On Record Store Day (!!!!)

I'm all kinds of excited for Record Store Day this year. It's not my first, per se, but it's the first one since I got my record player.. which means I plan to take full advantage of some of the releases that I hear are coming out -- Flaming Lips 'Dark Side of the Moon' limited release vinyl, I'm lookin' at you. As if that wasn't enough, I personally enjoy any national holiday -- yup, I said it -- that involves going to record stores all day.

But basic essential details aside, this post from Michele Catalano's True/Slant blog is a pretty good explainer of what makes Record Store Day, and really mid-April, the most wonderful time of the year. Again, that's right. I said most wonderful time of the year. I'll quote from Michele a bit here, but the whole post is worth a read:

Can CDs or digital offer you the artistry of records? Album covers framed and hung on the wall like pictures at an exhibition. Colored vinyl and picture discs turning your music into a work of art. In 1980, I bought True Colors by Split Enz and was endlessly entranced bythe laser etching in the vinyl that made it seem full of colorful prisms. Later, I would work in a record store and spend my entire paycheck each week on seven inch imports, a reminder of my days of collecting 45s. Each record had its own character, a specific memory attached to it – memories that were made of more than just sound. There’s the feel of the record, the sight of it, things so ingrained in the experience of listening to vinyl that just walking into a record store is like opening up a time machine. I’ve never met a CD that made me fall in love with it like a record. I’ll still love the music, but the CD is just a container for that music, where a record is part of the entire music experience. [Emphasis mine.]

That pretty much sums it up. From the beginning, whether it was the first time I went digging through a bunch of stuff in my parents' basement, to buying the turntable or when I found Dylan's 'Blonde on Blonde' or the Beatles' White Album at a favorite store in Minneapolis or Indianapolis, respectively.. It was never the music in and of itself that was the handle. Hell, most all of the albums I buy I've either heard in their entirety before or have heard a number of the songs. But it was everything else that came along with it -- the album art, the aesthetic value of the album, the crackle and hiss when you play it, the searching for a favorite or especially rare album, the culture, the listening with friends -- that what made it more than stopping by Target or Best Buy to pick up a CD. A vinyl record is like a masterfully crafted, round, 7- or 12-inch disc of history that happens to come in an artfully designed case that ALSO happens to contain some great music that ALSO ALSO sounds better than an MP3 or CD ever could. What's not to like?

ALSO: Check out the Record Store Day Twitter feed here, here, here.

In praise of the Needle Doctor... or my first record player

Thanks to a comment on my Smash! Records endorsement post, I realized I completely neglected to explain where I got my first (and only) record player, an embarrassing oversight on my part.

Anyway, where did I get it? In historic Dinkytown, Minneapolis, Minnesota, right near the U of M campus. The shop? Pictured: Jerry Raskin's NeedleDoctor.

Now, I didn't just buy my record player there. I had an early window into the culture of vinyl enthusiasts that set the tone for my entire foyer into this world. As fate would have it, I got an early insight into how helpful a fellow vinyl head could be.

I had been looking for a record player for a month or so, since I raided my parents' basement collection and accumulated a few choice selections in the meantime, notably Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" and the album Velvet Underground and Nico. In short, I had incredible music I wanted to listen to, with no means to play it.

Enter: NeedleDoctor. In looking for a respectable place to buy a record player, I found that there was a world-renowned shop just blocks from my Dinkytown apartment. As it turned out, the shop was essentially just their local store for their global activities. They ship everywhere, as they should. It's a great place for... pretty much everything.

Through the Web site I found a cheap player ($150, but $120 in-store). It was the low end, but I was just starting out. I just wanted to play records. A top-of-the-line turntable wasn't all that important at the time. So I set out one Friday evening after working at the Minnesota State Capitol for the Minneapolis Star Tribune to pick up my turntable of choice -- it was the only time I could meet the shop's 9-5 operating hours.

Eventually, I got my record player home, set it up, and prepared for bliss, in more ways than one. In a nod to my girlfriend Emma, I queued up Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" that she had bought for me. The result? Instant satisfaction. I felt like I had never heard it before. Every note and instrument was so pronounced. Dylan's voice was so... Dylan. (Fans know what I mean.)

Insert breathless endorsement of D.C.'s Smash! Records here

Coming soon to this blog will be my breathless endorsement of D.C.'s Smash! Records. Just got back from my very first trip (first look at their collection was at D.C.'s recent record fair.)

More great vinyl than I knew what to do with. Here's what I picked up.

The Beatles -- Revolver

The Doors -- Morrison Hotel and L.A. Woman

Bob Dylan -- Planet Waves

Jefferson Airplane -- Surrealistic Pillow

Moby Grape -- Self-titled

Rolling Stones -- Exile on Main St.

Talking Heads -- More Songs About Buildings and Food

And those are the ones I just couldn't pass up. If I were a rich man, easily could've dropped $200+ today.

Anyway, longer post to come. But if you're in the area, head to Smash! RIGHT. NOW.

On Salvage Shops

I wanted to follow up on something I referenced earlier: how worthwhile salvage shops can be. In this case? Pictured above is something obviously and simply called "VARIETY STORE" located in South Indianapolis. (I spent last summer there working for the Indianapolis Star newspaper.)

It doesn't look like much, what with its junk-yard/yard-sale look outside (you should see the back) and the "Playboys, $5 sign" that -- trust me -- is sitting in one of those front windows. Granted, it wasn't much on the inside either, and the casual crate digger might have just up and left. Frankly, it was dirty, dusty, about 90 degrees (in the front, toward the back was more of a warehouse) and a little creepy in a Dueling Banjos kind of way. But, to the persistent goes the spoils, or something like that.

In this particular case, I walked in the door and was immediately greeted by a few very South Indianapolis-looking men heckling over a moped or something. All around me were Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo games, cheap bikes, hubcaps, car parts and whatever else that existed in that "we-sell-everything shop." Shortly after entering, I was (seriously) offered 10,000 records for $300. The catch? The guy running the shop had no idea what kinds of records comprised said collection that took up a warehouse wall's worth of space, and I had no idea either. I also, as an intern, had no place to store 10,000 records, let alone transport them, so I passed.

After that ridiculous, but strangely tempting offer, I took to working my way through shelf after shelf and palette after palette of records. Some were completely destroyed -- the kind of records you know wouldn't even play, and just might ruin your needle. I saw Jefferson Airplanes, The Beatles' Revolver, a White Album, the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers and a couple Led Zeppelin albums that were in terrible shape. As tempted as I was to buy them anyway (at $5 a pop) I passed and kept digging. To wildly understate it, that was difficult.

On Gifts... or how music was (and still should be) a communal experience

If you're like me and broke (these days, WHO ISN'T?) a hobby of any kind can be expensive.

Running a good vinyl collection isn't any different, especially if you deal in some of the more popular and newer releases like myself. For example, I bought The Clash's London Calling for about $30 at the Uptown Minneapolis Cheapo. Pricey for your average record, but to me? Worth every penny for a great album. But this, my friends, is exactly where gifts come in.

I don't mean to sound crass, but getting vinyl as a gift is a GREAT way to boost your collection. I mean, sometimes records get expensive, especially if you're going to buy five or 10 in a single outing. And in a kind of oblogatory gift-giving situation such as Christmas or a birthday, where friends and family are going to get you gifts anyway (despite your insistence to the contrary), you might as well make sure they get something worth while, right?

For example, Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde (pictured above) is one of my all-time favorite records and, for my money, one of the greatest albums of all time. I've got it on vinyl. Where did it come from? A birthday present from the girlfriend. Velvet Undergroud? From said girlfriend. I also got an additional Bob Dylan record and The Doors' first album from my parents this past Christmas.

Long story short: Not only did I enjoy it, Emma (said girlfriend) and I both enjoy listening to these and other records together. A gift that keeps on giving!

On Basements

For the start of the blog, I thought the start of my collecting would be the logical place to begin.

It may not be some movie-worthy, religious epiphany experience, but this whole record-collecting thing started in my parents' basement in Cottage Grove, Minn. (Now I'm blogging about it, although I'd like to note, not from my parents' basement.)

One day, I found myself digging through some old boxes, and lo and behold, I find some absolute gems that have become to exist among my favorite records. The top of that list? Carole King's Tapestry, which, of course, holds classics such as "I Feel the Earth Move" and "Smackwater Jack." Another good find was The Lovin' Spoonful's greatest hits which includes "Daydream" and other great tracks.

Of course, as any crate digger knows, you take the good with the bad when you look in unlikely places (watch for future post about hole-in-the-wall variety store I found in Indiana). Sometimes you find treasure, sometimes trash. I don't recall exactly what kind of non-gem records my parents had, but I know I took just about a quarter of their collection, and among the ones I took were some very early Billy Joel, the Rocky III soundtrack and a Kenny Rogers record. Terrible? Certainly not. But that selection won't win you any crate-digging cred.

The point is, it was an early lesson to me about the joys of the vinyl hunt. Never refuse to go looking at a place with records, no matter how unimpressive it may be. And it may seem like a huge waste of time. But that's exactly what's great about this. What's better than looking through various Pat Benatar or Barbara Streisand records and finding a mint-condition Carole King? To me, that's a big part of the joy of record collecting and makes the worth both the time and money invested.

Contradictions.. or welcome to the blog.

Welcome to this experiment I've taken to calling Wax Fanatical.

Basically, this blog will comprise stories of crate digging, ecstatic posts when I find *the perfect* record, my take on the record stores in the D.C./Maryland/Virginia area, thoughts on the records I already own and just general musings on the idea of collecting records in the time of the iPods, MP3s, illegal downloading and that sort of thing.

To the last point, the inherent contradiction in running a blog on a subject some see as utterly arcane and out of date is not lost on me. But since I've started collecting records about a year ago, I've seen each purchase as one step along some kind of journey toward some ideal record collection. Now, thanks to these things we call the Internets, there will be a record of my attempts to get there.

Finally, a caveat: While I love collecting records, to me it's more about the music than the endless search for some obscure, super-rare record. So, yes, some of my collection might be cliche, or ordinary or whatever. But I consider myself a regular person's record collector. I routinely look for some of my favorite records, and if I buy any new albums, it tends to be on vinyl. That means I've got quite the array, from Vampire Weekend, Brother Ali and Wu-Tang Clan to Duke Ellington, Bob Dylan and The Ramones. I hope that keeps it interesting, and I hope you'll agree.

Photo: Unfortunately, not my collection or my photo. It's the BBC's.