My First Record

I stayed up late one recent night listening to some old stuff, but it's a little different because I was searching on Rhapsody or elsewhere for my songs.

I used to spend hours and hours and hours playing vinyl records, replaying them, over-analyzing them and just otherwise wearing them out. I would stare at album covers and read liner notes like they were classic novels. CDs, or possibly my age, killed that fascination. Have you ever tried to look at lyrics on CD inserts? Squint squint squint and give up, said the tired ole' fart.

My two-hundred or so records were ruined over time by cat piss. That's a long story, but when we moved to our current house, I decide to chuck them all into the dumpster. We didn't have a functional turntable anyway, but we tossed some classics.

The first record album I shelled out cash for was Kiss Alive! I was about eight or nine at the time. Soon after getting into that, my Mom said that my brothers had left some records in the house when they moved out. (Background: when I was 9, my brothers were 24, 26, and 30, in ascending age. I was quite unexpected, as you might guess).

Some of the records they left behind left a huge impression, though: The Beatles "Abbey Road". Sly and the Family Stone, "Stand". Strawbs, "Witchwood".

What an amazing bunch of things to listen to. I learned a ton about music, just from what was left behind.

Remember back in the 1980's when sound quality was the important thing? OK, I was a nerd Rush fan, but it was still impressive to hear digital recordings for the first time.

Now the important thing is just portability. We are accustomed to planned obsolescence, so we don't mind it in our music, either. MP3s don't have the same quality as an original track from a CD. They aren't as fun as queuing up a record on a turntable. Still, they have the advantage of ease and portability.

Ahh, I'm turning into a sentimental old wreck, but I do miss discovering new music on the radio and heading to Caldor to buy the record. Caldor was a Poughkeepsie rival of K'mart, and they went out of business a good long time ago, but they had a decent music section in my pre-teen days. At least as well as I can remember.