vinyl records

i’m thinking of buying a duffle coat. i want to walk around my local area wearing a duffle coat with a copy of ‘bridge over troubled water’ tucked under my arm in the pouring rain. maybe then, if i can get this vinyl nonsense out of my system, there’ll be a chance to finally move on.

anyway, i only bought a turntable cause it makes for nice furniture.. spinning away there.

a few years ago i started rebuilding a vinyl collection. it was fun for a while, but that second honeymoon’s over now. it’s getting unwieldly. as a teenager i was fine kneeling down on cold floors with a crooked neck fingering long rows of L.P’s to find a few songs to play, but i’m now feeling nostalgic for the convenience of mp3’s and iTunes playlists.

it’s fun to think of those record shops around soho whose good fortune is being close to places where one might drink strong nancy cocktails, for there is no trap like drifting out of a bar feeling high, and then into a record shop. one will surely buy clutter one doesn’t need. just watch for queens with a little bit of disposable income. many who surgically remove themselves from a cocktail lounge, suffer a second ordeal of walking past a record emporium… meanwhile over in new york.. at the top banana waldorf astoria hotel….boys love box sets, and the new spendy david bowie box set will be extremely tempting … it’s all about those big chunky boxes furnishing our ikea manshelves. girls, from what i can tell aren’t so stupid, but boys have been proudly displaying trophies on shelf space ever since collecting dinky toy cars as toddlers, and we’ve never stopped ..

i see they’ve done a deluxe vinyl re-issue of the rolling stones ‘sticky fingers’. being over fifty, all i desire is that andy warhol cover art… i could frame and hang it on the stairway wall..the record inside is superfluous to my needs. they can re-master the music till they’re blue in the face and still ‘brown sugar’ will never ever sound as good as it did back in 1971 in that school assembly hall disco, on that shitty record player when i was twelve years old with young ears clear as bells where everything rang shiny and new.

perhaps the best thing is walking through town or waiting on a train with good headphones attached to a smartphone…the music turns dreary station platforms into a time of great reflection. it turns a trudge up regent street into a movie scene of sheer romance. you may laugh, but to hear cilla black sing ‘alfie’ privately in your ear as you glide up regent street, can be a deeply moving experience. that sly little mobile gadget might even nudge an oldster like me towards listening for something new.

dear reader.. it’s friday…..happy weekend  … mary fairy liquid.