Saturday, March 6, 2010

Are We Not Blogging? We Are Vinyl Vagabonds!

Herbie Hancock - Monster - 1980

This LP is a blaring mix of disco, funk, metal, and funk (yes, I wrote funk twice). It inspired us to start blogging about our recent re-discovery of vinyl as the preferred way to enjoy new and old favorites. It also inspired some pretty ludacris dance moves and getting-on-down type behaviors in the kitchen whilst prepping what turned out to be one of the most incendiary veggie curries ever.

When we moved in together just north of Washington, DC in January we only plugged in the record player as "the" hi-fi system of the house, mostly because it was all we had. The record player was a part of one of those crummy all-in-one stereos of the 80's, a hand me down from who knows where, with a radio, dual cassette player, and of course the phono. Quickly we noticed how much warmer the sound was when spinning the small collection of records we had, and how many more sounds we were actually hearing. All of this on a relatively beat-up and dilapidated system. This revelation quickly led to the purchase of a new record player, and Audio Technica LP60, that is USB ready. The assumption we made was that we were going to want to transfer all of this music into the digital realm so that it could travel with us on our commutes. The belief that these funky and oddball records that we were starting to accumulate together would get more action on our ipods was completely wrong. As nice a technology is the portable mp3 player, it does not hold a candle to the sound that gets pumped through the record itself. CD doesn't even come close to the texture and depth of vinyl. I know this must seem pretty snobby, but it's just the plain truth.

So here is a blog about vinyl. All sorts of vinyl. Platters found at Roadhouse Records, SMASH, Value Village, Salvation Army, Joe's Record Paradise, the CD/Game Exchange, Wagging Tails Thrift, as well as a parents dusty living room cabinet. The plan from here is to highlight the fun oddball records that we are finding and rocking out to. MAYBE we'll even turn you onto music you just can't get enough of.......a few come to mind right away...(stay tuned)

1 comment:

  1. Pssst... we missed the part about the awesome cover art, which was the deciding factor in buying this album!

    ReplyDelete