Return of the Record II

I was 20 when I landed my first full-time, Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 job, programming, of all things, pagers the company sold to various hospital staffs and business execs all over the tri-state area. I think I pulled down something like $200 a week, but only saw around $180 after taxes. I was living at home, driving a paid-for used car, and my only expenses were my girlfriend at the time, beer, cigarettes, and picks and strings for my electric guitar.

After a few months I decided to treat myself to something big. That something was a stereo. Two big speakers, a mixer-thingie, a cassette deck, and a turntable on top. All for $185.

(The US Inflation Calculator tells me that stereo would cost me $482.32 today.)

Anyway, I dutifully started a record collection. Sort of. This was about eighteen months before records mysteriously disappeared en masse across the globe, to be replaced overnight with Compact Disks, so I didn’t have much time to act.

Since this is over 30 years ago, I don’t really remember how many I had. I want to say … 20? 25? I recall the little record storage area below the mixer / cassette deck / turntable was fairly filled with LPs. I can almost visualize holding them in my hand, pulling the vinyl from the sleeves. But try as I might, I can’t recall with definite certainty their titles, except for –

The Yes Album (Yes)

Let There Be Rock (AC/DC)

Powerage (AC/DC)

Whatever Happened to Jugula (Roy Harper / Jimmy Page)

A Farewell to Kings (Rush)

Best of Mountain (Mountain)

Candy Apple Grey (Husker Du)

Still Alive and Well (Johnny Winter)

Let It Be (The Beatles)

Queen II (Queen)

 

Kind of an eclectic collection, no? A buddy gave me / lent me the Husker Du and Johnny Winter. I think I found the Beatles record in some of my mother’s stuff. But I want to say I had at least double this amount, maybe more. Neil Young?  ELO? Black Sabbath? Steely Dan? Another record by Rush – I know I had more than that one – possibly Anthem? I dunno. Fallen off the barge idly afloat the smooth and flowing waters of the river Lethe …

 

I probably played this record more than any of the others …

 

To be honest, up to this point I was probably more into cassette tapes. Been buying and getting them as gifts since I was a kid, seven or eight years before the record player purchase. Also used them for recording myself learning the guitar, band rehearsals, live performances and demo tapes on the Tascam 4-track recorder. And when CDs came out, I went on a tear. Bought 210+ CDs over the next 15 years, but they were all stolen from a box in an apartment storage unit. From ’99 to about ’03 I bought around 120 Classical music and jazz CDs. Still have those, along with about a hundred cassette tapes, sealed up in the garage. Problem is, can’t find anything to play the tapes on, and its getting harder and harder to find something to play a CD.

I’m kinda excited about my little expedition back into the long-playing album. Sunday afternoon I listened to the Prokofiev, twice, while working on my book, and it felt great. Relaxing, nostalgic, and just damn pleasant. I’m thinking of picking up an album every month. A monthly purchase. And perhaps review each one after a listen or two, and maybe fulfill a minor dream of mine of becoming a music critic!

But the most horrid thought about my record collection from years gone back, all 25 or so albums, was what I did with them. After taking up space in a closet for nearly ten years, in an urge to purge myself of unnecessary clutter, I took them to the dumpster at work sometime in the spring of ’97and tossed them in. Ah! Now when I peruse the used record stores I shake my head sullenly at the foolishness of my abrupt incidence of anti-hoarding. Just think, I could have eBay’d the entire collection for at least $482.32!