'Why vinyl?"
Some understand it instantly better than most, but those people are usually the ones who also have IKEA shelves full of records themselves. Others who I don't meet via the usual music related channels marvel at the novelty and eventually, while sitting with me at my place, watching me get up for the tenth time to flip a record over end up asking "so, why vinyl?"
I was thinking about this today while I was flipping through bin after bin of musty, old records at the Central Canada Record Sale - a small group of vendors selling their wares for a few hours on a cold, wet and snowy Sunday in Winnipeg. What is it about vinyl?
It's easy to tell you why NOT vinyl. It's inconvenient. Have you ever had to carry a milk crate full of records to and from a gig, a sale, a party or even just to a different room in your house? Records are fucking heavy. There are many a time I have come home at two or three in the morning from a gig, grunting and cursing under my breath as I lug a nights worth of vinyl back to my apartment. I have, hand over heart, stayed longer in a shitty apartment because the thought of moving all those records to a new place seemed like the most daunting task ever.
It's not cheap, either. The further you go down the vinyl rabbit hole, the more money you are willing to and find yourself spending on things. When your collection starts to expand and you can no longer find the records you are looking for in the one, two, or three dollar bins, the shit gets real. Soon you justify spending five dollars on a record. Next, ten dollar seems completely reasonable for that one record you've been itching to get. Before you know it, shelling out over $100 for an original Blue Note actually starts to sound like a logical thing to do (note: I to date have not done this yet, but I am starting to come around to that way of thinking, and it scares me).
Vinyl can be annoying. How frustrating is it to be sitting on your sofa with someone, sharing a glass of wine and have a great conversation, only to have to put that conversation on pause to get up and turn over the record when side A is over? Or worse yet, you have that person you have been lusting over a bit in your house, all night moving closer and closer to each other on the sofa when suddenly you are touching, smiling and you finally build up to courage to kiss them....and the record ends and all you can hear is the SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH of the needle caught in the never ending out-groove loop?
Maintenance? I'm sorry, but my ideal way to spend a Sunday afternoon is listening to records, not carefully cleaning and drying them. I hate the upkeep. You have to be careful how your store your records, and don't get me started on equipment. Buying turntables and cartridges can quickly snowball to the point where you are scraping and saving to get that new Techniques turntable and the best possible needles for it.
So, really, what is it about vinyl?
I think I find this such a hard question as I really can't put it into words. Right now I'm sitting at my desk with warm tea, and I've got Let's Stay Together by Al Green on the turntable and it's just bloody brilliant. The sound isn't perfect - there is a grit and a depth to the grooves on this record that is so drenched in history. This isn't a new record. Someone bought this album back in 1972, took it home and put it on their turntable and listened to it from beginning to end. They played it multiple times after that. Then it got passed on to someone else, sold to another person, stolen by another, gifted to someone else, until I found it for $15 dollars in that bin, mixed between records by Aretha Franklin and Toto. Then I, like all those before me, took it home, put it on my turntable and got lost in the music.
I love how every time I put on this record, every time I play it, that it will sound different. The pops and hisses will morph. In that regard, vinyl can be this living and breathing thing that grows and ages as we do. This record by Al Green, while still at its core is the same record that was first played in 1972 sounds so different today then it back then.
I don't care how hip it now is to collect vinyl. I don't give two shits that Urban Outfitters have made buying turntables and records the cool thing. What you can't commercialize is this moment I'm having right now with Al Green. I hear years of love in those grooves. I don't want perfect, crystal clear sound. I am in love with the history, the tangibility of it all. I do Punks in Parkas because I love to share the music - I want people to be exposed to all these wonderful sounds. I collect vinyl because I, quite simply, love it. I love how I buy a record for one song and suddenly, I discover three other tracks that I never knew existed that have quickly become my favorites. I love the community and the fact that there is a group of people who share this passion for music - of all kinds. I love the shared knowledge, the discovery and the fact that, as silly as it may sound, the guys in this community have never ever once made me feel less than them because I a female and, by nature, a minority in this crazy, underground world.
Somethings we just are drawn to and love for reasons we can't completely explain to those who don't share the same passion. We can try as hard as we can to put it into words, but just fall short. I'll laugh through the pain of carting records around, of spending afternoons over my kitchen sink cleaning dust out of grooves and I'll smile inwardly as I get up again to flip the record over, because now I have another 20 or so minutes to build up the courage to kiss that person on my sofa again...
Viva la Vinyl...
Love,
Penny xx
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