Riley
Pittenger
April 26th, 2012
Word
Count: 2,064
On
Record.
The soundtrack to my life is absolutely unique, and the records slowly
massing in my crates will continue until I do not. My final wishes involve the
funeral procession trudging past my good-looking corpse and each guest
selecting a piece of vinyl from my coffin to be played later at the party. This
will amuse me greatly from beyond the grave; good music and smooth grooves
translate easily across the ether. The only slight depression I may feel while
haunting friends and family at my own party is the fear that rare vinyl might
be buried with me. Knowing my tendency to get along better with records than
people, my friends will probably help themselves to a couple selections in
excess-this is okay; like Latin, the eight-track, laserdiscs and Betamax but
unlike vinyl, I will be dead.
Maintaining and cataloging “dead” mediums evokes the individual past a
mindset of nostalgia into the realm of investment preserving the moment and
spirit of a time. Records bring people together to trade, discuss and covet the
music that represents genres, stories and experiences to a thriving hoard of
ever-shifting collections and curators in negotiation, dead indeed. The world’s
largest record collection, clocking in at 3 million discs and counting, is for
sale at about $1 per record. This offer reverberates within the skulls,
ribcages and loins of myself and the millions of crate diggers aching to spend
the days, months and years it would take to scour, dust, sample, scratch, fade,
catalogue and most importantly: share the incredible well of lost and obscure
records. Every one of these collectors incapable of paying the hefty price for
the collection is still accumulating their own world’s largest collection in
their own style. My own collection is nowhere near what I want it to become and
the more I consider it, the less I want it to reach any goal besides continuing
expansion. This torment of the collector is unending by definition; collections
never reach completion and no collector believes they should.
These collections change and shift like populations within the geography
of our lives as collectors, our soundtracks fill idiosyncratically with every
record we find. Specific albums characterize our collections and represent us. More
than an excuse to avoid social situations or hoard impressive forts of brimming
milk crates, records are totems we hand between collectors, friends or down to
children. Each disc carries a unique memory for every collector as it passes
hands, a forgotten attic crate of gems or the haunted artifacts of a broken
relationship stick to the wax like so much dust. Collectors know and appreciate
this unique attachment to antiquated mediums. When media becomes outdated, its
further collection and use becomes removed from the practical and into the
artistic; we spin not because it has the edge of technology, we spin because
the records themselves are part of our lives. Record collection transcends
race, age and country in a community bound through vinyl.
My record collection will never end. I have several repeating items,
each unique in the small ways that appeal only to the neurotic or fanatical. As
humans we accumulate any bizarre assortment of things from concepts to objects
and even ideologies for our personal collection. Personal preference many
define a personal brand and mixture of media to define a collection.
Collectors, particularly record collectors, have this same mentality: holding
onto fragments of recorded sound however obscure and inefficient, creates a
community. There is no absolute way to define and isolate the mentality of a
record collector, like the numerous discs haunting our shelves we are far too
eccentric and numerous to be entirely understood without a lifetime of digging.
As the record shops and vinyl factories become rarified, the collections grow
even more characteristic, each catalogue the trove of an individual.
The records included in these photos are testament to unique perception
and catalog. Every record on display carries a story exemplifying reason for
collection, when the story behind a disc is told or presented a personality is
laid bare. Every human has a rhyme or reason for the things they carry and the
personality of a collection can be seen through its components whether focused
on rarity, sentimentality or just one beautiful inner panel. The pieces of
these soundtracks are whole in themselves; our experiences tie them together in
crates and blend their sounds into life.
Herbie Hancock, Headhunters. 1973, Columbia.
The originator of so many funky and jazzy styles that description is
almost impossible. Hancock needs no defense as a musical force, this album in
particular brought the love and funked up the game. Hancock brought the
free-styling groove to a generation loving the funk that would give birth to
hip-hop less than seven years later. The album itself belongs on the voyager
space probe for any sentient space-faring race to groove on; we are here on
earth, we are human and we are funky.
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. 2002, Honest
John’s.
The freshman release of the Chicago based ensemble busier than any
keeping brass and breakbeats in happy matrimony. The often subdued and sultry
selection of sexy brass tracks mingle with their boisterous and shining
counterparts throughout the album with each track representing a solid thought
backed with solid brass. The future of this band is undeniably bright as
collaborations across the revitalized brand of soul and growing love of
“oldies” is infused into modern hip-hop, rap, soul, and electronic music.
Every piece composing the album could easily stand alone as a single,
but together they are unstoppable. The track Alyo drops with focus on the brassy
smack-you-in-the-chops horns that mean what they blow, while Flipside reminds
the listener of the smoother things in life across laid-back grooves that roll
like the curves of a late night dime honey.
InI, Center of Attention. 1995, Soul Brother.
A
notoriously rare and exceptionally influential 90’s hip-hop classic produced by
the legendary Pete Rock holds the original trademarks on a multitude of current
underground hip hop classics known to a new generation of heads under names
like People Under the Stairs and the Black Eyed Peas. Beats that permeated the
adolescence of hip-hop on the laid-back side through a blend of jazz and soul
samples are alive and well on this jewel. The socially conscious rap and
skilled cadence of the MCs stands strong with Rock’s production of tracks heard
hitting the mainstream alongside different rappers when they finally reached
the airwaves. The better tracks came first, plain and simple: Pete Rock
orchestrated this pup from the ground up in his definitive style while the MCs
of InI flow smoothly and confidently around the beats.
Sweet, soulful and smarter than you expect, this disc belongs alongside The Chronic and The Bizarre Ride in the pantheon of hip-hop legacy.
Lovage, Lovage: Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By. 2001, 75ark.
This sweaty little album slid into the underground with an icy cocktail,
pocket full of condoms and a 38 special in its boot. Dan the Automator, a
hip-hop producer of exceptional talent and technical thrill enjoys a hit-or-miss
mentality with his fan-base, often missing the accessibility mark and crafting
something often only appreciable to orchestrators themselves. This classic
appeals to anyone with a sex drive and then some. Covers and re-sexification of
hip-hop beats set the dark and lascivious fingers of this album sprawling
across the framework of jilted and hungry lovers. The title evokes the 70’s era
generation of quiet-storm DJs dropping sexy soul for the late night crowd but
the sound and content of the album is somewhat less nostalgic.
Tracks weave from lothario lust to sticky evening regret and back again
through brassy samples and chilled out strings that seem to know exactly what
to do, why it is bad and how that makes it so good. The audio samples are mixture
of skits selling false aphrodisiacs, romance advice and Hennesy that are
slightly more than tongue-in-cheek, because that tongue visits a couple other
places.
Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On. 1972, Tamla/Motown.
Gaye’s career defining masterpiece is far too complicated and
game-changing to be thoroughly discussed in these brief pages. Shattering the
Motown stagnation hindering artists and bespeaking a new era of conscious soul
and political malcontent, What’s Going On has meant more to listeners in more
demographics and populations than most chart toppers. Holding a rightful place
in Rolling Stone’s 100 greatest albums of all time, most vinyl collectors and
soul-gardeners would place it in the top ten, myself among them.
Outkast, Aquemeni. 1998, La Face.
Outkast made a definitive album born from the South’s sweet love for
soul music. Everything a head could want is here: lickety-split rhymes, funky
production, story-raps and a flow of production that came to define Outkast as
the virtuosic and successfully eccentric duo running their own game and
changing it for everyone else.
Aquemeni, in all its glory and myth is still bittersweet to lifetime
fans, a reminder of a time when Big Boi and Andre 3000 were still rocking side
by side and representing the South sounds as an unstoppable duo. Though they
have become sundered from one another’s creative processes, and even if they
never get together again, Aquemeni is more than the fans could ask for,
especially when added to the catalogue of amazing full lengths before and
after. The ATliens say it best in their own language: Spottieottiedopealicious.
Rjd2, The Horror. 2003, Definitive Jux.
Remix companion to 2002’s breakout album Deadringer, The Horror takes
the solid highpoints of an album that sold a million Volkswagons and mutates
them beyond their previous limits with the remixing force of a mad scientist on
genius pills.
Deadringer’s haunting masterpiece, Ghostwriter, gets a facelift and a
boob-job that somehow makes it even classier. This is often the case with
Rjd2’s remixes of his own work, something different yet familiar in the right
places.
Rob Swift, Soulful Fruit. 2005, Fatbeats.
One of the modern turntablist champions, Rob Swift holds down the old
school for a new generation of up and coming hip hop heads and vinyl junkies.
The album runs through the gamut of turntable skills and mixing styles present
to anyone who knows what to listen for. This record is a DJ’s album for the
truly obsessive connoisseur and fanatical collector, especially when signed by
the man himself.
Black Eyed Peas, Fallin’ Up/Que Dices? 1997, Interscope.
The breakout single from the once great Black Eyed Peas makes many a
head a little teary when bringing back the reminiscence of a time when the BEP
stood for more than a successful image
and the almighty dollar. Good fun, great rap and an underground benchmark for
the ages.
Buck 65, The Centaur. 1999, Anticon.
A standout in this selection, The
Centaur 12” single is a black sheep of underground production and
unconventional style. Buck 65 has bucked convention with an art-rap style
hefting pain, anger and a deep well of expression filtered through broken
teeth. Released on indy rap heavyweight label Anticon, this track is produced
by the ever underestimated Sixtoo and morphed gloriously on his reimagining on
the best of concept album This Right Here
is Buck 65. One of the more brilliant flashes from the career-defining Vertex, The Centaur is a track both
underplayed and underestimated by the rap community.
Ohmega Watts, No Delay/The Find. 2006, Ubiquity.
A more perfect single could not be asked for in this collection. This
remix of Watts incredible track plays directly into the subject of vinyl
addiction: “The wax feels like a career/The pieces of a puzzle that brought me
here.” Watts raps about the drive and obsession of record collecting and beat
production dipped in smooth brass and heavy dub that coats the sound with
chocolate. A great relaxed beat sharing the vinyl love and representing the
fixation with more skill than I could hope to.
E-40, Hope I Don’t Go Back. 1992, Jive.
A single off the bay area party album Element of Surprise, this sample
from Ramsey Lewis’ Sun Goddess sounds
fantastic laced with the Baydestrian’s signature baritone and sassy drums. Head
nodding and an easy smile brings the classic soul into hip-hop’s loving arms
for a 90’s classic unique to me in my experience as a collector, this song
played across my soundtrack when I was riding the bus in hot west-coast summers
and learning the music of my own adventure.
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