By Douglas Evan Weiss
At the moment Nashville Skyline is on sale for $49.95. Springsteen live at the Hammersmith Odeon is $77. I’ve been buying almost exclusively jazz records until recent purchases of two Wilco albums and Paul Simon’s Graceland. Such a pleasure. The double pink Idles in Paris album is still perhaps my favorite in the collection. I wish I had a cleaner copy of Bringing it all back Home. Currently on the wishlist. Maybe end of the summer purchase…….
Bill Evans live at The Village Vanguard has become the current go to. Green colored vinyl, single album, so smooth and subtle and beautiful. Light piano and a strong bass. Just oozes class and simplicity and craft. Craft….. These musicians honing their craft. These jazz greats fully immersed in their instrument. Evans is one with piano. Miles bound to the trumpet. John and the sax…..
Tracy Chapman came with the initial haul of vinyl that was gifted to me by Sara. Chapman recently reissued this album, her only album available on vinyl……. but the old vinyl from Sara’s collection still holds up. Now, a new 180 gram, remastered and clean for sure is perfect and wonderful. Also on the wishlist…. But not yet. Side B is amazing. Away from the hits, just raw and emotional and honest. Side B of this album simply kills.
The Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore East from 1971 is also high on the wish list currently. 1971……. Duane is still alive. The Fillmore is a mecca. Tearing through the blues. Young and full of life and raging across the country living on fast food and guitars and girls. Tour buses and cowboy hats. Flared jeans and comfy pearl button down shirts. Stubble. Mustaches. Sleepless tour managers and loyal roadies. 1971!
1971 when the surfboards were long and the girls all smiled. Hawaiian shirts and convertibles. Black leather gloves and polished corvettes. Cheap concert tickets and nobody in the water. Walking around Topanga Canyon looking for Neil Young. Just bring me vinyl and I’ll serve the coffee and plug in the amps.
Just bring me vinyl, is what I tell anyone who asks what we need. We also need blanks and cloth and resin and tools and affordable taco trucks and a reliable breakfast burrito, but that is for another essay.
Just bring me vinyl and we can chat. and listen to music and dream about Indonesia and clean waves and friendly Texas girls who shoot guns and brighten up the shaping room. Just bring vinyl and you get free pour overs for the month. Resh brought down Kind of Blue and Blue Train and Thelonious Monk, purchased at the old Earwax Records shop in Williamsburg. Just bring me vinyl, I asked her, and this absolute legend brought the staples and everything (everything!) is built upon the backs of these initial tittles. The entire new collection starts there.
Let it Be was on sale but I don’t listen to it much. Abbey Road was bought locally in San Jose, in a continued effort to support the local shops, and the album is clean but definitely not the greatest pressing and somehow the quality reverberates and I listen occasionally but only occasionally. Side B is one of the greatest album runs ever. Just constant brilliance.
Was in a deep Mingus phase last month, so went there.
It is a long rainy season. Some mornings the sun is out. Some it ain’t. A steady diet of vinyl and pour overs. Ground me Jesus. The world spins so fast and the people argue and crash but somehow in here with the records and the guitar case open and the boards polished and new and lining a small space along the back wall there is hope and simplicity and actual care – somehow in this tiny house the bass solos are epic and the piano tracks are perfect and the guitar riffs are infinite. Just bring me vinyl and watch the cows wander around the back pasture and the sunshine push through the slowly ascending afternoon clouds, moving steadily west from their daily origins behind the low mountain range east of town. Just bring us vinyl and pray to this dirt road hub, this Central American surf Mecca, this delusional expat renaissance, this odd location tucked away along Calle Frijolar so far from Bleeker Street and Prince Street and Ludlow Street and Bushwick in general. You can have peace or you can have action. Hard to manage both.
You can have peace or you can have action. Hard to manage both.
I heard a great line this morning while running through the hills.
“The plains are littered with dead pioneers,” said Kara Swisher.
In our little casa of surfboards, steady making things at the jungly borders of society, steady making these wild symmetrical objects for the kids and their parents; at the junction of adventure and lunacy making surfboards and listening to a fine selection of vinyl records all morning. Perhaps it is just this. Perhaps this is the brand capsule. The Paris catwalk. The long goodbye. Next is LCD Soundsystem then Neil Young then Dexter Gordon then Billie Holiday. Bring me more vinyl and I will support your dreams and rave about your hobbies and carry you fears. Everyone is flawed. We are all trying.
