I Still Haven't Experienced Vinyl
This is unacceptable in 2022
UPDATE (17 Aug): I went to Kops in Toronto and listened to my first song on vinyl. Here’s the link for after you finish reading this piece.
Before we address the glaring 5,000-pound elephant in the living room regarding vinyl, I want to take a slight detour about the generation and information gap. When I was in middle school back in India, the only access to Western media was Cartoon Network.
We did have Star Movies for Hollywood blockbusters, but my parents were astute enough to follow the parental guidance warning that flashed before the movie began. And at 9 pm, Cartoon Network ended and TNT/Turner Classic Movies took over. I wasn’t exactly interested in watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s or The Dukes of Hazard. I didn’t realize though that the cartoons had so many pop culture references that I wouldn’t understand for years.
For example, there was this ad on Cartoon Network in 1997 with Shaggy and Droopy Dog in a convertible.
Shaggy: Okay, [you] know what they call Pound Puppies in Paris?
Droopy: They don’t call them pound puppies?
Shaggy: Nah, they don’t have ‘pounds’ in France. They have…the metric system.
Droopy: Then what do they call ‘em?
Shaggy: They call them Les Puppies Royale!
Years later, in adulthood, a lightning bolt of realization flashed through my brain when I watched Tarantino's Pulp Fiction— the scene where Vincent and Jules discuss the naming of McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with cheese in Europe.
Like Rick Dalton from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I remember holding a can of Coke in one hand and pointing my index finger decidedly at the television screen. The point was, that I was exposed to the pop culture reference long before witnessing the source material. It was a generational gap that was filled in by access to information.
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Back to the vinyl elephant
I grew up with cassettes, then graduated to audio CDs, and then to the occasional bootleg MP3, before finally settling on digital music. My very first cassette was Ricky Martin’s Vuelve, my first CD was Bon Jovi’s Crush, and my first flirtation with digital music was an iPod 4th generation Nano with 8 whole gigabytes of space. Heck, even my parents, my uncles, and aunts had mixtapes, with vinyl nowhere to be seen. The only reference I’d seen about vinyl was Nipper from RCA’s His Master’s Voice.
A missed chance in Cincinnati
In the autumn of 2014, my fellow graduate school classmates were invited to a senior’s Halloween party. The host was pursuing a dual doctorate degree and he was a wonderful person and an old soul. He wore red bowties, and sweater vests, drank bourbon, and most importantly, he had an amazing vinyl record collection. So, when others went dressed as bathtub duckies and zombies, I went as…the host— with sweater and bowtie included.
He had a very high-end turntable and the shelves (plural) were lined with vinyl records. Since it was a party and he was playing the gracious host, I felt it would be rude to pull him away and ask to hear a song played. Thinking back, I should have taken the call and just asked. Anyway, people got drunk, we ate till we couldn’t move, and we wound up the evening playing Pinball on his vintage rig in the basement.
I looked at this picture and found that the album Gone But Not Forgotten is available only on vinyl. So, I looked up the tracks on Discog and created a Spotify playlist for you to listen along.
It’s 2022, and no change in the status quo
I was at a flea market in Toronto a few days ago and I saw crates of vinyl records on sale, going from C$10 to C$150.
In any event, the universe has given me enough signs. It’s 2022 and with vinyl having a comeback, I haven’t even listened to it yet!
Is there a music store or someplace in Toronto where I can listen to a vinyl record in person?
See you all next week!
-Nikhil
Love that photo of you! :)
Full spectrum listening experience: 8-track tapes. Good luck finding them--and a player!!