The Indiana Music Archive and Online Community
Vinyl & Me
I discovered music via my parents collection, as many kids do.
First up were Elvis and The Beatles. I played these records to death. "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" was the most amazing thing my 7 year old mind could imagine- I couldn't understand how they made those amazing sounds. Elvis sounded like magic. I got in trouble for inviting a neighbor girl over to listen to Elvis when my parents weren't home.
(leaving a kid home alone at 7-8, probably wouldn't happen these days!)
I bought a CD player in 1985/6. My Dad thought I was crazy. I'd saved up all this money cutting lawns and I was blowing it on some unproven technology.
It's already getting hard to remember the early days of CDs. Big cardboard boxes, limited titles, expensive players.
My first CD was "War" by U2. I was such a huge U2 fan. I still have a soft spot for them, first love stuff. They were the door that lead from my Christian rock upbringing to "Alternative" music. It was a short hop from U2 to the Cure, The Smiths, REM...
I brought home the CD player and put in the U2 CD. It sounded good, really good. Within a year my Dad was trying to buy the CD player from me since I was often keeping it in my room. Records sounded noisy, they were so big, you had to flip them, needles wore out. CDs just seemed like an obvious improvement.
So I was an early adopter and evangelist for the format. I had friends over to listen to CDs, talked about how much better they were, on and on.
In college I started to take note of vinyl again. I noticed that some bands were putting out 7" records. My roommate and friend Finn had a decent record player and he would sometimes pull out old Traffic or Steely Dan records. I spearheaded a roommate trip to Memphis with a not-so-secret agenda to track down the original Big Star albums, success! So I thought records sounded fine but I wasn't ready to jump ship entirely.
The switch came when I moved to Chicago. There was a really good thrift store nearby- Unique Thrift- where you could find early 70s Neil Young (including "On The Beach" pictured above) and other classics that are now in short supply. Also, I had PJ Christie as a roommate. Apparently PJ was never completely taken in by the CD thing. He had lots of great records lying around including The Meat Puppets, Jayhawks, CCR and many more.
During my stay in the Chicago ballroom (LaZona) I had two albums records which I played constantly- "Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac and "Exile On Main Street" by the Stones. That's when I got it.
I'd heard the albums as CDs but they didn't make nearly as much sense. The record sides had composition. The sound was warm and rich. The artwork drew out new meanings from the music. It was an interactive experience.
Soon it was hard to drive by a thrift store without dropping in to check out their records. Every thrift store has records, it's a beautiful and frustrating thing since they are mostly junk. It's like gambling, you hit the jack pocket once or twice and you're hooked.
So my habit was fairly under control but then I had the opportunity to by a large 10,000 piece collection. I was starting my first business (Stuffe) and Jason Yoder was my business partner while we both still worked full time jobs. We were buying and selling stuff on eBay. This is around 2000.
I borrowed the money from my Dad and bought the collection. It was crazy. So many records. We really didn't even know what we had for a while. Beyond an amazing collection of early and rare Pink Floyd it had a robust A-Z of classic rock along with a ton of goodies including a Beatles 2nd state Butcher. I was awash in vinyl.
You can draw a pretty straight line from that collection to Indiana45s.com which Jason started up a few years later and MFT which is of course this thing here. That collection turned the both of us into complete vinyl idiots. It was the "gateway drug" to our mutual interest in archiving Indiana music. Ironically I probably only have 40-50 pieces in my current collection left over from that time. We had to pay the bills so we sold most of the collection on eBay at prices that now make me kinda ill.
Through the years I've bought and sold large and small collections. I've had some amazing records and unfortunately had to sell most of them since they were too valuable to keep. My thinking is that if the record is worth more than $100 I should probably sell it. There are some exceptions, not many.
It's funny, all the stuff that bugged me about records as a kid are now part of what attracts me now. I love the limitations of vinyl. The sequencing of sides. The large gatefolds. The detailed artwork. The rich, warm sound and feeling that I can almost touch the sound. I even love the pops and cracks. I know that no other pressing sounds exactly the same. Each record carries and plays its unique history. Each listen is a little different.
Vinyl is imperfect. It is a flawed product. As the grooves go in towards the center the fidelity is reduced creating compression and sometimes loss of frequencies- basically it starts to sound like a 45. Bands knew this and I think that is why you often hear quieter/slower songs at the end of sides since they have less distortion. This is also why so many new records are pressed on two LPs (modern albums are not as much sequenced or recorded with the format in mind).
There are so many things that can go wrong with vinyl. A perfectly pressed record is a rare and beautiful thing. I love that. Perfection is boring. Music isn't meant to be perfect or sterile. Anyone that has recorded music knows that there is certain magic that happens when sounds blur and the medium becomes the instrument. A record is an instrument.
I'm not oblivious to the irony that MFT is built around a digital archive. I think digital has its place. Obviously there could be no such thing as a web based analog archive. If someone can figure that out, let me know. I'm a big fan of digital for the car, mobile devices and other lo to mid fi situations. Digital is a good transactional way to consume music. But I feel strongly, if you want an experience- buy the record.
(record played during writing this blog: Gene Clark "White Light")
Comment
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Comment by Jeb Banner on March 16, 2010 at 11:14pm - Eric, that is an awesome story! Thanks for sharing, hate to hear about the dog and vinyl destruction. I guess that's part of the appeal of vinyl though, it's not an virtual thing.
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Comment by Eric Himes on March 14, 2010 at 2:04pm -
That's funny Jeb, my first CD was War, which I still have after many dozens of roommates, moves, etc. since leaving for college in '91. My older brother was finishing college at IU around the time I discovered CDs and came home with a CD from that Irish band called A House called On Our Big Fat Merry-Go-Round. A complete digital recording from source to finish. None of that "annoying tape hiss" that would come through on CDs labeled "ADD" on the back. The Housemartins did the same thing with an all-digital recording. It's almost unlistenable for me today. I started buying vinyl as a sophomore at IU and started getting into things like layout, artwork, "first song on side 2", etc.
A band mate of mine combs through estate sales here in Seattle for 45s, 33s, and 78s and nabbed a 500-piece collection in near mint condition, mostly 45s and 78s. He paid around $400 for the lot, and made it all back selling 3 Elvis singles in mint condition. He sort of got me into keeping an eye out for the rare, cool 78.
One day a few years ago, my German Shepard got a case of separation anxiety in my garage-turned-into-studio-apartment. He trounced on the shelf where the vinyl was stored trying to get to the window, and in the course of that, he turned on the base-board heater directly below the vinyl. Some of the records that didn't break, melted instead while I was at work...I lost some good ones, but it could have been worse ("...aw shit! NOT Bee Thousand!!". If that had happened to CDs, there'd be no story.
All of my vinyl listening takes place on a 1962 Schaub-Lorenz stereo console my parents brought with them from Germany. It's all vacuum tube, and I had the amplifier/receiver completely restored by a guy in Connecticut (oldradiodoc.com). The built-in turntable even has a "16" speed setting. It's not super loud, but it sounds sugar-sweet.
I listened to XTC's Skylarking the other day, and there's things you hear on that LP that just don't reveal themselves on CD. Anyway, I like my Ipod, but I'm a sworn defender Vinyl.
Happy hunting,
Eric
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Comment by Todd Cravens on February 16, 2010 at 10:50pm -
some of you have probably read/heard that funny quote from the drummer of can. to paraphrase, he has a free jazz background and basically concluded that, if free jazz players (or at least the ones he was playing with at the time) frowned upon repetition, then it wasn't really "free" because it's not all-inclusive. then he joined can or whatever.
"halleluhwah" on tago mago blows my mind everytime.
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Comment by drew d. on February 16, 2010 at 2:41pm -
haha...yes! we had that one, too. somehow, the only one still in my possessions is Bullfrogs & Butterflies.
and Tago Mago sounds GREAT on LP. drums sound super...the overall atmosphere of the record is a bit more immediate, rough...
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Comment by Todd Cravens on February 15, 2010 at 9:47pm
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vinyl is a niche, but i think it's the ultimate listening experience if it's a nice slab and you have decent gear. plus, it retains its value fairly well.
plus, it seems like almost everything is being reissued on audiophile vinyl in limited pressings (or eventually will be - still waiting on the butthole surfers catalogue). i tend to go that route anymore. 99% of the time they sound way better and become collectable much more quickly because they are limited. a lot of the '70s and '80s pressings are crap, and i actually listen to my records as opposed to merely being a collector. in fact, if i have something from the'60s-'80s that is collectable, i usually sell it if there's a reputable audiophile RI of it. there are exceptions, obviously.
my favorite indie right now is bang! records out of spain. they specialize in reissues of (mostly) australian releases (the scientists, beasts of bourbon, ian rilen, etc.), but they also issue new stuff (the drones, dimi dero, james mccann), and it's always great packaging and sound quality. in fact, most of my favorite music is coming out of australia and europe these days. bang! has a distributor in the US now, which is easy on the wallet.
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Comment by Jeb Banner on February 15, 2010 at 6:47pm
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Drew, I totally grew up with that album too- The Music Machine- remember that one?
That Tago Mago LP looks really nice. Can put out some great records. I have a later pressing with another cover.
I love the Where You Been album. I just got a 180 gram pressing recently and it is one of the best sounding albums I own. The guitars and drums are just unreal.
thanks for sharing your story.
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Comment by drew d. on February 15, 2010 at 5:43pm
- woops....sorry my pictures were so big. forgot to edit the sizes down.
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Comment by drew d. on February 15, 2010 at 5:42pm
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nice post, jeb. especially, "if you want an experience- buy the record." from opening a gatefold record for the first time after buying, to figuring out how best to get an LP back into a sleeve back into the case...
my vinyl history (a little shorter....i'm only 26):
the first song i can remember hearing and loving was the Beach Boys "I Get Around". this was on cassette, driving down to florida with my parents & 3 siblings in a white oldsmobile. we had an old panasonic system, with nice speakers and headphones, and a separate turntable (probably also panasonic---though this disappeared well before i was really interested in music). between the speakers were probably 150 records. i remember particularly well looking at the trippy art of a Gaither Family record for kids called "Bullfrogs & Butterflies":
i also remember the tri-fold Woodstock Live LPs, and looking at the shirtless masses of humanity inside, and of course the necessary copy of "Thriller". after my younger brother (and the last of 4 kids) was born, i think the collection began to dwindle. my sister left for college a couple years later, and though my parents used to have a somewhat extensive collection of Beatles, Roy Orbison, etc.; most was gone by the time I started paying attention again around the age of 13. Recently, I asked my Mom if they were thrown away, sold, given to someone...and neither her or my Dad could remember. Not that I blame them....3 boys and a college student in a working class family, I can understand the loss of some brain cells. :)
My older brother had a decent Sony shelf system with a pocket-style single CD player, dual tape decks, and turntable on top. More than a few times, I remember sneaking into his incense-heavy chamber of a bedroom, plugging in headphones, and listening to whatever was on the stereo at the time. I don't think I was brave enough to change the music for fear of being caught. This was probably around age 9 or 10... The album cover I remember looking at countless times, and maybe even having bad dreams about, was Dinosaur Jr.'s "Where You Been".
Eventually, he passed his stereo on to me, where I perched it on top of a bookcase at the age of 14, just starting to really get into music (mostly terrible punk/pop-punk at the time...but I digress). Somehow, the little round 45 adaptor was not lost from the turntable, and I began buying 7" through mailorder, maybe once or twice at the Karma in Kokomo (before it sold 75% of its collection; turned into a headshop; then eventually got raided for dealing in paraphernalia...). In high school, me and a friend (and later bandmate) got really into this post-punk band called Frodus. Went as far as hunting down (on the internets!) a former bass player, who mailed us a cassette of their then-shelved final record. I thought this was awesome----even though 99% of my school was only listening to radio hip-hop or Dave Matthews Band (a town full of factory-rich rednecks....what can you do). During junior high & high school, I also made it down to Louisville quite a bit, where my sister & brother-in-law lived. Discovered Ear X-Tacy and the joy of buying used. Remember finding some cool marbled Frodus 7-inches....which I listened to countless times, destroying what little fidelity they had on the shelf system.
At some point during high school, Frodus and some Mogwai records my brother dropped on me while visiting put my ear to the ground, and I became record-obsessed. Saved all the money I made refereeing soccer games and working wherever else; to spend most of it at Ear X-Tacy. Acquiring the Don Caballero back-catalog was probably my biggest achievement at the age of 18. (I'll still defend "American Don" as a really great record). The shelf system broke, and I stopped acquiring vinyl until, while working in college radio at Ball State, the station decided to get rid of their turntable: a Numark TT1510. I bought it off of them for $20.....not too bad, since it was basically unused.
Soon after, good friend & bandmate & all-around-awesome-dude Jared Cheek opened Village Green Records in Muncie. While working on campus, I tried to buy an LP a week to help pay his rent and keep an awesome establishment open. Though Jared has moved on, the store is still alive & kickin', thanks to Travis Harvey. It also looks totally sweet:
After bouncing around some part-time jobs (including at the final remaining Tracks in Bloomington; any other Tracks alumni here?) & trying to play music full-time, I ended up with a full-time job in Indianapolis, which has returned me to the peak of record collecting. Though last year I swore to only purchase vinyl, all the great new re-issues and crate-digging comps, along with cheap, excellent used CDs at Landlocked in Bloomington, Reckless Records in Chicago, and elsewhere prompted me to break my promise. Still, nothing beats finding a great record for a good price, a limited-edition/tour-only piece used, or opening a gatefold record you've never seen before......mmm. Just last night, my girlfriend's Dad brought over one of my favorite records ever, an original pressing of CAN's "Tago Mago". I swear my heart skipped a beat. Even with the decline of the record industry as we know it (something that as a "musical artist" who's never made a penny....doesn't bother me as much as it used to)...I don't think records are going anywhere. You just don't have to work as hard anymore to collect them!
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Comment by FinnSwingley on February 14, 2010 at 6:13pm -
Jeb, even though you and Jason didn't know what you were doing when you bought that record collection, it sure was fun going through it. I still have a few albums I got from helping you guys move it. The best thing in that collection were the numerous different copies of most of the Floyd records. I love that "More", "Meddle" and "Obscured by Clouds" have so many slight variations on the covers.
Right now I'm listening to St. Vincent's new record, which sounds spectacular on vinyl. This really is a golden age for vinyl lovers, even if the market is getting somewhat swamped.
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Comment by Michael Eugene Henry on February 14, 2010 at 3:27pm -
Regarding Japonize Elephants,
They have had a page for awhile, alas, no tunes yet.
Here doggy!
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