45s
( ( ∞ ) )
45 ReVoLuTiOnS pEr MiNuTe
Perfect round little 7 inch disks of vinyl. I collected them in minuscule homage to the big record collection dad had in the den with the Fisher speakers. When the Walkman came out, there began a cassette gathering too, as the 45s graduated to my own LP collecting. 1979 days running our BMX bicycles to Peaches or Budget, through the 80s with the old car to Wax Trax or that faraway On The Hill. The Beatle collecting was obsessive and mad fun hounding --records painstakingly hunted with kid cash opened us fresh to the music, savoring each Long Play like it was just released yesterday. Those were fun years growing up with music always in the house, down at the corner store, or cherished in the live experiences that shook our big places.
I left HS and my old postered room and much remained in crates in the family house for so many years after that. Then the confines of a barrack footlocker brought me my 1st Compact Disc. 1987 and I had an Army paystub to get me a firm start on these shiny cool modern LPs. So began the BMG and Columbia House mail clubs and the gathering of 4" jewel cases. No boring analog vs. digital thesis here, but I will say that back then when new, it was revolutionary and vogue and critically hailed. We would not have had the ensuing digital music revolution without the binary translation of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, encrypted in full 80 minutes to a polycarbonate surface for a laser player to translate digitally.
Data.
\ no groove /
GI Bill in hand the CDs went to college and grew into a serious collection. Working Boulder Sound Warehouse during those 1990s I watched the vinyl display furniture shrink to the move out. I still have one of the store's Technics turntables they were throwing away like the records. Such was the attitude then, sadly. Gladly, there was so much rush to get better digitally by the quality and breadth of all the analog history, a resurgence and musical renaissance have been happening ever since.
Domesticity and the sweat for houses back-burned much 'listening' for the better of 20 more years for me. Ease of the iPod and the growing rips of all the CDs into the iTunes collection made listening more of a digital quest. Years of watching mp3s accumulating on hard drives, solid state drives, network drives, and cloud drives, I'm still sorting it all and re-ripping all those silly mp3s for benefit of the Lossless file. We are finally to an age when the throughput and the storage anywhere allows the analog quality to reach our ears with music true again.
Newfound freedom in the comfy confines of my own isolated home, I have been reveling in the love of vinyl again --now vogue, critically acclaimed, and again revolutionary with the advance of the last 40 years of digital revolutions. Like the seminal Masterpieces by Ellington recorded in 1950, the groove of analog reproduction has never lied nor better expressed the pure truth of the recording. One of my favorite record finds as young collector was The Beatles - beautiful French-pressed shimmering white vinyl. Like the album, a true gem to set under the needle. All groove.
Happy now I have the big record collection sitting on the floor. Historically rich and melodic life-preserved pieces, I clean my grooves with the Okki Nokki vacuum and set them fresh under a Hana stylus on a Pro-Ject TT. Sweet translation down through the NAD amplifier to the two big Klipsch Fortes standing on the floor. There is no replacement for displacement. It's nice to sit and just listen for listening's sake. With records now being produced again with such intent, there's been a glorious advent of coloured pressings. Arguably more appealing on the turntable than the classic black, it brings credence to increasing the fidelity even more. Like that rare white vinyl I got in the 80s, select titles certainly look great in clear, blue, (Frank in hot Winehouse pink), or any virtual tie-dye of the sonic rainbow.I bought an adapter for the Okki and cleaned up the old 7" collection too --enjoy being able to listen to rare B-sides that still aren't on any network. And speaking of fidelity and 45s, the best records in my 12" collection are the 45rpm 180gram gems, like recent masters of Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue or Eric Clapton's I Still Do. Revolution indeed! I don't think I could have sat in the studio in 1959, or sat next to Glyn Johns himself and heard it so good.
Get your groove on!
