To me, a record has presence, with its lovely grooves like audio fingerprints. You not only hear the sound, you feel it. With every revolution the sharp but devoted little needle skates upon its grooves so gracefully, waking it to life. Every pop and crackle reminds you that it’s real, not just a bunch of digital signals. Cherish the scratches, for they are a reflection of how much you’ve loved and played the disc.
I’m proud to say that I still own all of my vinyl gems – from the well-worn Beatles’ “She Loves You” single that came from the jukebox in my grandparents’ bar, to my parents’ sleeveless Bill Haley LP, “Rock-n-Roll Stage Show,” which was probably the first recording I ever heard. My LPs sit erect in their shelves near my desk. When I’m stumped for ideas, I glance over at their worn spines for inspiration. I can usually recall where and roughly when I bought each and every one of them — and what I was feeling at the time. Every stage of my life is reflected in those discs: my childhood with the Beatles, my tween days with Elton and Cat, my hard rocking period with Zeppelin and The Stones, my “tortured soul” writer phase with Bob Dylan.
I confess that during the CD craze of the late 1980s I was excited to buy those newfangled grooveless wonders. Sony ruled supreme back then (they made the first CD players) and convinced me the discs would deliver the finest sound ever experienced. I even bought CDs of some treasured LPs that I had owned since childhood. But I never got rid of my LPs, my 45s, or my three turntables – including my favorite, the Sanyo that I scrimped and saved for an entire semester to buy back in 1978. Once I discovered that I could digitize my collection, I spent hours converting analog signals to digital files so that I could burn CDs to play in my car. I never bothered using the noise reduction feature that came with the audio capture software. The snap, crackle, pop makes me nostalgic.
And yes, I do download music when I get that late-night craving for a new tune or an old one that I missed the first time around. But records will always rule and I’ll champion them forever. In the words of one of my favorite groups, 10cc:
Here I am a record on a jukebox
A little piece of plastic with a hole, ooh
Play me
Buy me and you play me then my plastic turns to gold.
So, take a step back in time and go out and visit a record store. Talk to the owner, chat with other music lovers, and smile as you thumb through those old LPs that you haven’t seen in 30-plus years. It will do your soul good.
If you live in the Pittsburgh area, home of yer blogger, click here to see a list of today’s Record Store Day events.
© Dana Spiardi, April 18, 2016
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The thirteen-story tower, located north of the famous Hollywood and Vine intersection, was designed by Welton Becket. He based the design on the graduate student drawings of 24-year-old Lou Naidorf, who served as the building’s principle architect. The tower – the world’s first circular office building – opened in 1956 and houses Capitol’s West Coast operations, as well as the recording studios and echo chambers of Capitol Studios. The blinking light atop the tower spells out the word Hollywood in Morse code, and has done so since the building’s opening.
Sales of Nat “King” Cole’s records generated a small fortune for Capitol in the 1950s. Thus, the building is nicknamed “The House That Nat Built.”
Capitol Records, founded in 1942 and acquired by British recording company EMI in 1955, issued all of The Beatles U.S. releases up through 1968. So, as you can imagine, I own many, many 45s that feature Capitol’s distinctive orange/yellow swirl on the label!
Here are some views of the world-famous building.
© Dana Spiardi, Feb 1, 2014
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Forty-eight years ago this week, The Monkees’ single “I’m a Believer” was getting more airplay than any other song in the country. Thanks to 1,051,280 advance orders, it went gold within two days of its November 1966 release and spent seven weeks at the top of the charts, making it the biggest selling record of 1967. You couldn’t escape the sound. Free-form FM was still in its infancy, and most of the nation’s gargantuan cars came equipped with only an AM dial. So, even the most musically savvy flower children couldn’t escape the pop hits of the day – many of which they considered bubblegum music.
But I was a mere child of 7, and I absolutely loved both bubblegum and pop hits! “I’m A Believer” sat stacked in my blue plastic Disk Go case along with my other favorites from 1967: “To Sir With Love,” “Georgy Girl,” “Ode to Billie Joe,” and The Mamas and the Papa’s version of “Dedicated to the One I Love” – all songs that I would sing in front of the mirror in the privacy of my bedroom, wearing go-go boots and pajamas while holding a flashlight as a microphone; all songs that I would one day butcher in karaoke parlors all over Tokyo, even without the aid of alcohol.
By the Summer of Love I had amassed about 50 singles, all of which were subjected to heavy rotation on my little Sears Silvertone record player. I also owned nearly every Beatles’ LP released up to that point, including the most recent, “Revolver.” But while my collection included the most sophisticated Beatles album to date, it also included a lot of tame material, such as “Snoopy and His Friends, The Royal Guardsmen,” “Nancy [Sinatra] In London,” “Tom Jones Live at The Talk of The Town,” and “The Sound of Music.” I was just a kid. In fact, I was even too young to hate, on principle, the music that my parents liked. Which is why I listened to my dad’s Roger Miller album, my mom’s Louie Prima/Keely Smith LP, and my grandmother’s Engelbert Humperdinck records. Fine singers one and all. Still, it would be a few years before I discovered FM radio and the likes of The Doors, Elton John and Cream.
But back to 1967 and my favorite pop single of the year: “I’m a Believer.” The record remains in my collection, sitting upright on a shelf in what I pompously call my studio, its grooves ground down and its red and white Colgems label worn thin. I never bothered to download it or purchase a Monkees Greatest Hits CD. Like so many of my old vinyl gems, I preferred to digitize it, so that I can hear every flaw. It has the soothing, nostalgic sound of a log crackling on the fire. I would never have imagined that 45 years after its debut I’d get to see Micky Dolenz sing it live, with fellow Monkees Davy Jones and Peter Tork at Stage AE in Pittsburgh on a warm summer night in 2011. Micky and Davy shared lead vocal duties on all Monkees’ songs, but the band members were not permitted to play any instruments on their records at that time – much to their consternation. The Monkees were a made-for-TV band, and while the boys had varying degrees of musical talent, the producers of their show felt they weren’t seasoned enough musicians for prime time.
“I’m a Believer” was written by Neil Diamond, a young singer/songwriter who had recently scored a hit with “Cherry, Cherry.” The song caught the attention of producer Don Kirshner (yes, the teleprompter-reading master of late-night TV rock concert fame), who wanted his Monkees to record a tune with a similar catchy beat. He contacted Neil’s producers, Jeff Berry and Ellie Greenwich, who played Kirshner some cuts that were planned for their client’s upcoming album, “Just for You.” It’s rumored that Diamond had wanted to pitch “Believer” to country singer Eddy Arnold. But it was snatched up by the powerful Kirshner, who “allowed” Neil to record it on his own album that year. Monkee Mike Nesmith felt the song was weak and would never be a hit, but history proved him wrong.
“I’m a Believer” is one of only thirty singles in history to have sold 10 million or more copies worldwide. And the record’s B side, “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, is pretty damn good, too. Some might even say it’s better. Its menacing tune and accusatory lyrics make it the perfect antithesis to “Believer” in both sound and subject matter. No wonder it was a favorite of punk bands like the Sex Pistols, Cardboard Brains, Johnny Thunders, and Vicious White Kids.
Here are the Monkees “performing” their immortal hit. Micky Dolenz, always my favorite, sings the tune, but all are miming on their instruments. I love those double-breasted shirts they wore. It gave them “a look,” much as the collarless jackets did for The Beatles.
Here’s the B side of “Believer” – “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” performed by those dirty sods, The Sex Pistols:
By Dana Spiardi, Jan 20, 2015
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