Sunday, June 08, 2014

Back to Vinyl.

I like it when little obsessions raise their head, and I'm in the throes of one at the moment. My mission? revisit the albums of my youth. I have a turntable in the kitchen (Well, two to be more accurate - a pair of 1210's).
So, I can play vinyl, and frequently do. Though I've got itunes match and spotify up the wazoo, there's something great about vinyl. However, this is where I deviate slightly from the purists. I like to play it. A lot. That means a pile of albums, next to the deck, getting a little dog-eared. Slap the album on, play it, throw it back in its sleeve. There's certainly no blind reverence for the format, no mention of "oh, it just sounds so much....warmer, you know?" I just like being surrounded by the totems of my youth, the stepping stones towards my musical awakening. So far, the pile includes "Dawn Of The Dickies" (I'm waiting for a copy of "The incredible Shrinking Dickies), at least four Floyd albums (including "Atom Heart Mother"), both Gloria Mundi albums, early Ultravox!, and The first Clash album. That last one was my first ever album, and is still the copy I bought over thirty five years ago. The rest? I'm collection copes off ebay, where needed. They have to be the original issues (so they look and feel the same way they always did), but  I'm not fussed about overall condition - after all, I'm normally replacing worn-out copies, and I just want them to be playable. So far - it's been a 99p mission - that seems to be the going rate for a lot of the albums I need. What a bargain. Right, I'm off to listen to "Secondhand Daylight".