Huckleberries Online

OTV: I’m Hunting Vinyl Again

May 1, 2009 6:04 a.m. • 17 comments

OrangeTV: Interestingly, sales of new vinyl record albums keeps increasing exponentially each year as record companies reissue old titles and bring out more and more new releases on the once-dead format. Even the big chains like Best Buy have a little section of records again. I had turned my attention to CD collecting for a long time, but with the advent of mp3s, I haven’t bought a new CD in years. Thing was, I missed the thrill of the hunt that comes with music shopping so I decided to re-fire my vinyl hobby. Slowly but surely I’m building my collection up again.

Question: Do you have a working turn table in your home?

If this guy decides to have a yard sale, someone better clue me in.

At one point, I had about 3,000 albums. I got tired of moving them around so I had an e-bay craze and actually managed to support myself just by selling records for about 9 months. I figured they would just continue to become obsolete and gather dust. Now, five years later, I could kick myself as I’ve gotten really back into the obsession.

Interestingly, sales of new vinyl record albums keeps increasing exponentially each year as record companies reissue old titles and bring out more and more new releases on the once-dead format. Even the big chains like Best Buy have a little section of records again.

I had turned my attention to CD collecting for a long time, but with the advent of mp3s, I haven’t bought a new CD in years. Thing was, I missed the thrill of the hunt that comes with music shopping so I decided to re-fire my vinyl hobby. Slowly but surely I’m building my collection up again.

New vinyl isn’t cheap however, with sealed, new records running between $18-25 each. I took about 100 CDs into Hastings the other day for store credit and got enough for a nice little pile of records including Silversun Pickups, Sigur Ros, 2 Pixies titles, and the latest by TV on the Radio. Of course, I come across a ton when thrifting, but it’s hard to find anything that isn’t Easy Listening in decent shape.

I’m like Escapee, I could babble on this subject all day.

17 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

moscow_minidoka on May 01 at 7:29 a.m.
Yes, I have my dad’s nice turntable from the late 1970s, and use it regularly. I’ve had records since I was a little boy, and never really stopped listening to them.

When I was in high school (in the early 1990s), going to thrift stores was the cheapest way to buy music… you could get popular records from the 1960s and 1970s for a dollar or so (once you sorted through all the terrible Ray Conniff Singers albums and stuff like that) and often you could find really valuable records for dirt cheap simply because someone donated them without knowing their value.

This item isn’t really “news.” There has been a vinyl underground ever since CDs overtook LPs, and it seems like every five years ago some “resurgence” is hailed in the press. In all honesty, I’d wager that it’s a cycle of college students discovering or re-discovering vinyl, while the folks who never stopped listening to vinyl keep on truckin’ and are excited to have more fresh vinyl hit the shelves.
blushresponse on May 01 at 7:54 a.m.
I keep buying vinyl to play on my radio show but I don’t even own a turntable to listen to them. I don’t even know where to start when it comes down to what kind or equipment needed…
toadman on May 01 at 8:18 a.m.
No. I don’t have a turntable. I’d like one of those modern ones with the capability of recording vinyl to mp3 or cd, that has the *look* of an old player. Also, it would need to have all the turntable speeds, as I have some very old (circa 1930s and 1940s) platters that I’d like to play just once (for the purposes of transferring to digital media and preserve the original media). Additionally, my parents have a very old platter recording (from the 1940s) of my grandfather preaching in his Four Sqaure Church in Fort Worth, TX. It’d be interesting to preserve that to digital sooner than later.

So.. I’m in the market.

I’ll also mention, my birthday is just around the corner….

;-)
addyh on May 01 at 8:48 a.m.
I went to buy my husband one for his 50th birthday — his had been stolen some years ago — and had a heck of a time finding one. Finally went to Huppins — I should have started there — and they had a couple models. He was thrilled and he and my son listen to his old records frequently.
Liz on May 01 at 2:08 p.m.
I had boxes and boxes of vinyl from when I was music director at a college station (hint: music directors get first grab at all the free swag). Unfortunately, over the years I gave the stuff away, traded it for CDs or just plain threw it out (when I first became a Christian I had the mistaken idea that secular music was verbotem…ok..I’m ducking right now!!!!)

I personally don’t get it…my teenage daughter thinks vinyl is SO cool. All “I” remember was how danged careful you had to be to not scratch it, replacing the needles, the storage space…etc etc etc.
Escapee on May 01 at 8:09 p.m.
I knew more Christians who got rid of that Heathen Rock Music…and I always thot that was kinda fanatical. Anyway, I have two working turntables, and they’re both direct-drive units. If you have an old belt-drive TT, you’d best check the belt (which is no more than a glorified rubber band), and make sure that years and years of oxidation isn’t rendering the belt brittle. It’s a bummer to have a turntable that doesn’t ‘turn’.

A good place to find TT’s cheap is Goodwill, or similar places. Then, if the cartridge or needle needs upgrading, you can find shops on Ebay that sell them. Most tone-arms on TT’s from the 70’s afterward, have standard-diameter tone-arms that you can easily buy cartridge assemblies for.

I have some albums I’ve always dragged around which I haven’t played for 20 years. Like Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, for example…one of the best 2-record sets in existence…guess I should play it again sometime soon.
Liz on May 01 at 9:35 p.m.
A little chuckle re: Christians getting rid of secular music. A friend of ours, who is now on staff at a church, went to a rather conservative Bible college. They had one of those “disposal of your worldly music” campaigns. He and his soon to be wife didn’t buy into the idea that this was a good thing. So they went around to all the trash bins and fished out the good stuff for their own collections. A man after my own heart….

Note: I obviously do not believe that ditching secular music is essential to living the Christian life anymore. Hey, we all make mistakes…
spokelooneh on May 01 at 11:55 p.m.
“”I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days; if I hadn’t said that The Beatles were ‘bigger than Jesus’ and upset the very Christian Ku Klux Klan, well, Lord, I might still be up there with all the other performing fleas! God bless America. Thank you, Jesus”.”
-John Lennon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon
spokelooneh on May 02 at 1:32 a.m.
Vinyl, the more virgin the better, is far superior to digital. Music and human ears are essentially analog.

But then pure vinyl can’t deliver this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IrWyZ0KZuk

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.