listening to music on vinyl for about seventeen years now.”
“Around 2005, whilst browsing the letters page in the local paper, I came across the title, ‘Does anyone remember the Mitchell Brothers?’ Curiously, I read on and learnt that a two-track, 78RPM had been found of my grandfather, Alexander Mitchell (other side of the tree to the Wasylyk’s) and his brother under the ingenious name of, ‘The Mitchell Bros’. It was the Fifties, after all. Apologies, Grandad.
Unearthed in an antiques market, the culprits were now wanted. The recording itself, which Alec and Dan cut in 1952/53 at Dundee’s Larg & Sons, would facilitate bookings at local pubs and clubs and, most notably, bring them a prestigious opening slot on tour with Scottish accordion heavyweight, Jimmy Shand.
At this point, rock’n’roll was still fermenting under Chuck’s Beret and apples merely fell from trees. No surprise then little or no photographic evidence exists of this period in my family’s story; for all a Dundonian had to survive on in those days was flax and marmalade, betwixt two pages of The Beano, you see. Never mind the luxury of a camera.
Instead, we’ve relied on Alec’s accounts through the years, which, would invariably induce murmurs of doubt in the young naysayers amongst us. Either way, this was a bizarre and exciting coincidence I had no choice but to pursue. I was eager to hear the tracks, of course; but also to corroborate my grandfather’s tales and clear his name as an ‘occasional fibber’.
Once the writer was contacted and the significance of the object in their possession explained, they were adamant I was to have the ‘heirloom’ and play it to my family immediately. Days later, there we were: aunts, uncles and cousins, grandchildren, like some weird A&R playback party, Alexander’s wry grin in tow.
The crackling, beat-up shellac spun and our grandfather’s days as an Entertainer, suddenly (finally) were tangible as those ‘lost’ moments came to life and The Mitchell Bros boomed from my Dansette to a room of toothy smiles. No sooner had the record finished when off Alexander went into a story with fresh gusto and grin.
Six years earlier, Matthew and I are ambling down the dreel, indiscriminately scoffing raspberries until we reached a shady place to pitch up with our Golden Virginia, cheap, dusty bottle of wine, his portable record player and an armful of Fairport’, Nick Drake, psychedelic comps, and anything else we could grab on our way out of his folk’s house in the Angus countryside.
In the back of our minds the niggling sense that this weather can’t, surely, won’t last. Having just left school, the days finally belonged to us. Returned to their rightful owners. We’d be dammed if we weren’t going to spend them sat in a field listening to Chris Bell sing ‘I Am The Cosmos,’ or the Clef’s of Lavender Hill’s ‘Stop – Get A Ticket,’ summer in the leaves rustling above. Those days were informative as they come. Our appetite for listing, only equalled by our enthusiasm to get to the bottom of all this newness and make our own (‘Kind Of’) music one day. Around that time we did indeed start writing ourselves some songs and, with them, the foundations for The Hazey Janes were laid.
Mid-September of this year, the doorbell presented me with a perspiring, disappointed-looking UPS man with, what I knew could only be boxes of my record, Soroky, fresh from the vinyl pressing plant. Before I knew it, I’d already barked an excited ‘Yes!’, to which Panting Delivery Man replied a frank and disapproving, ‘NO’. He had just carried five boxes of someone else’s sentiments up a flight of stairs. Fair enough. Apologetically, I went down to the van and helped unload the rest. It’s a peculiar feeling releasing a record. The excitement and satisfaction are paired with a certain apprehension and slight melancholic. Which, I suppose, is the very nature of something ‘released.’
This is a morsel (of a grain) of what I’m dithering around the point trying to get at here. For me, in many ways, vinyl represent a lot of things. I’ve no problem with the Digital Generation which I’m part of, and have no qualms with anyone throwing themselves around to their iTunes. I’ve read many wonderful, articulate, and poetic memories here from folk who’ve spoken of their ceremonial record buying afternoons: the bus journey to town, the Want List, the bolt home, digesting sleeve notes, the needle drop. Sitting, unaided by a screen and being consumed by a record in its entirely.
It’s important we hold on to the romantic optimism that’s wrapped up in making, buying, and listening to records, and that we keep it burning.”
—Andrew Wasylyk
Andrew Wasylyk’s Soroky is in stores now via Empty Words Records. On vinyl.
