“Hi there, I’m Huw the drummer with Rag Foundation.”
“My first experience with vinyl was as a child playing my parents’ and sisters’ records whilst simultaneously recording my own “radio show” on my parents’ Fidelity tape to tape recorder. “Love Me Do” EP, “She Wears My Ring” by Solomon King, “Last Train to Clarksville” by the Monkees, I always remember these songs from that experience. There is something about the tactile nature of vinyl that stays in the memory. I feel that the MP3 generation will have a similar feeling about CDs. Man, get them on the vinyl.
Then punk arrived. And so did my purchasing of lots of vinyl! 7” singles, 12” singles, albums, 10” EPs, you name it. It was great checking the back of the music press for all the small mail order record shops. I bought “Teenage Kicks” on the Belfast Good Vibrations label directly from the shop in Belfast in 1978 via mail order. The Undertones then signed to Sire and had a huge hit. We had picture sleeves, picture vinyl, gatefold sleeves, double albums. I also bought Rumours by Fleetwood Mac—a band that our forthcoming album, The Sparrow and the Thief has been likened to—and still love it to this day. I only told my closest friends that I had bought this as it wasn’t very punk! But I just loved music.
In those days it was all on vinyl except some minor releases on cassette tape. This was substantial, you could spend the length of the album reading about it from the liner notes and inserts. You got a real feeling of who recorded the music, why, and how. We are releasing our album digitally due to financial constraints, but hopefully can re-release it on vinyl next year. Meanwhile…
My record player broke in 1995 and I bought a CD player. I replaced about 50% of my albums with the CD versions and that was it until about three years ago, when rearranging the house I came across my vinyl collection—not very big, about 150 albums and about 300 singles.
This spurred me into action and I found a wonderful 1969 Hacker Gondelier GP42 valve record player.
This was called the Rolls Royce of players in 1969! The guy I bought off for a mere £30 ($45) also included 400 7” singles from ’50s/ ’60s/ ’70s and early ’80s, all labelled and indexed! I had some real fun late nights for about 2 weeks—my wife really loved that, even took videos on my phone of records playing. A love affair with music reproduction.
Since then I’ve been buying vinyl, still buy the odd CD when I can’t get hold of the vinyl, and unlike a good friend of mine, I’m not prepared to pay £1000 for a rare 7”! Latest purchases, 20 Years of Bloodshot Records on triple red vinyl, Girl From the Neck Down by Suzi Chunk, both are on lovely 180 gram vinyl.
I’m very happy that the vinyl resurrection is fully underway. Long may it continue. Friends of mine have previously commented on how better songs sound on my nice CD system than the Mp3s they listen to via streaming. I can’t wait to play them my vinyl collection.
Vive disques vinyles!”
—Huw Rees, drums
Rag Foundation’s latest single, “Run” is available now via Rhondda Street Studio Recordings. The band’s fourth album, The Sparrow and The Thief arrives in stores later this year.
