Dancing About Architecture, Vol. XIII

Vol. XIII

Tonight’s Episode: Vinyl is Better, Part I

February 21, 2008

Those of you who know me, which is likely all of you, know of my love affair with vinyl recordings. The home collection is just over 600 (12”, plus a handful of 45s) and always growing, although in spurts. This love affair stems from such a deep-rooted part of me that I can barely scratch (ha!) the surface of how this affectation fits into my overall sense of self. Since this is not my diary, I will not ask you to care. Suffice it to say that growing up in my grandfather’s record store (an official Rhode Island state landmark in Providence, though defunct since ’88) set my pulse to 33 1/3 rpm probably forever. That’s right, my blood spins.

It’s not that I dislike other forms of music media. I also have a ton of CDs and, like everyone else, a big dusty pile of old cassettes. I’m just as likely to buy music on a CD as on a record. Well, almost as likely, and I’ve come here today to tell you one of the reasons vinyl is (usually) better:

You can buy 21 records for $21.

Obviously, I just made this happen. Last weekend I walked up to the tiny public library for their monthly book sale, and in addition to an armful of books for a total of $5, I carried home 21 records sold for $1 each. The lady didn’t even count them, so I could have lied and gotten them for $18, but I was good. So now, er, make it two reasons:

There are innumerable recordings on vinyl which are not now, and may never be, converted to digital format.

I call these special finds “needles”. You gotta flip through a LOT of Bette Midler, Dan Fogelberg, Al Hirt, “A Peoria Christmas with the Peoria Children’s Choir” and the like to get to the good stuff. But still, these two aspects of vinyl combine to fuel my addiction. Here’s a sampling of some of this excursion’s needlestack:

Chubby Checker – “For Twisters Only” [sic]. This record was pressed when he was 19 years old, and it’s an original. Yow town! I also love the copy on the back: “On meeting him, his warmth and personality compel one to relax and just thoroughly enjoy him for the person he is…No performer in recent years has created the ‘light and obvious pleasure’ that appears in the faces of the teenagers above.” How great is this?!

Janos Zerkula and Regina Fiko – Este a Gyimesbe Jartam (Csango Folk Music of Gyimes). As a dedicated after-hours student of Eastern European musics, I will generally pick it up when I find new recordings. This one is a particularly sharp needle. The Gyimes are an ethnic Hungarian people I never even knew about. Zerkula plays hegedu (fiddle) and sings, and Fiko plays utogardon (translated as ‘gardon’). What the flipside is a gardon? Well, back in them olden times, Hungarian gentry decided that percussion instruments were crass, and effectively banned them by refusing to engage groups that included any drums. So musicians got around this silliness by building large, boxy cello-like instruments, strings and all. The player whaps the string with the bow, producing a slap bass-like drone note, and then struts out her elbow so the bow hits the wooden body of the instrument. The effect is a rhythmic “book-chk”, and is usually done in a straight 1-chk-2-chk-3-chk-4-chk rhythm, but sometimes like boom-boom-boom-chk-2-ck-3-ck-4-chk. One of the best nights of my life was six years ago in Budapest, when a musician friend who lives there took my pal Bill and I to a hard-to-find bar/dance hall that was contiguous with the finest little CD store in all the land. If only I’d had more forints! The traditional band played all night long, and included an old blind lady who whacked the gardon like it was her daughter who was refusing to eat her peas. The music, the dancing, the feathered hats, the Unicum (delicious herbal liquor) – splendid. This record is on Hungaraton Records – there’s no way there’s a CD of this stuff. So it’s based on the national style, but with local ethnic flavor. Plus, there’s a huge insert with a lengthy essay on the history of the music in both Hungarian and English.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks – Soundtrack. This is one of those movies I missed as a kid; Jenny introduced it to me just a few years ago. She is absolutely correct: it is delightful. This record is mainly for the benefit of my daughter (and my wife), and it’s complete with an insert with pictures from the movie and a full-length cartoon storybook.

The Boxtops – Nonstop. My first introduction to bandleader Alex Chilton was through The Replacements’ homage hit song entitled, eh, “Alex Chilton”. I then learned a little of the subject’s involvement with The Inkspots and with this band, and how he wrote a lot of the doowop and Motown hits. On this record he and the other four are dressed in matching mod blue suits and are standing on a train engine, and they look like The Monkees. The inside flap has a paragraph about each dude next to a smiling headshot. But lo, the music is amazingly soulful, so much so that I forgot I was listening to a mid-‘60s boy band. Now I know why “I’m in love/what’s that song?/Yeah, I’m in love/with that song.” This is probably on CD, but not for $1!

Memphis Horns – Band II. Funkeh! Featuring guest appearances by Quincy Jones AND Michael MacDonald! Who could ask for anything more?

Staple Singers – Be What You Are. Another great gospel album from 1973, the year of my birth.

Lots of classical, including: Heifetz playing J.S. Bach’s Sonata #2 and Partita #3 for Unaccompanied Violin. I could listen to this all day. Perlman, age 20, playing Paganini’s 24 Caprices. Varese and Stravinsky, two of my 20^th century faves. Vaughn Williams, Janacek, Hindemith. I have a lot of classical records.

The Jam – Sound Affects. You may remember The Jam’s “That’s Entertainment” from DAA Vol. XII. Well, this is the album from whence it comes. Thing is, I already had it. But it was there in the bin, and it’s got a cool cover, and it was only $1! Odder thing is, the back cover of this new one is identical to the back cover of the record sleeve on my older copy, and vice versa. So I picked it up with the intention to give it to someone else, but now I’m holding on to it as a collector’s item. This is in part a self-fulfilling prophecy, because nobody I’d want to give this to has a record player. Oh wait – Brian…? You want it?

Now you begin to see from whence the addiction springs. For a music-lover, it’s impossible to ignore the draw of such great and varied stuff for such a low low price. Anybody wants can come over and listen. Someday I’m going to convert this all to digital anyway. Ciao for now!