I've reconnected with that old turntable/vinyl record love affair recently—a flame that faded years ago after the CD player and digital music made their debut in the late-80s. Like many, I fell for what the experts told us was a better, sexier audio format. I've never quite forgiven myself for parting with many of the vinyl records I'd accumulated over the years—plastic treasures wrought with gift money and hard-earned scratch from my after-school job. I spent most of my paycheck on gas for my '65 Dodge Polara and at a record shop near where I grew up in Fullerton, California.
We called them "records" back then (I still do). Vinyl had limited space, so you were forced to pause and turn the record over after side-one was finished. You'd always be careful to hold the record by its edge to avoid leaving fingerprints and scratches on the shiny surfaces. After carefully lowering the needle, the invisible dust particles would make popping-sounds while finding the groove, then you'd settle in for side-two.
The record jackets were usually filled with plenty of reading material, a hypnotic widow into the fantasy world of the musician's lives. Over the years, I began to recognize the names of the musicians who played on my favorite records, and soon learned to anticipate those players on other records with other artists. I connected the dots between record companies, song writers, artists, producers, players, engineers and recording studios.
Those on-the-floor, between-the-speakers listening sessions were magical, and I still seek the "wonder" those times would bring. Even though most of my favorite records were made in recording studios less than an hour from my home in Orange County, L.A. seemed like a million miles away. Many of the artists I admired lived minutes from the Sunset Strip, and played in places like the Troubadour, the Whisky A Go Go and The Roxy.
For over thirty years I've made my career in music. And although I started out in the mid- to late-70s with analog tape, I have mostly recorded in a pristine, digital world. It's impossible to innocently sit and listen to music like I used to—especially many of the records I grew up with from the 60s and 70s. It's hard to listen without picking everything apart; I'd hear the out-of-tune vocals and the shifting tempos—it's driven me a little crazy sometimes.
But recently, after my buddy Kevin Shaw hooked me up with an old-school turntable, receiver and a couple of speakers, I coaxed what was left of my vinyl record collection out of retirement. Placing the needle on one of those discs, it all came back to me: the wonder, the pops, the warmth, the imperfections, the simplicity of a stereo image on two full-range speakers, and the beauty of analog. I've rediscovered that vinyl records rule!
Heh. I waited 10 years to even get my first CDs and CD player. I guess I was waiting for the technology to mature. I never did dump my vinyl. In fact, I spent most of today and a lot of yesterday converting LPs to digital, preparing to put them on my MP3 player. It's more fun to listen to them through speakers that fill the room with sound, but I can more easily listen to them at work and in the car if they're on my MP3 player. A lot of my favorite LPs have never been released on CD. I am grateful to be able to still listen to them, either on a turntable (while concentrating on the listening experience) or on MP3 (while doing other things).
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