My vinyl story has two parts- it starts with my mom’s love of it before she had me, and continues when I reintroduced it into our family around five years ago.
So, many, many years ago, my mom invested in a sweet turntable and speaker set-up. This bad boy, let’s call him Bertie, is old enough now that replacing parts gets super tricky, but it’s so worth it to be able to lay a track down and surround myself with the music. When I started showing interest in vinyl and wanted to buy a cheap portable player, my mom pulled out Bertie and set me straight. I learned about all the parts, how to keep it clean and pristine, how to care for the records and best of all, how to turn the right dials to rattle the paintings on the wall. When I started getting serious about the music and wanted to start a collection, my mom and I went downtown to Columbia's Upstairs Audio & Video for some parts to fix Bertie up. I was the youngest kid they’d had in their store, so they offered to let me pick an album and listen to it with their expert set-up. I remember this all so vividly: they dragged a seat to the center of the room, cranked on their stellar, high quality turntable and speaker system, set the needle down, and magic happened.
Like, actually. I was so enamored with the completeness of how it sounded and surprised at how much better it was than cheap earbuds connected to a phone. It shook my little 15-year-old heart.
Now I like to thrift a lot of my records from small, local sellers. For anything new, I pay tribute to the Amazon.com gods.
This is my favorite way to listen to music and I’ll preach it to anyone who will listen.
Currently in my online cart, I have Tell Me I’m Pretty by Cage The Elephant, Game of Thrones: Selections Limited Edition Night King Version Soundtrack, and Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues. I’m over here waiting for payday (not very patiently).
What should I get next? Feel free to let me know on Twitter! @Laura_Rohrerr23
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