Buying vinyl
Yesterday, I mentioned that I’d set up a borrowed turntable. The next step, of course, was to buy some vinyl. I haven’t had a turntable of my own since I was a very small child and had a plastic, two-part turntable on which I played the hits from Disney films, so I needed to go out and start a collection. My brother kindly started me off by giving me the excellent album ‘Riot on an Empty Street’ by the Kings of Convenience on vinyl for my birthday. As a newly-recorded album, this was rich and detailed, and the warmth and presence of the medium showed off the delicate vocals and intricate acoustic guitar playing to their best advantage. This was an excellent start.
I headed out to Birmingham’s finest second-hand record shops in search of bargains. There are several good shops, which all have slightly different markets, but my favourite by far was [The Diskery][3], the very place where Steve Winwood used to buy American R&B albums. They have a huge selection in all kinds of genres, their stock seems to generally be in excellent condition, and they are very reasonably priced. After much shuffling through the £1 bin and ‘general rock’ sections, I came away with four discs for a grand total of £11. Another advantage of vinyl is that you can get a lot of music for your money if you stick to second-hand, non-collectable discs.
If you promise not to laugh, here are my choices:
[3]: http://uk.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?pc=B5%206QB&title=The%20Diskery&scale=25000 “Map showing the location of The Diskery”
- Kate Bush - The Kick Inside and Never For Ever. I have both of these albums on cassette, but as I don’t have a tape player anymore, I haven’t listened to them for years. That’s a great shame, as there’s some great material on these albums, as well as wonderful, bizarre artwork by Nick Price on ‘Never For Ever’.
- Japan - Quiet Life. I have fond memories of this album, but for some reason I’ve never bought a copy myself.
- Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon. An original 1973 pressing. What more do I need to say? It’s a classic album, and still sounds deeply innovative even today. I think that “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way” from ‘Time’ might get may vote for Best Song Lyric of All Time. In fact, the [entire lyrics][4] for ‘Time’ are pure genius and an excellent reminder that life is fleeting and mostly happens while you are waiting for it to start.
- Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band - Clear Spot. This was a special 180 gram vinyl pressing that I bought from another shop. I hadn’t heard this album and took a wild chance with it, as Beefheart creates—-in my experience—-either sheer musical genius or completely unlistenable noise. Happily, Clear Spot fell into the former category, with ‘Big Eyed Beans From Venus’, ‘Her Eyes are a Blue Million Miles’ and ‘Sun Zoom Spark’ as standout tracks.
So there it is. Having a turntable is encouraging me to seek out formerly beloved music from my adolescence, and to take risks on music I haven’t heard before. It has also reminded me that there are many different ways of listening to music. Using a turntable is quite labour-intensive, with the fussy ritual of cleaning the records, carefully positioning the stylus, and turning the record over half way through. I’m finding that this makes me actually sit down and just listen. With CDs—-or worse, with MP3s—-it’s so easy to just shove an album or two on and do something else, that you often find yourself doing something else with music as a background.
There’s nothing wrong with that of course, but sometimes it’s good to do the music proper justice and concentrate on it. You could do that with CD, but I find the the need for more attention to the equipment with vinyl enforces a different kind of listening environment. I’m not about to give up my CD player or iPod (in fact, I chose my CD player because it had a vinyl-like quality), but there’s also something intensely engaging about vinyl, even with a fairly budget turntable. Despite the occasional pop and crackle, with properly recorded material it just sounds more intensely alive than a digital player.
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Interesting choices, very eclectic.
Try charity shops, they occasionally have record bins, picked up a 10" LP of Gigli in one. I picked up a pristine Double LP of Tommy by the Who for £2 at my daughters school fete.
I bought my first LP in 1962 - Ray Charles Live in Atlanta, I still have it, though it's a little rough around the edges! Vinyl may slowly deteriorate with time, but digital either works or doesn't.----- One of my all time musical experiences was when I played the "Dark Side of the moon" album during sunset (over the desert) in my passenger bus as we travelled from the afghani-irani border to Herat (afghanistan) after leaving a revolution and very frightening Iran. Corny? yes. Culturally insensitive? Yes, perhaps. Hiar raisingly wonderful, beautiful and road movie perfect ? Oh yes!
by john(jc.) @ 04/04/2005 7:04 am • Permalink •
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Jonathon Briggs: My brother is always telling me about the bargains he gets from charity shops. They are often particularly good for barely used classical LPs. It's funny---I was just thinking the same thing about the ageing if vinyl and CDs yesterday when I was listening Dark Side of the Moon. I'm not at all confident that I will still be able to listen to my CDs in 20 or more years time.
john(j.c.): Oh, that sounds fabulous. Listening to Floyd is such a great experience even if you're just sitting in your living room---I can hardly bear to imagine how mind-blowing it must have been in a bus in the desert at sunset. Phew.
by bsag @ 04/04/2005 7:05 pm • Permalink •
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Japan: "Quiet Life". Best track? All Tomorrow's parties. Oh, my first musical love! I was a massive fan. Had pictures of Sylvian, Jansen et al all over the place. "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" was superb. These days I seem to be regressing into ambient noodling. I'm practically on the point of buying a Chapman Stick.
by jb @ 04/04/2005 8:04 pm • Permalink •
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jb: And belatedly Happy Birthday! All Tomorrow's Parties is my favourite track off that album too. I actually think it's better than the Velvet Underground/Nico original.
I have to ask; a what stick?
by bsag @ 04/04/2005 9:04 pm • Permalink •
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Dark Side is lovely in the new SACD remaster too, but I'm unconvinced by the 5.1 SACD mix. A little gimmicky really. Still, I have the Nautilus-tweeters (CDM 1 NT) so there's no lack of depth in stereo.
Interesting that you chose your CD player for its vinyl-like qualities. I did the same when I bought my Trichord Genesis years ago... Sadly that's dying now. Won't read cd-r - massive problem as I'm a producer and often wish to listen to 'em. What do you have, and would you recommend it?
by jim w @ 05/04/2005 1:05 am • Permalink •
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I never had you clocked for being a Don Van Vliet fan? Thought I was the only one.
I have a (very rare) vinyl copy of Bongo Fury (released for America's bi-centennial celebrations) where he 'duets' with the late, great Zappa. Much fun.
(Can supply a burned copy, if required? - e-mail post-restante address)
by Mr.D. @ 05/04/2005 10:05 am • Permalink •
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jim w: Mmmm... CDM 1 NT-licious... You have the Genesis? My brother had the Panasonic machine that it's based on, and that sounded really good. I've got a Rega Planet (the older model), and it really stood out against similarly priced competition at the time. It might sound a bit over-sweet if you have a very warm sounding amp, but with my Talk Storm it sounds the business. I haven't heard what the new version of the Planet sounds like, (or the Jupiter/IO transport/DAC combo), but I've seen good reviews of them.
My version is ribbed for extra listening pleasure...
Mr. D.: I like all kinds of music, but yes, I am a Beefheart fan. Just not the unlistenable stuff
Lucky you with your Bongo Fury. A copy would be brilliant if you don't mind. I'll send you an address. Thanks!
by bsag @ 05/04/2005 4:05 pm • Permalink •
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bsag: I'm sorry that I'm stuck using my universal player - a Pioneer DV-565A multi-region chipped - as it's a bit of a come down from the Genesis. It's nice to have a machine around that'll play all sorts of silver discs, but it's really not great for Red Book CD. Bright, in a word. Great DVD player though... .
What with using a Sony ES 555 cinema amp (better than you'd think, great for cinema, so-so really for audio geven the quality of the rest of the setup), and the extended high end of the (beautiful) B&Ws;, I really need a gentle CD player. At the moment the speakers are still sat on my credit card, together with several grands-worth of other papering over the cracks in my earnings of late, so new cd player or amp will need to wait.
You can't fault my enthusiasm though - I've not managed to pay off the B&Ws;over the last eighteen months, but I still eye up cd players and amps.
And of course I have my SACD collection. One Disc. Dark Side of The Moon, one of the first albums I ever owned, in about 1976. Those speakers were worth every penny.
by jim w @ 06/04/2005 2:04 am • Permalink •
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and no one was laughing, pretty good, or not?
by john(jc.) @ 06/04/2005 5:05 am • Permalink •
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jim w: Ah, the crack-like lure of high-end equipment... I know it well.
john(j.c.): Yes, you were all very well behaved and polite.
by bsag @ 06/04/2005 8:05 pm • Permalink •
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