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Adventures in record collecting

Photo by Jon Walder

I am a child of the 1990s. I grew up in the age of stonewash denim, bad mullet haircuts, cassettes filled with songs taped off the radio. I was raised in a series of small Australian towns, and later, a medium sized town, just enough to make me crave something else. But I was born in a metropolis, Sydney, with its bright lights and tall buildings and beautiful, obscenely beautiful beaches. I have early memories of sand and surf and getting dunked in the waves. I have early memories of mosquitoes and magpies and eucalyptus trees. My young ears fell in love with city sounds: birds versus cars, waves versus tourists, matches versus cigarettes.

My first memories of music are dreamscapes, nothing in particular. My parents had records of course, and we always listened to the radio in the car. But I didn’t grow up in a musical family. My parents had a small selection of moderately scratched LPs they had bought new when they were in college in 1970s, which were then lugged around from house to house for two decades or so, until a family friend gifted me a no-longer-needed budget turntable in 1995 or thereabouts, and the albums became mine.

And so, my first loves on vinyl were all straight from my mum and dad’s collection:

David Bowie - Pin Ups
Linda Ronstadt - Living in the USA
Bryan Ferry - Let’s Stick Together

Was this was a good place for me, a teen enthusiast, to start?

I don’t really know. It feels like asking if I like the taste of water. Listening to those albums, alone in my teenage bedroom, I felt, for the first time, that I was being given permission to dream of something other than life in the ‘burbs.

Up until this point in my life, most of my music collection had been taped off the radio. By comparison, the records, though out-of-step with the latest tech (it was the golden era of compact discs, which I didn’t yet have the money for) felt vaguely glamourous. I’d thumb the battered sleeves and read the liner notes, marveling at the outrageous outfits of the singers. Bowie with his bright red hair, his blue eyeshadow, singing sweetly, suggestively:

“With your long blonde hair, I couldn’t sleep last night…”

Ronstadt in her roller skates, belting:

“Don't it make you want to rock and roll /All night long…”

Ferry, decadent, white-suited, deluxe and delightful, crooning:

“Casanova /Is that your name /Or do you live there?”

At this particular moment in music culture, almost nothing new was available on vinyl. But I was able to learn, mostly through sifting through the bins at local charity shops, the art of crate digging, which gave me a glimpse into what was mostly albums of the 1960s and 1970s. And, sure enough, I became hooked. I was an enthusiastic, music loving kid on a budget. Second-hand records were a cheap thrill, and like any good thrifter with a romantic disposition, I found something quite addictive in the pursuit of other people’s discarded albums.

Were they abandoned due to lack of love? Was it simply because of tech upgrades? Were they in good condition? Or were they, like my parent’s records, played to death at parties, almost treated like ashtrays, full of age and texture and sometimes unplayable flaws? Whatever the origin story of the album was, the fact that I had found it, or that it had found me, always felt a little bit like fate.

Fast-forward to the present day, I have lived through enough changes in music technology to feel positively ancient. I listen on a lot of formats. I’m no purist. But I am still a lover of records. In part, this is because of nostalgia, of course. But there is also a part of me that enjoys the way listening to music on vinyl feels luxurious. Sitting down in front of my LPs, deciding what to play, taking it out of the sleeve, putting it on the record deck, dropping the needle, it’s a sensual experience. It’s tactile pleasure. It’s sacred.

Lately, I’ve been on tour and traveling a lot, which doesn’t give me the chance to play many records. But… stars of joy! It does give me the opportunity to visit a lot of record shops. Recently, I picked up Leonard Cohen’s Songs of Love and Hate and New Skin for the Old Ceremony in Toronto at Rotate This, Sandy Denny The Early Home Recordings at Arroyo Records in Los Angeles, and Alan Sparhawk with Trampled By Turtles at Record Breakers in Chicago.

Is this a deeply impractical thing to do? Sure! My suitcase is always on the heavy side. But my heart is always full.