Vinyl Record Passion

Even before I could understand what music is, I was already listening to it. I am talking about the time around the end of 1980s when vinyl was dying and making way for audio cassettes and compact discs to come in. People started trashing their old turntables and records, some went on the walls as souvenirs some to the child to play some for the dog to chew and the rest, to the trash can. However, there were people who cherished their collections and have held on to it till date. I'm glad my Dad did not trash his treasure. Somehow, I had this keen inclination toward listening to music on the turntable. Of course, analog quality is un-beatable. :)


It was my teen-age when I started paying serious attention to the old vinyl treasure lying in my own room and that gave birth to a passion which was never to be defied. Fifteen years after record production stopped in India, I hit the stores that once sold records in city. I started calling the stores asking them for "records" (if any). The kind of responses I got were indeed interesting. Like, "Hi, Kohinoor Stores, do you still have any records left in the store?" The response would not be a Yes or No but would be something like "Huh ! May I know with whom I am speaking??" I also once over-heard a faint voice in the background saying "Some wacko wants records. Is he new to the town or something? What do you want me to tell him?" Well, anyway, they did have some stock left. All I did was, "weigh" the records and bought the entire stock by weight. Paid Rs 2000 for like 1500 records (Over 50 kilograms). I did that with 4 other stores and soon had a room full of records. Due to the random stock buying adventure, I also ended up having over 10 copies of the same record. I ended up keeping them.


The picture changed when I left home to study in California, USA and the story remained back there. The passion never died and so I started collecting all over again right here. Sometimes spending half of my pay checks on rare records and sometimes just grabbing some great ones at local record stores at Haight-Ashbury and Berkeley areas, there was just no stopping. 

I discovered some people ripping their old vinyls and putting them to blogs. What specially took my attention was a blog called "The Third Floor Music" blog by a person from Norway who collects, rips and posts records in a language totally unknown to him. Just for the sake of good music! Now that was impressive. Gaining inspiration, I decided to do the same thing to my blog. So here I am with  my very first attempt at digitalizing my old vinyl records - EPs, 78s and LPs. Have fun listening to them. :)