Vinylpalooza

I really know better than to go to something like this, but I behaved. There’s a first time for everything!

A year ago, or really less than a year ago, I was given an album. That’s right, an original in the plastic, National Velvet from 1986. It was given to me by their original drummer. Quite a nice gift, except for one problem. It was 2014 and I hadn’t owned a record player in better than a decade.

Hello shop.ca! I ordered a relatively inexpensive one (to see if I liked this), which was delivered right to my door. I may, or may not have, slipped up the stairs like a teenager with a bag of weed, slinking into my room, albeit with a huge box.

So I had one album to listen to. Depressing. Not long after, the bestie and I drove to visit my daughter who was away at school. My daughter’s little apartment just happened to be located directly above a music store. Trouble.

It’s an old city, with lots of creative types (I went to school there too). Up and down the block we walked, stopping in all the old music shops. Used records, everywhere. I had to stop at the bank in between to reload the wallet.

In one shop I picked up Fleetwood Mac, Michael Jackson, AC/DC, Elvis and a couple other National Velvet albums (amongst others). I was standing in line waiting to cash out, giggling. I was just tickled (not literally, just really happy about what I found). The scary looking dude behind me said it was a pretty cool assortment.

We had gone through the 50 cent bin, where I found this little treasure.

There’s nothing quite like putting this on, closing the windows and turning out the lights. You can imagine what it was like to be there in the audience. Recorded live, New Year’s Eve 1969/70. How awesome is that?!

I’ve made nice with the owner of the local record store, BJ’s Records. Never a scratch on the things he sells, he’s very particular. One of the guys who works there educated me on how to clean the albums I buy, and how to be picky about what I spend my money on.

The collection is growing. A very dear old friend gave me a box of her mother’s old albums. I may now actually own every Elvis record he put out, all in mint condition. I’ll think of Rita every time I listen to them.

I pretty much cleaned out this one vendor who was in town for Kempenfest. He said no one really wants records, and he was happy that I had such an eclectic taste in music. I still have to pay his store a visit.

Sure there are drawbacks to listening to records. You have to actually get up to listen to the second side, and you can’t listen to just one song (or the entire thing) on loop when you’re depressed. Even so, I’m not the only one with this “new” passion. The trend is catching on. A friend on Facebook posted this article, and it seemed very timely –> Vinyl Sales Do Better.

Now I just need someone to give me a whole bunch of milk crates to store them all in…