Are Seven

After years of digital listening and less and less time (and even less money) spent at record stores, I decided that Record Store Day was good enough reason to break the literal and figurative silences of physical records in my life.

Step one: Getting the turtable working
I’ve had this fantastic, solid (read: heavy) turntable that I would date at sometime in the late ’60’s or early ’70’s that I got from my grandparents. I’m no expert, but this thing looks like it was a nice piece of audio equipment in its day, and though there’s a part of me that says I should embrace high fidelity, I still have a weakness for tinny speakers and old equipment. Please note that I didn’t say “vintage”. I’m no snob; I’m a romantic for cheap hand-me-downs and things that resemble cheap hand-me-downs. I don’t know why. Just the way I am.

I desperately want this turntable to work, and it almost does. The audio line out isn’t like newer units to which you’d connect a separate audio cable. The audio cable is built in. Now, the right channel works great, but the left channel only turns out a nasty hum. So for the time being, I have to hope that nothing interesting is coming out of the left channel. If anyone has any solutions–a place that would fix it, something I could do myself, etc.–I’m all ears.

Step Two: Go To A Record Store
I chose Som Records on 14th street, partly because the vinyl selection is really good, but mostly because I was more in the mood for 14th Street than Adams Morgan, the neighborhood of my other option, Crooked Beat Records. I flipped around, hoping to find copies of LCD Soundsystem or Saxaphone Colossus, but while I found neither, I ended up with a couple of fine records: The Harder They Come (which is sounding pretty blissfully full of vinyl warmth and pops at the moment) and Singles 45s and Under.

I’ve talked before of my love for the digital music world, and I still stand by it. The satisfaction is immediate and easy and the organization and portability of an enormous library can’t be beat. But I do miss the tactile experience of record shopping: the flipping of albums, hoping to find that gem, the purchase decision, and the anticipation that comes with the walk home. There’s the ritual of dropping the needle and flipping the side. These things are all why more people have started buying vinyl again. It’s a hell of a lot of fun.

To make a statement that’s both ironic and appropriate, I’ll share Bow Wow Wow’s “C30, C60, C90 Go!” Besides being an insane dose of percussion pop, it’s interesting that the taunting of turning your back on records by illegally copying them is both antiquated and very appropriate to the day. But mostly, it’s because I’ve had it in my head: “A blinga, a banga, a bippity bop, well I’m going down to the record shop, YEAH!”

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