Just Like Old Times

Greetings.

Tonight I did something that I have not done in at least seven years.  I sat alone in my apartment, lit several candles and a stick of incense, turned off all the other lights, and I listened to vinyl.  To be clear, I was not high, drunk, or otherwise inebriated.  I simply sat and listened to an album, (literally) front to back.

When I first moved in with my ex-wife seven years ago, one of the things that I gave up was my vintage Lloyds stereo system, complete with turntable, AM/FM radio, and a dual 8-track tape deck.  I was moving into an apartment in which the system just didn't fit - literally and figuratively.  I loved that stereo system, but I made the decision to part with it, and most of my vinyl collection in exchange for a different life to the one I had been living.  Please do not misunderstand.  I am not blaming my ex-wife for the dissolution of my involvement with record collecting.  I got rid of it myself and, though I wasn't necessarily happy about it, I was willing to do it.  That's on me.  I kept my most prized albums - all of my Pink Floyd and Iron Maiden records, a few Guns N' Roses albums, and a couple of others - thinking that maybe I would be able to have a record player again someday and get back into collecting records when it was appropriate.  Now that I'm divorced and living on my own again, I think it's high time I started collecting records again.

I discovered the beauty of vinyl in high school and began collecting records then.  I loved the experience of going into record stores and finding a rare album that I'd been searching for or stumbling across something unexpected to add to my collection.  This was the mid-90's and vinyl was just starting to make a huge comeback.  Consequently there were several record stores in town and I pillaged them all to build up my collection very quickly.  My favorite store back then was Amber's Records in the Spokane Valley.  It was close to home, and I became friends with the owner.  He and I would talk all the time about records and all kinds of other stuff.  He knew which bands I was really into and he would call me whenever he got some good finds in.  I worked at a guitar shop at the time and I usually didn't get off of work until after he closed, but he would stick around the shop and let me in after hours to pick up records that I'd ordered.  I sometimes came to his store on the weekends and did work for him in exchange for records.  I was really into collecting as much as I could in those days.  I had all kinds of classic rock, heavy metal, grunge, and old country records.  Everything from Alice in Chains to Willie Nelson.

When I talk about records with most people nowadays, it seems like it's kind of a punchline to them.  I think most people just don't understand the experience of listening to vinyl.  The digital age has made accessing huge music libraries easier than ever before, and, for most people, listening to music is kind of an afterthought - something they put on in the background while they're driving, or working, or cleaning the house.  I am just as guilty of that as anyone else, I suppose, but that's where the beauty of vinyl comes in.  It's a very deliberate thing.  It's not remote control, and it's anything but portable.  You have to go to the shelf, select the record you want, pull it out of the jacket, blow it off, set it on the turntable, set the needle, and close the cover.  When you're done with that, you should probably sit down, because if you move around a lot, you might make the record skip.  Furthermore, halfway through the album, you have to get up and turn the record over.  Vinyl is for people who really want to listen to the music it contains.  It's anything but an afterthought.

The turntable I have now is a 1980's model hooked up to a thrift-store Fisher stereo system with a phono input.  I just got it working correctly tonight.  I tested it out with Iron Maiden's Killers album.  That album is an album that definitely sounds best on vinyl.  I still have twelve Maiden albums and three Pink Floyd albums from my old collection, and I picked up a couple of new albums - Metallica's Master of Puppets and Motley Crüe's Dr. Feelgood - on clearance recently.  Tonight's full album ceremony, however, was a record I scored at a local show last night.  The show was a cd release party for a friend of mine, and one of her opening acts was a beautiful woman named Hailey from a local band called Trickster Fox.  I had never heard of her or her band, but when she took the stage and started singing I was instantly impressed.  I told my buddy, Jason, that I liked what I heard, and he ribbed at me that I just had the hots for her.  "Well, yeah," I joked back, "but I wouldn't have the hots for her if her voice wasn't amazing."  When Hailey finished her set, I approached her about getting a cd.  We walked back to her merchandise table where I noticed that she had vinyl copies for sale as well.  I couldn't resist.  She told me that the record was of her full band and that it was very moody psychedelic stuff.  She suggested what I was already planning, which was to light a couple of candles, burn some incense, and listen to it with the lights off.  I was perfectly satisfied when I did so tonight.  She and her band are very talented and their music made a perfect first-playing for my new turntable setup.

Life is hectic and fast paced now, and I know I can't go back to the days when I had little else to do but hang around the record stores, but I'm really looking forward to collecting records when I can.  There's not much in the world that relaxes me and restores me like listening to great albums on vinyl.

I am the Reverend Humpy and I have approved this message.