Tag Archives: vinyl

Music, Opinions/Views

That crisp sound of Vinyl

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I like records. That may be an understatement. I don have as many as I would like to though, but I only have vinyl these days. Many has been told about vinyl and its magical quality, I just want to tell you abou the moment my love affair with it started.

My parents got rid of a ton of their records after the CD-player was launched. The vinyl record was of the past, a relic of a bygone age apparently. At some point I started discovering those and listening to classics like Pink Floyd, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple and a load of David Bowie.

There’s something about putting a bit of vinyl on the record player. It demands care, attention and you’ll be keeping an eye on things, because before you know the record is over. I loved listening to those old recors with their crispy start-up sounds. It was great.

I started buying cd’s when I was 14 I suppose, after I was confronted with the might that was Metallica. Man, I was instantly hooked. I went to the record show and bought myself the Ozzy Osbourne‘s ‘Ozzmosis’, De Heideroosjes‘ ‘Schizo’ and Iron Maiden‘s ‘Virtual XI’. So yeah, my first Maiden was not with Bruce Dickinson strangely, but Blaze Bailey. Weird… I was captivated by these bands and I would often return to this shop in Veghel to check out more.

A few weeks later I found ‘Out Of The Silent Planet’. It was some sort of limited edition digipack single, but there was also the Vinyl. Wow, Vinyl… and a picture disc at that. The imagery of Iron Maiden had immediately captured my attention, it looked futuristic, horrible and awesome. I took the CD home, thinking that was smart. I didn’t have a record player.

I couldn’t sleep that night, I needed to have the vinyl. It was torture, what if someone else bought this special edition? What would I do then? I went back as soon as I could and purchased that record. That was my first one.

Later followed more and ofcourse a record player. Now, It’s vinyl all the way baby. I can’t tell you why. Was it the bigger pictures, the captivating sound or the ritual of playing them? It’s a vinyl thing, you’ll probably never understand… It’s all about holding some actual music in your hands, physically with its analogue workings. It also explains my loyalty to Maiden I suppose…

Music, Personal

Ground control to Major Tom… About David Bowie

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David Bowie passed away, it brought back a lot of memories when I watched that headline appear on google this morning. I’m not an expert, but I would like to offer some words.

Outsider
If you’d ask me to name the 10 best artists of the last 50 years or so, I’d probably name a bunch that worked with Bowie, but I wouldn’t mention Bowie.  For some reason he’s out there, all on his own, on a different level in the music universe. A place now vacant and I believe it’ll remain vacant for a long, long time. There is no artist like Bowie, no person who does music, art, films and making yourself such an immersed, integral part of your work.

My First Bowie
I’ve found that I hadn’t listened to Bowie for ages. I don’t know why, perhaps it just wasn’t time for that. I have been listening to and I suppose have been influenced by David Bowie for most of my life. It goes a little something like this…

When the CD was on the rise, my parents ditched their vinyl. Like many people they believed that time was over. What they kept was Bowie and Pink Floyd (and some miscalleanious stuff, like chart singles with Black Sabbath, but that was something I found much later). I enjoyed hearing the vinyls as a kid, so my mom probably told me Bowie was good and I believed her. I still bellieve most of the stuff my mom tells me. My dad never told me Pink Floyd was good, but years later I told him. He agreed.

Home
So my mom would spin them old Bowie records, like ‘Low’, ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’, ‘Hunky Dory’, ‘Diamond Dogs’ and ‘Station To Station’. I still get the chills from that opening riff of ‘Ziggy Stardust’. This music stuck with me throughout my life. I think the music also stuck with my brothers and my mom still buys the Bowie albums now and then.

While we listened to those records we invented worlds with Lego’s, and rewrote history in board games. We passed our time together playing, thinking or reading.

I’m sad that Bowie is gone, but it also did make me think of those autumn holidays with my mom and my brothers, with Bowie singing in the background. I miss those terribly sometimes.