Although it’s been said, many times, many ways, there is something wonderful about a record shop. Second Hand or one of the brand new ones offering the customer something fresh and exciting (Jacaranda Records, a record shop and café you can play vinyl on table-top turntables in Liverpool), there’s a sense of “Narnia” like excitement when you walk in one, a definite sense of wonder of what you might find.
I was in one such emporium of all things vinyl recently. Clearly there for a number of decades and smelt like it; all musty, sweaty, vinyly and geeky. These places are where you might find that rare slice that even Discogs don’t know about, and the proprietor isn’t necessarily aware of every priceless 12” that your favourite underground band released in 1993. Deleted. Twice.
They are also the place where the slightly more discerning person in their 50’s/60’s/70’s deposit their unwanted L.P’s after their son/daughter/grandchild has introduced them to the digital age which is just so much more damn convenient than having to get up and flip over the record. Or change the CD.
For everyone, like me, that have been swept along by the new vinyl revolution (I’m not a f*cking hipster), and now everything your new favourite bands are releasing is appearing on coloured, splattered, double vinyl, these are a gold mine for all those old records your Dad (or in my case, Uncle) sold years ago when CD’s appeared.
This palace of plastic I entered was in Norwich, adjacent to a vintage clothes shop, so I was granted permission to have a look whilst the wife perused the plethora of overpriced paraphernalia. A few months previous, after a curry and a few pints, we were at my father-in-laws and I put on his vinyl copy of “The Cream of Eric Clapton” (I don’t care, I am neither hip, nor trendy and I’ve seen ‘God’ about 13 times live) and placed the needle at the beginning for “Layla”. A minute or so in he took it off the turntable, threw it to the side and put on “Derek and the Domino’s Layla and other Assorted Love Songs” instead and queued up the same song. Without touching the volume, the noise level increased substantially. In a nutshell, the first had been compressed the sh*t out of and the original 1972 pressing of ‘Layla..’ had not.
Thumbing through the worn out old vinyl in this shop, I came across an original of the same record for a paltry tenner.
Ironically, that very album had been a staple on cassette when I was very young, but now 30 years later I’m putting the vinyl on. It made me think. My love of stuff like Clapton, Cream, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Who etc etc came from my parents as that was what they were listening to when they were young. Now, I’m at the age they were when they were first playing these bands to me, and although currently childless, I’m in a unique position. Anyone between 30-45 (depending on how old their parents were when they were born) will be the first generation where we can pass on the music that our children’s grandparents were listening to, that will have had a cultural impact on them.
Our children will know who The Beatles are, who the Rolling Stones are, as they are still culturally relevant and will be for a long, long time. Even bands like The Kinks have West End Theatre shows about them. For our parents, their parents, let alone their grandparents, won’t have passed much on to them, maybe Elvis, but they had to discover things themselves or from their brothers and sisters. The bands they loved discovered their influences from the radio, and the imported American Blues and R’n’B artists and early Rock’n’Roll bands. We didn’t take anything from our Grandparents, not unless we had a real passion for Jazz and Glenn Miller.
Probably one of the only things that excites me about having a kid, is that I can pass on some incredible music. Music my parents, their grandparents, introduced me to. Seeing the likes of Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney now, they are old men in their 70’s, it’s strange to think that when I first heard them they were only in their 40’s, the age some of the bands I was into as a teenager are now, like Noel Gallagher, they are all 40 and over.
Now, they are the living legends, like the ones that our parents played us. The likes of Noel, Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker, and to a lesser extent (wrongly) Paul Draper and Mark Morriss are carving out the solo career that will sustain them in the public’s interest for years to come. Noel said in an interview recently (his Desert Island Discs) that the amazing thing now is that kids who weren’t even born when the songs were written and released are down the front at gigs and festivals screaming the lyrics to ‘Don’t look back in Anger’ back at him in tears.
Certain bands will be passed on, generation to generation. Like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones before them, and even the likes of The Smiths and The Jam, now Oasis and Blur, but who after them? Will the Arctic Monkeys do the same for the teenagers of the 00’s. Will they be revered in 20 years’ time?
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