When i was 7 I made the big step of buying my first record.I was pondering buying some obscure freakbeat 45 or maybe a super obscure northern soul rarity but in the end opted for the safer bet of buying the current number 1.I was lucky and my first record was blockbuster by Sweet and it now sits alongside a few thousand more and still gets played often.I love it as much today as I did approaching 40 years later.
That one record and that one decision changed my life.I used to sit and watch that record go round and round as it played and I used to drive me Ma mad by leaving the arm of the deck pulled back so it would just repeat each time going through a series of clicks and whirrs before the arm set off again to land on the record.Readers of a certain age will never know this kind of joy.
About a year after that first purchase and with my collection now approaching maybe 4 or 5 records came a day that I will never forget.My Grandma was a cleaner at a local college and it turned out that one of the students had left behind a pile of singles and rather than them land in the bin she brought them home to me.That pile contained records by the Small Faces , Kinks , Stones , Animals and the like.I was hooked not only on the sounds coming off them but on the discs themselves.
From that day on I bought records.Every bit of pocket money went on more , my paper round money bought more , Christmas and birthdays lists always contained records for people to buy me and so it went.Today I still buy them and still have loads that i want to buy when those six numbers finally come up.Wherever we go I try and find the charity shops or one of the few remaining record shops in the hope that there will be something to feed my addiction.I take blind punts on records that 'look right' and are often not and I cherish finding stuff in the wild and online.I took a day out of my honeymoon to sit in one record shop and have been on record finding jaunts to Europe and the States.I get 'em home play them , file them and then it's onto to the next so maybe it's all in the chase?Maybe it's the hunter gatherer coming out in the form of a ludicrous amount of small black discs and I am loathe to get rid of any in case I'm missing something in a record that on first listen is utter cak.I have 45's that are big money that are easily available either on LP or reissue but I have to have the originals.
My kids are desperate to go to Disneyland (thanks to the current advertising blitz) and have even told me that there are the best record shops there so we have to go.And that brings me onto the record collectors connundrum.......what happens to them when I shuffle off this mortal coil?Will my kids love them anywhere near as much as I do?I sort of hope they do and sort of pray they don't!They could sell them and easily net a small fortune but I hope they hang onto at least some of them and not even the rare ones.
So why the 45?
Well when i was growing up pop music was brilliant and vital - I grew through the glam years which was all about the single no concept albums for us Slade fans!Next came punk and every week there would be a great single to buy often released by the bands themselves who probably couldnt afford (or maybe they didnt have enough songs?) to release a full LP.All my favourite bands are referred to as singles bands - Slade , The Jam , Madness , The Kinks and many many more.Perhaps the main reason goes back to that stash of 45's my Grandma brought home in that I love the music of the sixties and in particular the beat stuff and of course northern soul.If ever a scene rotated on 45's it's northern soul and I love it!
So the buying goes on and the collection is ever growing so I had to find a way to rationalise the whole thing other than the DJing which is at best sporadic.For me that comes in the form of doing some mixes up on the old mixcloud page where hopefully some people will hear something they enjoy.So far I've done a northern soul one , an American garage one and now the new one is up taking me back to some of those first singles that thankfully Kathryn Ogden left behind (having written her name on most of them in true 70's fashion).
Have a listen and if you enjoy 'em great if you don't blame Kathryn.......
http://www.mixcloud.com/groovywoovy/
"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid" -Frank Zappa
I still have a huge record collection and wonder what will happen to them when I snuff it. But I am reminded of the times I worked in a record shop in the 70's to 90s Old men would sometimes come in with 78s claiming that they were rare and worth a fortune. In reality no one had anything to play them on and most people into that music were now dead. Unless it was something really special most of it was worthless.
ReplyDeleteAs I sell off my collection on eBay I see that my vinyl collection is going the same way. Kids play music on phones and computers nowadays. Will my collection be tomorrows 78s