By: John Carlson—
Music-wise, this Christmas was really “groovy” for me. What you might even call “boss.” I received a trip back through time via some cool old records, including a couple featuring that troubadour/minstrel kid you keep hearing about named Bobby Dylan. Another featured some far-out cats from the Los Angeles music scene who call themselves – get this – Buffalo Springfield! And there was another from a chick singer named Linda Ronstadt, who I predict is going places.
Remember her name!
Finally, there was also something called a “double album” from Liverpool’s Fab Four. Now frankly, the cover isn’t all that groovy looking, but the music inside the Beatles’ “White Album”? It truly “blows my mind,” as we kids say.
I got all these hot records from my daughter Katie, plus my son and daughter-in-law Johnny and Stephanie, because Nancy surprised me with a turntable on which to play them.
Truthfully, I hadn’t owned an old-fashioned turntable or record since the mid-1980s, when the arrival of those newfangled compact disks made the death and burial of vinyl records inevitable. And having fully embraced the arrival of CDs, I figured there were a couple hundred outdated old rock records I wouldn’t need anymore.
So, being the generous genius that I am, I gave every one of them to a friend who thought, if you can believe it, that vinyl remained cool! This was even though she was obviously way “uncooler” than yours truly, being slower to embrace the new musical technology than I was.
That’s right. I gave‘em away. Every last record. The Beatles. The Stones. The Who. Procol Harum. Jefferson Airplane. The Byrds. The Dead. The Kinks. The James Gang. The Lovin’ Spoonful. Little Feat and The Beach Boys, for crying out loud!
And know what? It felt so cleansing, I was kind of proud of myself!
But I’ll never forget the look on my teenage-drummer son’s face when, sitting at the dinner table that evening, I casually announced what I’d done. Up to that point in my kids’ lives, I had taken considerable pride in the fact that, as far as I knew, they had never wanted to kill me.
Until now …
You remember how that little girl named Regan looked when a demon inhabited her body in “The Exorcist,” and she ended up climbing walls like a spider, only backwards? As I recall, Johnny’s skin turned Regan’s exact shade of weird, drippy gray. Furthermore, like hers did, his eyes began flashing as if they belonged to those rambunctious puppies known in the Netherworld as The Hounds of Hell. Worst of all was the bellowed “WHYYYYYY???” that erupted from his mouth, riding a splashing torrent of steaming green gunk that scattered our dinner plates, utensils and the salt-and-pepper shakers all over the dining room.
Pondering these signs for some clue to his mood, I eventually realized what my son was trying to tell me.
Dad had DEFINITELY stepped in it.
If I felt like a moron that day, I felt even more like a moron as the years passed and vinyl records plus turntables began making a comeback. Trying to allay my guilt, I’d plug my ears and shut out all thoughts of how cool vinyl records had suddenly become. But every now and again I’d hear other music lovers who hadn’t been stupid enough to give all their vinyl albums away waxing rhapsodically about them. They’d go on and on about how hearing those fetching, crackling sounds of needles playing well-worn records added to the quality of their aural experience.
Meanwhile, I’d grimace to myself and think, “Way to go, numb nuts.”
So waking up Christmas morning to discover that the anonymous box sitting out in our garage for a month had contained a turntable and, therefore, a shot at vinyl redemption, I accepted it with unrestrained eagerness.
Since then, playing the albums my family gave me has been an eye-opening – not to mention ear-opening – experience. Since Christmas Day I’ve been hearing great tunes I’d totally forgotten were on the vinyl albums I’d long ago replaced with compact disks. With compact disks and a handheld remote, it turns out I’d been skipping a lot of great songs.
There being no remote for vinyl, I played every tune.
For pretty much the same reason, vinyl is also better for your health. In the nine days since receiving my turntable I’ve noticed my pants fit looser! Granted, technically that might be because Nancy bumped up my Christmas jeans by two waist sizes without telling me. But the fact is, one side of a vinyl album doesn’t take all that long to play, so you’ve gotta haul your bum up from your recliner to the record player all the time to flip them over.
What a workout!
This is the reason modern medical studies have proven, maybe, that young people back in the ‘60s and ‘70s exhibited far more determination than today’s. See, without remotes, we had to sweat, pull and fight our way through anywhere from six to ten feet of deep-pile carpet every blasted time we wanted to flip a record over, or even switch a TV station.
Yes, sometimes I wonder how any of us survived that kind of abuse. But it was that same level of determination that eventually led members of my generation to important commercial developments such as Pet Rocks and Goozooka Buckets of Slime.
This all has me feeling pretty good about myself again. A year from now, I’ll probably have worked off my beer gut listening to, then changing, vinyl albums on my cool new record player. And as God is my witness, however many vinyl albums I manage to accumulate in 2020, I won’t be giving any of them away.
So don’t even ask.
After all, in this trip back through time, I’m rediscovering some great albums. They include another one Katie gave me from a roughhewn young country singer who recorded a record in Folsom Prison, of all places. Think this new kid’s name is Johnny Cash or something.
John’s weekly columns are sponsored by Beasley & Gilkison, Muncie’s trusted attorneys for over 120 years.
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A former longtime feature writer and columnist for The Star Press in Muncie, Indiana, John Carlson is a storyteller with an unflagging appreciation for the wonderful people of East Central Indiana and the tales of their lives, be they funny, poignant, inspirational or all three. John’s columns appear on Muncie Journal every Friday.
